MTLNOVEL Chapter 227: Planning?
Having created the steel ball and entering it, they pushed it down the mountain.
And... It wasn't exactly the smoothest of rides, especially with the countless rocky bumps along the way.
With her arms wrapped around her head, Lillian spun inside the dark metal sphere—the side of her body slamming against her teammates.
Eventually, the sphere reached the bottom, landing and rolling on the soft grass. When it finally came to a stop, a hole appeared in its side.
Coming out of the exit, the three rolled out, tumbling over and stacking on top of each other on the ground.
Norman on the bottom, Charlotte in the middle, and Lillian on the top. All moaning from the dreadful dizziness that they had just endured.
As the world seemed to swirl in Lillian's eyes, she noticed a blurry figure in the sky. Two figures, in fact, slowly descend in the air towards their location.
Pushing herself off of the pile she found herself in, getting back to her feet, she held her hand out towards the two.
"Alright, we gotta get moving... Let's try not to die, okay—?"
Once her words left her mouth, she heard a faint but sharp whistle slip through the air, followed by a screeching crunch coming from the steel ball.
Coming from the sky, a pillar of condensed air, the steel ball inverted on itself, scrunching up before having a hole punctured through it.
Lillian's eyes followed the sparks, her face contorting due to her current situation.
After pulling her teammates up to their feet, stumbling a bit from the residue of dizziness, they got back into a sprint.
As they ran through the forest, moving behind the trees and under their canopies, the blonde-haired man, Louis, followed behind closely.
He glanced down towards his teammate, the masked individual, Paul, who still clung tightly to his hand.
"The white-haired girl is probably the most dangerous out of the three. Don't you think?"
In response to his words, the masked man only gave a quiet nod—a usual answer. He wasn't one of many words, after all.
Soon, they began lowering themselves to the ground, intending to go after them on foot.
The use of his wand, added to floating, was taxing on his mana. Not only that but chasing after them would prove far more difficult from above.
This was, of course, planned by Lillian.
Sure, the use of the sphere to roll down the mountain wasn't planned at first, but that didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Resting her shoulder against the side of the tree, Lillian breathed deeply, still feeling a tad bit sick from the 'ride' down the mountain.
She looked towards her teammates, seeing them do the same thing as her, except Charlotte seemed to be a bit more affected compared to Norman and her.
Lillian brushed the hair that had fallen over her eyes behind her ears.
The thought of eliminating the enemy team by herself was still stuck in her mind.
Should she be naive and try to do it on her own?
By luring the two away and letting her teammates take care of the hunting so they can reach the required limit, shouldn't that be enough to satisfy her curiosity?
She wouldn't die, in the sense that she would respawn seconds later.
But, she also had to account for the fact that Cicillian was nowhere to be seen.
While she was out there taking care of his two teammates, he could stumble upon her team members and possibly take one or both of them out.
...
They're not that weak, right?
Lillian drifted her eyes back towards her group, still gauging their strengths at this point in time.
Going off of game stats, if she were to send both of them out to go hunt for monsters and they happen to engage with Cicillian in combat...
Charlotte would undoubtedly be the first one to fall due to her low physical stats. However, if she and Norman could work well together, they would surely win if they were careful.
Lillian then scratched the side of her head.
'This is such mental gymnastics... Maybe it would be better if they fought with me instead...'
But, at the same time, it wouldn't.
Her attention would then be torn between defending them and herself whilst also attacking if they joined her in the battle with the two enemies rapidly approaching them.
Seeing that a good possible option would be to send them away, she shared her plan.
Charlotte, staring up at her as she leaned her hand against the tree, gave her an odd look.
"Go... Hunt? I thought we were going to fight these guys together! What was the point of even giving that speech, if you aren't going to let us do that?"
Lillian smiled wryly at her.
She didn't factor in the effort to convince them.
"Eh... It was just so you guys would climb that mountain with me..."
"... And because of that decision, my legs are unbearably sore!" She then placed her hand over her chest, "A-and... I feel like my chest is about to explode with how much I'm breathing..."
Lillian waved her hand dismissively, "You'll get used to it. So, are you going to go with my plan or...?"
Norman, who was off to the side, pushed against his glasses and spoke up:
"I'll go with it. Under my calculations, this would bring us closer to victory."
Lillian glanced towards him and nodded with a smile.
"Glad you think so."
Turning back to Charlotte, who stared at the both of them irritably. Eventually, she agreed after letting out a deep sigh.
"Excellent!"
Lillian's smile brightened, tilting her head to the side and painting a false image of an innocent and cheery girl as her eyes sparkled.
However, her expression soon dropped as from behind them, the voice of the enemy appeared.
"Fighting in the forest now, are we?"
Lillian, gesturing for her teammates to leave quickly, turned around to face them.