The fight with the wolves was over, and I had a talk with the team after, and had communicated my point to each one about their flaws by showing them.
"You. Wrong sword."
"W-wrong sword?"
"Weight. Wrong."
"The weight of my sword is wrong…?"
"For you, yes."
"I…"
"And you. Focus on all, not only you. Enemies everywhere, target not just you."
"That's—you're right."
"You, faster. Faster spells, faster reaction, faster move."
"Me Bundo! What about me Bundo?!"
"…Think."
"Think?"
"Think."
"Think…?"
"Think."
"…Think!"
They were strong.
They all have good stats, good prowess, and they could swing and shoot their shiny sticks well enough.
Hell, they might even be able to wound me in ten hits if I let them, which I won't.
But what happens when the fight is done, the enemies are gone, and the sun sets?
I decided that I was going to test their actual survival skills this time by making them set up camp in the forest.
Tyler, Bundo, Melophone, and Ayleen were adventurers—they obviously knew how to camp.
They knew how to lay a blanket down and keep a fire going.
They also had the correct attitude for it, so no naggy 'privileged' talks trying to demand for more would be had here.
But that wasn't enough.
Not enough in a forest that wanted to eat them alive.
"Lesson. Food."
I told them that first thing in the morning as I stood behind a crude illustration I'd scraped into the dirt.
"You fight strong. But you live weak. Forest kill weak. Even if you win fight, bad food make you lose next one."
They just looked at me.
Even Bundo, who usually just nodded at anything I said, looked confused.
Tyler, being the confident guy that he is, spoke up first.
"Grul, we know how to camp. We survived five days in the border forest before you found us. We always bring rations with us, we—"
I loudly snorted, interrupting his speech.
"Rations run out."
I said, then pointed to a massive patch of moss in the tree next to me.
"You eat bad, you die slow. Now, you learn to eat good. Follow me."
I led them about ten minutes away from the camp we set.
The lesson today was simple: foraging.
I activated my cheat skill, Survivalist's Instinct.
Tiny edible bulbs glowed green North of us.
A pile of medicinal Yellow Clover shimmered blue in the East.
A stream of perfectly safe, clean water pulsed a friendly white just beyond the treeline.
And all the deadly stuff—the Puking Rainbow Fern and the Razor Thorns and Lithe Lush Lavenders—flashed a nice, crimson red.
It was too easy.
I bent down beside a large, old tree, plucked some of its thick, wiry roots, and took a big bite.
Tasted like dirt, but it was good.
"Food."
I munched, offering the root to Tyler.
He looked at the root, then at the dirt I pulled it from, then back at me.
He had the face of a man who just saw someone gnaw an old boot and then offer it to him.
"That… that's a root, Grul. How…is it edible?"
Ah, the questions of the ignorant.
"I know."
I did not elaborate further.
Not because I wanted to, but I shrimply could not.
Survivalist's Instinct told me it was food, so it was food.
That's all that I know.
Melophone then stepped forward, adjusting her glasses.
"Is there a system? A coloration rule? Perhaps the texture suggests a non-toxic polymer structure? Did you find out through trial-and-error?"
I just shook my head.
The little wizard was overthinking it.
"No book, no system, no rule. Gut knows. You need gut like mine. Now, search. Find food that won't make death."
And so began the easter-egg-like hunt.
Tyler, trying to prove his worth, started digging frantically with his sword near the same old tree that I took the roots out from, tearing up massive chunks of soil.
I don't think that's a very good way to sustain the durability of your sword, but hey, it's a learning experience.
I wasn't the one who bought that sword in the first place.
Ultimately, his efforts were rewarded with dirt and a very angry-looking beetle.
Bundo, true to form, just started ripping bark off a tree.
"If Grul can eat root, Bundo can eat bark!"
He took a bite of the bitter wood and immediately spat it out with a look of distaste.
"Tastes like old sock!"
Ayleen, the most learned one about the forest—or the most cautious one—meticulously analyzed everything she saw.
She found a handful of small, black berries.
She held them out to me.
"Are these…Nightshades? I read about them. Inducts sleep, right?"
I glanced at the berries.
They were indeed ones that caused sleep, flashing a dull grey in my vision.
I nodded back at her.
Ayleen pocketed them, dusting off her hands.
"Right. So, what does your 'gut' see, Grul? Could you at least show us your techniques? I doubt we're actually getting anywhere right now if you don't step up to show us how you safely find what you do."
Techniques?
Uh…get a skill like mine, I guess?
…No, of course that wouldn't be a good answer.
Alright, I still remember a few good tricks I used before I had the busted skill called Survivalist's Instinct, guess I'll teach that to them.
Better than my initial plan of just letting them go willy-nilly in the woods, heh.
