BXBX NOVEL Chapter 73: A New Reason To Live
73 A New Reason To Live
Moby was on his knees, looking at the ground with an empty and blank expression, tears falling down his face.
Natalia was still on her two feet, closing her eyes, looking away pretending to be hurt.
"No… Haley… You were a really good friend. Why did this unfortunate accident have to happen?" She grieved.
Travis, who was standing at the back of the group where no one could see him had a completely blank expression, trying his best to look shocked. However, a small barely visible smirk was on his face which quickly disappeared into a more serious expression.
Jay was on his knees, smashing the ground under him like a lunatic, screaming as loud as he could with a seemingly never-ending stream of tears falling from his eyes. He was the only one that was truly grieving for Haley. Everyone else had their own reason for pretending.
"HALEY!! HALEY!!! NO!!! YOU CAN\'T BE GONE!!! IT WASN\'T MEEE!! I STILL LOVE YOU!! I NEVER GAVE UP ON YOU!! WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?? WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT YOU TRIPPED!!" Jay shouted at the top of his voice.
"Wait… was it really my fault? Was it because of my words that you went off in anger? Is it really my fault that my own crush died right in front of my eyes… I was just trying to help… I didn\'t deserve this… It\'s all his fault! It\'s his… He stole her away from me with his non-existent charm… none of this would have happened if it weren\'t for him… He ruined everything… I\'ll fucking kill him… Heh… heh… he\'s dead! But now… I will bide my time to make sure I can choke the life out of him..." Jay crazily mumbled to himself in a barely audible tone.
Even with Moby\'s enhanced senses, he was still unable to properly hear Jay\'s words. Even when he focused on it, it just sounded like random gibberish so he paid it no heed.
\'Why is he even simping for a girl that literally spat in his face and said that she wanted him dead?? I can never understand that. Is he a masochist that gets off at that kind of thing? I never took him for the type,\' Moby questioned.
Suddenly, a swarm of red, blue, green, and brown slimes emerged from the forest.
"Enemies are here!! We must have alerted them! Everyone, get ready to fight!! They are only high E ranks!!" Natalia screamed.
\'This damn Jay and his senseless howling alerted them. At least it\'s free XP.\' Moby thought, trying his best to pretend to regain his composure to fight the slimes.
There were around 50 slimes in total. They were just a big blob of jelly-like substance with a glowing core in the middle, allowing them to be clearly seen even in the darkness of the night. They moved around with short hops that gave them a decent burst of speed. Each colour slime controlled a different element. Green controlled wind, blue controlled water, brown controlled earth, and red controlled fire.
Moby just shot out a barrage of energy attacks, taking out many slimes at a time, targeting their cores in a meticulous way.
Travis took a few jumps back, hopping from tree to tree, dodging all of the slime\'s attacks and firing back with his own arrows.
Jay on the other hand was still on his knees, motionless in the middle of the battlefield.
"Hey! Jay! We can use a little help!! I know that you are still really depressed but now is not the time to stay like that!" Natalia said, shielding him from a barrage of attacks that were headed his way.
This made Jay slowly lift his head, look into the sky before standing up and wiping away his tears. He had found a new purpose in life and there would be no way he would allow himself to die like this.
He joined the fight, helping his teammates win.
Although the slimes themselves were weak, the sheer amount of them was almost overwhelming. They were extremely slow, but at the same time really tanky and dished out a lot of damage.
The fight lasted almost an hour and drained the team out of all their mana forcing them to go back to their base to rest. They only sustained minimal damage which is good because they now lack a healer.
Of course, Moby had a really high demon regeneration and Natalia\'s armour had a boost to regeneration as well so it was not a big deal for them. But, for Jay and Travis, it was a completely different story.
They both had a few regeneration potions that healed their body after a 3-hour nap which was really impractical compared to having a healer.
Natalia cashed in the bodies of all the slimes and the body of the Lycan which still had the dissolved corpse of Haley on top of it.
During their fight with the slimes and walk back to the cave, Jay was staring daggers at Moby who was completely oblivious.
Moby thought that Jay posed no threat to him at all so he did not pay a lot of attention to him. He still wanted to gain the favour of his group so he tried his best to comfort the grieving Jay with no result making Moby come to the conclusion that he must still not be over what happened.
After a small rest, the group went out for more hunting. In total, they killed 10 D ranks, 5 E ranks and 1 C rank this didn\'t include the slimes, the bear, and the Lycan that they cashed in earlier in the day.
All in all, they gained 1,088 points.
In total, they had 1,731 points.
Although 2 of their team members had already died, their score on the leaderboard had yet to be deducted which really confused the group. They should have negative 269 points after the 2000 point penalty. They concluded that it must be that the deductions are not made until the end of the exam or that they just forgot to deduct their points which was highly unlikely. So, this made them realize that the leaderboards were not entirely accurate and they needed to try harder in order to catch up to any possible group ahead.
On the leaderboard, they lost their first place and dropped all the way down to 3rd place. Right behind team Abby and Alex who were at 1st and 2nd respectively. Team Alex had 1,910 points while team Abby was at a staggering 2,560 points. Team Nags who was still in 4th was fairly far behind the other teams with only 1,360 points.
