73 A New Reason To Live (1/2)

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.