It was a mess. It took Nero and Wendy ten minutes, at most, to clear out most of the snakes, barely using any aether along the way. In fact, Nero was the only one using aether at all, and Wendy hadn't even done that. Yet if one were to observe their group, it would look like they had just experienced a massive assault by formidable foes. At least a dozen angry bears, or something along those lines.
Nero was genuinely bewildered by the performance. Kolar had given them combat training from a young age. That was a fact. They must have also received survival training. Surely most of them had their abilities much longer than him as well.
So why then had they all panicked so badly, and reacted so poorly?
Taylor, Charles and Henry stood unharmed, mostly because his flame had been protecting Charles and Taylor, while Henry must have avoided the whole fight. Glade, who Nero judged as the animal expert, was also fine. So was the hammer wielding boy who apparently had a healing ability.
That was six out of the twenty who were unhurt. The other two were the two scouts who had left their group. Almost everyone else had been bitten by a snake, or at least hurt in some way.
He refused to believe that so many of them were completely incompetent, which could only mean one thing.
The makeup of the teams had been extremely deliberate. They had purposefully put highly skilled individuals with those who lacked physical skills or combat awareness. That did not mean that they were incompetent.
After all, the army had not recruited all Neophytes, but a select few of them. That meant these other eleven recruits who had suffered tremendously in their first assault had skills outside of the realm of combat. The whole purpose of the team was to find a way to support each other so that they could survive situations that they weren't well suited for.
"The venom is not too strong," the healer said. "That means their lives are not in danger, but at least two of them are going to struggle to walk. It will be a while before they regain full control of their legs. If we can bring them back to camp, they can get better treatment, but that will effectively forfeit their mission."
Nero was in a tough spot. His entire team was unharmed, so he could move on. But if he did that, he would be abandoning the others, which would not reflect well on him. Especially since he was the one who gathered the teams.
"They have to choose whether you want to continue the mission or not," Nero said very seriously. "But regardless, we need to move from where we are right now. All the noise we caused will attract attention, not to mention the countless cut up snake corpses.
If they want to continue their missions, and we end up sticking together, then we have to accept the fact that we will be spending the night here. That means we also need to now look for shelter, as well as food and water."
Glade had his fists clenched as he struggled to come to an answer. It was clear that they would need help if they were going to continue, but at the same time, he could not bring himself to ask Nero for help like that. It would be putting him in more danger than he needed to face, and there was a huge chance that he wouldn't listen either way.
"This is all your fault," said a girl who was lying on the ground, holding her swollen leg. She had already been treated, which meant that the venom had been removed. But that did not eliminate the damage that was already done, and it would take some time to recover.
She looked up at Nero, with anger and resentment in her eyes.
"If you hadn't kept the scouts from exploring properly, they..."
Her words were caught when Nero suddenly brought his spear to her throat, his expression completely unchanged as he did so. It was as if to him, threatening her did not seem like a big deal at all.
"If the scouts had gone out alone, then they would not have had the advantage of numbers. They are too weak to survive the forest alone and that's a fact. They would have suffered, and we would never have been able to find them. Right now, I killed all these snakes and dragged your body out of the hole you threw yourself in.
I am the reason you're alive, and your own lack of awareness is the reason you're hurt. Don't blame others for your own incompetence. It's the fast ticket to keep yourself from improving, and getting yourself killed."
Nero looked down at her, like an adult instructing a child, then pulled his spear back.
"Everyone, grab one of the wounded, we need to get out of here. We can decide what to do next once we're in a safe space."
For once, no one argued with him. Even if they didn't agree, no one wanted to stay here in case the snakes came back. It was fortunate that the wounded weren't in too bad a condition. It was just that they couldn't control the leg that had been bit which meant that they had to hop on one foot.
In the case of the two most wounded recruits, they had to climb onto the backs of others. Glade and Charles filled that role.
With their speed considerably slowed down, twenty minutes later when they finally decided to stop, they hadn't gone as far as Nero would have liked, but there was no helping it - they had to rest.
During this time, he had already thought about what to do. Regardless of what their actual mission was, that was not the purpose of this exercise. Improving their teamwork was the real objective. In that case, instead of rushing to complete the mission, he would rather take it slow and figure things out.
A part of him also didn't want to abandon the others, though in his mind he kept telling himself he should prioritise his objectives over such notions.