Moby was expecting this result as he was barraged with XP notifications all day to the point that he told Avilia to disable notifications on XP shared kills.
He just levelled up today and he is already close to another level up. He had already assigned his new stat points to mind. He now has 70 mind, only 3 level ups away from getting the new skill at 100 mind.
The fact that their team was shown in 3rd made Natalia fairly angry. But, she tried her best to keep her emotions under control. She could not accept that Jayden\'s team was ahead of hers.
She explained the sudden increase in points from the other groups compared to the first day as just them trying to find good hunting grounds and to set up their bases on their first day.
She wanted to Move out of the area as most of the beasts in this region of the forest were either too strong or too weak. The group was not expecting the exam to be this hard as it was supposed to be just practice. Moby included.
It was now 9 pm and the group prepared to go to sleep.
Moby wanted to go talk to Jay who seemed like he has yet to get over what happened. But as soon tried to get close to him he turned away signalling him that he didn\'t want to talk.
Moby volunteered to take the first shift for the night watch in order to talk to his group about what happened.
He sat on a rock outside his team\'s cave and called both his family members using his mind link.
They both answered instantly just like Moby expected.
He explained to them about his new evolution and about everything that happened during the day with Natalia and the death of Haley, their healer. He kept the part about assigning sins out for now as he found it unimportant and meaningless to talk about before his next evolution when it will actually be useful.
"Congratulations on your evolution and newfound strength my lord! Exactly as expected from you!" Abby exclaimed.
"Wait...Ohhh!! So that explains the random surge of energy I experienced! It\'s from killing the goblin queen!" Jayden realized.
"I felt the same too! My lord is indeed an incredible tactician!" Abby said in a happy tone.
"By the way Jayden, I saw you transform into Haley when we were taking care of Nathan. How do you know her?" Moby asked with curiosity.
"Oh, her family is pretty close to mine. I\'ve talked to her a few times and I found it insufferable. She and I just could not get along no matter what. I tried to get friendly with her but she always looked down at me like I was somehow beneath her. This was around when I was 5 or 6 before I started to push everyone away. People like her are what distorted my views of the world. I only transformed into her because I heard that she was a really good healer and that\'s it." Jayden explained.
"I see… Well, at least she\'s dead now! It was such easy XP!" Moby said with a chuckle.
"XP? Do you think this is a video game? I guess the energy we get from killing is similar to XP in games. It\'s a nice way of visualizing it!" Jayden said with a cute giggle.
"Anyways, how was your day Abby?" Moby asked, trying his best to change the subject.
"It was great my lord! I killed so many low-class D rank beasts! That\'s the best way to farm! The school\'s point system is really stupid! D ranks go from a power level of 2500 to 6000 and they all give the same amount of points! Same goes for all the other ranks but I feel like farming low D ranks is the fastest way of gaining points. They are quick to kill and are safe for the entire team to hunt! I found a hot spot that has many low D rank beasts and I\'ve been farming it all day! My team absolutely loves me even though at times they get spooked out from the strategy you told me about! I believe that I am very fit for a leader role! I hope I prove worthy of becoming one of your generals in the future my lord!" Abby explained.
"Don\'t worry about it! I\'m sure you will!" Moby said in a kind and cheerful tone.
"Jayden, how was your day as well?" Moby asked.
"Things are still not great between me and Alex but I\'m sure I\'ll get there with him sooner or later. I\'ve also been guiding my team over to your team\'s direction. They do not find anything suspicious about it so far. My team had a few close calls while hunting but no one has yet to die. Also, for nearly the entire day, I felt a weird feeling in my head. It\'s like there is a missing hole that I need to fill with Demon Energy. I didn\'t want to do anything before asking you about it. So… what should I do?" Jayden asked.
\'That\'s her evolution indicator. If she feeds demon energy into that empty feeling in her head, she will evolve.\' Avilia explained.
\'Yeah, I thought as much,\' Moby replied.
"Don\'t worry about it! All it means is that you are now also ready to evolve! If you fill that hole with demon energy, you will initiate your evolution from a lesser demon to a normal demon. Make sure you are alone when you do it as it will take at least 5 minutes to finish. Last time you evolved from a human to a lesser demon you were unconscious meaning you didn\'t feel the pain that goes into the evolution process. I will warn you now, the pain will be like nothing you ever experienced in your life… Abby can confirm," Moby explained.
"Yes, indeed. My lord is right." Abby added, confirming Moby\'s words.
"I see! That\'s great! I can now finally evolve! I can finally get a lot stronger!! I\'ll find a good time and place to do it! Also, don\'t worry about me! I\'ll be fine! I\'m sure I can take the pain!" Jayden said with clear confidence.
"Yeah, I believe you also can!" Moby said with a smile, cheering her on.
"Anyways, I think this will be all for our discussion today! I\'ll call you again around the same time tomorrow! Good night!" Moby said, letting his family say their goodbyes before closing the mind link.
Moby was really tired from all the hunting and work he had done for the last 2 days. He has yet to sleep for the last 48 hours. So, he decided to lie down and relax until his guard shift is over so he can finally go to sleep.