The noisy battlefield fell eerily silent in an instant, as if someone had pressed a mute button.

Only the nearby burning grass and the lingering metallic scent of blood proved that the fierce fight had just taken place.

Gauss came up to where Shadow and the other two were.

Aside from Shadow, Aria and Serlandul weren't in particularly good shape.

Several of Gauss's clay-king creatures had been smashed to pieces.

Those were unavoidable “casualties” in battle, but fortunately not true losses.

As long as he used clay magic, they could “revive.”

From the enemy's perspective, the spell was a little unfair: the foes fought with their lives, yet any wounds they dealt were real. Even if a clay creature was blown to bits, it could restore itself once it received mana.

"It's over."

Aria looked over the chaotic battlefield, put her hands on her hips, and sighed.

She had been ready to crawl into her tent and sleep.

After being tossed around like that, all drowsiness was gone.

Still, feeling the rapid influx of rank experience in her body, she couldn't bring herself to voice any real complaint.

This night raid, in terms of results, had been good for everyone on the team.

Aria felt she might be close to leveling up again.

Was it a little too fast?

She scratched her head.

Although the process had been dangerous, it hadn't been life-or-death.

Perhaps because Gauss was there, and because the scale of the monster attack had been relatively large?

Scanning the battlefield, the number of ordinary goblins left behind was countless, and many more had slipped away in the chaos.

There were more than a dozen elite goblins;

none survived except for that one goblin bat knight whose destructive power had been somewhat abnormal.

If a different bronze-tier adventuring team had faced this, they'd probably have died multiple times over.

Thinking from that angle, the large experience gains made sense.

Opportunity and danger always coexist.

With that thought, she looked at Gauss with gratitude and relief.

Thank you, Captain.

"Let's clean up the battlefield first."

Gauss gazed around and spoke.

With the fight over, the team still had a lot of work to do.

Clear the battlefield, pick up useful loot.

Strip valuable organs and tissues, pile the corpses and burn them in one place to prevent plague,

put out fires, take away luggage.

Gauss also had extra work: recovering goblin spiritual energy.

He moved through the battlefield, continuously absorbing the spiritual energy that still lingered in the air.

As he walked, the corner of his mouth pulled into a faint smile.

He couldn't really hold it back and showed the harvester's grin.

Can you imagine how much goblin spiritual energy he would reap from this sweep?

Besides the ordinary goblins, the elites were especially important.

Each cluster would cause his store of Goblin Spirit to swell.

Too bad...

The strength of a clay goblin was affected by many factors.

The quality of the clay material, the amount, the mana invested, the mana's quality, the amount and quality of spiritual energy.

But more and stronger goblin spiritual energy was beneficial.

In a single form, clay goblins would grow stronger, and he could split those spirits to create more clay goblins.

Maybe one day he could field an actual goblin squad—so long as he had enough mana, an undead army that would not die.

"Total monsters killed: 4,253"

He had just crossed the 4,000 milestone, and in an instant another two hundred-plus kills were added.

Too bad the battlefield had been too chaotic earlier;

he had to concentrate on those elite goblins, so some stragglers inevitably slipped by.

Still, gaining three hundred kills was already satisfying.

Most of those were contributions from his clay creatures.

Slow and steady;

you can't make a fat man in one bite.

Gauss looked at the next milestone target.

The next cumulative kill reward unlocked at 10,000 kills.

But between 4,000 and 10,000 there were smaller nodes at 6,000 and 8,000.

Gauss guessed those nodes would probably grant rewards too, but relatively smaller ones.

Besides kill counts, he had also gained a lot of rank experience this time.

The cup-shaped rank icon of the rank system inside him flickered active again as mana surged.

Recently he'd pushed his experience forward significantly;

this battle provided another big wave.

Level 4 wasn't far off.

Then level 5, and after that advancing into Master.

Watching himself grow step by step gave Gauss a deep sense of reassurance.

A level-5 professional was highly respected in most towns;

once you broke through to Master, it was a completely different world.

If an Elite professional was a town-level powerhouse, a Master professional was already a city-level force.

Not exaggerating, ordinary people—especially villagers who'd lived their whole lives in a village—might never see a Master in their entire lives;

such beings were like a different dimension of strength to them.

Still need to train...

By the time they finished processing the scene, it was deep night.

Gauss guessed it was the early hours before dawn.

Soon the sun would rise.

The four-person team stunk and had no desire to camp in place.

They found a small lake.

They split into two groups to clean themselves.

Gauss splashed clear, cold lake water over himself and watched dried blood slowly dissolve.

He didn't feel cold.

The temperature was just right—bathing there was comfortable.

He glanced curiously at Serlandul not far away.

With its clothes off, its body was smooth and glossy;

its lower half was a snake tail, but there was nothing visible beyond that.

So like real snakes, in non-special times its sexual characteristics were hidden internally and invisible externally?

From that perspective, were Serlandul's genes closer to snakes than to humans?

Interesting.

Perhaps because his light didn't hide, Serlandul soon noticed his stare.

It turned its head and looked at him in puzzlement.

"Captain, something wrong?"

"No." Gauss smiled and shook his head.

Serlandul gave him two strange looks, scratched its head, then resumed washing itself.

Its body was much larger than an average human's and required a bigger area to clean.

When Gauss wrapped a cloth around his waist and stepped out of the lake, the first sliver of yellow sunlight was already climbing over the treetops.

What a busy night.

...

In the afternoon, Gauss got up from his tent.

After a nap he felt energetic again.

