Why was he doing this? Nero pondered the question for a brief moment. Gathering everyone had started out feeling like a good idea. It even paid off, when the size of their group drove away small animals, such as the martens. But the situation quickly devolved.
Now he was doing it because it was good experience. The increased burden did not daunt him, nor did the thought of the increased difficulty. He just wanted to use this current situation to derive as much experience as he could, and improve as fast as possible.
"I'll give you all five minutes to decide amongst yourselves," Nero said to the onlookers. "After that, if you have not come to a decision, then we will be moving on by ourselves."
Then Nero turned to his own group, and pulled Charles to the side.
"How come you stopped attacking the snakes?" he asked straightforwardly. He did not sound interrogatory as he questioned him, nor was he looking at Charles critically. It was as if he was just asking a general question.
"In the beginning I did attack, but my explosions weren't doing a lot of damage to them," he explained. "Once a majority of the snakes were revealed, I stopped to conserve my aether in case the situation changed. Although my ability is useful, it also consumes a lot of aether. I cannot keep using it for long."
"I recall you only caused three explosions," Nero commented. "If we were in a critical situation, about how many more of those could you pull off?"
Ordinarily, this was a very invasive question. But since they were in a team together, bound to face potentially dangerous situations, this was one of the few situations where it made sense to ask such questions.
"Eight explosions is my maximum," he said with a tightness in his tone that Nero ignored.
"Do you have any idea what Henry was doing?"
"Making sure that nothing else approached us while we fought. Although he messed up a bit when he missed the snakes, he is usually very good at spotting others."
Nero nodded, then turned to Taylor.
"Your augmentation was very useful. How long can you keep them running? And can you boost strength and defence at the same time, or is it an either or situation?"
"Both, and each lasts about five minutes. I can do it a few times, but if I have to do both for each person, then maybe I'd be able to augment five or six people at most before I'm out of aether."
"Alright. I'm making a few changes to our formation, be sure to inform Henry when he comes. Staying in a line is a mistake, given our environment, when we make contact with a foe we will spread out. One person has to stay with Taylor at all times since she can't fight, and that will mostly be Charles.
Based on the number of enemies we're fighting, this might change, but mostly we'll try to keep only one attacker out, and will keep rotating. That includes Henry. If Wendy is the one attacking…"
Nero changed his strategy to be slightly less aggressive, because he realised that not all his team members could fight, and if any of them got wounded it would seriously slow down their progress. By ensuring that only one person engaged at a time, two combatants were left open to help anyone who might need it.
"Are we really going to help all of them do their missions?" Taylor could not help asking, once Nero was done.
Even Charles looked at him questioningly. He had not voiced the question himself because they agreed to let Nero lead, and he really didn't want to get caught up in a tantrum thrown by one of the great families. It would be best to keep his head down and just get through this. But it wasn't as if he was looking forward to the extra work.
"What is the point of our mission? To assassinate a cursed beast? No, it's to test the strengths and weaknesses of our team so that the army knows what to focus on when they train us. As such, the more we experience, the more information they'll have to determine our weaknesses with. Plus, we'll also get some experience in what it's like working with other teams.
So far, I can't say that it's anything special, but that's because everyone is just starting out. But it's better to make mistakes now and learn from them, than make them later and die from them."
Although he was smiling as he said the last part, as there was no need to intimidate Taylor, it gave her chills nonetheless.
"Umm, does that mean we'll be spending the night together?" she asked, her voice becoming quieter and quieter as she said each word.
"If everyone agrees to follow my orders, most definitely. I'll try to finish our own mission today, so we can do the rest tomorrow morning and make our way back. But either way, we'll have to spend the night here."
Taylor only nodded, but as soon as Nero turned around she did a small fist pump, her gaze fixed on Nero's broad back. Who knew she would enjoy getting drafted so much?
Nero waited until Henry came back, having discovered a flowing stream nearby, before he turned to the group once more.
"What's it going to be?" he asked, setting his spear beside him like a walking stick. But even though his voice had returned to normal, the intensity of his figure remained. No one had the guts to accuse him of blackmail anymore, or for their failures.
"Will you… really help everyone complete their mission?" one of the recruits asked hesitantly.
"I won't do anyones mission for them. But I'll escort everyone to the location of their missions. If you still can't complete it, then that'll be on you."
The recruits looked at each other. No matter what, they didn't want to fail their first mission, and so, albeit reluctantly, everyone agreed to listen to Nero's orders. At least, that is what they claimed, for now.