Just like that, their killing efficiency skyrocketed.
More of the elementals could be culled now that they were facing a wall of six melee adventurers, turrets in the middle with rangers on either side.
Anya was busy picking off nestlings, while using the occasional throwing knife on the stray stick-ball.
Jay was leisurely slashing and throwing the odd unstable tooth, causing a few nestlings to miss their targets completely.
The extra help made the battle go much more smoothly, and without any people like the glaive guy, there were no issues.
Unknown to Jay and his human troops, adventurers in the other fields were watching them, some with jealousy and others simply wanting to learn.
“They still fighting? Yikes.”
“Oh… Jay’s not really that strong?”
“They all look so bored.”
“They’re not bored, they’re focused”
Adventurers gathered at the back of the field too, Paul having to hush them a few times.
The once-threatening wave of elementals was easy to deal with using the right formation, and their numbers plummeted.
The last stick-ball rolled towards the fearsome adventurers over many of the corpses of its own brethren.
*Shring~*
Finished with a single hit.
Jay and his formation looked around for a moment, waiting to see if there were any more enemies, not expecting the battle to be over so…quietly.
It was surprisingly easy.
“Hey, we did it…” the dagger girl said with a smile.
“GRAAAAAHHH!” Dan yelled, holding his axe in the sky.
Other adventurers simply caught their breath.
“Finally, I can go back to the dungeon.” Jay thought, not saying it out loud - he didn’t want to discourage anyone who thought this was some huge accomplishment.
“Thanks for trusting my orders” Jay said as he went over to look at the remains of the nest spore.
Some of the adventurers gave thankful smiles as he left them, a deep feeling of gratitude - It was because of Jay that they not only got more exp, but learnt some adventurer fundamentals: never panic, always plan, check on your team, be decisive, and don’t mind about looking weak.
Anya followed along, seeing what Jay was looking at.
Jay began to loot, leisurely casting his hand over the elementals, not really expecting much since no other adventurers were out there gathering loot.
“Thought so, nothing but exp.” he pursed his lips, approaching the nest spore.
Jay intended to learn from the slain creature - similar to his skeletons, it was a sort of inanimate creation. It was also in Jay’s nature to learn - at least now that he was a necromancer anyway.
Approaching the nest spore corpse, he crouched down and picked up some of the wood chunks.
“Hm. Can’t learn anything from this.” he glanced at the pile of hacked up wood.
Kicking some of the wood, he went back to the entrance of the field.
As he walked, he noticed the farmers in other fields had already started to gather the dead wood.
Jay watched for a moment as they formed it into large pyramid-shaped piles and then covered the outside with dirt.
“Hmm.. what are they doing..”
The farmers weren’t the only ones after the wood elemental corpses.
Similar to Jay, other adventurers were also checking over the treant hectopede’s dead bodies, looking at their antlers and strange jointed wooden legs.
Thankfully Paul was hanging around for a while, still looking after Peter and deciding if he should take him back to the association.
“Nice job mate. Probably the best group here today.” Paul nodded with a smile.
“Thanks, all in a day’s work.” Jay said casually, shrugging with a slight smile.
“Heh. Here, I saved this for you before other adventurers could get to it. You deserve it.” Paul pulled out a large pair of wooden antlers from his inventory.
“They’re not worth much, but they look kinda cool.” he said as he held them out.
“Oh cool, thanks.” Jay had a look at them before stashing them in his inventory.
The antlers were large and majestic, ending in threatening spikes. They were made from the incredibly dark brown wood like the rest of the treant.
Jay guessed they would probably take up the whole wall in his butchery, but he was uncertain though - perhaps the ceiling would be too low.
Such were the majestic antlers of a treant hectopede, which could lift a person in the sky as they gutted them.
Many adventurers were heading back to Losla now, and a few jealous adventurers glanced at Jay after receiving the gift from the guard - but they could say nothing; Jay and Anya had killed one of the treant’s by themselves, while their team worked together to kill the other two.
The extra adventurers in Jay’s field only came for the final wave of lesser elementals, so even they couldn’t say anything either.
As for the slain treant’s in other fields, adventurers began to squabble over who got the antlers, while others shook their heads - had they learnt nothing?
“Tch- who would want to party with someone who argues over such a large but cheap loot?” Jay thought as he watched them fight.
Many didn’t realise that life was not about winning one prize, but it was a series of prizes, and how you conducted yourself with one would determine if you were worthy to claim another.
Sure, most of the wingiest, childish adventurers would get some antlers today - but who would want to fight monsters with them after that? No one. They didn’t realise that less people would want to fight with them, resulting in less dungeon opportunities, and hence, less prizes.
Sadly, they were the last to realise, and by the time they did it would be too late - they would be far too underleveled to be of any use in a dungeon.
The adventurers in the right field were the best example of this attitude:
“Stop grabbing it!!”
“Give it to me, It’s mine!”
Another one just kept tugging at it senselessly.
Since they were all pulling on the treant antlers they were stopping anyone from even being able to cut them off. This was despite their guard being the one who killed all the treants.
Thankfully, it was about to come to an end as their guard's expression grew more and more bitter.
Soon enough, their guard let out a large sigh and walked towards them angrily. He was disgusted by their display, perhaps even ashamed.
“Back up.” he ordered, his voice filled with killing intent and threatening.
Like a pack of hyenas, they each stepped away from the corpse as a hungry lion approached.
*Shw-sh-shr-shw-shring!*
The guard’s sword made flashes of light as it danced through the treant antlers.
In a split second, the antlers were turned into wood chips before their eyes and their open mouths.
“Wh-WHY?!”
“My antlers…”
“You should’ve just given them to me!”
The guard did this to all the treant corpses in their field, and the adventurers looked as if they were babies that had their toys taken away. Some of their eyes turned red and watery, or full of bitter anger.
Adventurers looking on were chuckling at them.
“Heh. Good”
“Classic.”
“They should’ve learnt to share”
Everyone except those childish adventurers were smiling broadly. Despite no crime happening, it felt like justice had been carried out.
Finally the fussy arguing was over.
Even Jay shook his head with a smile seeking this, agreeing that they deserved it; their actions brought a sense of shame to all the adventurer's there - whether they liked it or not, they were a reflection of all the adventurers in Losla.
The best part was that they couldn’t complain. They had zero claim on any of the monsters.
Meanwhile, the farmers didn’t seem to care. They were all working diligently to create more and more piles of wood, and covering them in mud.
“Hmm…” Jay looked more closely as he watched.
