The Place Where Everything Begins

Within the eyes of those ten people, Jeremy appeared to be just an average middle-aged man with a height of 177 cm, having short brown hair. He wore a black combat suit and boots while having two knives dripping fresh blue blood strapped to his waist sides.

When everyone saw who the person was, some of them cocked their heads to the side in confusion, while some turned to look at their companions' faces to see if they also had the same thought as them.

The thought within their minds should be 'who the fuck is this guy?'

After all, they had never seen Jeremy inside the camp before, let alone the latter had come here to 'rescue' them alone as there was no other person within the surrounding area at all.

Simultaneously, Morgan furrowed his eyebrows slightly before finally saying with a cautious tone towards Jeremy,

"Who are you? I don't seem to recall you from any warrior groups of the camp. Maybe, you are from a construction group?"

"Oh, hello. I'm Tommy Samson. As for your questions... I can only say that I'm clueless," said Jeremy in response to the tense Morgan.

"What!?"

"You don't know about the camp?"

"How is that even possible?"

"Where are you from?"

After hearing Jeremy's words, there were various reactions and questions coming out from the people all around as they started to talk to one another in confusion.

Meanwhile, Morgan's frown had become even deeper than before as he thought to himself,

'Is he trolling us? No... it shouldn't be... What a confusing situation.'

Shaking his head slightly to discard those useless thoughts, Morgan stared at Jeremy briefly before opening his mouth,

"Before we talk, let me express my gratitude for helping us out earlier. I'm Morgan, and everyone else is my teammate."

Having said so, Morgan reached out his hand to shake with Jeremy as the latter also did the same with a smile.

"Now, can we talk?" Jeremy asked after retracting his hand back from the handshake.

"Sure, but we should find an empty clearing to talk about while using that chance to rest for a bit. Also, those kenkus might send more scout teams here. If they ever see us, we will be in deep shit for real."

Morgan replied to Jeremy before turning his head to give orders to his teammates to prepare to leave this place.

Simultaneously...

'I should behave like a good guy as depicted in my Status Window, just in case...'

Jeremy thought to himself shortly before opening his mouth to ask Morgan after the latter had finished giving out his orders.

"Hey, Morgan. Should we carry our fellow human corpses with us?" said Jeremy with a somewhat worried look plastered on his face.

"..."

'This guy fights like a true killer but has a good heart, huh? What a contradicting fellow...'

After thinking to himself shortly, Morgan replied,

"We have to leave our comrades' remains right here because, sadly, we cannot afford to carry burdens, which will slow us down, back to our camp as it is situated pretty far from here."

Morgan shook his head slightly as he also felt downcast from losing so many of his teammates.

Even though it was just a three-day relationship, those dead people deserved to receive such empathy from most people for 'sacrificing' their lives here.

"So, we will have to leave them here..." said Jeremy as he also shook his head in a reluctant manner.

At this moment, someone promptly walked towards the two. She looked to be in her early thirty-ish, with red hair and tight leather armor, showing her curvy body.

"Morgan, we have none severely wounded but three lightly wounded people, one with a leg injury."

Upon hearing so, Morgan furrowed his brows slightly before asking,

"Can he walk normally?"

"He said yes, but I doubt that. I think our marching speed will be reduced for quite a bit."

"I understand. If he delays us, we will have someone support him walking. Alright, let us depart now," said Morgan.

After replying to Jessy, the woman whom had come to report, Morgan turned towards Jeremy before saying,

"Let's go, Tommy."

Upon hearing Morgan's words, Jeremy nodded his head reluctantly. Afterward, he turned his head to look at the human corpses before walking after Jessy.

Morgan, who had seen Jeremy's behavior earlier, raised one eyebrow in wonder,

'He really has sympathy for strangers?'

Simultaneously, Morgan walked after Jeremy and Jessy in the direction where other people gathered. After that, the ten people plus Jeremy, in a middle-aged man disguise, started walking in a particular direction.

With one man at the forefront, other people walked some meters away from one another, not making the group too crowded.

Like that, they would be able to respond to any unexpected situation that might happen.

Regarding the direction, a man having a bow hanging behind him was the one who chose which path the group would tread upon.

It appeared that the man was a lookout for this scout team...

"Kurt, lead us to a clearing to take a rest," said Morgan as he walked some meters behind Kurt.

Meanwhile, the man, Kurt, who was the team's lookout, nodded his head at Morgan's words before proceeding forward.

At the same time, the man would also look at the various deciduous trees here and there while leaving some inconspicuous marks every now and then. He seemed very professional...

In fact, everyone within the group was very professional, as if they had done something like this many times already; they wouldn't talk to one another at all while marching as they only used hand signals for communication.

Just like that, the group of eleven people gradually disappeared into the green temperate forest.

...

[A/N: I've misunderstood some concepts about monster races in the past chapters, so I replaced the term Kobold with Gnoll.. That means Gnoll (not Kobold) is a dog-humanoid hidden boss that Jeremy had defeated back in Normal Trial. Ref: Chapter 70]