Jack was sitting with Lillie in the plaza. Aleena was sitting in their house, and Jack wanted to talk about Stanley’s plan.

“I’m sorry.” Lillie started.

“For what?” Jack didn’t know what Lillie was talking about.

“That wolf. I should be the one to help you. I thought you would be fine, and…”

“Stop.” Jack took her hand. “It’s fine. We have been talking about it. We can’t watch each other all the time. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Lillie was doubtful. Jack wasn’t surprised. He actually wanted to talk about that.

“Yeah. We need to talk about Aleena.”

“What? Are you cheating on me with her?” Lillie joked and let go of Jack’s hand.

“I wish.” Jack smiled. That would place him in a less grave situation. “But no. She wanted to kill me. Stanley claims so, and I believe him.”

“Kill you? Aleena? Are you sure?” Lillie was doubtful. Jack expected this. He was doubtful too, at least at the beginning.

“Yes. He said she could have killed the alpha wolf, but she didn’t, because it had a chance to kill me.”

“You are joking.”

“No.”

There was a silence for a dozen of seconds.

“That’s…”

“We need to do something with her. Stanley think she is going to try again.”

“You mean she is going to kill you.” She said half-asking.

“No. She won’t try to kill directly. Most likely, she will push for a more dangerous hunt, and then refuse to help out. Stanley said, that we should show her, that she won’t succeed.”

“How? And why would she do that?”

“Stanley said, that Aleena is one of the best in her generation. Not really the best of the best, but an upper tier. She wants to have a more competent group, filled with people like her.”

“Then why not? It’s better for her to leave, if she isn’t going to cooperate.” Lillie interrupted.

“Yeah. I think so too. The problem is, the imperial court thinks differently.” Jack said with a sigh. “Stanley tried to explain it to me. I don’t think I got everything right, though.”

Jack explained the situation to Lillie. Normal hunters, like Jack, Patrick, or Lillie, didn’t know any magic. In the situation where nobles’ children grouped together, the rest would be forced to form weak teams. Young talents from the peasantry would be killed. Secondly, not all nobles’ children were geniuses. There were also young masters. Only fight, sweet, and pain created good fighters. Some nobles changed after getting their titles. They didn’t want their children to fight the same brutal way they had to. As the outcome, they were doting too much on their offspring. Such young masters were mostly mediocre. They had magical knowledge and some strength, but lacked courage. Should the team assignment be up to the hunters, the previously mentioned nobles would most likely pay less wealthy, but more talented to protect their children.

The imperial court wanted meritocracy, as they deemed it most promising system to ensure humans survival. There were deals and compromises, especially with dukes, but meritocracy was enforced for most assignments.

Even if the whole Jack’s team wanted to trade some teammates, it was impossible. The initial teams were unchangeable, due to the previous reasons. There were only two ways to change a team. The first one was in the case you were too good, for example, you were in late 3rd tier, when your teammates were still in the 2nd tier. The second case was the dead of teammates. If there were only two hunters in a group or less, a team was disbanded. There were situations when 3-hunters teams were also disbanded, if there were many teams with causalities.

“So? What we are going to do, since we can’t get rid of her?” Lillie asked.

“Aleena wants a good team, so she can raise her chances. We also want to be such a team. We just need to stay alive.”

“And endure? This is stupid.”

“No. Stanley said, that we need to do the same thing she does. We need to expose her to danger and left her behind. She will either die, and that will solve our problem, or she will decide it’s too dangerous to fight with us.”

“Or she will be enraged and will escalate.”

“Stanley thinks she won’t, but… I don’t like it.”

“What?”

“These plots. I feel like a bad person.” Jack came to the military to train and fight for humanity. He thought all those plots were meaningless. He would rather train, or hunt. He acknowledged that something needs to be done. He and his friends were in danger. Jack just despised the fact, that the danger was from the human side.

“You shouldn’t. I mean, it’s only natural there is competition and conflict between humans.”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m from the countryside close to the western cities. We often had traders in our community. The trade is better there. Here, in the local headquarters, there’s nearly no trade, so it’s different.” Lillie continued slowly, searching for words. “The best merchant are the ones who can get the best prices. If they try to be kind and lower them, they would have a loss. It’s normal for them to have a competition with other merchants and even try to cheat others with too high prices.”

