(This chapter isn't edited yet)

The captain was right. That was just the first group of monsters they would encounter, each group they had to fight was stronger than the previous one, especially the leader of each group, these monsters were growing in strength very quickly, to the point that after dealing with the sixth group, all the little monsters were already stronger than the alpha wolf Noah had dealt with.

With each group they had to face, Noah was able to deal with fewer and fewer smaller monsters, as each time he focused on the monster leader and left the rest to his team.

Against this last group of monsters, a blessed one almost died, after being cut by the great sword of one of the ghost knights. If they were ghost knights like the first ones they encountered, they would be easy to deal with, but the strength of these ghost knights was like other blessed Rank C.

So a battle of 14 blessed Rank C against 10 Rank C monsters besides the boss was much harder than the battles the group was used to, after all, by raiding strongholds in large groups, they were used to dealing with the problems abusing the numerical advantage, or strength advantage, but in a situation like this where the monsters are almost as strong and numerous as the blessed ones, these people started to get worried.

"Captain, are we going to make it to the castle...?

" The shy team healer asked with a bit of awe.

As the team's Healer, she was responsible for healing every member of the group, and as much as she was used to seeing wounds, it was getting to the point where with every battle that happened, the amount of blood and big deep cuts what she saw was getting much bigger.

The young girl began to worry that if this continued like this, in this fortress she might even lose one of her teammates.

The captain noticed the girl's concern and saw that she was not the only one, especially for wizards who were not very mobile and warriors who wore heavy armor, having to face these powerful monsters, some people began to doubt if they could do it. survive that stronghold.

The blessed Rank C who had absorbed many essences were less concerned, trusting their own strength and knowing they could fight on without much difficulty, but some who had reached Rank C only 1 or 2 years ago did not have this privilege.

The captain knew he couldn't force these people to risk their lives in this fortress, even though they could earn many rewards if they made it to the castle, but who would guarantee that the castle wouldn't have even stronger monsters?

So he decided to take a vote.

"To be fair, I don't intend to force anyone to do something they don't want to do, so I intend to take a vote. As long as the number of positive votes reaches 10, we will proceed, if 5 people feel uncomfortable continuing, we will just come back and follow the standard path of the fortress. All in agreement?

" The captain asked as he looked at the 14 team members, ignoring the blessed B Rank, as he was technically just a supervisor.

Seeing that everyone agreed, the captain began the vote.

Noah and the bearded warrior raised their hands immediately, the captain also raised his hand in favor, but after the three raised their hands, it was clear the discomfort of the rest of the team, until 30 seconds passed and no one else raised their hands.

The blessed sought benefits, wealth and power in the strongholds, but if that meant they would have to go to a place where the chance of dying was very high, they would give up and just go back to the easy path. It wasn't as if they were going to earn little money by completing this Rank C fortress the traditional way either, they didn't want to be greedy.

"Okay, if the majority wants us to go back to the standard path, then we will. If anyone still wants to continue alone, I won't stop either, after all, I'm just the captain of the team, not anyone's mother to make you do something .

" The captain joked, which made some blessed laugh and return to the peaceful atmosphere of the team.

He had just said that to lighten the mood, but as the blessed prepared to leave, Noah walked in the opposite direction as he said it.

"Since no one wants to go, I'll try to get closer to the castle and see if I can find anything. Take this imp with you and I'll always know where you'll be when I come back. If the imp is still by your side then it means that I'm still alive, don't worry.

"

This shocked the blessed, including the captain. Those people with an average age of 28 who had already been in Rank C for a few years were afraid of breaking into this castle as a group, and this kid who didn't look older than 20 was saying he would go alone?

Was this the representation of the famous metaphor

"The baby lamb does not fear a tiger

"?

But as the captain had already said that if someone wanted to go he wouldn't stop, it was too late to try to save Noah, if this young man wanted to put himself in danger out of greed, no one would stop him. As powerful as he was and had a space blessing, at best he would be able to teleport to escape, at worst he would just die and they would have to find another assassin for the group while their assassin recovered in the hospital.

At the captain's nod, Noah continued walking toward the castle alone after leaving an imp with the group.

But what no one knew was that underneath the helmet of Noah's armor, a mischievous smile crept onto his face.

'Finally I'm free, everything I find now will be mine, hehe.'

Noah had left a common imp with the group, ensuring that the three imps with abilities stayed with him so he could feed these three imps with as much essence as possible.

He noticed that in the last groups of monsters that the team killed, the amount of essences increased even more, to the point that in the last group, which had 11 monsters, the team got 4 essences, much more than they could find in the whole fortress following common path.

'I won't need to give any more essence to anyone.' Noah thought with satisfaction.

Please read the author's notes down here! he he he :3 ↓↓↓