Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

Zach didn't waste any time. As soon as the club members gathered, he started sharing with them his plans.

"As our name suggests, this club is about researching and exterminating the Underworld. We shall reach extermination through understanding. Thus, research comes first. We have to understand underworld energy and figure out weapons that work against it.

"Right now, we have Julius' Mannequin, which is effective against the Underworld since it also uses underworld energy. But it will lose out against enemies stronger than it. My angel also possesses properties that work against the underworld energy to a certain degree.

"The problem is that neither of those are applicable to the rest of the tools in our arsenal. We have to learn more about underworld energy. That's why our first task is to gather and study samples from the forest."

Zach looked at his club members, and when he didn't hear any objections or opinions, he pulled out a map of the forest closest to the Academy. He split the eight members into groups of two and sent them into various areas for them to collect specimens of contaminated flora and fauna.

This wasn't a period where the third and fourth years, such as Liam, could devote all their time to club activities. And the only reason Zach and the others could was that their club activities overlapped with their standard curriculum.

They couldn't go into the forest and spend as much time as they wanted to stroll around looking for samples to collect since they had other things to do and lessons to attend.

However, the plan wasn't to go deep. Zach just wanted a few samples from the outskirts.

Everyone in the club was more than capable enough of gathering that before the day was over.

It was a simple task, but Zach still took it seriously. That was why he was a little considerate with Nessa and Rierdan. Their familiars were C and B-rank, respectively, but Rierdan's Runic Moss Butterfly wasn't very proficient in direct combat. If something happened, those two were the most at risk.

So, Zach paired up Rierdan with Liam, the only third-year in the club and the only other with two familiars. It should be safest with him or Zach. That was why Nessa and Zach went together.

It didn't matter which of the two ended up with which two-familiar summoner, but Zach was planning to gather a bunch of things, so he wanted Nessa and her Snakelong Millipede to carry all that for him.

No one objected. It was reasonable, and Zach was the president. Anerias grumbled about Zach ordering him around a little too much and too easily, but he didn't mind being paired up with Violina. Although their positions in the class were similar, they didn't interact too much, and for all the pride Anerias had, he was still a guy.

Yanael and Alzara aside, who didn't count, Violina was one of the most attractive girls in the class, if not the most attractive. Anerias set aside his and Zach's differences and gave him a subtle fist bump on his way out of the classroom.

Two by two, the Underworld Research and Extermination Club filed out of the room after preparing everything they might need for a short, one-day trip into the forest.

Standing in front of the forest, Zach turned to Nessa with a grave expression. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes.

"Nessa."

Nessa gulped, taken in by the gravity of Zach's eyes, voice, and body language. He had been easygoing and calm until now. But maybe that had all been an act. What if he was going to reveal some secret mission only she could help him with? It was not a secret that he was on friendly terms with the president.

If not that, maybe…A confession?

She nodded.

"Do you know how to read a map?"

"..." Nessa stared blankly at Zach.

"Give me back my nervousness!" She smacked Zach's hands off of her shoulders and stormed toward the forest.

"What?" Zach stared after her.

"Wait, Ness—"

"Yes! I can read a map. Are you coming?" Nessa stopped and looked at Zach like she had been waiting for several hours already.

Zach hurried after her, unsure what he had done to upset her so. But as long as she didn't get them as lost as he would have if he was in charge, he didn't mind.

Nessa quickly calmed down. In the first place, it was her fault for getting lost in delusions and daydreams. But she still blamed Zach. What was the deal with putting up such a serious front when she wasn't going to let him even look at the map after they entered the forest?
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She didn't know what was going on in Zach's head, but everyone in the class was desperately aware of Zach's nonexistent sense of direction. Even if he wanted to, she wouldn't let him lead them around inside the forest. She wouldn't even let him walk first if they were only going to the cafeteria together.

Nessa was in charge of the map. Her Snakelong Millipede was in charge of carrying the things Zach and Alzara gathered, and Yanael was in charge of defending them against any monsters that attacked them.

However, as if to make a mockery of all the suffering and verbal abuse he endured in the first year, the monsters in the forest, contaminated by underworld energy or not, didn't move toward him. They fled from him.

To be precise, they fled from Alzara, but Zach wasn't going to blame her on a hunch. Besides, this trip wasn't a hunting trip. He wanted to gather some living specimens, but that wasn't important. It would also be a mess to take care of. And the monsters would only be caught if they were dead. So, live test subjects would have to wait.

Plants were easier. Those, he could store somewhere and forget about. A monster would be a little more difficult to bring into the Academy.

'Whoops.'

Zach belatedly realized that he might have given his club members a very difficult task.

'Eh. Not my problem.'