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Once Cortina joined us, our journey had turned even smoother. Michelle and I already had a thorough surveillance net, but Cortina started warning us about points where we could potentially be ambushed in advance.

Animal-type monsters generally didn’t resort to ambushes, but bandits and intelligent monsters could be extremely troublesome when they did. She predicted places where they could be lying in wait, then scouted them with a familiar, so the enemy had no way to set up an ambush.

And if they couldn’t get the first move on us, they would only be taking the full brunt of Michelle’s arrows. There were frequent cases where the bandit leader ended up with her arrow in the head before even realizing what was going on.

“I knew it already, but you really are merciless.”
“Huh, but you told me to do it, Nicole.”
“Well I guess I did…”

Ahead of where we were heading, there were four Goblin corpses on the highway with arrows between their brows. All of them were Michelle’s doing. Incidentally, this happened within five seconds after I told her to do it, so it was clear that her skill had grown even higher.

“Yeaa, I didn’t think it’d be so one-sided. I thought Cloud would take on two of them.”
“My work has been decreasing lately… And my standing with it…”
“You’re in a party full of beauties so it can’t be helped. So, who’s your favorite?”
“If I say that I’d be a dead man, so please leave me alone.”

Cloud shrugged pathetically while riding his horse with shield and sword in hands. He has been doing horseback training these past two weeks, so he was getting the hang of controlling the horse using his legs alone.

“You’re still better off, Cloud. We’re just following you guys along at this point.”
“You said it. I’m feeling bad to even accept the reward for this.”

Mark grumbled, having come here from the back since Cortina had seen through the Goblin ambush. Lately, they had nothing to do too. It was the result of Cortina, I, and Michelle being too overpowered.

Coming this far, I remembered the words Gadius told me in my previous life. It was back when I grouped up with newbies, but did everything alone and they returned without doing anything. Back then he complained, saying, “they will not learn anything like that.”

I was falling into that situation all over again now.

“Hmm. Well it would be safe this way for sure, but it wouldn’t benefit your group, Mark.”
“Our group?”
“Yeah. Aren’t you pretty much leeching off us? Like this, you’d feel bad and won’t gain any experience.”
“That’s, well… you have a point.”

After interacting with Michelle and others like this and giving them a sense of “growth”, it would be bad for me to do everything on my own. Thinking a bit, I decided to change our deployment.

“Let’s see… Mark’s group and I will go on ahead while Michelle and the rest of you fall back, how about it?”

We couldn’t neglect being alert for the enemies. But for the sake of their experience, I’ll try to stay away from it as much as I can. With Michelle’s long-range skill, she could support the frontline even from all the way back.

Besides, the backline needed guarding too, so there was a meaning in her staying there. It was a little worrying that the carriage would turn into the front row, but this was an experience too.

Rather, the four of us excluding Cloud standing at the front row might have actually been attracting bandits and goblins to us. Each and every one of us was a beauty and stood at the front line, so of course we’d stand out. It was natural that we’d arouse vulgar desires.

Hiding in the back also worked to avoid that. Like this, we changed our deployment and continued our advance. When it approached evening, I sensed an ambush.

I wanted to use a familiar and scout ahead, but I couldn’t use a Familiar spell. However, the peculiar beastly smell drifting upwind was telling me it was either Kobolds or Goblins.

As I focused my eyes, I saw grass ahead swaying unnaturally. They were probably hiding there. When we were this far from the city, monster attacks also grew in number. However, Mark’s group still didn’t seem to have noticed it.

“…Hmm?”

I could’ve just let them know, but the previous me would have just gone ahead and taken the initiative. However, considering that this was supposed to be a lesson for them, it might be good for them to have a bit of a painful experience.

As the carriage line advanced and approached close enough that they’d attack any moment now, Tony finally noticed the enemy ambush. I suppose that was third-rank for you, he still managed to notice it before it was too late.

“Halt, there’s an enemy!”
“What?!”

Mark and John exclaimed in shock, though they still pulled out their weapons and stood alert for the surroundings. Tony’s yell made the Goblins realize that they were spotted and they jumped out from the grass.

They get minus points for making themselves so clearly vigilant, but I suppose it wasn’t that big of a problem.

Goblins were no longer enemies for them. As long as they weren’t taken by surprise, they were strong enough to easily defeat them. As I expected, the Goblins got exterminated in the blink of an eye and the situation ended without an incident.