Shadow had risen early;

when Gauss emerged from his tent, she was already sitting beside the campfire, roasting skewers of meat, a thin stream of smoke drifting up from the rack.

Gauss blinked and stared at her for a moment.

Noticing Gauss stirring, Shadow looked up and met his gaze.

Under her long straight black hair, her face didn't look all that mature—there was a faint, indefinable youthfulness.

Gauss was noticing her features for the first time.

He thought maybe the slight roundness in her cheeks gave that youthful impression.

Her eyes were a little narrow, shaped like the slender, upward-tilting curve of a phoenix, but large in size.

The mildly plump cheeks' innocence was offset by the beautiful, slightly aloof phoenix-shaped eyes.

They stared at each other for quite a while.

Afterwards Shadow hesitated a moment, then picked up a skewer that was already cooked.

"You want some?"

"Thanks." Gauss accepted without refusing politely and sat opposite her.

He was indeed a bit hungry—despite having eaten a lot before bed.

He opened his mouth, bit off a fatty chunk of meat—an entire skewer's piece went in.

He chewed thoroughly and swallowed.

"How is it?" Shadow asked without turning to look his way.

Hm?

Gauss raised his eyebrows, a look of surprise spreading across his face.

He wasn't surprised by what she asked, but by the fact that she had actually asked him for his opinion.

"It's pretty good. Have you done this before?" Though taken aback, Gauss gave a positive reply.

"No, first time." Shadow spoke sparingly even when initiating conversation.

"Then you're pretty talented." Gauss nodded.

"Thanks."

Gauss glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

He had the sense that Shadow had changed somewhat after last night's battle.

How to describe it? She seemed to have softened, taking the initiative to interact a bit.

Still, she didn't speak much.

But appropriate communication was necessary;

not everyone, like him, had extremely keen perception.

Too little interaction, combined with her cool appearance, could easily be misread as arrogant disdain.

They sat across from each other by the fire, quietly eating a few skewers.

Suddenly Gauss spoke up.

"If it's okay, can I ask about that shadow-transfer ability you used last night?"

He had wanted to ask the moment the battle ended.

But everyone had been busy sorting loot, so he hadn't said anything.

Now after a sleep, his mind and body were calm again.

He was truly curious.

That ability seemed terrifyingly powerful to him.

Because of her, Gauss had been able to fight with confidence.

He knew that even if a powerful enemy eyed them from above, Shadow could transfer him away before the crisis hit.

The transfer was so fast it could avoid most attacks.

If not for Shadow, the goblin bat knight's surprise first strike might have shattered his shield

and left him badly wounded.

That bat knight didn't attack often, but the destructive power of its thrown attacks was terrifying.

If Shadow hadn't been there last night, they couldn't have resisted safely.

Gauss had to admit that, after this, he had indeed considered recruiting her.

Until now, he had mostly thought of her as a temporary teammate: cooperate on this commission, then part ways.

But knowing she was already level 5, and that before they formally met she had always been solitary, it was clear she didn't like sticking with teams.

If she had wanted a team, a level-5 scout wouldn't still be without fixed teammates.

Anyway, he should learn more about her.

At Gauss's question, Shadow paused.

After seeming to think, she nodded.

The shadow at her feet quickly twisted and changed shape before Gauss's eyes.

It moved like a living being, continuously reshaping on the ground.

Finally it condensed into the outline of a mature woman, stood up, and waved to Gauss.

"You can control your shadow autonomously?" Gauss wasn't surprised.

He had noticed that ability even before last night's battle.

Shadow had the power to manipulate shadows.

She shook her head.

"Not just that. More accurately, my shadow has its own consciousness. I call her Shade."

She had said it before she realized she had.

After she spoke, she froze a moment.

Facing Gauss's question, she seemed unusually unguarded.

She normally disliked revealing details to others.

"Shade?"

Gauss nodded thoughtfully.

So the shadow had its own will—no wonder the shadow had seemed livelier earlier.

"Besides the transfer ability from last night, I can enter a shadow state. In that state, I can freely move between bodies and launch attacks on enemies."

As if overcoming some psychological barrier, Shadow added the explanation.

While she spoke she demonstrated.

The shadow at her feet quickly climbed over her body and completely enveloped her.

A dark, shifting apparition appeared before Gauss, like something without solid form.

He was curious.

"Can I touch you?"

Although it sounded odd, he was genuinely curious about Shadow's current state.

Shadow froze for a moment at his abrupt request, then lightly nodded.

The motion was so slight he might have missed it if he hadn't been watching closely.

With that permission, Gauss reached toward her midsection.

Sure enough, his fingers passed through her "body."

Those dense black particles parted around his skin.

He felt nothing.

Gauss withdrew his hand;

the black particles resealed as before.

Shadow quickly exited that state.

"You have no physical form in that state, yet can still attack—aren't you effectively invincible?" Gauss exclaimed.

"Not really. When I attack I return to a physical form." Shadow paused. "And there are attacks that can hurt me."

Gauss nodded.

Even so, the ability was still tremendously powerful.

After a moment more, Aria, Serlandul, and the four pixies also emerged from their tents one after another.

"Next we officially go search for the commission's target." Gauss said.

Although they weren't sure whether last night's goblins had been part of the Blackfang expedition, Gauss's purpose of staying nearby to mop up had been achieved.

Besides him reaching the 4,000-kill mark, the surrounding goblin tribes had been severely damaged in last night's battle, as if their spine had been broken;

they would likely take a long time to recover.

"But that goblin in the sky last night..." Aria hesitated. "We couldn't threaten it."

Gauss nodded.

"So we need a big ballista or a bolt cannon."