Ren watched her as she silently slipped away with an excuse.
'It was as if he knew the events beforehand.' Ren contemplated the words she had said and any way he looked at it—it sounded nothing more than a guess.
He shook his head and vaulted up from the ground.
Some time had passed since the sun had set, making it hard to stay outdoors, even with the protection of the barrier. The reason was that they didn't want to take any chances.
So everyone returned to their houses by midnight to take a rest.
The night passed by without any disturbances.
Ren and the others were already preparing for today's leveling-up hunt as they had trained yesterday and had to alternate the training and hunting.
After storing some pots filled with water in his inventory, he tried storing his axe in it once again.
But the result was the same. He couldn't.
"What is the problem here? Can only everyday-utility items be stored in the inventory?" Furrowing his brows, he tried mentally giving some commands but nothing worked as hoped.
He finally gave up after multiple failed attempts and decided to test it further after returning as everyone was prepared and he could not delay them just because of his curiosity.
Ren sighed and tied the axe to the wooden holder on his back, and stepped out of the training hall and found them standing near the barrier—inspecting it.
"Its thickness has decreased even further…"
Evan muttered as his fingers slipped through the barrier.
Ronan's grip tightened on his sword as he sensed the urgency of the situation.
They needed to act fast; maybe they only had a select few days remaining before this safe zone disappeared.
Now that Ren had also arrived, it was time for them to split up. But just as Evan was going to speak, Ronan interrupted him—
"I will go with Ren and you three can move together. Might be better if he can practice teamwork skills."
Evan knew Ronan meant no harm, but seeing the alertness in Ren's eyes, he knew he couldn't allow them to move together and bring forth a disaster when they were already in this perilous situation.
"No, we can't leave the two of you together, you can team up with Caleb for this time, and let Ren be with Lina and me."
Evan turned him down calmly.
Ronan couldn't think of a valid argument to use against Evan's words.
Sighing inwardly, he just nodded his head and remained quiet.
Ren raised a brow at Ronan's silence.
'Hmm? Does he not want to berate me again or has he finally grown tired of it?'
Ronan only felt irritated by the fact that it hadn't even been a week since they had met with Ren but now he was a member of the team. And on top of that, he was a kid compared to them and it looked like his puberty hadn't even hit him.
After deciding who to form parties with, they all ventured in two different directions to find more vermins while avoiding the path to the city and the stone temple.
'They didn't even glance in the direction of the stone temple.' Ren was sure that the temple held some mysteries that they didn't want to tell him.
'And one more thing.' They all had an inventory just like his and couldn't store their weapons inside it.
Lina quickly located a vermin which didn't look very strong, she advanced by herself to kill it as she was the weakest and needed to level up more despite the fact that Ren arrived a whole week later after the apocalypse descended.
Evan followed her to prevent any surprise attack or ambush from happening.
While Ren kept watch for other vermins without getting too far from them.
Lina was not bad, it was just that using a sword and shield at the same time required double the effort compared to others as she would have to split her focus on both defending and attacking.
'I now have enough mana to turn that level 10 vermin into my minion.'
Ren took a quick glance at his status.
｢Name: Ren
Level: 6
Bloodline: Heir of Oblivion
Strength:20~>22
Agility:15~>16
Vitality:11~>12
Stamina:16~>17
Mana:10~>12 — [12/12]
Spirit Power:41
Skill:———｣
'My Spirit power hasn't increased despite the level up.' This led him to conclude that the only way to increase spirit power was to turn those vermins into oblivion entities.
While contemplating, his eyes inadvertently darted to Lina and Evan. He focused on the way Lina subdued and finished off the vermin.
But Ren didn't realize his mind felt a little clearer as he kept analyzing the fight.
Her movements were awkward, but enough to overpower the vermin in front of her. It wasn't that strong, probably at level five or six.
But Ren wasn't focusing on who was winning, to be honest, he didn't even care about that. The thing his attention was on how the zombie moved, it felt like the weaker ones had a set pattern of attack even though they were mindless.
This only proved that one day, the vermins might be strong enough to maybe even understand the human tongue.
His mind suddenly started to replay all the fights he had gone through, like he was watching some sort of movie and absorbing everything from them.
It felt as if he was learning something but couldn't quite place a finger on what it was.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't even notice Evan yelling at him until he shook his shoulders, which finally made him return to his senses.
"Huh?" Ren looked a little lost but soon realized he was spacing out without keeping his guard up.
Just as he was about to apologize, a scream tore through the air and echoed through the trees.
"Arghhhhhhhhh…."