My Roleplay System
Chapter 140: Conflict

Chapter 140: Chapter 140: Conflict

After walking east for a few kilometers, it didn’t take them long to enter the vicinity of the field.

Sensing the dense mana concentration in the atmosphere, Lake felt a little dizzy as he stepped through the invisible barrier that separated the field from the rest of the world.

Ever since he acquired the Mage role and unlocked the Magic Eye, his sensitivity to mana has increased, allowing him to sense just how dense the mana in a field is.

"Are you okay?" Kate asked after noticing Lake’s slightly furrowed brows.

"I’m fine. It’s just that the mana concentration here is a lot higher than I expected." Lake replied as he took a deep breath but almost retched immediately after.

’So disgusting...’

Unlike the mana in the Mana Gathering Formation, which was both pure and highly concentrated, the mana in the field was extremely dense and mixed with various other elements.

"Alright, we’ve officially entered the field, so everyone should proceed carefully from now on."

The pack of wolves we’re looking for is far to the east, so we’ll have to cover a lot of distance in a short time. I’ll lead the way and try to avoid most confrontations, so just follow me." After adjusting to the mana, Lake started to run ahead, and everyone followed behind.

"Sylph, Bramble, Iris, since this is the first time we’re working together, I would like to get a better grasp of your abilities than I currently have."

"Isn’t this the type of thing we’re supposed to discuss before leaving the stronghold?" Iris spoke with a slightly annoyed tone.

However, Lake couldn’t care less about Iris’ annoyance. "Originally, this team consisted of just me and Kate. I already know Kate and her abilities well enough. My plan would have been just fine with just the two of us. However, since you three joined, I also have to make some considerations."

"However, changing my plan to incorporate you three is a bit annoying. If I’m not satisfied with your abilities after hearing about them, I hope you’ll forgive me for asking you to sit out the following fight by flying in the sky."

Hearing Lake’s cold reply, Iris was deeply angered and was about to call out to Lake again; however, before she could, Bramble spoke up first.

"Well, since that’s the case, I’ll go first."

"W-Wah, Bramble! How could you be so submissive, he’s clearly insulting us."

"Haha, maybe that’s how you see it sister, but we also have to consider Lake’s perspective. We really did join his team out of nowhere, so asking us to sit out the following fight if we can’t keep up is his way of working with us."

Iris still had a twisted expression as she listened to Bramble’s explanation, but after a while, she seemed to have calmed down as she turned her gaze forward with a slightly annoyed look on her face.

Lake took a backwards glance at the pair of siblings as he felt that he now had a slightly deeper understanding of the two, "So what are your abilities then?"

"Sorry about that, I was a little distracted." Bramble continued to smile slightly, "I myself am a swordsman who specializes in swift maneuvers. I believe when I did the human test, my physique was determined to be around the level of a Mid Rank Martial Apprentice."

"Mhm, that’s good enough."

"What about you, Miss Iris?"

"Hmph, My physical strength is at the level of what you humans call the Martial Warrior Realm."

"!" Lake and Kate both had shocked expressions as they looked at Iris with wide eyes.

Lake knew that the fairies didn’t rely on mana like humans to boost their physical strength as their natural body was already much stronger than humans.

However, that wasn’t what shocked Lake the most. When Lake was in Practical Training class, he had seen Iris in a duel. At that time, her strength was only at the level of a Low Rank Martial Apprentice.

’Is she lying? I doubt it, the mission is too important for her to lie about something like that. Then did her strength increase during that time? Or, was she not using her full strength in the first place...’ As Lake thought of this, the way he looked at the group of fairies changed slightly.

"Is it just your physical strength or are you also as fast..." Kate asked a question, still wanting to clarify what Iris just said.

Even Romero, who was following closely, was shocked when he heard Iris’ claim so he perked up his ears, also curious about Iris’ answer.

"It’s just my strength, my endurance was around the level of a High Rank Martial Apprentice and agility Low Rank."

Kate’s body seemed to visibly relax when she heard Iris’ answer. She didn’t know how she’d feel if she had heard Iris say she was on the level of Martial Warrior with just her physical body.

"That’s fine too..." Lake also nodded his head with a thoughtful expression.

After hearing the two siblings’ physical prowess, he had no problem with adding them to the team. Although they might have some difficulty once his plan started, they should still be able to keep up.