“They shouldn’t do that.”

“Aren’t you trying to be the best fighter? You are competing with others.”

“It’s different. I’m not trying to kill them.”

“It doesn’t matter. You need levels, which you can only get fast by killing monsters.”

“Which is what everyone should do in the military,” Jack interrupted.

“Yes, but there is a limited quantity of monsters near the frontier. The best hunters would kill them first, and then, the rest would need to go further in, risking meeting high tier monsters.”

“But we all are taking risks.”

“Some are taking greater risks. And think about the magic tools Aleena has. Is that fair? No. There is a limited amount of resources. You need to be the best to get them, and you need to prove it.”

“So what? You think I should plot like Aleena? What do you think I should do?”

“Steal kills, earn money and buy some magic tools, and always know people may be shaming against you.”

“You are one of them. The plotting ones.” Jack was disappointed.

Lillie shook her head. “I told you. It’s different where I’m from. There are no monsters and more humans. You need to be better than your neighbor, not some monster kilometers away. Please, just think about what I have told you.”

“…Fine. I will think.” Jack got up and left for training. Jack planned with his team to go tomorrow into the exterior to hunt, and Jack needed to think over some things before that.

Jack really thought that over. He had to admit, Lillie was right. There was a limited amount of resources, and he needed to fight for them. He wasn’t going to kill, or steal anything, but taking resources mean others wouldn’t get them. But if he would win, that means he would be the strongest and the best suited to hold onto those resources.

Jack didn’t like it. He was neither good with playing with people, not he wanted to do it. He acknowledged the need to compete, though. He dreaded the next hunt. Not only he had to watch out Aleena, he needed to compete with her for kills, if he was going to stay true to his thoughts. That was another reason for his internal debate. Was it better to let Aleena kill more, and placate her, or be more selfish and risk escalation of the conflict? Jack thought it was a simple decision. He could either help the team, or be selfish and help only himself. He decided to be a good teammate.

Which was stupid. Jack could only blame his own stupidity. Three days passed, and the situation was calm. Aleena wasn’t pushing, and she was even helping out. There was competition over the kills, but it was between everyone in the group. Jack also participated. There was no other way. Jack would be left behind, otherwise. He would rather make an even distribution, but Aleena’s aggressive stance forced everyone to compete with her.

Jack earned a level in the recent days, similar to his companions. They were fighting relatively close to the frontier. Nobody wanted to push their luck with the situation, when they still were able to level up relatively fast. Aleena was a part of the team. Jack didn’t know whether she was bidding her time, or she just gave up on killing them. There wasn’t much danger until now.

This day, the team was looking for wolves, or maybe hiding from them. Some hunters had already died to these packs. The team wanted to kill some of them, but a large pack could be dangerous.

“Fourteen wolves. Two hundred meters in this direction.” Aleena warned.

They were all crouching in the snow, using their detection methods.

“We have encountered another group half an hour ago. It is too risky. We should go back,” Lillie advised.

“Or we might kill them. The previous group was over 30. It’s no wonder other teams had causalities. This one we can kill.” Aleena said.

“It may be prudent to team up with some other group. Even if we would split that 30 wolves group to 10 people, it’s still three wolves per person.” The rest mostly nodded. Lillie didn’t want to risk too much. The rest thought they were safe enough. Their detection methods allowed them to spot wolves before they could spot them.

“We need a plan. We won’t be able to take all seventeen at the same time. Some of them may be in 3rd tier.” Jack said.

“Or in 4th,” Lillie reminded.

“The chances are low for that. High tier wolves usually travel in large packs, or with an elite team. And no,” Stanley continued before Lillie could interrupt him. “If that was an elite pack we would be able to tell. All those wolves look normal with ours detection spells. There are no wolves bigger than normal, for ones.”

“The plan?” Patrick asked.

“Allena and I would go and ambush them. Jack, you go there and create a bunker. We will flee to it immediately after the ambush. We should be able to shoot them from a safe spot. We don’t need to kill all of them, so it’s fine if some escape.”

