With the whole team defeated, Layla used her ability on herself to float down from the ledge, joining Erin in the mini campsite.

Erin commanded the shadow void to turn off, and it had slowly gathered under her feet just like it had done before.

[You are now in direct sunlight]

[All stats will be reduced by 70%]

Erin quickly made a small shadow roof above her head. She only had 4 MC left, meaning she could only make a shadow roof for 4 more minutes, but given that the campsite had a lot of crystals, Erin wasn’t planning on using the shadow for fighting any time soon.

[You are no longer in direct sunlight]

Still, her MC count was getting low, which meant she was going to need to take a break to regain her MC to ensure that she would remain under the shade.

’If only I had taken his ring,’ Erin thought.

Fex and the others were still likely to be at the dorms, but she really didn’t trust the system voice. It had been especially quiet lately, making her suspect it was up to something, but she had no real way to prove it.

Checking her blood bank, it was pretty empty, so Erin decided to walk up to Layla, about to ask her to refill it.

Layla was in the middle of digging through the other team’s bag when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"I need blood again," Erin bluntly asked.

Layla turned around, looking up at her roommate, appalled by what she was hearing.

"Huh? Erin, I—" She blinked, trying to register her words, "I’m injured."

Erin gestured to her own wounds, "Me too."

However, Erin’s injuries were far lesser than Layla’s. She had endured the burns of an advanced tier whip, fell on top of a rock, then walked on foot in the desert sun to get everything back all as a normal human without a single break. Meanwhile, Erin was a vampire, and had the capability to heal her own wounds.

Erin only had mild scrapes, Layla was scorched, and for her roommate to ask her for help, brought a feeling upon Layla that made her clench her fists tightly.

"You... I’m not giving you my blood," Layla stated, taking Erin by surprise.

"And why not?" Erin prodded.

Gulping down a pang of sorrow, Layla turned around, continuing her search through their bags.

"If you can’t see why, then why should I tell you?"

Those words stabbed through Erin harder than Pierogi’s swords, but she couldn’t explain why.

’But... If we encounter a beast, I should be the one to—’ Erin’s thoughts began, before shutting them down.

Her eyes wandered towards the unconscious members of Earl’s team, and an idea popped in her head.

While Erin was busy doing something else, Layla grabbed a random bag, and opened it only to reveal a large quantity of basic tier crystals inside.

"Dang it, the medical box isn’t in here," Layla muttered before closing it.

It didn’t take much longer for Layla to find the thing she was looking for. Hidden off to the side was a smaller bag that had 3 medical boxes, making her wonder why they would even steal such a thing.

’I saw their ability levels, they’re mainly consisting of low tiers, but in order to get these, they had to have robbed other teams,’ Layla thought, ’Why would they do this? We should be helping each other, not pushing each other down.’

She knew why, of course, but it still bothered her none the less.

Layla opened up the first aid kit, which was a small metallic briefcase with a green cross on it. She sat down, and placed it on the ground before pressing the green cross, revealing itself to be a button. It began to transform, changing into a little robot with insect legs.

This was an advanced piece of technology that had a mini robot doctor with enough material to heal some medium sized wounds. It was something each team was given one of in case of emergencies.

"How can I be of assistance?" The robot asked.

"Heal me, Layla Munrow, of my burn injuries," She spoke to it.

The small robot then scanned Layla in front of her, then took out several small tools, going over and placing some sort of cold healing goo on Layla’s burns. It was amazing how much technology had come so far, but it did have its limits. It couldn’t heal someone close to death, and could only be used once.

—

Meanwhile on Earth, there was an extraordinarily tall tower built on one of the few pieces of land left, its height piercing the clouds. It was located on a small island, taking up nearly every inch of space at the base of it.

Despite a portion of the earth’s precious landscape getting used for this structure, it was crucially important as it was built to scan and monitor the planets that they had teleporter access to. It used an incredible amount of power, but thankfully, an intelligent man named Richard Eno had discovered a mysterious energy source that was strong enough to also power their teleporters.

Normally, it would’ve kept track of shelters on other planets, and their solar systems, but today wasn’t a normal day.

Alarms blared off in the tower, people were frantically running, papers were flying, as the monitors were all looking at one specific event. There was one thing going on in the people’s minds, and it was panic.

In one of the rooms, 200 employees were all looking at their personal computer screens, with a significantly larger one on the wall, watching what could potentially be the first sign of an all out war.

There was a man in the back of the room watching everything. He was in his 50s, and was mostly bald with a little bit of hair on the sides, wearing small round glasses and a lab uniform. He didn’t look intimidating, but that wasn’t his job. The intimidating thing was what he was looking at.

A young adult at one of the computers shouted over the older looking man.

"Sir! It looks like there’s been a breach on one of the green portal planets!"

"Bring up the information on the big screen," He ordered.

The young adult nodded, and soon after, a video began to display on the large screen. There, they could see a black flying object that had entered a planet’s atmosphere. Even with the shaky camera footage, you could tell there was a noticeable dent in the side of it.

Unmistakably, they all knew what it was. A dalki scouting ship.

The older looking man frowned, "There is meant to be no dalki in this area, this is meant to be near the start of the solar system’s sun. The dalki’s planets were supposed to be at the back!"

For this particular solar system, both the humans and dalki had colonized planets, a few were occupied by the dalki towards the tail end of the solar system, and the other half by humans. Maybe they should’ve known given their close proximity to one another, but there hadn’t been a dalki attack here even during the war. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Still, despite the fact that there wasn’t an active war at the moment, there was always tension, a cold war between the two species. As a way to gain more power, there was constantly a race over who could conquer more planets, to get access to different kinds of beasts with different kinds of powers. Even if planet Caladi wasn’t a lucrative planet with impressive resources, the fact that it could be claimed might’ve given a stray dalki reason to invade.

The older man slammed his hands onto a table, looking at the large screen in front of him, "Send a message out to the dalki station, ask them if it’s from any of their known battalions, and tell them we’ll get rid of it at all costs."

The young adult saluted, "Yes, sir!"

"Also inform the military base in charge of this planet, and get them to send someone to deal with this immediately."

"Will do, sir."

The older man stared at the dalki ship on the monitor, an anger burning inside.

"I hope to all those living on that planet that they can survive against a stray."

—

Back on Caladi, Right before they left the campsite, Amy, Pierogi, Garret, and Jerry were still all knocked out. Sensing that this was a prime opportunity to improve her stats, as well as top off her blood bank, she went to each one, drinking about 25 ML of blood from each of them.

[Blood type A+ has been absorbed]

[You have gained +1 strength point]

[Blood type B+ has been absorbed ]

[+ 1 Agility point has been added]

[Blood type AB+ has been absorbed]

[+ 1 Stamina point has been added]

[Blood type O- has been absorbed]

[You have gained +1 free stat point]

Erin now had 3 free stat points, and she began allocating 1 into stamina, and the rest into agility. She was now at 29 agility and 30 stamina.

’It is slightly annoying that my agility is one off from a nice clean 30, but my rapier gives me a +5 in agility, so it rounds out,’ Erin noted, ’Having a 35 in agility would be even better.’

Once that was dealt with, Erin went to one of the bags Layla had closed, and opened it. What was inside was like hitting the jackpot.

There were crystals upon crystals that clanked against each other in such a delicious way. A brief thought about people eating beast crystals had passed in her mind, but the bigger idea that she would get a high grade on this expedition was stronger.

"With this, I’ll be in first place in no time," Erin muttered to herself, "I’m going to prove that I’ve finally become the best there was."