Chapter 26: Elite Squad
In the corner of the hall, beside the massive sword-and-blade statue, clusters of adventurers stood together.
"We're preparing to form a party to raid the underground caves for slimes and collect slime cores—anyone willing to join?"
Slimes are the low-level creatures in the famed ooze-type monster family.
They are the monsters novice adventurers encounter most often.
They engulf creatures with their swamp-like bodies to prevent escape and then painfully torture them to death by constricting and writhing.
Like goblins, each individual slime is relatively weak; in a one-on-one fight, most adventurers can handle them with ease.
The only thing to watch out for is not letting them stick to your weapons or armor, or their mildly corrosive bodies might damage lower-quality gear.
"Hey, the black-haired lad—want to join our team?" Perhaps due to Gauss looking over his shoulder, the red-haired youth who had been recruiting teammates to raid the cave moments ago extended an invitation to him.
Gauss felt a flicker of interest but quickly dismissed the idea in his mind.
An underground cave in the wild is far too dangerous for novice adventurers—who knows what extremely dangerous creatures might lurk inside? If they run into trouble, escaping in the confined subterranean space would be difficult.
"Sorry." Gauss shook his head to politely decline the invitation.
"Young sir, are you a swordsman? Want to join our squad? We're just missing a frontline warrior."
Soon after, another adventurer approached and struck up conversation, perhaps assuming he was a swordsman since he carried a slender sword at his waist, and thus offered an invitation.
"I'm not a swordsman—I'm a mage's apprentice."
A "mage's apprentice" refers to someone training toward the mage profession.
But even if Gauss introduced himself as a mage, others wouldn't consider him a fully-fledged professional.
Professional-level adventurers are on Tier 2; it's rare for them to linger in Tier 1 and hang around recruitment spots like this.
Moreover, many low-level apprentice adventurers prefer to call themselves warriors, rangers, rogues, and so on.
Although Gauss added the word “apprentice,” the more important preceding word “mage” still attracted the attention of many adventurers.
One after another, glances turned toward him.
Many mage apprentices often belong to fixed adventuring parties.
Even wanderers are quickly absorbed by relatively elite squads.
Among low-level adventurers, the ratio of aspiring professions like mage, priest, warlock is lower, whereas among formal professionals, each class is relatively balanced.
This is easy to understand: mage, priest, warlock have higher barriers to entry compared to warrior, ranger, rogue—ordinary people without family or background struggles to gain access to those skills, so naturally there are fewer of them.
"Hey, mage lad—join our squad!" A tall and sturdy young man beat everyone else to it and draped a hand on Gauss’s shoulder.
"Unlike those ragtag temporary teams, our Night Owl Squad is an elite group—and we’re just missing a mage. Want to give it a shot?"
"You big oaf! Who’re you calling ragtag?"
"Whatever—let’s not get into trouble with him!"
At the sound of the young man’s loud voice, various murmurs arose from the surrounding adventurers.
But the tall young man ignored the protests and simply focused with intent on Gauss, awaiting his response.
"Sorry, I don’t have plans to join a squad long-term at the moment. I just want to temporarily join one this time to hone my skills." Gauss spoke frankly, simultaneously using Mage Hand to lift his slender sword—proof of his identity.
Right now he only wanted to join a temporary team; the other squad members could help him collect small monster kills while he practiced Magic Missile.
Then he’d earn some money, save up, inquire about wand prices later, and see if he could buy one with a Life Magic Stone.
Once he got a wand he'd sprint full-force toward the professional stage.
Only after officially advancing to professional would he consider squad membership—and likely build his own squad.
He’d recruit trusted frontline fighters and support members to help him secure small monster kill opportunities, even sharing some of the mission reward would be worth it.
Or he could operate solo—the lone wolf mode offered more freedom.
But either way, he didn't want to stay long-term in a squad led by someone else; that would be detrimental to his personal growth.
He wouldn’t be able to decide the squad’s actions, which quests to take, and would have trouble carrying out Monster Encyclopedia recording tasks.
If he were capable of solo missions now, he wouldn’t have come to this temporary recruitment spot to try his luck.
"No problem. Temporary is fine—we'll just take this as an opportunity to get to know each other."
The young man laughed heartily, unconcerned, and added as if making up for something.
"Even if you wanted to formally join our squad now, without testing your strength and character, my teammates might not agree anyway."
"By the way, I'm Levin, a shield-bearer. Among my companions are an archer, an assassin, a swordsman, and a priest."
Seeing that Gauss still didn’t respond, he went on to introduce his squad’s composition, clearly trying to showcase their strength.
Gauss followed the direction he pointed and saw four male and female adventurers.
Unlike the others, this squad indeed exuded an “elite” vibe that warned idle bystanders to stay away.
The archer held a pitch-black longbow and remained calm even when Gauss glanced over; the assassin wore a hooded cloak, and if looked at closely, a small crossbow hung at his waist beneath the cloak.
The swordsman matched Gauss’s stereotypical image of one.
The priestess girl hugged a wooden staff while shrinking into the wall, her curious eyes also observing Gauss.
Gauss felt tempted.
This squad's lineup was very well-rounded: a ranged-support archer, a flanking assassin, a frontline tank shield-bearer, a main damage-dealer swordsman, and even a priest for healing.
Honestly, even without him, they were equipped to handle most low-tier adventurer missions.
"What kind of mission have you accepted?"
Even though he was tempted, cautious Gauss didn’t immediately agree.
He wanted to first hear what kind of commission they had taken.
If the mission wasn't suitable or was too risky, he wouldn’t join.
He feared they might, due to their strength, pick especially difficult missions.
"Don’t worry—it’s just about fifteen goblins."
The man named Levin patted his chest.
"Our squad is made up of aspiring professionals; we would never recklessly accept a mission beyond our capabilities."
"In fact, missions like this are just training to hone our skills—we’ve done a dozen of them already, so rest assured."
Clearly, Levin had seen Gauss’s interest and spoke even more.
Fifteen goblins didn’t sound too bad.
Last time in Birch Village, there were twenty goblins in total, including an unusual individual, and they had still made it through.
While he didn’t want to belittle others behind their backs, this squad was clearly stronger than Hailier’s group by more than one level, and they had more members.
Plus, his own strength had grown.
Barring surprises, it should be a safe mission.
Gauss quickly weighed the decision in his heart, then reached out his hand.
"Then let’s work well together, Captain Levin. I’m Gauss."
"Welcome, Gauss." Levin shook his hand with a bright smile.
Gauss smiled back.
Joining an elite rookie adventurer squad to develop quietly for a while might not be a bad idea.
Gauss needed to improve his skill proficiency, earn money, practice swordsmanship, and accumulate Monster Encyclopedia kills.
But he couldn’t recklessly charge alone into the Emerald Forest and slaughter monsters.
That would be suicidal.
A fully equipped squad that even had a priest for healing could indeed provide a temporarily safe environment for him to develop and level up.
Besides, he felt that these people were quite level-headed.
Even with decent strength, they had no intention of taking on overly difficult missions.
For adventurers aiming to go professional, taking on challenging yet manageable commissions that ensure their safety was the best rhythm.
His mindset basically aligned with theirs.
In other words—develop steadily, don’t be reckless!