Now there was only one left.

"And what about you, Sylph?"

Lake had been trying to ignore her as much as possible since they left the stronghold, but since she was strangely quiet today, he felt much more at ease.

If he had to choose whether he preferred the current silent Sylph over the one that kept pestering him and made him question his own intelligence, he would definitely choose the former.

"..."

"?"

However, after still not hearing a reply from Sylph Lake was slightly puzzled.

"Sylph?"

"Ah.. yes.. I’m..." Sylph’s voice seemed to fade with the wind, and even Lake had a hard time hearing here.

"Sorry, I didn’t quite hear that. Could you perhaps speak up?" Lake asked as he continued to run forward.

"I-I didn’t... get a..." Sylph’s face was slightly flushed as her eyes nervously danced around.

"You didn’t get a what?" Lake suddenly had a bad feeling as he frowned slightly.

’There’s no way, right...’

"Ah geez, I didn’t get a grade, okay! My physical strength was too low to be graded like the rest..." Sylph’s head was lowered as she looked extremely embarrassed.

Lake almost tripped when he heard what Sylph said as he stopped running and turned around to face Sylph with a look of disbelief.

Kate also had a shocked expression as she looked at Sylph.

Looking at Sylph’s embarrassed expression, Lake finally knew the real reason why she was so quiet today.

"...Then, what was the fitness index they gave you?"

"1.52...."

"Sylph... Is this why you didn’t want to tell us your test result..." Even Iris had a shocked look on her face.

"Ahhh geez, I don’t want to hear about it ok. It’s my biggest shame since coming to this world..."

Lake sighed as he watched Sylph’s embarrassed act . Although a score above 1.5 was pretty good for a new student, for Lake’s plans, she’ll be in a lot of danger if she were to fight with the rest of them.

"Sylph..."

"I-I can do other stuff besides fighting so don’t worry, I’ll try my best not to hold the team down!" Sylph looked a little desperate as if she was about to be abandoned.

Lake found her expression slightly amusing, but didn’t continue to agitate her.

"Fine, then you can spend the rest of the time while we’re running explaining what these other abilities are, but you are not to, under any circumstances, join the fight. Do you understand?"

"Y-Yes!" Sylph replied as her face lit up, returning to its usual luster.

However, this didn’t make Lake feel happy, instead caused it made him feel as if he had just made a big mistake.

....

The journey continued as planned and without incident.

Lake led everyone towards the grassland without stopping, all while avoiding all conflict.

The group was surprised when they noticed that they didn’t run into anything along the way, especially after hearing about the other students’ experience.

Thankfully, it didn’t take them long to reach the grassland as an open meadow revealed itself to them.

They came from the west, and far to the south, they could see the central piece of this Field, the bay.

Various hunters were walking along the shores and some even swam into the crystal clear water as hundreds, if not thousands of fish and sea monsters surfaced from time to time to attack them.

Everyone paused for a moment to take in the scenery.

"Wow... Is that what it’s like to hunt monsters?" Sylph, who had gotten considerably more talkative, asked with a bright smile.

"No, Myriad Bay is just a special case," surprisingly, Romero was the one to answer.

"Is that so?" Sylph looked over curiously.

"The bay in the field is home to hundreds of different species, each evolved with mana and with strong reproductive abilities. Usually, even if a thousand hunters came to hunt at the bay, and managed to kill, let’s say 50% of the population. In less than a week, that 50% would have been completely recovered with fresh new fish."

"Is it so magical?" Sylph’s eyes beamed as she listened to Romero with much interest.

"I’m not sure. I don’t really know much about Myriad Bay or Fields in general. I usually hunt in rifts myself."

Noticing the light in Romero’s eyes fade as he spoke, Lake thought for a moment before asking, "I thought the guardians weren’t supposed to help us?"

Romero, who looked a little depressed, was stunned for a moment before laughing slightly, "Haha, I won’t consider this helping as it is just general information. Besides, you aren’t allowed to go to the bay region anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I tell you or not."

Hearing this, everyone smiled before continuing through the grassland. In the distances to the northeast, they could already see the rough outlines of their destination; large hills covered in tall grass and several trees.

"So, Captain, can you let us in on more of the plan now that we’re getting closer?" Kate asked in a playful voice.

