After giving his teammates their instructions, everyone got moving.
After casting buffs on the whole team, Theron stayed behind to watch over Abby and York.
Although Abby was very curious about the battle Gauss and the others were about to begin, she knew it wasn't one she could take part in.
Having only learned the Light cantrip, the best thing she could do was stay safely in the rear and avoid causing Gauss trouble.
The others spread out across the wasteland, then gradually closed in like an invisible net.
A few gnolls who had been separated from the rest spotted them early and tried to fight back, but the will-o'-the-wisps Alya summoned soon calmed them down.
The gnolls could only instinctively make their way toward the camp, hoping to join up with their companions and resist.
Shadow, Albenna, and the others did the same from their direction, driving the gnolls toward the center.
It was like a pride of lions hunting on the grasslands. Unlike the lions, however, Gauss—the "leader" of the team—also took part in the encirclement.
He casually picked off the faster targets riding direwolves with Magic Missile.
"Direwolf killed *1"
"Gnoll killed *1"
"..."
Under the group's pressure, the gnolls, who had initially been scattered, gradually gathered together.
Gauss looked at the gnolls remaining in the clearing.
"Just as I thought. No young ones again."
The absence of juveniles was a major boon to his Monster Kill Count, since juvenile monsters didn't count toward it. But clearly, this was abnormal.
Like most living things, gnolls went through various stages of growth.
A healthy tribe would of course have members of all ages: young, adolescent, adult, prime-aged, and old.
Even among goblins, an abnormal species with an extremely rapid growth cycle, Gauss often encountered juveniles that looked like