The three of them soon finished washing the blood off their bodies, and got dressed. The recruits had finished filling the copped water canisters, and were now playing excitedly in the water.
"It feels nice to be clean in such a long time." Maria said, admiring her clean cotton clothes, and spun around, causing her short skirt to lift up slightly.
"I know right, it's fucking refreshing." Mickey said with an appreciative smile.
"You bad that they are going to get dirty again soon." Xavier said, throwing cold water on their joy. Mickey glared at him and Maria looked at him and huffed.
"Now that you guys are done freshening up, we need to decide what to do next. I wanted to help them train by fighting an easier monster, the goblins, but I don't think that's going to work with the imps. Although, I guess the only good thing is that you guys have us some credibility with your fighting skills." Rosie sighed, and Mickey had his hand on his chin for a moment.
"It's not necessarily a total loss. I could train them to use their weapons. I might not be skilled in using weapons, but I've watched enough movies to teach them the basics. And I've fought enough monsters as well to give them some pointers." Mickey said, punching his hand into his palm with a smile.
"That's actually not a bad idea." Rosie said with a small smile.
"Yeah, but you guys only have about an hour or two though." Xavier said, and they looked at him questioningly.
"Look, there are twelve of us here, which means we are going to need 60 imp monster stones for the Warden's tax, which is a good thing. If you guys went to the east, that number would have increased dramatically, to 96 goblin monster stones and good luck finding so much. Imps are probably gonna be easier to find, but it is still going to take time, and not sure about you, but I would rather not be here when night comes." Xavier said, and Maria and Mickey nodded their heads.
"Fuck, we were so concerned about getting the newbies trained that we forgot about the tax." Bella said
"Fuck, I can't believe we made that mistake." Rosie said with a groan, admonishing herself
"Don't beat yourself up too much, I only realized it a few minutes ago." Xavier said with a sigh.
"Alright, we should get the training started as quick as possible then. Hey newbies, training time!!" Mickey said loudly, and they quickly ran over. For the next thirty minutes, Xavier watched as Mickey trained the new recruits, making them practice simple swings and thrusts with their weapons. Xavier chipped in from time to time, giving them advice, like the fact that their speed will be on par with the imp's if their agility is 11 or more. And that the best time to attack the imps would be when they are close, and that the best place to attack is their wings, which would immobilize them. The new recruits committed his advice to memory, and so did Rosie and the others, who joined the training as well, practicing their weapons.
Xavier turned towards Maria, who was practicing her bow skills, shooting arrows at a tree, trying to hit the fruits. She was around ten meters from her target, and five times out of ten age succeeded. Xavier watched her for awhile, and she soon noticed.
"Have any advice for me?" Maria asked, while taking aim with her bow.
"Nope, I don't have any experience with bows." Xavier said
"Neither did I until two days ago." She said, and released the arrow, slicing into the fruit. Looking at this, Xavier nodded his head, a bit impressed that she learned how to use the weapon so well in only two days.
"Well, I guess I can offer you some advice. I might not have experience with bows, but I do with knife throwing, and their might be some similarities. My advice is to find the distance at which your accuracy is the near 100%, without compromising your safety too much. And that predicting your enemies movements will help you aim. The monster's we've been fighting so far has simple patterns that are easily predictable, so it shouldn't be too hard." Xavier said, and Maria looked at him.
"....Thanks, but I think I figured most of that on my own." She said, and he shrugged.