Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"Eren… are you… perhaps talking about rankless students?"

Eren was expecting this kinda reaction from the people gathered around his table. Rankless students were usually left alone to their devices. That's because they didn't have the qualifications to fight alongside Novice rankers due to their ordinary, non-mana powers.

LA would match up a seven-pronged party with another one of the same numbers in them. Despite there being rankless members on either side or not. Rankless students would be targeted first by the opponent party and roll that advantage into a victory.

So no Novice party would take up any rankless member. But Eren was suggesting that they pick up two more members from the same rankless lot.

"Yes, I'm talking about rankless people. But we will not list them as our party members until they break through into the Novice rank. Consider them as our reserve members.

I am sure no Novice party would be seeking any rankless students to join their team even as a reserve member. And the students would feel elevated by the fact that they are sought by a Novice team even before their official breakthrough. I don't think we'll face any obstruction in doing this.

The reason for this unusual move is simple. I know two students who would show tremendous potential once they breakthrough into F-Rank. Don't ask me the source, but it's a solid piece of news you guys can count on.

We will not do anything crazy like hiring rankless party members and fighting alongside them. That'd be suicidal. It's better to call quits on a match than perform something fantastical like this.

What we'll do instead is keep them around with us till they break their ranks. And we can make them join our party once that happens. Steve, I'll give you the name of those students in a few days. Ensure that you approach them the right way and make them join our party as our reserve members.

But we need to nurture ourselves before we can think about nurturing the talents of the future. We need to perform well in intra-class wars to make our recruitment process smoother. The strong would only like to shake hands with the strong, after all."

Eren said this and then shifted their conversation over their ID stone communication by opening an audio channel. Steve, Becky, and Jake knew he was going to talk about something private that he didn't want any other student to hear.

"I will share another piece of information. We all need plenty of Merps in all our accounts. Jake and I have already liquidated most of our money into Merps to prepare for a certain event. You need to do the same.

All your BTP values are lower than 14 so you can't take up any missions from Besanc yet. Therefore, you won't be able to earn Merps through completing missions. That leaves you guys with only one option.

You have to convert a lot of your money into Merps within these two days. I'd say convert almost all of the Extols you have. Because this event will require a lot of Merps in your account to maximise your profits. Otherwise, you'd fall into LA's debt trap.

This event will have the power to influence our party's battle potential. It can give us the advantage we need to beat currently promising teams with seemingly stronger party members in them.

Therefore, Jake and I are risking sharing this information with you. Should Renita decide to join us, Steve, make sure you give the same hint to her as well. After all, the party is as strong as its weakest member."

Jake was glad Eren had decided to share this news with their party members. They needed to be strong as a team as well as individuals for them to keep on winning on every front.

Jake was the one who had asked Eren to give this piece of news to Steve and Becky as well. The latter pondered about it for a while before agreeing.

Otherwise, if having more Merps in your account was as important as Eren had claimed, the advantage that'd come with having them would be limited to two out of five party members. That'd be detrimental to them as a party in the long run.

"Eren, what are you talking about? What event and what is this all about accumulating Merps by burning our Extols reserve?"

Becky tried asking Eren but all she heard was static from the audio channel, which Eren had closed soon after. He had indicated that no further information will be provided on this topic. The team returned to talking normally after the ID stone communication was put to rest.

"Alright, Eren. I don't know about Becky. But I'll follow your advice. I'm sure we can find plenty of uses for our Merps even if the event doesn't take place. So there's no harm in doing it. Is there anything else you want to add?"

Steve was the first to recover. He was decisive when he needed to be.

"Yeah. Steve, your berserking path suits you…."

Eren paused for a while before looking at Becky and continuing:

"But I can't say the same about you, Becky."

"What do you have against me, Eren? Why are you guys criticising my path all the time?"

Becky was unhappy with Eren again zeroing on her seemingly mediocre talent. But that latter verbally marched on without caring about her feelings:

"I'm saying this for your good. Of course, I'm being selfish here as well. Because improving you would give me the chance to earn more Merps in future. In a way, I'm investing in you to get my returns. But that doesn't change the fact that your prospects would be wasted on you being a healer if you don't heed my advice.

You can't become an exceptional healer with your fire element. Plus, your inherent nature is lividness, turning an ordinary fire into a dark bluish-grey one. Even if there are healing spells for your element, most of them are not suited for party healing. What's more, the healing spells would keep on getting rarer as you progress further in your path as a healer while having such elemental affinity and inherent nature.

How about being a mage? Your affinity and inherent nature are better suited to becoming a mage. I'm sure the academy's consultation must have also pointed to the same thing. So I can only guess that your drive to become a healer despite all that must be related to your commitment to someone or something.

But think carefully about it. Do you want to compromise with your career for the reason you feel is worth doing it now? Life doesn't give second chances to everybody, you know."

Becky got quiet after hearing Eren's remark. He was right. It was her insistence that she become a healer due to reasons known only to her. But a voice of reason had sprung back in her head again. Telling her that the recluse and rude boy in front of her was right.

"Well…"

Becky wanted to defend her stance but Eren cut her off right away. He wasn't interested in her reason to become a healer. He only cared about his party members becoming strong enough to help him beat up even stronger teams. He tried to make Becky tread on the right path so that she could become an effective member of his team, enabling him to get the maximum usage out of her. All of this was his investment to gain more Merps, which would become stepping stones to his success in this timeline.

"You should keep the reason for your choice to become a healer to yourself, Becky. We'll not pry into it. What we want from you is you give your best to the party. And being a healer ain't it."

"But if Becky drops the idea of being a healer, who would be the party's healer in our upcoming battles?"

Jake couldn't help asking. The businessman in him wanted to prevent Eren from advising this to Becky. It could rob their party of a healer that they needed. Although he understood the benefits of long-term gains, he wasn't too hyped about suffering in the present for it.

"Remember the two rankless students I talked about? One of them would be an awesome healer for our party. She would break into the Novice rank soon enough. But it would still take a month. For better or worse, we'll have to participate in the compulsory inter-class battle without any healer in our ranks.

Don't worry. Healers won't have much to do in ranking wars, at least in the beginning. We would have gotten our compatible ranking techniques and spells by the time it's our time to take part in inter-class battles. If Becky becomes a mage, she can cast an AoE whenever it gets difficult for us to find an opening.

Of course, Becky would become a glass canon after becoming a mage. So Jake will always have to stay together with her. The offence would be handled by Steve, a ranger, and I.

I'm telling you all this so that you could get a clear idea about your role in the party and choose your spells and techniques accordingly. I don't want any of you to be clueless in that department when you are offered those choices in the upcoming event."

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Author's Note: Hello. Do you want me to explain the RPG terms that get used in the novel? Let me know what you think.

The term glass-canon describes a ranker or unit with strong offensive power but weak defensive capabilities.