Bella and I continued down the corridor in amicable silence. Our squads were following us and had some idle chatter amongst themselves, but it seemed they all let my new ranking go.

For now.

Bella and I began talking about the fork that would come up and whether she would want to continue the main path or the split. By the time we reached the fork we had made our decisions.

"Alright squad, on me." She called and moved further down the primary path.

As Tom went by I couldn't help but tease him. "Hey, you managed to be the only guy on the team somehow. Best be careful and not make any of 'em mad or you'll come back with a broken ego."

He startled, wide-eyed, as if he had just realized that. Then he laughed and nodded and followed after Bella.

Smiling myself, I also called out to my squad "Okay boys, let's explore into the unknown! I'm assuming we won't have any flanks at this instance, but if anyone sees or hears otherwise, call out immediately and I'll fall back to guard the rear."

Once we were past the initial bend from the fork, I kind of expected it to be straight like the other path we had taken for a month. It was however constantly curving back and forth, and in on itself non-stop. We were approaching one of the S-like curves when we heard the familiar scratching of goblin claws desperately coming our way.

Our formation was decided for us based on our makeup. The three shield users in front and the two spear users right behind. The goblin wave crashed into us and just really broke on our shields, unable to push past even just three of us.

Since I was always a rearguard for the past month, even if it was with these same guys, I had no idea how they fought. They all handled themselves really well, and showed that they had definitely gotten familiar with one another.

After the fight I counted all the bodies. Unlike on the straight path, due to the turn right in front of us obscuring the remaining goblins, I was unable to get a proper count ahead of time.

"Looks like forty goblins in this batch. And it really didn't take us that long to get through them. I feel like this is the wave that would have normally flanked us if we all had continued straight. This split might actually be good all around if we no longer have to watch our backs. We should definitely check in with the other team and see if they encountered a flank by the time we get back." After I made just a few observations to the squad, they all nodded and agreed with the assessment.

Either way it was time to move on.

—----

We were actually in the middle of our fifth fight when we heard the bell toll. The sound seemed to enrage the goblins even further, and they began pulling at each other, just to get to us quicker. It was quite amusing to watch, seeing a goblin ready to lunge at you only to be grabbed and thrown out of the way by another goblin just so it could in turn lunge at you.

When that fight finished we actually sprinted back the whole way. At a full sprint we made it back without any other fights occurring in about thirty minutes. Which I was elated at, but not for the lack of fight or anything, but the act of sprinting full tilt for that long in general. Something impossible before I came here. I was definitely loving the world more and more.

Since our timing was so poor, over half the class had arrived before us. I gave everyone a literal pat on the back and congratulated us all on a job well done. No matter how you looked at it. we almost had the same per person efficiency as when we were a ten man squad. Considering it was our first round of our first day, we could only improve.

Waving goodbye to the new squad and went and found my friends. They were still together in their squad discussing the day.

"Hey everyone! How was your hunt today?" I cheerily called out as I approached.

"Will! It was great, although we had no attacks from the back, so we had to keep rotating the one in back so they didn't get bored. How about you?" Bella answered.

"Oh much the same. We never had any attacks from the rear either, nor did we come across any new forks. I guess we're keeping each other covered if we split like that. Little bit of a relief, right?" I explained my squad's encounters as well.

"Yes, if we keep it up like that we will definitely have to plan accordingly." Bella mentioned while thoughtfully tapping her cheek.

"Anyway, did you guys get along with each other? You didn't pick on Tom for being the only guy did you?" I nudged Tom as I asked.

Everyone giggled a little at that. Except for Emilia. She was definitely not going to be the life of the party. And on that happy little note the instructor dismissed us, although she was still staring down one of the pathways.

"Are we still missing number two's squad?" I asked because at first glance it looked like everybody was back.

"Yes!" Bea chimed in. "He's probably doing the same thing still, so selfish. If I see the squad I'm telling them to leave him like we did. The knight did not seem to care one way or the other."

Nodding in agreement I changed topics. "Hey, let's go get cleaned up and get lunch then. Mel, Em, want to join us or do you already have lunch plans?"

Mel immediately looked to Emilia with the biggest puppy eyes I've ever seen a human employ. She didn't even have to make eye contact before Emilia surrendered. She let out a sigh and nodded in her head in acquiescence.

—----

Lunch was great and everyone was in a jovial mood about the whole day so far. When we went back for round two, Bea made a point to find the group with the spoiled brat and told them that his previous squad had received no repercussions for not waiting on him and making their own way back. They thanked her but said they were striving to be as strong as him so they were gonna try and push through.

This put her in a rough mood as she stomped her way back to us. I laughed at the whole situation and got a glare. Good thing we were splitting up in just a bit!

Our dungeon diving went much the same way. My squad pressed a bit harder this time and finished our fifth fight well before the bell tolled it seemed. We decided to go ahead and stop there and head back. We saw the entrance to where we forked off from the main path when the bell tolled. We did a quick jog and ended up being the third squad to return this time.

Of course Bella's squad of my friends were already back. Softly congratulating everyone on another successful job we just hung around until the instructor dismissed us again.

As we were heading to dinner, Bella caught my attention and pulled me aside a bit. "Will, when everyone is finished with dinner, stay back for a bit so we can talk, okay?"

I nodded to agree, but she had already moved back in to rejoin the talks with Bea and Tom. Em glanced at me, showing that she caught what had happened but I just shrugged in confusion myself and smiled back. She rolled her eyes before she too ignored me.

Dinner was fine as well, even though I had an anxiety bundle in the back of my head the whole time. The only thing coming to mind about what Bella could possibly want to talk about was a typical boy/girl thing. And I did not want to touch that with a ten foot sword right now. That was always a touchy subject, doubly so with the dynamic we had going on here.

After we finished dinner, I waved my friends on to the dorm, and said I had something I wanted to ask Bella and that I would catch up in a minute. Bea narrowed her eyes, but went ahead with Tom, Mel, and Em.

Geeze, I was definitely surrounding myself with lots of girls by this point. I vowed to make more guy friends so this type of situation wouldn't happen again.

As I sat back down with Bella, she smiled softly. She seemed to be looking through me for a bit, before she began speaking. "So I just have a couple of things to talk about with you Will, and I'm not sure if you would want your friends to overhear, if that's okay?"

"Yep, no worries. I have resolved myself to this conversation. I figured it would be coming." I hoped she could hear the resolve in my voice from that, since secretly I was worried how well this would actually go.

"Well that's good. Let's start off simple, how is your mana sense developing?" She began with an easy one.

"Oh! Not bad. I don't have it mastered yet or anything clearly, but I am sure its only a matter of time. I feel like I'm on the verge of grasping it, but I only really get to practice late at night before going to sleep." I gave a half-hearted laugh at that.

Truthfully it was the thing I wanted the most, but there honestly was just no time available for it. The knights did keep us busy all day really.

"That's wonderful to hear. Remember to focus on a visualization of the mana. Most say that is the key to unlocking it." She lectured on it once again.

Suddenly an idea hit me, and I felt a little silly but knew I had to ask.

She must have realized I had inspiration strike, as she just looked at and then prompted me. "Yes?"