Jack went with Lillie and Patrick. Lillie and Patrick weren’t good for an ambush, or at least, they weren’t the best in the team. Aleena would be able to kill two or three wolves immediately with her fire. Stanley may be able to kill the alpha with the water magic. If a 3rd tier didn’t have a defense against water mana, Stanley would be able to move the water in their bodies and could just break some vein in a brain.

Jack elevated earth, creating a small bunker. It had only a one door in the direction of the wolves. As soon as Stanley and Aleena would get inside, Jack was going to seal the entrance. He only left small, a few centimeters wide holes for throwing spears. Jack cast light detection spell, and searched for the rest of the team. The plan was one thing, but there could be a problem. He wanted to be sure everything was going well. Soon, a light trail flew from the bunker toward the previous wolves location. It was going to warn the wolves, but Jack decided that didn’t matter much. The first eye didn’t show the wolves, so Jack searched a bit further. He was able to find the wolves at the third location. He adjusted the point of view once again.

The wolves were startled by the light, but they didn’t escape. Actually, they were a bit of curious. Jack kept this eye and created two more nearby, to search for his teammates. They were 30 meters away from the wolves, sneaking. Stanley made an irritated face and waved at the eye, trying to shoo it. Jack didn’t care. It would be better if the wolves escape, rather than Stanley be killed due to the lack of information. Jack was prepared to leave the bunker any time to save him.

The wolves came closer to the eye, some were flanking it. Aleena and Stanley came a bit closer to the wolves and started casting spells. Stanley was the first to attack, as his spell was stealthy. One of the wolves dropped dead. The rest of them saw that, some of them started running around, searching for the danger. Stanley probably tried to kill another wolf with his water kinetic spell, but he was discovered. Aleena threw fire mana at wolves, killing two of them. They started escaping towards the bunker.

The wolves noticed the bright fire, as their kin burned. They rushed after the two of escaping humans. Aleena created fire mana, making it impossible to directly assault her from the back, but the wolves were faster and flanked her. Jack stopped his own spell and prepared his new drill spell. A bit of soil was moved up and formed into a drill. Jack continued the cast and observed the terrain with his own eyes. Aleena and Stanley were visible, along with over a dozen of wolves. Wolves weren’t overly aggressive. They had the superiority of numbers and speed, they wanted to kill humans in a safe way for themselves. Too bad it was all a trap.

Jack fired the drill spell at one of the wolves. It drilled in… and then out, coloring the snow behind the wolf red.

Ding… You have killed lv. 23 Wolf

Lillie and Patrick threw their spears, killing some more wolves. Aleena and Stanley used the distractions to move into the bunker. Jack quickly sealed the entrance. There were still about ten alive wolves. Two of them came closer to the bunker and tried to dig, but Jack just sent some earth mana, hardening the walls. They were quickly killed by Aleena, now casting again. The rest of the wolves were circling around the bunker, looking for an entrance, but to no avail.

In a minute, three remaining wolves were escaping. The rest were dead or dying. The team left the bunker. Lillie and Patrick killed off a few wolves pierced by spears, but still alive. Aleena wanted to be the one, but she gave up under the pressure of the rest of the team. Lillie and Patrick had the lowest levels in the team. These wolves were their target from the beginning. Lillie just lacked strength and aim to kill a wolf with one spear throw, while Patrick hadn’t been able to level up in previous hunts. Jack killed only one wolf more.

Ding… You have killed lv. 17 Wolf

“Shit.” Aleena shouted. “To the bunker!”

Jack cast earth detection, while running back to the bunker. There were heavy footsteps coming at them.

“I have counted eight of them, but there is a big one.” Stanley said after they got into the bunker. Jack closed the entrance without a word.

“What’s going on?” Patrick asked.

Nobody needed to answer, as a big, two meters tall wolf appeared from the trees, accompanied by seven more regular wolves.

“This is an elite group.” Stanley said bitterly. The alpha looked at them through the small hole in the bunker.

“I think this is a 4th tier.” Aleena said, and continued. “We need to find an idea how to escape. Fast.”