Leave The Monster Alone

"Treasure~ Treasure~ here lies treasure~" the annoying sing-song voice belonged to none other than the snake who had just cleared the dungeon. As for Mark, he just looked at his system notification to know that the dungeon had been cleared.

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Oractus (Alt name: The sea monster's pearl) - Cleared

Rewards: Regular rewards -sea pearlX1 (can be used once to complete the vial formula)

Additional resources: Map fully unlocked. Relaxation time: 2 hours

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Once the monster had been dispatched, Mark finally crawled out of the cave he had been hiding in. The snakeskin was still clutched tightly in his hands and visible to everyone.

However, if the other felt disturbed seeing him hold onto his shed skin, he did not say anything and neither did his expression. Even the female looked impassively at him and not at the skin.

They might not have felt awkward but Mark did and he hurriedly put away that skin. It was weird to hold onto such a thing when the original owner was right in front of him.

"Are you alright?" the female asked as soon as he was near enough. Her voice was still emotionless but it had softened a lot from before.

Mark gave her a small smile and a gesture to tell her that she was alright. He just needed a minute to get his thoughts in order because he was a little dizzy right now.

"Vodi, help me find the treasure" the snake whined from the side, his tone not impressed at the other who was wasting time. 

"You said you knew where it was" the female shot back but she did move to help the other as well. Despite her unwillingness to do anything, she really did put effort when the other asked.

Their relationship sure was unique in a way.

"Kuro, can you smell the equipment?" Mark asked the feline who likely had the sharpest sense of smell. He could not smell anything due to the smoke but maybe Kuro could. She was a divine beast after all.

However, her head shook in a negative way which informed Mark that she had no idea as well.

He waited for some time to allow the others a chance to find that equipment. It was the weirdest feeling in Mark's life - to be sitting at the sidelines while others did work. He had always been rather active, taking any work he could to help.

In a way, he had never really been useless before but right now that was what he was - useless. It was not a feeling he particularly enjoyed.

"It's not here. Vodi, the treasure is not here at all. Did we do all this for nothing?" After almost one hour of searching, the dam broke and the other exploded in anger.

"I did tell you it might not be here but you sounded far too sure of yourself" the female complained right back to the other who pouted.

"But it should be here, right behind the boss. Isn't this how games are played? What fun is there to hide the material in a place where anyone can access them?" Perhaps for the snake, this was as easy as playing the game.

But Mark felt chills at those words because it meant that the other was far more powerful than Oractus. Would they survive once the all-out assault began?

"This is not a game Fidi, so please act seriously for once. Also, I think the kitten could help us here" Kuro growled in protest at being called a kitten. Only a blind fool would call the full-sized Kuro a kitten.

But maybe it was not because of the size. Maybe it was due to the age difference they had. Kuro was young after all - young and indebted to them in a way.

"Can you sniff them out, Kuro?" Mark asked and got an affirmative. The huge cat ignored the other two in the room before she snapped her jaws around Mark's sleeve and dragged him out to the back.

The other two followed with an amused look on their face, not saying anything at all in the process. They were likely enjoying this rare scene of a human being dragged like this by his pet.

Then they were back in the corridors, the dark halls now once again empty of any monsters. Since he had not yet checked the map, he did not know where he was being dragged forward to.

He could still check the map but right now it felt like a bad idea. Those divine beasts did not look like the kind of people who would let this point go very easily. He could not allow them to find out this one advantage he likely had.

So he allowed Kuro to drag him toward the treasure while they followed behind. 

The room they had been led to was not anything impressive or important looking enough. If not for Kuro, then Mark was sure they would have never opened this door at all. It begged the question - what had the design team been thinking while designing this.

"Cleaver. To hide it behind an ordinary door so that no one could find it at all. I wonder who came up with this idea?" the snake muttered as if it made too much sense to him.

Since Mark knew the truth about this world he knew the reason was likely different. He would bet that it was due to negligence and laziness that this door was like this. After all, this was not an area that held any significance to the original player.

It was likely that in the original timeline this room was already empty of all its treasures. There was likely no reason for the player to ever venture here at all so this design did make sense.

That did not mean it was not lazy game design at all.

"Anyway, get to work Mark. We'll be counting on you here" there was a small push that caused Mark to lose his footing. Kuro growled in warning, her eyes shining and any lesser person would have cowered at the threat.

But of course, neither of the remaining two were humans or lesser creatures at all.

"Oh stop complaining. I would have done it if I could. But only these humans have those storage things" it did not surprise Mark that they knew about the system storage. They had lived in the human base and had likely spies inside them.

They should be well versed in human technology. 

But there was something weird about those wordings that egged him. Could they not use a system at all? As far as Mark had observed, they had virtually no different than normal humans at all.

But then there were small things like this that made his point of view change over the whole thing.

"I'll store these objects" Mark got to work, shaking the distractions out of his mind. There was a time and place for everything and right now it was time to act fast.

The time limit was not really a problem with two adult divine beasts in his party but he still needed to be fast to get out of here. This place held secrets that should not be known by these divine beasts. 

Somehow, Mark felt as this place could provide humans with a really big advantage and he wanted to keep that secret for now.

"What is taking you so long?" the snake questioned in a whining voice, not even 20 minutes in the storage work. Mark felt his eye twitch at the annoyance.

"It is not as easy as it looks. I can't just shove it all inside, I need to unplug and separate everything from those tubes" there was no way he could shove everything inside his system. He tried it as soon as he entered the room.

The system required him to store things separately and the warning note displayed that. So he had gotten to work, separating various tubes and notes to the best of his capability.

Of course, to a beast-like Fidi, it all looked to be meaningless and he was irritating now.

"Let me help. You just need to pull this right?" Mark turned around too late to stop the other. The tube had been held far too tight and cracked in those hands.

The snake looked at his hands in disbelief and then at the angry male in front of him. Slowly, he raised his hands in a surrendering position as his face twisted in an innocent apologetic expression.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to" but the damage had already been done. Thankfully it was only wired.

"I found spares here. Do you need to store them too" the female's voice broke Mark out of his thoughts, her hands clutching various wires softly? It was clear that she did not want to make the same mistake as the other.

"Put.Then. Down.Here. And do not touch anything else" Mark stressed out, his words far too angry and the snake gulped in fear.

"Yes sir"