Thus, the back-and-forth started, where I showed them what I did before I got Survivalist's Instinct, then they ask questions, and I answer.
Melophone was the one that was asking the most questions: of which most weren't even foraging related.
"Grul, that force ou emitted when facing the wolves—was that a physical effect or a sonic spell? It felt like it disrupted my inner mana flow. Is that a function of your race's innate magic or a bloodline?"
Orcish innate magic?
Bloodline?
No, it was just the Presence of the Apex skill, but I wasn't going to tell the wizard that.
She might tell the entire mage tower about it as a dissertation or thesis and get me hounded by countless crazy mages all day and all night.
Nope, I'm not going to do that.
"Big lungs."
I replied, thumping my chest as if that actually was my belief.
"You, too. Make sound hurt. Not thunderclap."
I then gracefully changed the topic to her becoming more efficient with her spells.
"Faster spell. Small and fast better than slow and big."
"That's really unbecoming of an upcoming wizard like me, though…"
"Don't care; just do."
Their tone with me was a lot more casual now compared to before.
Almost like they were treating me as another companion of theirs, which, I'm not sure as to what to feel about that.
Tyler, looking frustrated at his lack of success, sat down on a fallen log.
He wiped the sweat from his brow as he looked at me with vexation.
"If you'd allow me, Grul, I want to ask you a question that's unrelated to the foraging: could you tell us why you bother? Bother training us, I mean. I thought about it, and I didn't come up with any good reason as to why you, someone who could be doing something else entirely, are using that time instead to train strangers like us."
Damn, how philosophical.
Should I tell them the truth, or should I make an excuse?
Judging from the way everyone's looking at me, trying to slither my way out of this question might spell doom for my plan to give my young'uns some decent tutors.
Welp, there's no harm in being honest.
"You."
I started with Tyler, pointing at him with my finger, and then to Melophone and Ayleen and Bundo.
"You die. My kids(Children) lose guidance(helpers)."
I pointed back to the settlement.
"I teach you. You get strong. You teach them. They get strong. Simple trade."
Ayleen smiled. It was the first genuine smile I'd seen on her.
"So you're doing all this just to be a good guardian to those kids from before?"
I shrugged.
Meh, guess so.
"Helping us in order to ensure those poor children's futures…how noble."
"Indeed. I never expected such a goal from someone like you."
Good, good—
Hey, wait, was that a backhanded insult?!
…I'll let it slide this time.
So long as they don't ask any more questions like 'how did you arrive to the conclusion that we were good tutors?' or 'why don't you train those kids yourself?', because thinking up answers for questions like that is really hard without mentioning how I can basically see all of their secrets and whatnot.
It was at this moment that Bundo chose to interrupt.
He held up a massive, orange mushroom.
It was fat and slimy, with something green oozing out from it.
"Grul! Found food! Looks like a troll's beating heart! Good?"
I glared at the mushroom.
It was one of the Stamina Drainer fungi, bright red in my vision, and it would leave Bundo too tired to fight for the rest of the day.
"No, Bundo! Put that down!"
"Put that down, now!"
Tyler and Ayleen yelled in unison.
But Bundo, being Bundo, didn't hear them.
He held the mushroom up like a trophy, and took a massive chomp.
His eyes went wide.
His muscular face then turned green, a much paler and sicker—sicklier?— green than my own.
"Tastes like…very old sock!"
Bundo groaned, collapsing onto the ground, spasming out.
The trio sighed at the dumber brute's antics, dragging the groaning barbarian's large body away from the deadly red plants and towards a water source.
I watched them work and felt astonished.
They were already practicing the teamwork I hadn't even taught them yet—what to do when dealing with a downed teammate and how to communicate with each other when doing medical stuff.
Good humies.
Maybe they weren't all that bad.
Survivalist's Instinct flashed green towards a cluster of small, crunchy tubers, highlighting that they were good food.
I picked them up and looked at the team.
They were actually working well together, already used to each other's behavior, they were enjoying themselves and bantering with one another at this point.
And honestly, that's like, the most important factor for whether or not a team is going to work out.
I walked up to them, tubers in hand.
"We eat these."
Feeling a bit generous today, I tossed them a few handfuls of the edible food.
"Good food."
I spoke from first-hand experience.
When I was just a few weeks-old, I encountered these on a rainy day and—
"No thanks."
"Yeah, thank you, Grul, but no."
"I-I'm full, thank you."
"Bundo…not…hungry…"
—…Just as I was about to start monologuing to myself about my grand experience with these kinds of tubers, these guys really just cut me off mid-sentence to refuse it.
…
…
…Yeah, I'm thinking they need to fight tougher monsters already.