The First Legendary Beast Master

Karl watched as the last of the Gnolls fell before the might of Rae, and the group gathered to discuss their tactics.

What worked, what didn't work well, and what they thought that they could have changed to make their fight more efficient. It was not a bad fight by any means, but the ladies were getting used to working as a team and not relying on Karl to take care of whatever was most troublesome.

"I think that if we spread the Golems a bit further apart, we will end up with breaches in the line. It would be better to have them stay close and push a bit deeper, so that the Greater Golems can fight without exposing the flanks." Ophelia suggested.

Dana nodded. "That sounds like a plan. We make a pretty good wrecking ball, but we really could use two more golems to fill in the rear."

Tessa shrugged. "Getting surrounded isn't the goal anyhow. We just need to keep moving so that they can't get too many behind us. Thor does have a tail weapon, so the back isn't fully exposed when we're in a cluster like that.

But when Lotus is on the ground doing her thing, we will have to move Ophelia to the back again."

Tian was confused by the conversation. [Why are they making plans like we're not here?]

[Because we're two Ranks higher than they are. The things that we'll want to be fighting are too strong for them to deal with. And the things they want to fight to help them grow are too weak for us to interfere without making it pointless for them.] Karl explained.

[Oh, that makes sense. Even Sister Rae is too strong to be picking on these Gnolls.]

Rae turned a glare at the tiny fox. Did he just call her weak?

Tian didn't see what he said wrong, or understand why she was giving him evil looks, so he just dismissed his concerns. The fight was over, and now they could go see more stuff.

"Should we return to the camp and see what they have for us next? Or do you want to just inform them that we finished all four tasks, and we're going to wander for a little bit and see what we can find?" Karl asked the group.

That was a good question. Taking missions was kind of rigid and boring, in Nachtia's mind. The monsters that were overpopulated weren't just the ones that were directly threatening the towns and the military outposts, so it would be better if they just attacked whatever there was too much of.

The dragon shrugged. "I think we should explore and fight. Hopefully, we can find some of the larger excess monster spawn packs and start really thinning out the numbers."

Nobody else had a problem with it, so Karl opened a portal back to the camp.

"I will hold this open while I inform them of what we're up to. Just give me five minutes."

He didn't actually need that long, as there was a scout standing only ten metres from the portal's opening.

"Hey, guard. Can you pass these to the General? We finished these four missions today, and now we're going to head inland to look for more groups that aren't on the list." Karl called.

The Dwarf jogged over and took the notices with a smile.

"Good work, Mercenary. We will see you again one day, I'm sure. You can send us updates if you would like. So that we know what else you've managed to eliminate. Some of it might be on the low-priority list."

"Got it. The Black Dragon wants a general culling of the overflow, so there might be a lot of little things on the list. I will have someone write the details down, and we can send them in once a week or something." Karl agreed.

"That works for us. Good luck."

Karl returned to the ladies and closed the portal. "Alright, we're good to go. Do you want to go any particular direction, or just wherever the mood takes us?"

"Adventure!" Lotus and Remi cheered simultaneously.

"Well, that pretty much settles it. We will head away from where we know that there are other army units and marked villages, and just look for excessively large groups of monsters. Do we want to fly or walk?" Karl asked.

"I say that we keep walking. I have heard that there is something strange about the layout of the land, and I wonder if we can see it firsthand if we're on the ground and Hawk is in the air." Nachtia suggested.

There was a slim chance that they would see something different from the ground and the air, but it wasn't zero. Nobody knew for sure if things were actually changing or if it was an illusion.

If it was just a powerful illusion, or a localized effect, they might be able to provide extremely valuable information to the army units. Gabil, or this part of Gabil, as Karl now knew that there was another region named Gabil Kingdom, had a serious lack of information infrastructure.

They might be rural, but not having a proper map of your own country seemed a bit too negligent.

Nachtia returned to dragon form and made a loop over the area, then gestured for them to follow her to the north. Hawk hadn't seen anything interesting in that direction, but it was away from any of the army units, and headed for the middle of the nation, where they would be the furthest from any of the regular patrols.

If they wanted to find monster packs that hadn't been culled at all, that was the best spot to find them.

Nachtia had only been flying a few minutes when she began to get excited.

"I think that I found a fresh anomaly. Like, I think that I just saw it open. At least, I don't think that it's a portal." She declared.

[Definitely not a portal. The monsters just appeared all over the place. I think that this place likes us.] Hawk elaborated.

[How so?] Rae asked hopefully.

[FOOD!] Hawk cheered.