The First Legendary Beast Master novel Chapter 188

188 Join A Patrol

Once the buses were loaded, they picked one and loaded themselves in the front, among the limited space that wasn't taken up with stacked supplies.

The bus seats didn't fold, but they had done the best that they could to load them with supplies, and the bus was packed from the third row back. That didn't leave much space for the five member team and their gear, but fortunately none of them was huge and burly. At least not to the point that they didn't fit in one of the narrow bus seats.

Karl took the seat closest to the door, while Hawk took a seat on the roof rack, which was also loaded with boxes of supplies for their journey. There were no off-road or particularly bad stretches between them and the base camp, so they had loaded as much as humanly possible into the vehicles for the trip.

That hid Hawk from sight from behind, and while it limited his view a little, he could see enough that he wasn't afraid of missing any threats to the convoy. The only real danger that they would face would be road conditions, as by the time that Hawk relayed them, it would probably be too late to do anything about them.

The morning was passing smoothly, with the miles flowing by outside the bus without incident, until Hawk spotted the same situation as on the way back to the Seminary Academy. There was a small group of monsters who had escaped from the containment area, and they were headed toward the road.

[They might make it to the road before the bus group gets there.] Hawk warned Karl.

"Incoming monsters ahead. They've left the containment area, and they're headed for the road ahead of us." Karl warned the driver.

The driver relayed the message, and the convoy began to slow as the lead driver spotted the same monsters that Hawk had seen thirty seconds earlier. They were right on the road now, according to Hawk, but they were no real threat, as they were all Awakened Rank.

[Take care of them quickly, and then someone will drag them out of the road so we can keep going.] Karl instructed.

That was a pleasure for Hawk. He flew up off his perch and forward to the front of the convoy to get in range, then hit them with a barrage of fireballs. The flames seemed to melt into their bodies, remaining coherent like chunks of magma, and the Ogres dropped dead, falling all along the road and in the ditches.

[Your fireballs are becoming quite impressive.] Karl congratulated him.

[Fire is wonderful. I should have had fire from the start.] Hawk agreed.

That was a new attitude from Hawk. Karl was actually surprised that he didn't use Rend, but with Fireball being as good as it was now, clearly an Ascended Rank advanced attack ability, it made sense for him to switch.

"That Hawk has some serious attack power." The driver commented as he listened to the lead guard group going out to clean up the dead Ogres and scavenge any loot that they could get. Hawk didn't sense anything worth keeping, but they might have some money on them, which the church would use to pay for the supplies and bus fuel.

They had the road cleared in under a minute, and the convoy was back in motion, with Hawk now sitting on the top of the lead bus, so he could get that extra few hundred metres worth of warning if there was anything headed toward the road.

Burning holes in Ogres was surprisingly satisfying, and with Karl meditating all the time lately, his space was starting to gain enough power that he could feel a bit of leeway to keep growing his skills.

Keeping up with the demands of the three growing beasts was more than Karl could easily manage, but now that Hawk had found some advancement room, he was making the best of it to improve his fire abilities.

Karl could tell that Rae was working on something as well, but he couldn't tell quite what it was that she was trying to comprehend. He still had [Skill Master] active to help their learning, but without anyone to watch, their growth would be limited. She was dedicated to it though, and she seemed to have a good grasp on what she was doing, there was just one last step left that she wasn't understanding in order to make the spell work. Once they were in combat again, she might grasp it, as long as it was something that the group here was using as well.