Leader's Decision

"I think… it's over," calmly claimed Nemo; took him longer than it did me, didn't it?—I smirked, thinking about that.

Hearing that, Soyeon exclaimed, "w— what was that?!"

Nemo glanced at her and stated, "Plant Flyers—they're Level 4 flying monsters," afterwards, he smiled and added, "I already took all of them out—they're really not all that dangerous, so don't worry."

"Level 4 is pretty high though, isn't that the equivalent of a Level 4 player?" Asked Ku.

Immediately, Nemo let out a quick, "oh," and continued, "not at all—it's my bad for not explaining this earlier, but Level 1 to 10 monsters aren't the equivalent of Level 1 to 10 players," oh? How does the scale work then?

"The traditional scale only goes to level 10, which consists of monsters that are all pretty easy, so all the truly difficult monsters are usually Level 0—that's the unquantifiable-difficult rating; when a monster is Level 0 and is in the database, the monster will have one of three warnings: low, medium, and high expectations—high would be for monsters that could endanger even elite players, whereas low would be for the ones on the lower end of danger."

"Interesting," I voiced, then soon after included, "what about monsters that aren't in the database, what will it show for them?" Nemo looked at me and answered, "that doesn't really happen unless you travel exceptionally far, but a monster like that would just be… hmm…" he peeked to the sky, appearing to be in-thought, "...I guess just unknown; I'm not sure what else the System would mention, I've never really seen a monster like that."

Subsequently, Soyeon forwarded a word, "so, how likely are we to see a Level 0 monster then?" Nemo ended up letting out a small giggle and then answering softly, reassuringly, "pretty much no chance! And the rest is a piece of cake, so we're all fine."

I decided to quietly whisper something, just to bark a bit, "but would organ hunters be a piece of cake…" Nemo's head flicked at me, with a quick, stunned "ah—"

Ended up consequently laughing at him, "ya—we ran into those the last time, it was tough."

"O— organ hunters?!" "The what?!" Both Soyeon and Ku were pretty stunned by what I had just said—expectedly.

"They ambushed us during sleep; their leader was pretty strong," saying that made a brick fall on my head—I completely forgot to mention this to the Association, I glossed over it because of the whole rypU Town incident.

It was expected to see Soyeon and Ku overly shocked, but Nemo's shock is a bit of a surprise to me—he's strong, isn't he?—should he really react in such a way?

"D— Dantes, if you don't mind me asking, what kind of mission did you have? Did you have to go far away from the Im City?" Asked Nemo, rather anxiously and softly.

I stopped stepping and looked up, "umm… we went to Gravestown, which was only like a week of walking, maybe less."

"I… see," he quietly whispered, then connected more words, "Dantes, did you report that to the Association or…"

With an innocent smile, I giggled, "yeah… I… uhh… kinda forgot to do that…" put my hand behind my head and scratched my hair, "so much stuff happened!! It was irrelevant compared to the other shit that we had to deal with!!"

Nemo consequently sighed, this time expectedly, "I know you had to deal with a lot, but this is serious as well—some organ hunters are genuinely powerful, I'm not nearly as strong as Arial to protect you children from people like that."

"Mm…" whimpered Soyeon in mild fear; Ku put his hand on her head subsequently.

"But they don't even have Systems," I retaliated against Nemo, "can they really pose a threat to us? If they can't do magic?" I knew full well that they could still do magic, but I decided to pretend that I did not know that—so, what will you do, Leader Nemo?

He glanced away from me, then answered in mumbles, "they still do pose a threat—and System users aren't the only ones that can do magic, actually," I ended up grinning upon hearing that—I guess he's admitting some things, isn't he?

From the corner of my eye, I could see Soyeon and Ku being in awe—I guess they had no idea, in that case; exactly as I expected things to be.

"So, what? Are you implying we should cancel the mission?" I put on the tone of disappointment—a full ruthless barrage was my approach.

"Uhh…" Nemo ended up going silent on us.

"I think we should go home," voiced Ku, "we shouldn't risk our safety, if there's such a threat lurking around." "I agree!!" Soyeon affirmed him.

Went forward a few steps, then adamantly exclaimed, "I disagree—we should continue, and I say that as a Level 1."

Nemo was still not commenting.

"But that's even more of a reason why our opinion matters more here, Dantes," said Ku with confidence, "if you're the weak one, you stay silent and let the strong ones make decisions regarding the safety of the party."

I glared at Ku quietly, with a dissatisfied expression, for a few seconds, then answered his statement, "say, Ku, have you ever taken a human life before?"

Right upon I said that, a raven let out a screech—what a timing—destiny is doing me justice, isn't it?—I thought to myself.

His face went pale, so I replied for him, "I've killed multiple organ hunters the last time, and we continued with our mission regardless," after claiming that, the demon inside me decided to sprinkle in some small lies, "in fact, our Team Leader let us do all the work—he said they're weak, and that we should be the ones getting the experience," my tone then turned mildly sinister, "he wanted us to be the ones to kill them—and we did just that—all of us killed multiple human beings."

I ended up sighing—I was the one acting as the high-level player, "do you really expect us to perform well in the tournament if you pussy out like this, Nemo?" I stated while glancing at him; my tone wasn't shy of arrogance.

Subsequently, I went for the kill—my smile turned sinister, and I voiced, "it's whatever—let's just go back and report the situation, I want to check if they'll let me request a different team leader anyway," this time, my tone was uninterested and unbothered—mixed with my grin, it was the perfect blow of disrespect towards him.

He took a deep breath and then answered me, "no, it's okay," he proceeded to glance at others and stated, "we'll continue with the mission—Dantes is right, you need the experience, and furthermore, to yield good results in the upcoming tournament, finishing this mission is an absolute necessity."

Your voice isn't as confident as your words, Nemo—I internally stated, while grinning sadistically behind him.