We eventually made it to the location Hannah mentioned and we set up camp with a little water and fire magic to both dehydrate dead branches and then light them with help from Hannah.

The way Hannah explained it was something about nature mana still remaining on it and reacting to the fire mana to create our fire.

Boy were we exhausted though.

Not only from all the running we did, I mean I was way better than the rest of them. I'm Greg by the way.

But the mental exhaustion the others had. I got off pretty lightly.

The way I see it though we'll be back to top form by tomorrow and in a few days the others will hopefully get over their mental hurdles.

Now what do we have to eat! Lee previously made tons of that dried monster meat from both the boars and orcs that tended to nest near Goblin farm.

Now that stuff is tasty, I LOVE SALT AND SUGAR. It just gets my heart pumping and my blood racing!

I relax a bit and tell everyone I'll take first watch, the others just glance at me and nod. That's about right, I usually have more energy after all our adventures for the day despite being the most active even though today was a little special I think they just exhausted a bit more than normal.

I on the other hand just had that short term but staggering lack of breath. Denny is heavier than he looks although, mentally flexing, I easily carried him at the same pace as everyone else.

I glance over at Hannah who has already fallen asleep. I grimace a bit since I couldn't take that hit for her. That's like my ENTIRE job.

My class is specifically axe guardian. Guardians are those who can get hit a lot. Like a lot a lot. We are supposed to protect all the squishy other classes. 

My natural stone skin skill is my main reason for this class. I chose it over crystal skin which is more magically built leaving crystal skin unbought in my store. The only way I can level these two up is through my current level as it keeps up with me. 

Nice that I don't really need to think that hard about it, some of my other skills are hard to level up.

Oh there's a nice moon outside by that scary looking bat. Crap, I grab axe and go shoo it off.

Denny hasn't fallen asleep yet and gives me a look that clearly says well what took you so long to notice? 

I just go back to my spot, my intuition is high yes but sometimes it just doesn't register with me.

I glance through my inventory a bit and then munch on some H-bread.

Good stuff, Lee's a genius as always.

Lee probably doesn't even realize it either from what I can tell.

The man can make hundreds of treats, some instantly, and others quite quickly as too. 
The effects are amazing too!

Like this one time I at one of those water puffs and I could completely dodge like everything from this one orc warrior. We were the same level and yet it couldn't touch me, hah take that orc!

Not only that but he has the most versatility of anyone I know. Hannah spends a lot of her time in the library reading those books. I don't really get why, I mean I tried reading one when I was bored one day about this mouse and I was about the same after only slightly inspired.

Maybe I just didn't read enough. Oh the point, uh I hang out with other adventurers a lot more than the rest of them. True adventurers at least unlike Denny. I do a lot of missions with people who have a high dismantling level since the quests I do are mostly just killing things. I don't exactly know what parts are good and what aren't but that's for the others to figure out. All I need to do is provide the bodies. I don't exactly get along with those types of people though because they are just sooo weak. I mean who can't take a pat on the back and just falls on their face every time. Lee barely invests in his strength stat at all mostly getting his strength from the normal stat rewards when leveling and not using the free points. He can take it though, and that's what makes him waaay better than my temporary help.

I can't exactly stay in the same party for long either because they don't level up fast enough. I only go killing things for 3 hours a day I mean, how hard can it be. Once I get over their level we can't party up because they are just too low ranked. But Hannah, Denny, and Lee have kept up with me and it makes me very happy for it. They all see our little group as the most talented people they've ever met for some reason.

One time when a lot of the others were drunk and I was only a little, well maybe a bit more than a little, drunk they asked me what my proficiency was for my axe. When I told them they acted shocked. I didn't understand it but they then talked a bit more about the norms, whatever that means, and said that the average person would have an average of average for their skills with some at good and others at bad.

Clearly they were a bit too drunk because we had an average of great with a few at amazing like my armor wielding one, LEATHER ALL THE WAY BOYS!!! And a few at good. Only our newest skills were ever anything below that.

Even old man Gary was in on it and said that his highest skill proficiency was great and he hadn't really leveled up in the past 20 years because of the old debuff. It just lowers all a person's stats by a percentage that gradually gets higher until it hits 35%. It doesn't affect experience gained but he can't fight anything on his level because of it.

I can do that though. I can even beat off monsters that don't use those sneaky ambush things above my level.

I smile a bit with pride. 

Yeah I'm just the best. 

I love going fist to fist too, its really fun. This one time I out wrestled a earth grizzly that was 4 levels above me. It was amazing, the others were worried for some reason but the guy just wanted to have a good ol' nice wrestling match. He even stood up on two feet and raised his claws before getting onto all fours like sumo wrestlers. 
I clearly needed to accept his challenge so I put my axe away and also crouched down. I let him have the first move since he was being rude and running towards me before I even put my axe away. It didn't go well for him and I ended up choking him to death, oh good times.

I look at the moon again and this time there's no bat. Because clearly my instinct would have told me if there was. No evidence has proven otherwise. None. I sit for a while longer, shifting around a bit because rocks are hard even if you have skin made of them.

I may have also decreased the number of jerky we have but I did so well, I even lasted over half the night before I wake up Lee. Wow I'm such an amazing friend, but they are also such great friends too!

Did I ever mention that salt and sugar are AMAZING!