The Author's POV

"If I'm not wrong those are Black-shelled scorpions"

John pointed out as he looked into the distance. I nodded my head.

"They indeed seemed to be black-shelled scorpions"

Black-shelled scorpions were <E> ranked monsters. They were named as such because of the black shell that coated their outer layer. They were generally the size of an adult's thigh, and they were renowned for their powerful stingers that had a strong paralyzing effect.

"How many points was that again?"

"Should be about three per kill"

Standing by the side, Asim responded. Nodding his head, John looked at Melody who was next to Aerin.

"How many monsters within the vicinity?"

Closing her eyes, using her skill Melody calmly responded, "I only feel twelve entities in front of us. So they should all be black-shelled scorpions"

"Great, then that means we can secure 36 points"

"Yup"

"So how should we go about this?"

The Black-shelled scorpion's method of attack was quite simple. Incapacitate the prey with their stinger and then kill them with their sharp claws. What made them especially troublesome was their tough outer layer that was hard to crack.

In short, within a short period of time, they couldn't be killed easily. Fortunately, we had John with us.

He was a great meat shield. As long as he tanked, given enough time we could easily crack the outer layer.

...and John knew this.

"I'll do the tanking, you guys get rid of them"

He then patted his chest.

"I can more or less resist poisons"

Having trained for all sorts of situations like this, John was indeed immune to most poisons.

Unless they were extremely strong ones, he could continue defending without needing to worry about getting poisoned.

"I see...As long as we keep the scorpions in check, we shouldn't be able to face any problems"

Aerin nodded in agreement. She also believed this was the best strategy.

'No, this strategy won't work'

After subtly touching my chin, I shook my head.

We six were definitely enough to kill a black-shelled scorpion. But what worried me was the fact that there wasn't just one scorpion.

"....can I say something?"

"What?"

After a bit of thought, I decided to voice out my concern. Instantly everyone's attention was gathered towards me.

"Frankly speaking. If we follow this strategy we are going to die"

With a solemn face, I broke the news.

Though we wouldn't die literally since the academy professors were hiding in the distance, we'd fail the class.

Simply put.

This strategy was not going to work.

"Huh?! Do you even pay attention in class? If you properly paid attention you'd know that this is the best possible strategy"

Hearing what I had to say. Aerin and Melody aside, everyone's faces became dark.

"What are you talking about?"

"If you want to say something, at least say something useful"

"No, I get that, but haven't you guys noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

I shook my head and pointed in the distance. Towards where the scorpions were located. I then elaborated.

"That they scorpions aren't too far from each other. Once we create enough of a commotion when attacking one scorpion we'll attract the other scorpions and our situation will turn into a six vs twelve. Not that I doubt any of your abilities but, we can't handle twelve <E> ranked monsters at the same time..."

"..."

"..."

Silence fell. Everyone's previous thoughts of fighting the scorpion disappeared. The ones who were trying to argue with me before didn't even look me in the eyes.

"Then what do you suggest?"

The first to break the silence was Aerin. To which I calmly responded.

"Actually, we can still follow the previous plan, but we'd need to target each scorpion individually. In short, we need to lure them to us instead of us going to them"

With John tanking at the front and the other's supporting, killing a scorpion was easy. As long as they weren't grouped together this was going to be a breeze for us.

"But who's gonna bait them?"

Falling into thought, Aerin lifted her head.

"Actually, I can do that"

Placing my hand on the sheath of my sword, I raised my hand.

In terms of crowd controlling and baiting, there was no better sword art than [Ring of vindication].

Which, I still, unfortunately, have not managed to increase to the greater realm of mastery.

I was missing the crucial step which I did not know the answer to. I did try asking Donna, but she told me she couldn't help me with regards to this matter as it did not involve psyons.

She did however tell me that she knew someone who could help me. That was about a week ago.

In the end, I was still unable to break through.

But that was fine. Since my current level was good enough for now.

"You can do that?"

"Yes, I can"

"Okay, then let's go with that"

Aerin came to a decision. Standing by the side John's eyes narrowed slightly before he nodded his head too. Following John, everyone else also agreed.

"I'm okay with that too"

"Nothing to complain"

'Bunch of ass-lickers'

I instantly rolled my eyes. Despite my current fame, I was still not as famous as Aerin and John who had been there for a long time.

It was only natural that they paid more attention to their words.

"Haa...Alright, let's start"

'”Swooosh!

I took out my sword and drew three circles in the air. Instantly, three translucent rings appeared before me. Noticing the rings, the others started discussing.

"What's that?"

"Is that a skill or you sword art?"

"It's obviously a sword art"

Amongst the ones discussing, Aerin and John weren't part of them. Their attention was directed towards the rings. With me being one of the people who they had to look out for, they naturally had to pay extra attention.

Noticing their solemn expression from the corner of my eyes, my lips tugged upwards.

'If only they knew that this was just merely a fraction of what I could do'

"Hup!"

Moving my finger upwards, the rings shot towards the scorpion in the distance. Watching my rings fly towards the nearest scorpion, I turned my head.

"Does anyone have a long-range attacking method?"

"I do"

The one to step up was Aerin. Unsheathing her rapier she asked, "What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing much, I just want you to startle the scorpion"

"Very well"

Aerin took a stance.

"Huu..."

Pulling her reaper backward, Aerin exhaled slightly. Her platinum blonde hair fluttered slightly and her rapier became dyed in green. She then thrust it forward.

"Hyaaa!"

Wiiiiing'”!

