Supreme Monarch

The next morning, Tyler — Still dabbed in his hooded coat and accompanied by the beautiful Nadine. Opened Hunter guild's large main doors and walked in.

The first thing he saw as he entered the room was the counter further down ahead, where three of the guild's receptionists greeted the Hunters with smiles on their charming faces as most of the Hunter's they attended to were practically drooling over them. Tyler couldn't help but wonder if everyone on the demon continent were just horny perverts.

There were warriors in specialized full plate armor, nimble fellows in light armor and bearing bows or crossbows, as well as robed magic casters with their staves and grimoires.

On the left was a large door, and on the right was a notice board. There were several pieces of parchment upon it that most likely contained quest or job offers from the merchant guild and magic institute. Several Hunters were chatting in front of it, most likely discussing with their party members about the jobs that were available for their ranks.

The atmosphere here was rowdy so early in the morning and Tyler was a little annoyed by that. He didn't need to bother with anyone here though as he had no plans of becoming a Hunter so he walked towards one of the receptionists.

The eyes of everyone present focused on the pair that had just entered and most of them still gawking at Nadine while glaring at him, he could also feel those eyes sizing him up from head to toe as much as they could. 

There were even those that had activated their skills, trying to pry on the figure under the hood. It was a good thing he had used another set of anti-divination scrolls this morning before heading out.

Tyler was also surveying the Hunters in turn. Most of them wore slim gold and silver strapped bracelets on their arms that had symbols on them represented their ranks although the metal on the mostly leather bracelets already signified what ranks they were. There was also no copper-ranked Hunter around. From what he knew the Hunter guilds ranking was a little different from the adventurer Guilds back in the human continent.

The adventurer Guilds used letters from an F to S when ranking their adventurers based on strength alone. However, the Hunters of the Demon continent didn't solely judge strength. This was because the human continent lacked a lot of powerful individuals while that wasn't exactly the case here.

The monsters in this continent were also worlds apart from the human continent so survivability was a very valuable trait when ranking a Hunter. It was why every new hunter had to start from the lowest ranking and work their way to the top no matter how strong they were. Of course, they still favored those with magic.

The rankings in the Hunter guild went from Rank 9 to Rank 1 but were popularly referred to by the metals on their Hunter bracelets. Ranging from Copper to Quantium. When Tyler had looked around and didn't see any copper ranks he was referring to the lowest ranking Hunters. A Rank 9, a number that was generally depicted on the metal parts of their bracelets.

Feeling vaguely out of place, Tyler advanced to the counter followed closely by Nadine.

A party of Hunters had just departed, freeing up one of the counters. He stepped forward and said:

"I'd like to sell some cores and monster 

corpse to the guild."

"Thank you for coming, may I ask if you're a member of the guild."

It was a simple question, similar to what he had gotten from the male receptionist in the merchant guild, but this one was only a courtesy ask as he wasn't wearing a metal plated bracelet that shows he was a member of the guild.

'No, I'm not."

"Then would you like to join the guild, you'll only have to pay a slight fee and do a potential test even if you're not a magic caster."

This was what he needed to avoid the most so Tyler quickly shook his head and replied. "No. I already joined the merchant guild so there is no need."

He brought out the purple glimmering card from his coat. His VIP Rank 1 merchant license. The female receptionist had been ready to continue her pitch when she saw the purple card and had no choice but to stop. She then took the card and slightly bowed before Tyler and proceeded to leave the counter, entering the door to the right.

The surrounding hunters that had been paying attention to the newcomers were in shock. These two did not look like they were merchants at all, especially the hooded figure that moves through countless hostile gazes so casually like he had felt nothing.

Even the Gold Rank hunters here would tremble under such pressure, yet they were meant to believe that he was just a merchant. If all merchants were like that they had a bad feeling that half of their weekly income would disappear.

The female receptionist returned soon after and invited Tyler upstairs into a meeting room. Tyler followed behind her with Nadine who was still attracting almost all the male's attention as they entered the room where he saw an elderly man with a full head of whites seating on the sofa in the well-furnished room. He wore an expensive-looking white mages robe with gold inlaid threading.

