Chapter 27: How Can You Build a Good Team with People Like You?

“R-really? That’s great… You really are a trustworthy friend.”

Peiya couldn’t think of any better words to praise her. She was just truly happy from the bottom of her heart.

It feels so good… not having to worry about being abandoned.

“I want more strawberry cookies~”

Maybe because her mood improved, her appetite also got better.

As for things like her “corruption level” increasing, compared to filling her stomach, it didn’t really matter.

Once she got enough energy, she would still be a strong and reliable person.

As for other problems, she would leave them to the Witch’s Heart. Right now, she just wanted to eat sweets until she was full.

Elise shook the empty cookie box, and only a few crumbs fell out.

“There’s none left. If you want more, I can go buy some.”

“Okay~”

The two of them walked along the street. Peiya was quite familiar with this area. There were many inns nearby.

Most of them were for adventurers to rest. After traveling all day, people were often too tired to go home, so they would just stay at an inn for the night.

Compared to other places in the kingdom, the inns near the Adventurers’ Guild were already quite cheap.

Just as Peiya was thinking about getting more desserts, Anna walked out of a nearby inn.

She was the one who insisted she would never stay in an inn. But when night came and she couldn’t get a carriage back to her mansion, she had no choice but to stay there.

Standing next to her was Lisa, who looked extremely tired. Her once beautiful purple hair now looked dry and dull.

Because Lisa had drawn the map wrong, Anna didn’t allow her to rest. She had to fix the map before she could sleep.

After all, once they returned and rested a bit, they would need to quickly go after the Ice Bear King.

Competition in the guild was fierce. Anna would never allow someone else to take the prey she had chosen.

“I’m so tired… Anna, can you go buy me something to eat?”

“Buy it yourself. Don’t you have legs?”

“I spent the whole night drawing maps for you. Even if I didn’t do well, I still worked hard. And now I’m so tired I can barely walk, I might faint on the road.”

“Tch, useless. What do you want?”

“Dessert… like a chocolate waterfall cake, or vanilla mousse. At worst, just bring me a strawberry milkshake.”

Anna looked at Lisa strangely. Seeing her in such a messy state, she couldn’t help but twitch her lips.

“You’re really ordering me around now? Want me to bring you nothing instead?”

“No, no! Cookies, just cookies and water are fine.”

Faced with her miserable situation, Lisa finally gave up her last bit of pride.

When Peiya was still in the team, she would wake up to delicious food every day.

But now, all she had was Anna’s cold attitude.

Holding a pen, Lisa looked like her soul had been drained. She had become thin and weak.

She never imagined that drawing maps would be so difficult.

It was almost impossible for her.

Before, she thought all you needed was a pen and a ruler.

But now she realized… even with those, it was useless.

Her mind felt foggy. She thought she understood many things, but in reality, it wasn’t like that at all.

First of all, the existing maps were incomplete. To get a full and accurate map of the area, they needed to go to the Holy Library under the Church.

And even entering required special permission.

Knowledge was something tightly controlled by the Church. It wasn’t easy to access.

Back then, to resist this control, the king established magic academies for the poor.

He encouraged them to desire knowledge, then told them that knowledge was locked away by the Church.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to teach. It was that knowledge was “sealed.”

So they could only teach practical combat skills and basic support abilities.

Talented students would be selected to join the royal knights and work toward becoming part of the legendary Holy Knights.

The rest, like them, ended up in the Adventurers’ Guild, forming teams and taking jobs to survive.

Because of this, many adventurers had complicated feelings about the Church. Not exactly hatred, but definitely not liking it either.

And Lisa was one of the students who didn’t make it.

She only knew very basic magic and barely passed her alchemy classes.

Of course, she didn’t realize how weak she actually was.

Since she rarely studied, she followed the logic, ‘If I don’t read books, I won’t know how bad I am.’

And so, she continued confidently down a foolish path without looking back.

Now, asking her to design a map was almost impossible.

Especially since this time, they were dealing with the Ice Bear King where in a place with very complex terrain.

