[A/N: This bonus chapter is dedicated to PancakesWitch for gifting me a Castle! Thanks a lot!]
The corpses of the Adventurers were collected once the battle ended, while the rest was either stored or disposed of immediately.
Mercenaries were natives of the Origin Expanse. Yet, Michael couldn't extract nearly as much from them as monster corpses provided.
He was not sure why that was the case, but it was a fact that Mercenaries didn't drop great loot, and space was tight after the second and third army of 3,000 Adventurers and Mercenaries had been obliterated.
Using the Untamed Jungle, his army, and the Blood Oath Demon Monkey to the extreme, fighting 3000 Adventurers and Mercenaries wasn't an issue.
Michael initially thought that he would encounter his first Tier-3 Awakened among those armies, but no Adventurer in the three small armies was at the 3rd Tier or even close.
That was surprising yet not.
"They're testing the waters with the weakest participants," Liopham voiced out his opinion when they finished cleaning the battlefield, and the other Forest Elves agreed.
"I think they want to see them dead," Mika said nonchalantly.
His words attracted the attention of the people around him, causing him to add awkwardly, "That's my guess. I think the stronger participants don't want to share the rewards of the Jungle Expedition with the weaker participants. The more they can earn the better…and it's not like our opponents were strong until now.
We faced less than five casualties, and that was also mostly due to strikes of misfortune."
Even though it felt a little bit weird to consider Mika's words true, there was definitely a possibility that he was right. Greed was not only a trait of humans but of most intelligent races. It was something many felt at one point in their lives, some more often than others.
"Maybe, you're right," Lilica agreed quietly. She had witnessed first-hand how terrifying greed could be.
In fact, she fell victim to her own greed twice since she awakened. It was not something she was proud of, but she could understand the train of thought Mika pursued.
"I think they might weed out their weaklings while collecting information. By telling them to collect information, the survivors will return with information while the shares of the dead will go to the living. It's a scummy strategy, but it plays in our favor. We removed 9,000 opponents in exchange for five lives," She said, glancing over to Michael to see what was going on in his mind.
The others looked fine, some were even happy that they defeated so many opponents with close to no casualties. However, Michael couldn't feel like this.
Of course, he was satisfied with the results of the fights. It was great that they didn't lose many men and women fighting the members of the Jungle Expedition.
But Michael also took into consideration that the strongest forces of the Jungle Expedition would be informed about the tactics Michael and his people had utilized to fight. A few Adventurers and Mercenaries were bound to escape mid-battle, and the information they forwarded to the stronger forces would turn into a big problem for future battles.
"We need to deliver an additional blow…this is not enough…"
Michael didn't speak loudly, but everyone heard him clearly.
The others didn't think that it was necessary to travel through the Untamed Jungle and deal with the two armies on either side of them today. Rather than going all out immediately, some believed that they should preserve their energy and prepare for the next day.
"How about we--…" Lilica began, just for Michael to raise his hand.
She was silenced in an instant.
"They will learn of our tactics as long as we leave behind a single survivor…and I'm not certain that we killed all of them. Some must have gotten away," Michael explained before he added, "They will find out about Sun Demos and his underlings, and they will make plans to counter us next time."
"We have Tiara, and the others, who're curr--…" Liopham began, but Michael shook his head before the young Forest Elf could finish.
"We have Tiara, but we need to give our all and make use of the tactics we have as long as they work fine."
Michael stayed firm on his opinion. He was not being adamant but he couldn't agree with the others.
It was obvious that they had to rest. Fighting three huge battles and running around all day had taken a huge toll on their minds and bodies. Nonetheless, he could not ignore the fact that they had a huge advantage right now.
With that in mind, Michael began to extract the corpses that had amassed inside his War Rune's storage space.
After defeating three small armies with 3,000 members each, Michael collected a total of 700 corpses from Adventurers. He extracted them one by one to gather a total of 2914 SoulStar Fragments and five Soultrait Symbols.
Then he looked at the EmeraldLeaf Adventurer team with a faint smile.
"If you're too tired, how about I give you some motivation?" He asked mysteriously while moving the five Soultrait Symbols in front of the Forest Elves.
Their War Runes went crazy in response to Michael's simple move. Several streams of white energy shot out of their War Rune, desiring to devour the Soultrait Symbols and fuse new Soultraits. However, Michael didn't allow that.
He moved back while his smile widened.
"I know that you guys have been confused as to where my Soultraits come from, and how my Soultraits are constantly getting stronger. In a few weeks, you guys would have figured it out either way. So…I thought I might as well stop this charade and show you guys what I'm capable of."
Michael didn't want to keep lying to the Forest Elves. However, that was not the only reason why he revealed the power of the Extraction Soultrait.
He wanted to clearly demonstrate how big their advantage would be if they killed more Adventurers today. It required only 900 weak Adventurers – most being Tier-1 – to harvest a total of five Soultraits and 2900ish SoulStar Fragments.
The SoulStar Fragments were enough to upgrade one Soultrait to 5-Star. That was a great deal, not only for human Lords but for most races.
Only some of the strongest races didn't think of 5-Star Soultraits as rare and extremely powerful.
Killing the remaining 6000 invaders inside the Untamed Jungle meant that they were likely to harvest 2000 SoulStar Fragments in addition to 2-3 Soultrait Symbols. Not only was that worth the effort and danger, but it felt like a 'must-do' task.
Michael knew that very well, but he had hoped to keep himself unaffected by the influence of greed. However, that was near impossible.
He was not a saint, and he never intended to be one. He was greedy. A glutton, quite literally.
As much as he could devour food in every dining session, he devoured in the Origin Expanse – in the form of SoulStar Fragments and Soultraits. He would never feel full. That was something his heart could tell him.
His greed was insatiable.
He didn't want to share his greed knowing that it was not healthy.
Yet, Michael also knew that the Forest Elves would find out his secret sooner or later.
Thus, he might as well give them an early present, and a taste of the fruit they should have never tasted.
