The caravan passed through the woods and arrived at the monster nest deep in the forest.
The Red Dragon Company members were stunned by what they saw.
Up and down the magnificent giant trees—steeped in an air of decay—were corpses everywhere, broken and incomplete.
Each corpse had wide, staring eyes.
Those eyes were filled with terror, as if their owners still hadn't escaped that fear even in death.
Many Red Dragon Company members swallowed hard.
They'd handled plenty of monster bodies and materials before—but that had been back in the company's manor, in controlled conditions.
This battlefield was different.
The blood hadn't fully dried. The stench was suffocating. The atmosphere made it feel like another world entirely.
The only ones who held up a little better were the old hands—those who'd retired from the adventuring trade.
They weren't especially strong, but they'd seen more goblin corpses than they could count.
After all, goblins had been most of their livelihood back then—their "bread and butter," in a grim sense.
So for them, it was less nausea and more awe.
Two thousand-plus goblin bodies scattered across the whole tree-city… the scale was breathtaking.
And when they remembered that Gauss and his handful of elites had gone in, and the fighting was "over" not long after—
even slaughtering a pig in the countryside was harder than that, wasn't it?
"Get to work."
Gauss cleared his throat, snapping them out of their spiraling thoughts.
Compared to fighting, looting was the real massive project.
They looked at him, blinked as if waking from a dream, then quickly got moving under the direction of several squad leaders—hauling bodies, gathering materials, collecting whatever could be used or sold.
Gauss didn't join the labor.
Instead, he had the clay creatures act as porters—lifting corpses and supplies down from higher platforms and passing them to the crew to sort.
Clay creatures might not be able to think, but as obedient tools, they were hard to beat.
With them, the cleanup sped up noticeably.
Gauss sat up high, watching everyone bustle around below—and for a moment, his gaze went distant.
"What are you thinking about?"
Alia came over and sat beside him. After a short rest, she'd recovered her breath.
"Nothing…"
He paused, then spoke softly.
"Just… seeing all this makes me think about two years ago."
"Back then, it was never like this—never in groups like this."
As he spoke, his shoulders loosened, letting the breeze at the treetops lift and ruffle his hair.
The first time he killed a goblin, it had been just him—alone, hot-blooded, and reckless.
Now there were dozens of people around him, handling all the tedious work that happened outside the actual killing.
That lone-wolf life—wandering on edge, heart in throat—had its own thrill…
but he preferred this. The steadiness. The feeling of having people.
Alia didn't answer.
She just stared for a moment too—maybe remembering what it had been like when they first formed a team.
Only two years had passed, yet it felt like they'd lived an entire lifetime together.
They sat in silence, watching the company work below.
The sorting and hauling continued until nightfall and still wasn't finished.
Gauss and the others cleared out a dozen or so rooms in the tree-city and decided to sleep here inside the goblin nest for the night.
By the campfire, the cook got busy using their packed supplies to make dinner for the company.
Gauss glanced at his interface.
He realized that [Special Stomach] and [Ironscale Bloodline] had both risen from Elite-tier to Warlord-tier.
And the racial talent [Rider], which he'd gained not long ago, had leveled up from Initial to Elite.
Among his racial talents, these three were all goblin-derived—so their ranks tracked directly with how many goblins he'd killed.
Sitting by the fire, Gauss quietly activated [Ironscale Bloodline].
Even though the rarity hadn't changed, the rank increase made the talent far easier to use.
That dragon-scented, alien energy had swelled noticeably.
And now he could control it in fine detail.
For example—he could coat only his right arm, or a specific body part, rather than the whole-body coverage he'd been stuck with early on.
After a brief practice, he dismissed it again.
The night passed peacefully.
The Red Dragon Company members slept deeply—almost unnaturally well—for the first time in what felt like ages.
The next morning, many of them woke up looking confused.
They'd worked half the day yesterday, then slept overnight inside a goblin nest.
They'd expected soreness, stiffness, aches.
Instead… they felt fine.
More than fine—refreshed, full of strength.
"What's going on?"
"First time I've slept that well."
"Better than my bed at home—what the hell?"
"Eat, then back to work."
"Finish early, head home early."
They traded thoughts, still baffled.
But no one went to ask Gauss directly.
Gauss heard their chatter and, after a moment of thought, his expression turned knowing.
Besides Serandur's Mass Healing Word, it was probably also Proof of Leadership at work.
It seemed that when he was present—anchoring the team—his specialty gave everyone under him subtle temporary boosts across the board.
Like a walking human aura.
If that was true, then [Proof of Leadership] was even stronger than he'd expected.
"Still… my Charisma is too low."
He shook his head with a faint sigh.
The higher his Charisma, the stronger the specialty's effects.
If 14 Charisma already did this… what would 15 look like? 20?
Watching the members finish breakfast and immediately get moving, he couldn't help smiling.
By noon, the entire goblin nest had finally been looted and packed.
The wagons that had arrived empty were now piled high with mountain-like bundles.
Before leaving, the crew tightened ropes and secured loads so nothing would tumble from the carts as the draft beasts pulled them over uneven ground.
But honestly—even if something fell, it wouldn't be a real loss.
The truly high-value loot was already sitting safely inside Gauss's various storage pouches.
"Move out!"
