Chapter 42: Treacherous Bastards
Almond stepped out and saw four young men in their late teens, along with a man in his mid-twenties.
There was also when Natalia was shooing them, waving the vegetable knife at them, "Go away, we are busy."
"Leave," Lily said, looking at them with a deadpan expression.
"Woah, chill, chill. We were just asking."
"And it seems you are not alone, eh?"
One of them spoke upon seeing Almond coming out.
"Haha, what luck you got, friend. Living with two beauties."
Almond looked at them, feeling something amiss in their smiling and friendly face.
But he didn’t want to sound sour, given their friendly tone.
"Yeah, I guess I’m lucky," Almond smiled. "Anyway, if you’ll excuse us now, we could focus on our things."
"Yeah, yeah, haha. Enjoy."
"We might run to each other again, friend. See you, ladies."
The group left laughing and smiling but with a sinister air that Almond could strangely feel.
"Bunch of trash," Lily muttered and continued peeling the potatoes.
"Did you feel it, too?" Almond asked as he sat beside her and started helping.
"What did you feel?" Natalia glanced at Almond while cutting the potatoes.
"I just feel like they have some ulterior motive," Almond frowned.
"I did feel their bad intentions," Lily nodded, her eyes icy. "My Phantom’s sixth sense could feel it."
Almond narrowed his eyes, "The way that guy spoke at the end about seeing each other again…it seems they won’t leave us alone."
"What? Fucking hell," Natalia muttered. "So, are they horny dickheads like that Zoren bastard?"
"Not different from him, for sure," Lily said as she coldly glanced in their direction.
"They won’t make a move here with many groups, which means they will likely follow us or find us in the Frostbite Cliffs area," Almond said as he cracked his finger, "We should prepare to bury them there if they have some plans for us."
"If they have any weird ideas, then we’ll strike first if they run into us again," Lily sharply said as her hands blurred, cutting the potato she peeled into dices.
"What are we making?" Almond asked as he looked at the veggies and meat.
"Tortilla meat wrap and fried leaf meatballs," Natalia grinned. "My original recipe."
"Just make sure we don’t get diarrhea," Almond chuckled.
Lily laughed while Natalia snorted and replied, "Fine, you can make your own dish."
"Come on, I was just joking...you thought I would say that?" Almond grinned and rolled up his sleeves. "We’ll make something according to my recipes today. Living alone for so long has its merits, you know?"
…
After having a good meal, Almond kept Chimera Viperfiend and Alfred, who summoned wolves to be on the lookout while they leisurely fell asleep without worry.
If anyone approached them or something happened, the Spirit Wraiths could quickly wake up Almond.
Naturally, the spirit wraiths that stood guard around their tent attracted the attention of everyone.
Many of them were the ones who had seen Alfred already at the camping area at the Shimmering Fen, but seeing an eldritch monster in the addition this time, the people couldn’t help but wonder about them.
There were also groups who had entered the first floor for the second time.
Some people wouldn’t level up that high on their first try, and once the first three days passed, some of them wouldn’t enter the First floor of the labyrinth during this month because the danger would’ve increased.
The group that approached Lily and Natalia while they were preparing the meal was one such group.
The four eighteen-year-old young men had entered the Labyrinth’s first floor a month ago but only reached Silver level 5 or 6 before leaving.
And the reason they didn’t progress all the way was nasty and criminal.
During their first run, they had a taste of the debauchery they could do and had their first kill as well. It was none other than the two girls they brought with them to their party.
These four assholes had fun with those girls for two days at the Valley of Shadowsong, a big area just like Fairy Mountain, since they were close to that area when they arrived on the first floor the previous time.
They also didn’t have a Knight at that time as they hadn’t entered a Guild yet.
But after entering the Guild, they waited a month before entering the Labyrinth again. This time, they had a Knight with them sent by the guild to observe their performance.
As the moon shone in the sky, the Knight went to sleep in the tent while the four youngsters sat around the firecamp, talking with each other using Magic Whisper.
"What’s the plan, guys? Do we tell that Knight about it?"
"That guy seems upright and all, what if he disagrees?"
"Damn, I’m telling you guys, we are doing this," one of them licked his lips with a crazed expression as he remembered the experience a month ago. "Don’t tell me you all didn’t enjoy that? I mean, who the fuck can catch us here?"
"We gon get those two bitches for sure, but the topic, how do we go about at it? And what about the Knight?"
"I have an idea."
Everyone looked at the dark-skinned guy with a military cut in the group, their ears perking.
"First, we’ll leave once those girls leave. We have to follow them, and we have a good skill for it thanks to Jayson’s Eagle Eye skill. He can look at them from afar."
Everyone nodded before a blond-haired guy called Roderic asked, "Good. What about the Knight, Izaak?"
"Once we arrive at a relatively isolated place in the Frostbite Cliff somewhere, I’ll ask the Knight about the main question," Izaak grinned. "You’ll stay in his blind spot and look at my hand."
"I’ll ask him what does he think about capturing those two bitches and having fun in our last day here. If he expresses displeasure and tries to lecture us, I’ll show my first two fingers," Izaak’s eyes glinted. "At that sign, you three will attack him at once."
"He needs to die, or he will kill us if we fight, not all, but some of us might die in the fight even if he is lower level since he got better skills than us."