“Three hundred coins?” I exclaimed, pleasantly surprised by Levi’s harvest.

“Yes! And one protection amulet!” Levi said proudly, placing everything on the floor next to me.

“All of this just from one room. Sadly, we have reached the end of this section. The Worker’s section had a lot more coins than the Slave’s section.”

“How much did we collect tonight?” Levi asked excitedly.

“About seven hundred. We have about four hundred coins each to spend.”

“Only four hundred?” Levi lowered his shoulders. He did not conceal his disappointment. While four hundred Nazlock Coins were enough to purchase a few pieces of enchanted equipment, it was far from enough to purchase the truly valuable treasures of the merchant tower.

“There are four more sections. Just looking at their name, I can guess that we will find more coins there. Anyway, give me the protection amulet.”

“What? Why should I give it to you? I was the one who found it.” Levi firmly held onto the small trinket.

“We agreed to split what we find 50/50. You do not even need a protection amulet right now while it can be very helpful to me. Just think about it, if I die in this tomb, you will miss on so many treasures.” I said with a faint smile.

The fairy grumbled; I could see his facial expression changing to doubt followed by frustration. “No way! I won’t fall for your words again, human. If so, it will set another precedent. Even though I do not fight here, I won’t give away every combat-related item simply because you can use them.”

“…”

“Fine. But don’t regret it.” I replied casually.

“What do you mean?”

“Simple, since we split everything 50/50, I technically own half of your amulet. You are taking it for yourself, which is fine but that means that I will get the next rare item we find for myself. Considering that we are moving to a better section of the tombs, I am guaranteed to find something better.”

“What?” Levi’s expression darkened. “That is not fair. Did you just trick me into accepting this?”

“You are the one who chose to take the whole amulet for yourself. Anyway. It is time for us to leave. My legs have rested a little bit. I should be able to make it back. I would rather not stay in this place for too long. More giant rats may come and attack me if they think I am an easy prey.”

“You. I do not agree to this! Hey, are you listening to me?” Levi flew around me erratically; he was completely flushed red.

“I can’t hear you. I am too busy listening to the surroundings in case monsters appear since you are not scouting ahead.”

“…”

…

[The daily bonus will now be awarded. Updating the daily ranking]

[1. Alex. 87 Points]

[2. Aditya. 33 Points]

[3. Sonya. 4 Points]

[4. Jason. 1 Points]

[5. Eric. 0 Points]

Just one day after Aditya got out of debt, two more people achieved this feat. Furthermore, they were both children too.

I was listening to the discussions from afar, sitting in the shade of the merchant tower to avoid putting any strain on my legs.

“More and more people are clearing their debts.” Jake commented. He was sitting next to me, together with the rest of my team.

“Yes. But you should have noticed that they are all children. The tower is giving them a chance to compete with the adults fairly by paying off half of their debts.”

“What? Isn’t that too unfair to us, adults?”

“That is the tower’s way to make up for the children’s naivety and inexperience.”

I ignored the discussion of my teammates. Instead, I was considering whether or not I should return to the tombs tonight or simply call it a day and rest. My legs had not fully recovered yet. I could walk and run to some extent but ideally, I should not put too much strain on them. I have cast Heal as much as I could onto my injuries, but they still needed time to fully absorb the mana and convert it into nutrients. There were no potions that could hasten the healing process, or at least, none that were sold at the merchant tower. The recovery potions sold were only as effective as my Heal spell.

“What is happening?”

I heard Jake’s surprised voice and followed his line of sight. We were too far to hear the conversation going on, but we could clearly see that a heated argument was taking place. Eric, Xia Shiyu and many other leaders of the odd-numbered teams were arguing.

I frowned lightly. It was clear that it had nothing to do with the loot distribution this time. Instead, it had more to do with the children’s team, Team 13.

‘I guess this was going to happen. They are fighting to recruit the children into their teams. A similar event took place in my past life but that was because the leader of the group was a control freak. I did not think the same thing was going to happen.’

‘At first, the children were isolated in their team, left on their own. People thought they were weaker and could not spare time to look after them. But they did not expect that children were favoured by the tower.’

‘Everyone’s hunting speed must have gone down over the past few days and without points, they have no way of speeding things up. Everyone can collect mana stones, but these can only be used to purchase consumables and regular weapons. Enchanted weapons can only be purchased with points.’

‘It should take about one or two weeks for the adults to finally pay back their debts, but it will be much faster if they are able to get their hands on enchanted weapons. In my past life, the children’s team merged with the control freak’s team. All the points were funnelled into the children until they were able to fully equip the team.’

‘It seems that they are going to try the same thing but since Eric is not that much of a dictator, the other leaders also want a share of the pie. And this will also lead to the reformation of the teams. The key here lies in Aditya’s hands. The children are usually sheeps who listen to the adults in this sort of situation but if the first child to pay back his debt steps up, then things may change.’

The argument between Eric and the other team leaders went on for a while until they all returned together and gathered the spectators.

