Chapter 362: Friendly Exchange

Terus POV

“How are we going to bring all of this stuff back with us?” Josh asked with a tired groan.

“We might have to leave some of it here and make two trips,” Terus said, exhaling a sigh. Truth be told, they could probably get it all in one trip, but that would mean they would have all of their arms full on the trip back. If something or someone attacked them on the way, they would be in a lot of trouble.

At the very least he wanted his team to have one person who could fight and react at any moment. However, that would also mean they had one less person to carry stuff. Which led them back to their problem.

It was too bad all four of their storage rings were stuffed to the brim already. After such a long trip into the forest, it was bound that they would no longer have any space in them. He knew that he should have invested in a larger ring when he had the chance.

They were just so damn expensive the larger they became. It wasn’t like they could get rid of their other stuff either, though. It was probably more valuable than the collection of equipment that was in front of them.

“Do we really want to make a second trip? We were already supposed to be back yesterday. My wife and daughter are already going to scold me for being late,” Roark said with a dreary tone.

“Yeah, and who will stay behind to watch our stuff? Does that mean one of us will have to sit here and wait with it?” Josh pointed out.

“Would you rather we just leave it out here and practically throw it away?” Terus asked

“At this point, yeah. We might be losing some money, but I am not exactly strapped for gold right now. The annoyance might be more than it is worth. Plus, I suspect a lot of it will be melted down for materials,” Erik said flippantly.

“Money is money, though,” Josh pointed out.

Terus agreed. There was no point in wasting perfectly good materials just because they were too lazy to take them back to town. Terus’s father would slap him silly if he heard Terus thinking that way.

The rift they had come across on their way back was a relatively weak Tier 3 rift. It was full of humanoid monsters wearing armor, which is why they were currently stuck with so much of it. The armor itself was quite poorly made, but the steel it was made of would be quite useful to any blacksmith, especially since it was steel from a rift.

Although magically enforced steel from a rift wasn’t the rarest find in a rift, it always fetched a decent price. It was just too bad that it was a pain to drag it back to town.

They only needed an extra couple of people to get the rest of it.

He sighed. “It sucks. But we might be better off to just hide it in the forest for now and come back for it tomorrow. If something…”

“Hey, boss,” Josh interrupted suddenly.

“What’s up?”

“There’s someone nearby.”

He looked over to where Josh was pointing. He didn’t sense anyone, but Josh was their team’s scout and had a great skill that allowed him to easily track lifeforms. But this was good news. Perhaps they could ask this person to help them carry some of their stuff. Even if he had to pay a fee for their help, it would be better than potentially wasting the materials or having to go through the pain of coming back tomorrow.

“Quick, let’s go ask them if they can help us.”

They swiftly followed Josh and chased after the stranger. It didn’t take them long to catch up, but when they did, they all paused.

“It’s just a kid,” Josh muttered.

Terus examined the person they had tracked down. It was a young boy with ashy black hair and equally dark eyes. But what was equally surprising was that this kid was already Tier 3, which made more sense why he was out here all alone.

Despite the fact that they were on the edge of the forest, it was still dangerous for lone Tier 2s to walk about. Terus didn’t even like it when he saw teams of Tier 2s out here without a Tier 3 to supervise them.

He had seen more inexperienced children killed by a random ambush from a Tier 2 monster than he could count.

“Can I help you?” The boy asked while looking at them with suspicion.

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Terus didn’t blame him for that either. Upon further thought, he realized that having four grown men run at a lone person in the middle of the forest might be mistaken for something else. He placed his hands up in the air.

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to startle you, but we were wondering if you could help us with something,” Terus explained.