At his command, the long caravan started rolling again.
What Gauss hadn't expected was that Proof of Leadership didn't just affect human members—
even the draft beasts pulling the wagons seemed to benefit.
The moment the caravan got moving, their marching pace was noticeably faster.
Three days later.
Outside Falrim, a long caravan bearing the red dragon banner approached the white walls.
It drew plenty of curious stares.
"Which adventuring company is that?"
"Red dragon flag… never seen that before."
"They came back loaded."
"Looks like they cleared a big nest."
A few sharp-eyed merchants quietly fell in behind the caravan, planning to follow it back to its base and see if there was business to be done.
At the gate, there was no serious delay.
As a registered local company, the Red Dragon Company had higher-level passage permissions. They didn't need the same exhaustive inspections normal caravans and visitors endured.
"Welcome back to Falrim."
The gate officer gave Gauss a respectful salute, checked only one or two wagons as a formality, and waved the whole caravan through.
"Captain, you're back."
When Gauss returned, Steward Ivan was in the middle of brewing potions. He got the notice and hurried out to meet them.
"Yeah. While I was gone, thanks for keeping the base running."
"That's my duty."
"Captain, I'll go organize the work."
"Go on."
Ivan's eyes kept drifting to the wagons packed with supplies. After greeting Gauss, he quickly began directing workers—unloading, hauling, and moving everything into the sorting workshop.
For a newly founded company like theirs, a nest of 2,000+ goblins was enough to keep operations running at full speed for a long time.
Gauss returned to his quarters and took a shower first.
Then he sat on the balcony, opened the Adventurer's Manual, and reviewed.
During the three-day trip back, he hadn't been idle.
He'd used the time in the wagon to study and practice the two new spells:
Level 4 Conjuration [Any Door], and Level 3 Illusion [Fear].
Thanks to generous "donations" from roadside sparrows, his Fear proficiency had reached Lv2 (15/20).
Any Door was slower, but still reached Lv1 (8/10).
He closed his eyes and centered himself.
A powerful surge of mana rose around him.
A blue ring of light appeared beneath his feet.
A few seconds later—
with no warning at all, his body vanished from the chair.
Downstairs, a blue ring flashed on a bench.
A figure appeared.
Gauss.
He sat there, rubbing his chin.
Even though it wasn't his first successful cast, every space spell still felt unreal.
From one point to another.
In his perception, space folded—compressed into a channel—and he slipped through it to the anchored location.
A straight-line jump of only twenty-plus meters still cost a noticeable amount of mana—enough to drain an apprentice caster on the spot.
For Gauss, whose mana pool was practically a lake, it was nothing.
Speed-wise, it was absurdly fast.
The only issue was the prep time.
Once the door was formed, the transfer itself was basically instantaneous.
Meaning: if he could raise proficiency enough to shrink that prep window, Any Door would become terrifying.
Though mana cost spiked sharply past a hundred meters, he was starting to suspect this wasn't just an "escape spell."
It was an offensive tool.
Appear behind an enemy. Kill them before they can react.
Or slip out of an incoming strike with a sudden disengage.
The initiative would always be his.
Of course, that required mastery.
Right now, with several seconds of telegraphing, even a random grandmother on the street would notice him "casting something."
So—practice.
Now that he was back at base, he planned to spend his rest days drilling it hard.
He closed his eyes again.
A second blue ring formed.
Seconds later—he disappeared again.
Elsewhere, by a window, a front-desk girl who'd been resting her chin in her hands froze like she'd seen a ghost.
She rubbed her eyes.
And when she looked again, the captain on the bench was gone.
"…Of course."
"It was my imagination."
"I'm hallucinating again, aren't I?"
She blushed as last night's dream resurfaced—him, completely at her mercy.
Night thoughts become day illusions…
She rubbed her burning cheeks, forcing herself to focus.
Dreams were one thing.
In reality, if she ever crossed the line, she'd lose this job for sure.
But…
"How is this even my fault?"
"Who wouldn't lose their mind?"
…
Gauss had no idea his casual spell practice was giving a certain receptionist an identity crisis.
He just kept training.
Blue light flickered across the manor, and his figure popped in and out across the grounds.
In the workshop, Ivan turned his head and nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Captain—why are you here?!"
"It's fine. Keep working."
Before Ivan could even finish answering, blue light rose again—
and Gauss vanished.
Ivan blinked, then realized what was happening.
He turned to the unloading workers, who were all staring like statues.
"Stop gawking. Back to work."
"Tonight's got extra food."
"YES!"
The workers snapped back into motion.
Ivan watched them, noticing their energy had risen another notch.
"…So the captain showing his face once does that?"
Gauss didn't limit practice to the manor.
When he realized longer jumps trained the spell better, he started flashing around nearby streets too—after notifying the Adventurer's Guild in advance.
Before long, rumors spread around the Red Dragon Company district:
A "blue flash" would appear for a few seconds, and in that light you'd see a breathtakingly handsome man—like a saint, glowing with divine radiance.
Some superstitious worshipers decided their piety had moved the gods, and that this was a miracle.
Others claimed that seeing the blue glow made their whole day luckier—as if blessed.
And whether it was suggestion or coincidence or just stories piling up…
more and more people began showing up, hoping to chase that blue light.