Diana didn’t hesitate for even a second after hearing the urgent tone of his question.

“From the battle just now, I can only ascertain that the Iron Mantises have a defense that is far tougher than any beast that I have ever encountered before. It might not compare to the panther we fought before, but it is still enough to give any of our weapons a run for their money. Therefore, attacking from a distance wouldn’t work at all. All the projectiles, even the high caliber bullets would basically ricochet off of the metallic skin of the beast. Moreover, close quarters combat wouldn’t be beneficial to us either. No matter what we do, we wouldn’t be able to handle the beasts in close range due to its sharp scythe like arms. The agility with which the beast is able to move those things is beyond ridiculous. I was barely able to see them swinging those gigantic scythes even with all my focus on it. Since we can’t cover the gap in agility between the humans and the Iron Mantises, it is better to avoid them altogether if we want to avoid any casualties.”

Zach heard the entire report while nodding from time to time to show his understanding regarding the current situation. He needed to know all the bits and pieces regarding the Iron Mantises that he had to kill in order to complete the quest.

The leader of the other group was not at all satisfied with how Zach was trying to deal with the matter. She felt that Zach was far too egoistic to retreat in front of his people even though he was not thoroughly equipped to deal with the threat they were facing. She hated this kind of people the most that were unable to distinguish fact from fiction and jeopardized the lives of the others due to their folly.

She knew better than anyone the strength of the Iron Mantises since she had been fighting them far longer than Diana and her men did. She knew all the things that Diana had just reported to Zach but had kept quiet in order to understand the type of person her savior was. As a result, she found him to be utterly annoying and incapable of leading his people. She even wondered why an excellent person like Diana was willing to follow his orders.

When she became sure that Zach was an idiot and would eventually lead them all to their deaths, she couldn’t remain quiet any longer. She turned towards Diana with an annoyed look and advised her to ditch Zach.

“I am telling you that the Iron Mantises aren’t some random beasts that you might have encountered before. They are far stronger than you have imagined. They aren’t something you can deal with just because you managed to gather some information about them. There are no apparent weak points otherwise; we wouldn’t have needed your help to escape at all. We could have run away on our own. This man is acting all mysterious due to his egoistic nature but he will end up being the reason for all your deaths. Since you all are my benefactors and have saved my life and that of my people before, I would advise you not to follow around this pretender who knows nothing of the world at large and even tries to hunt a horde of Iron Mantises with so few a people under his command. I can be sure that he cares not a single bit about you people who are under his command. He is leading you all to your deaths due to his ignorance. Leave him to indulge in his fantasies alone. You should take your people and come with me to escape as soon as possible.”

Diana on the other hand wasn’t the least bit interested or moved by the grunts of the girl who was leading the other group. She believed in Zach wholeheartedly and wasn’t willing to trust this new girl over the person she liked.

While the leading girl tried to woo his people to her side, Zach was in a world of his own. He was thinking of the past. To be exact he was reminiscing about all the events that had taken place ever since he came into this world. He recalled all the quests that he had completed up till this moment and could boldly say that the system had never issued a quest that he couldn’t complete. There was no impossible quest out there. The quest could be unorthodox but never impossible.

Therefore, Zach believed that there was a solution to the problem within his repertoire. He was busy searching the Weapons Arsenal for anything that could be used in the battle against the Iron Mantises.

Due to the lack of energy, most of the weapons in the arsenal were currently locked which made the difficulty of the mission increase by several folds. Zach was not deterred due to the difficulty of the situation; rather he was quite motivated because the more difficult the situation, the better the rewards for completing the quest would become.

Even though most of the weapons he checked in the Weapons Arsenal turned out to be ineffective against the Iron Mantises, he fervently believed that the system must have issued this quest based on some prior skill or asset that he hadn’t found yet.

Zach tried to assess the situation from the point of view of a game. Usually, the game designers used a weapon and made its use essential for the clearance of the level. The concept of quest items had come from this since the gamers needed to be told about the things that could be useful to them.

While keeping the same mindset, Zach believed that the weapons he currently could use were not at all suitable for this kind of combat. The hot weapons weren’t made to fight beasts like the Iron Mantis. Therefore, Zach wanted to discover the skill that could help him unlock the mystery of the quest as soon as possible.

To try his luck, Zach pulled out the Weapon Arsenal and began to scroll through the list of items that were still available to him and were not faded out or marked with question marks. Feeling quite heartbroken after seeing the barren list that used to be studded with names of the weapons in bold, Zach could not help but let out an exasperated sigh. But he didn’t regret what he did to save Luna’s life from the panther even if the price he had paid was quite heavy.

As he was sifting through the long list of items that were still out of his reach, Zach came across a name suddenly that shook him to the core. It was as if something had finally resonated with his very soul and had drawn out the very essence of his mental strategy.

Zach was feeling quite confident in approaching the beasts that were relentlessly pursuing the Diana and the group of people she had just rescued. The reason for his unbending posture and determined gaze was the items that he had come across just now.

Zach pulled Diana with him as he began to move in the direction of the Iron Mantises. At first the leader of the other group felt that Zach had finally decided to listen to her advice and was willing to run away after having witnessed the relentless and vicious pursuit of the Iron Mantises.

But a series of curses escaped her mouth soon after when she tried to follow after him only to find that she was voluntarily moving towards the Iron Mantises to be torn to shreds.

Zach didn’t pay her any heed and just asked Diana to follow after him because he had a plan to take down the Iron Mantises. The leader girl could only scoff at his mad ravings and turned her head away in annoyance as if Zach’s gruesome death would only ruin her mood.

Zach used the Weapons Arsenal and pulled out several bottles of what could only be considered powerful insecticides. Although Zach had never used them before, he was sure that they were likely to be effective against the Iron Mantises who belonged to the category of insects despite their metallic exterior. 𝒷𝓭ℴ𝓋𝓵.𝒸ℴ𝓶

“What’s that? Is it some kind of explosive as well?” Diana couldn’t help but ask Zach as she saw him pull out several bottles out of nowhere. Although she was already used to Zach’s magical ways, she couldn’t understand why Zach pulled these things out instead of powerful weapons like the lightning rod he had used before to destroy the beasts. She felt that she deserved to know the answer since she was going to be risking her life for him soon.

“Pull out your bow. You can still use it, can’t you?” Zach asked in a hurried manner to shake Diana out of her comfort zone and drag her into the battle that they were about to face. He didn’t want her to be unprepared for the battle ahead.

“I haven’t stopped practiced my archery skills. I am still as good as before if not better.” Diana replied proudly with a smug look. She wanted to let Zach know how good she was.

“Good; I expected the same. In a moment, I am going to throw these bottles towards the Iron Mantises when they come within your shooting range. I need you to break the bottles at the exact moment when the bottles hover over the Iron Mantises.”

Zach didn’t feel anything odd telling her about his plan. However, he still didn’t reveal anything about the contents of the bottles. He only implied with his actions that the contents of the bottles were going to be helpful in dealing with the Iron Mantises.