“Sorry everyone. I know that you are usually free to do as you wish after the monster rush, but we have something important that we would like to discuss.” Eric spoke loudly.

His eyes met mine and in response, I quietly nodded. I usually stayed away from such situation, but I was willing to attend the meeting this time. My legs were not in great shape and I would just waste time by returning home to rest.

Almost everyone was here; more than a hundred people has gathered to listen to Eric’s announcement.

The flow of the meeting was very predictable. I sat down and listened to Eric and Xia Shiyu explaining their plan to make use of the children to start purchasing enchanted weapons early. Sadly, the children themselves had no say in this matter.

I observed them during the entire exchange and all ten children stayed at the back, behaving shyly under the gaze of a hundred adults. My gaze hardened as I noticed a few children coughing. ‘Is it just a coincidence? Or is it already starting?’

At the same time, I noticed a couple of people raising their hands. I focused my attention back onto the meeting. People voted and it was agreed to divide the children and restructure the teams. There were only ten children while there were fourteen teams; it was impossible to allocate one to each.

I watched Eric and the others getting to work. There was a much deeper meaning to the rearrangement of the hunters. Over the past few days, people mingled around, and friendships were formed. But more importantly, for people aiming for power, it has been an opportunity to gather more followers. The number of teams was reduced to six. An even number of teams was required to maintain the current system of not having everyone involved in the daily monster rush.

Separating everyone in ten teams should have been ideal but a few team leaders opposed it. Xia Shiyu stood among this group and refused to change her stance. To avoid unnecessary confrontation, Eric agreed to her request and divided us into six teams instead.

Xia Shiyu came up with various excuses to explain her choice but soon, the reason behind her previous behaviour became apparent. As the teams were essentially being rearranged, Xia Shiyu ended up picking every single Chinese. The team leader of Team 4, a man called Yadav copied Xia Shiyu’s actions but chose all the Indians instead.

The teams were initially randomly arranged in the tower in the previous room and as China and India both had a population of more than one billion people, there were bound to be at least one Chinese and one Indian in each team.

Similar occurrences took place in my past life as people coming from the same countries tried to band together. They could not be blamed for their behaviour as everyone would prefer to be surrounded by familiar people instead of foreigners, especially in this hazardous situation. This behaviour was not just limited to these two countries either. The others were more subtle, but one could see the physical similarities between the team members.

‘Sadly, some people are still so attached to their countries even though these countries are as good as dead. They called it patriotism… In the tower, a race cannot afford to divide itself into groups… The elves have learned a harsh lesson about this in the past.’ I kept my thoughts to myself and joined the group I was allocated to. There were many new faces and only Marie from my previous team was with me.

Rearranging a hundred people was not an easy task and it ended up taking longer than I expected before everyone was satisfied with the power distribution. Then, it was time to separate the children. Since there were only ten children, two teams were going to fall short.

After one child has been allocated to each team, Xia Shiyu stepped forward with a faint smile. “Since I was the one who asked to divide us into six teams, I am willing to shoulder part of the blame. My team will only have one child. As for the second unfortunate team, how about this one?” She pointed directly at my group.

“Since Alex is one of their members, it should be fine, right? He is already earning a lot of points and can share with you.” Her eyes flashed with a cruel light.

I rolled my eyes in silence, ignoring her taunts. I could feel the stares of my new teammates and completely ignored them. ‘That woman. She is pretending to sacrifice herself when in fact, it is what she wants since she does not want to include people from other countries in her team, especially a child. I was going to ignore her for the rest of the tutorial, but she just needed to annoy me again. She’s clever and annoying; with just one sentence, she already turned my whole team against me, reminding them of how selfish I have been. Well, I am not going to waste my time in this team and donate my points to please a few irrelevant people.’

There were a few more discussions but soon, the meeting came to an end. I immediately stood up, ignoring the strange gaze of my new teammates and approached Eric. He was speaking with Yadav, one of the team leaders.

The two men noticed me and put an end to their conversation.

“Yes? Are you not satisfied with the reallocation of the teams?” Eric asked curiously. It was the first time I was approaching him voluntarily.

“No, no. I do not really care about that. I just want to warn you to take good care of the children you took in your respective teams. You should probably give them a few more mana stones than usual.”

Both Eric and Yadav narrowed their eyes. “What do you mean? Explain yourself.”

I remained calm and answered plainly. “Aditya from your team and Sonya from Eric’s team were both coughing earlier when I was observing the kids. It may just be a misunderstanding, but I have a feeling that they may have picked quite a few elements in the first room, if you know what I mean. My guess is that they may even have taken more than ten elements. They are just kids and may have not bothered to ask any questions to their fairy.”

“What? Stop saying such nonsense.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Anyway. I have already warned you. Just ask those kids if you don’t want to believe me. It should be fine if you give them more mana stones. Don’t come to disturb me in a few days because I am already saying it now, I am not going to use my own points to buy a Hospital for these kids because of your negligence. Since you took them under your wings, at least, take care of them.”