Like a lightsaber, the rapier became dyed completely in green. Following her shout, a beam of light shot towards the scorpion in the distance. In a matter of seconds, it arrived before the scorpion and directly hit it in its outer shell.

A muffled explosion rang, and the scorpion's enraged roar resounded across the plain.

"Skreeee'”!"

This naturally startled the other scorpions in the vicinity, but after not spotting anything nearby, they proceeded to ignore the rampaging scorpion.

"Haa...haa...was that good enough?"

"Sure"

Turning my head to the side, I nodded my head. Inwardly I was shaking my head.

At the moment Aerin's complexion was pale and her breathing was rugged. She looked exhausted.

'Do you think you can fool me?'

I obviously could tell that she was acting. Despite her ragged breathing and slightly pale face, she didn't actually use that much energy in that last attack.

She just wanted to make herself look weaker.

Mind games.

"Aerin are you okay? Are you exhausted, let me do the rest"

"It's okay I'm fine"

Spotting the exhausted Aerin, John naturally tried to comfort her. To that, Aerin put on a brave face and reassured him she was fine. My mouth twitched at their display.

'Seriously?'

'”Swoosh!

Moving my finger, I proceeded to ignore them and directly moved my rings around the scorpion.

"Skreeee'”!"

Spotting the rings, the scorpion became even more enraged. Swinging its claws and tails it tried to attack the rings

'not that I'll let you'

Moving my finger upwards, I'd command the rings to dodge the attacks quickly. Only when the scorpion was running in the opposite direction that I wanted it to go would I actually not avoid the scorpion resulting in it directly hitting my ring.

"Skreeee'”!"

As soon as the scorpion hit the ring, the ring instantly broke. But it achieved its purpose as the scorpion quickly turned towards the opposite direction.

Every time a ring broke, drawing a circle in the air, I replaced it. This repeated three times until the scorpion was finally within ten meters of where we were hiding. Turning my head to the side, I whispered.

"Ready?"

"Mhm"

"Yes"

Nodding their heads, everyone took a battle position.

We had dragged the scorpion far enough from the other one so we no longer needed to worry about creating a commotion.

"Go!"

The first one to move was John. With a massive translucent shield before him, he jumped up and tackled the scorpion.

"Huuup!"

"Skreeee'”!"

Caught off-guard and colliding with the scorpion, John managed to push it back a couple of meters.

"Support me!"

With the attention of the scorpion on him, John took a knee and shouted. Everyone moved.

"Tackle its weak points, the joints!"

Like a streak of light, Aerin dashed before the scorpion and stabbed towards one of its joints. Asim and the others followed her example and tacked the joints.

"Skreeee'”!"

Coordinating with one another, everyone moved around the scorpion and tackled its joints. The scorpion shrieked in pain and became enraged. Its pincers and claws widely attacked everything in its vicinity.

The battle strategy was simple.

John aggroed the scorpion, whilst the others attacked its joints to hinder its movements. Wasn't the fastest method, but it was the most efficient one.

'”Swooosh!

'”Clank!

"Thanks!"

"No prob, I've got you"

Leisurely standing by the side, I naturally just used my rings to support them. Whenever they were in trouble I'd aid them. That was just about all I did.

'Such carefree life, I love it...'

Helping by the side like an orchestra operator. I really liked this life.

"Haaa!"

'”Thud!

Finally, after two minutes of arduous fighting, the scorpion fell on the ground with a large thud. Aerin was the one who took the last hit.

"Phew, that was though..."

"That was a tougher opponent than I thought"

'Keep with the great acting'

Watching from the side, I clicked my tongue. The monster was only <E> ranked. Aerin and John alone could've taken care of it.

The only reason it took two minutes was that everyone held back. I did too, so I couldn't really complain.

'”Ping!

[Points awarded - 3]

Everyone's watches vibrated, and a notification appeared. Briefly glancing at his watch, John clapped his hands.

"Alright, I guess we have to do this eleven more times"

...

Three hours passed since then.

'”Thud!

With a large thud, a monster fell onto the ground, and Aerin calmly extracted her reaper from the body of the monster. By her side, John approached her.

"How many does that make?"

"I can't remember"

"Is that so, that was great, let's go to the next monster. At the rate we are going we might get the first place"

"Let's do that"

Sheathing her rapier, Aerin calmly nodded her head and headed in the direction of the next monster. Next to her, were her teammates.

"Aerin you were so amazing"

"As expected of you"

"John too, although I knew you were strong, I thought it was an exaggeration"

Right after every fight, everyone would start complimenting her and John. The two biggest contributors.

Aerin kept an indifferent face throughout the whole time. She was used to such behavior.

The only one that stood out to her was the last youth in the group.

Standing leisurely with his hands on his head, a youth with blue eyes walked towards the scorpion corpse.

'Ren Dover was it?'

Despite having seen him on the news she didn't know too much about it.

She did see him during the fight a couple of days ago, but that was just about all she could recall about him. It was a shocking fight that only made him more mysterious in the eyes of others.

Was he strong or not?

Apart from doing a couple of minor things with the rings, he did nothing shocking. The others did more.

Nothing that would warrant his current fame.

'Should I just talk to him?'

Perhaps if she talked to him directly could figure something out.

Right before entering her brother told her to keep a close watch on John and Ren.

This was partly why she didn't ignore John's annoying and blatant approaches. If not, she would've already dug her rapier into his skull.

'Yeah, I can't let my brother do all of the work...'

Just as Aerin firmed herself to approach him, next to the scorpion, Ren's eyes lit up as he looked into the distance.

"It looks like the other teams are already fighting the boss monster."