Chapter 31: Another hunt
The warm glow of the weekend sun blanketed the Academy as students dispersed for their day off.
The Juggernauts. Kaelen, Jered, and Neal gathered once again at the outer perimeter of the Academy grounds, prepared for another coordinated monster hunt.
This has become a weekly routine now, theory lessons during the day, sparring in the evening with the team or another class with Tashi, and hunting on the weekends.
After the success of their first hunt, their synergy had become tighter, smoother, and more instinctive.
Kaelen may still have been Level 3, but his role in the team was unquestioned.
His healing, support boosts, and now increasingly sharp tactical insights were invaluable.
Even Neal, initially skeptical, had begun to trust his instructions mid-fight without hesitation.
The area they patrolled this time was still part of the Academy’s jurisdiction, a forested training zone below the village mapped for novice-level monster hunting.
Since Kaelen was still below Level 20 and thus unranked, they couldn’t enter dungeons.
But that didn’t mean they lacked worthy prey.
Every week, stray monsters mostly Level 10 to 19 would drift from unstable territories, occasionally a lone Bronze-ranked beast testing the edge of the Academy’s border.