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"Mark, where are our other members? Why is everyone leaving somewhere?"
Eric asked in a frustrated tone.
There are only five members in the camp. One is Mark, who's currently with them and the other four are sitting in another corner with their own campfire.
"Calm down Eric, don't yell near me. We noticed a few monsters away from the camp, so they went to clean it up. This is our camping spot, and they lured them outside to avoid ruining this place."
"They will come back in a few minutes."
Mark replied calmly.
While Eric and Mark were discussing, Nova's mind was occupied with the same word.
'Watson Aristocracy! Watson Aristocracy!'
'Did the minor noble families group together and form an alliance with the Watson Family?'
'Or the Watson Family forming a faction against other major noble families? Or even against the royal…'
'Don't overthink, why would he reveal that if that was the case?'
Just thinking anymore made Nova scared. His thoughts and imagination went very wild, that he even thought about treason.
Nova shook his head and erased everything he thought about so far. He didn't want to get involved with the Noble families unless they were beneficial to him.
As Nova was organizing his thoughts, he heard uniform steps.
"Eric, you are finally back. I'm almost worried about you."
A man who's similar to Eric appeared with a smile.
"There is no need to worry about me, brother. " Eric replied flatly, without his usual carefree smile and pointed his fingers towards Nova "This is Nova, a very talented person. It's his first time inside the labyrinth, so ask Lana to make a potion for him."
With that, Eric handed a bag to Nova and went inside a tent.
'So what just happened? A fight among cousins?'
While Nova was wondering, Eric's cousin came and introduced himself warmly, "Welcome to our team Nova, I'm Dave Watson, Eric's cousin."
"Thank you, sir." Nova greeted him back, but he was surprised by Dave's action.
Unlike Eric and Mark, who greeted and introduced themselves just for the sake of it, Dave took the lead himself genuinely.
"Lana, come here, you have a job." After taking Eric's place near the campfire, Dave called the potion maker.
A petite young lady with silvery light armor came without much expression on her face and asked. "What is it, Dave?"
"Lana, you must have heard what happened here, so I'll skip the introduction. Can you make a potion right now?"
"No, I don't think I can make it successfully."
Hearing Lana's answer Nova's heart skipped a beat, but the continuation made him sigh in relief.
"I need an hour to recover my spirituality, so come to me after exactly an hour." Lana looked at him and said seriously.
Nova nodded without saying anything. He didn't mind waiting an hour, his real intention was to delay time as much as possible and find out their true intention.
Ever since the other members arrived at the camp, they never approached Nova. Only Dave approached Nova on his own and Lana because Dave called him.
Everyone kept their distance from him and nobody even cared about his existence. They did their own job, and some of them went straight into the tent without even seeing him.
'What a unique team! It seems there is no coordination between them.'
"Sir, I'll go check other members of the team." Nova said and moved towards the group of four members.
They also didn't participate in any of the team activities, but Nova could guess their identity.
'They should other four newly added veteran teammates.'
As soon as Nova neared them, they gave a fierce stare at him for a moment and looked away.
'What a fierce aura!' Nova exclaimed in surprise.
Nova hadn't reached them close, but from their stare, he felt like being stared at by a fierce monster.
'Is this also a benefit of taking potion? A matching momentum according to the monster core.'
"Are you the new guy?"
A rough-looking man who seems to be in his thirties asked.
"Yes sir, I'm Nova and was invited by sir Eric Watson." Nova replied politely.
The man didn't say anything and inspected Nova up and down. After a moment, he sighed and shook his head.
"What a moron…"'What did he just say?'
Nova never thought someone would call him an idiot just after a glance.
"Sir, what are you trying to say?" Nova asked softly, but his tone was not polite at all.
"If you are not a moron, then what?" The rough man raised his voice a little, "If you are desperate for money, you can choose other jobs without much risk."
"Only an idiot like you without much experience would gamble their lives."
Nova didn't reply to the rough-looking man and stood like a frozen sculpture. He even had a hard time digesting the information he received.
'What the hell is happening? Why is he saying forming a team is like an open job? And they are even getting paid?'
No matter how much Nova thought, he didn't hear anything even a bit similar from Eric.
Eric came, tried to persuade him and finally threatened him to join. The only thing that Nova received was a life potion and a stage 1 explorer potion, and even the most precious core for the explorer potion was his own.
This has happened to Nova so far and Eric hadn't mentioned anything about money or this was a voluntary job.
'I thought I was lucky, but it seems I unknowingly fell into a trap.'
"Ahh! What a shitty luck!" In frustration and anger, Nova cursed out loud.
"What? Why did you blame luck?" The rough looking man couldn't understand Nova. He even wondered why Nova would curse after staying still for a moment.
Nova didn't say anything and sat near the campfire.
Seeing this, the rough-looking man also followed and sat near him. The other three members who were watching the conversation also closed their distance between Nova.
Looking at faces, Nova explained everything that had happened so far in general without much detail.
"I know there is something wrong with that guy. Now, it's certain there is something wrong with him." A mature woman who also seems to be in her thirties said out loudly.
"Amelia, don't raise your voice." The rough-looking man ordered.
Amelia nodded and whispered, "When we volunteered to join the team, I felt there was something wrong about both Eric and Dave."
"No one in the team seems to have been injured and I didn't feel an ounce of pity for their lost comrades."
"Also, it's been half a day since we joined the team temporarily, but we haven't even introduced ourselves and the same goes for them too."
"This doesn't feel like a monster killing mission at all, I feel, we are more like cannon fodder." Amelia expressed her entire dissatisfaction in one breath.
Nova silently nodded in satisfaction. It seems he wasn't the only one with doubts; at least someone thought similar to him.
"I'm sorry, young man, without knowing your situation, I cursed." The rough-looking man apologized.
Nova didn't say anything and simply nodded.
"I'm Rock, the captain of the Shark Team and this is my wife Amelia. You can call me Captain or Rock."
The rough-looking man called Rock introduced himself and then pointed his finger at the other two members.
"He is my brother, Shane and last one, my friend, Head. "
Seeing their introduction, Nova did the same thing.
"Captain, did you know anything about the King of Winter? And why are they so adamant about killing it?" Nova asked, trying to gather more information.
"I only know that Dave guy has a high percentage of compatibility with the King and they wanted its core for him."
"As for the information about the King, unfortunately I don't know. Ordinary explorers like us won't even think about provoking them."
Rock's reply aroused another doubt, so he asked right away, "Isn't the formation of the core less than 5 percent?"
"What would they do when the only king doesn't form any core?"
Rock smiled after hearing Nova's reply, "The lower percent core formation is only applicable for ordinary monsters."
"Since there are many of the same types of monsters, getting their core would be a little easier."
"But monsters like King of Winter are unique and there is only one King for an entire region, so they would definitely drop a core."
"With this, we explorers have formed an unofficial classification for monsters— ordinary, elite, unique and finally the legendary guardian."