On the way back, she had already heard many people talking about the Ice Bear King.

As the full moon approached, the Adventurers’ Guild had started quietly releasing some hidden information.

The night of the full moon is the time when monsters become the most active. At that time, magic power reaches its peak, and monsters, attracted by it, rush out like moths to a flame.

If there is a boss-level creature nearby, some monsters will gather together and follow that leader. This can cause a whole area to be occupied by monsters.

That makes it extremely difficult to deal with them.

Unfortunately, adventurers are usually the ones who have to handle these waves of monsters. If the kingdom’s army had to do it, they simply wouldn’t have enough people.

In a way, these adventurers are like people risking their lives. To avoid going hungry tomorrow, some of them are willing to fight even if it means risking death.

Forming teams of three or four people, or even larger groups, is just to increase the chance of survival.

These thoughts slowly came back to Lisa’s mind. Before, she had never really thought about them.

Because in the Dawn Guild, there had never been any deaths.

There were a few times when someone almost got separated from the team.

But with one buff from Peiya, that person would run faster than a rabbit.

Now that her memories returned, Lisa finally realized…

Adventuring can get people killed.

This made her feel a lot of pressure. Even if she found the right place next time, it didn’t mean things would go smoothly…

Especially something like drawing maps. She remembered that Peiya used to draw tunnel maps.

But that kind of knowledge? She had already “returned” it to her dear teacher back in school…

Her brain basically showed ‘knowledge not loaded.’

That was why she had spent the whole night drawing maps.

“Ahhh! Anna, I don’t want to draw maps anymore! Why don’t you find someone else to do it?”

“No. What if they leak information about the Ice Bear King? Lisa, are you trying to slack off while getting paid?”

Lisa’s expression became awkward after being exposed. She froze for a moment, then pushed the task to Stella beside her.

“Vice captain, you do it. You’ll be on the front line anyway, I’ll just follow you.”

Stella rolled her eyes.

Make her do work? No way.

“I still need to practice my sword. Lisa, I believe you can finish this task perfectly. After all, I don’t believe someone I chose would lose to Peiya.”

“You!?”

Lisa knew exactly what she meant. Practice sword?

What sword practice?!

It was just an excuse to be lazy.

Her greatsword had already rusted so much it was almost just decoration. The last time they went on a mission, it was Peiya’s rock barrier that stopped a charging minotaur.

And Stella? She was completely useless.

She only got the vice captain position because she had some connection to a knight family.

And now she was acting all proud because of it.

“What? Are you saying you’re worse than Peiya?” Stella casually threw out another insult, completely calm.

“No way! How could I lose to someone like him? He’s just a low-level servant! Just wait, I’ll go to the Holy Library today and check the information. I will never lose to him!”

“Then I don’t need to buy you cookies anymore, right?” Anna said while getting ready to go out.

She had been delaying on purpose, waiting for Lisa to change her mind.

“I do! Keep them for me to eat tonight.”

Lisa was full of anger. Worse than Peiya?

But when someone questions whether you have real ability, you better actually have it.

Clearly, this time, Lisa wasn’t very confident.

After Lisa left, Anna looked at Stella.

“Do you not have anything to do lately? Planning to just stay here all day and do nothing? I didn’t recruit you to sit around.”

As the leader, Anna felt she had to say something.

“I’m following my knight’s code. There’s a knight exam coming soon, and I need to attend. I want to take leave in advance, just seven days.”

“Seven days? Why not just take a whole month off? And that exam you mentioned, isn’t it the one where you asked Peiya to forge a weapon for you to cheat last time?”

“Yes.”

Stella answered casually, picked up an apple, and took a big bite.

“But the sword you used last time is already rusty, right? Are you really fine?”

“I’ll just polish it.”

“Fine.”

Looking at her useless teammates, Anna felt very frustrated.

A mage who couldn’t even draw a correct map.

A “knight” who didn’t even swing her sword once a day.

Why were all her teammates like this?

It wasn’t like this before.

Seriously…

How can you build a good team with people like this?