Lake rolled his eyes before speaking plainly, "Fine."

"Oh, you’re finally willing to talk?" Iris, who seemed to still be angry with Lake, spoke with a sarcastic voice.

Lake pretended like he didn’t hear her and continued speaking, "The wolves we’re looking for are just beyond those hills. There is a small cave that they use as home and that’s our destination."

"Do you know how strong these wolves are?" Bramble asked.

"The Alpha of the pack is a Peak Rank One creature, while the rest are a little weaker."

Hearing this, Kate’s eyes widened slightly while the others didn’t seem too disturbed.

"I’m surprised no one has hunted the wolf yet. A Peak Rank One creature usually sells for a pretty high price." She said with a thoughtful expression.

"Are you interested in selling it?" Lake asked with a smirk.

"Why would I sell it? It would be more beneficial to just send it to my guild and have them process it into some equipment to sell or have the chefs cook the meat into a tonic to help strengthen some of our guild members’ physique. I’ll get more money and a few extra uses out of it that way." Kate explained calmly.

"You really do have the making of a Guild Master, huh? It’s a shame though, our goal isn’t to hunt the wolf."

Hearing Lake’s reply, Kate frowned, "If we’re not hunting it, then what are we doing? You do remember this is an exam based on hunting, right?"

"Of course I remember, but before we can start hunting in earnest, we need to make some preparations first."

"And what exactly are these preparations?"

"It’s easier to show than explain."

"Hah, don’t tell me you expect us to follow you blindly into a wolf den?" Iris said, causing Lake to look over to her while he ran.

"!" Suddenly, Iris felt a soul numbing pressure descend down onto her, causing her to stop in her tracks.

Lake also stopped as he turned around, his majestic voice echoing loudly in her ears, "Listen here, Miss Iris. You don’t have to follow me if you want. Like I said before, just me and Kate are enough for this operation. If you want, you could sit this one out with Sylph in the sky."

Iris realized that it was Lake who was suppressing her as a look of displeasure appeared on her face.

"Hmph. Is this all you have?" As she spoke, Lake felt his King’s Aura bounce back off her.

He wasn’t trying to suppress her so he didn’t continue to deploy it, however, Iris on the other hand looked like she was ready to throw a punch.

Sylph was panicking when she saw the sudden confrontation between the two. This was especially so when she saw the invisible specs of light floating around Lake and Iris...

Rushing to Iris’ side, she grabbed onto her arm and held it down tightly.

"Sylph, let go. I’m going to beat this animal to the ground!" Iris had a scary expression on her face as she looked at Lake.

"N-No, you can’t! You absolutely mustn’t! No fights allowed between you two!" Sylph refused to let go of Iris’ arm.

With the strength difference between them, Iris could easily shrug Sylph off, but she seemed to be holding back for some reason.

The three of them stood there silently. Iris’ continued to stare at Lake with a murderous look while Lake looked back calmly.

Sylph was still holding onto Iris’ arm while the others just silently watched from a distance. Kate and Bramble seemed to be watching the show with interest while Romero just acted like air and pretended not to see anything.

He didn’t dare to get involved in the conflict between the two races.

"Tch," After a long time, Iris was the first to speak, "Sylph you could let go now. I won’t fight."

"R-Really?"

"Yes, and as for you, I really don’t like you, but I’ll work with you until this exam is over." Iris said as she glared at Lake, "But mark my words, after this exam, you and I are going to have a proper battle."

"I-Iris?!" Sylph was dazed when she heard Iris’ challenge.

Lake, on the other hand, was taking it all in a much calmer way, "Does that mean you’ll listen to my commands during this exam?"

"Tch. Only for Sylph’s sake, I’ll play along this time."

"Then a duel it is. We’ve wasted enough time already because of this. Let’s get going."

Everyone watched as the two started back walking with different expressions.

Romero had a dark expression as the words duel seemed to trigger an unpleasant memory of his.

Kate felt slightly disappointed but mostly relieved that nothing happened. If Lake had gotten into a conflict now with Iris, she felt like the rest of this exam would have been far more difficult.

As for Bramble, he had an amused gaze as he looked at the entire situation.

"Lake Egoven... Maybe he could tame that unruly sister of mine..." Bramble thought happily as he continued to follow behind everyone.