His long white beard gave him the appearance of a typical wizard in various folklore Tyler had heard about. This was the kind of person Tyler would expect to see in charge of the magic institute but not what he had pictures when he thought about the Guild leader of the Hunter Guild.

Even the innkeeper he met last night seemed better suited to this role than him. He decided not to dwell on the topic too much as he felt a strong aura emanating from this old man the moment he entered the room. It wasn't something he couldn't handle, although he had barely felt it, Tyler still tried to put up a front.

He pretended to be disturbed by the aura at first but slowly got used to it. This was also one of the pieces of information he had gotten out of Z and if it works, Tyler would have to seriously reconsider his opinion on him.

The old man stared at him in a bit of surprise and apprehension before finally calming down. A faint smile appeared on his face as the female receptionist that had lead Tyler to this room bow and left the room.

"Not bad, Not bad at all. Looks like you're not just an ordinary merchant, the fact that you have a VIP license without me ever having heard of you shows the amount of value the Merchant Guild has of you. I am Ivan Geriyl, the Guild Leader of this branch of the Hunter guild."

"You can call me Lix, this here is Lilith."

The current Hunter guild was no longer lead by a guild leader. After they all united into one, it was natural for them to appoint a new leader from all the previous guild leaders. Naturally, the new leader would be given a higher title than the rest, which ended up being the Guild Master, not to be mistaken for the Guild Leaders.

The old man nodded at Tyler's introduction and gestured for them to seat on the sofa opposite his and they obliged. He then leaned back into his seat as he asked:

"So how bout it, why don't yo—"

"No thanks."

"Huh, hahahaha... I haven't even asked yet, you're truly something. Ghahahahah..."

He picked up the glass of water in front of him as a knock came in from the door and he gave permission for the female receptionist to enter. She brought back two glasses of cold water and placed them in front of the two guests before asking if they would like anything else.

They both declined any more refreshments and the female receptionist excused herself again from the room.

"Alright, looks like you want us to skip the small talks and get down to the business at hand, right?"

"We would appreciate that."

"Very well, so what exactly do you plan on selling us."

Tyler brought out a small box half the size of his palm from within his cloak and Nadine handed it over to the old man. Naturally, that was a small storage box filled to the brim with ores, cores, and monster corpses.

The reason he hadn't kept the herbs he had sold to the merchant guild in there was only partly because it was full. He wanted to make an impression on more people in the merchant guild and no longer needed to do that here.

The guild leader, Ivan received the box and checked the content within, he whistled, "Quite impressive, there are a few high-level creatures in here. Are you sure you don't want to be a Hunter, that would suit you a lot better?"

"No thanks."

"Ah, too bad." He clapped his hand once and the female receptionist returned. "Here, have the contents of this box appraised and calculate their worth."

The receptionist nodded and left with the box. Guild Leader Ivan then looked at the hooded man and said: "It's a shame... I'm not good at pitching my guild, but how bout it, if you join the Hunter guild I'll put in a good word for you and your starting rank would directly start at Gold Rank. Huh, isn't that tempting?"

Ivan could barely see the lips of the man under the hood curl up slightly. He was sure he had made a good offer when: 

"I'll have to decline, I plan on joining the magic institute so it wouldn't be wise to already be a member of both the Hunter and Merchant Guild beforehand."

Ivan's eyes twitched for a second before ultimately calming down. He smiled and chuckled to himself. "Well, that's a shame. It looks like that sly dog has finally used a recommendation huh, that makes me even more interested. That's fine, the Hunter guild and the magic institute work well together than us and the merchants so for now that should be acceptable."

As Ivan went on and on without any interruptions from Tyler and Nadine, the female receptionist soon returned with the box, a piece of parchment, and a pouch of coins. She placed everything in front of Ivan and gave Tyler a weird look before leaving the room to wait outside once more.

Ivan read the parchment and chuckled, "It looks like you brought use some rare finds, even with our 30% charges you still get a whooping 11,940 DC's, that's enough money to feed a small town for more than half a year."

Tyler also chuckled to cover up his surprise, as he had expected more from the beast cores than what he had gotten from the herbs but he was wrong. Once everything was handled his VIP merchant license was handed back to him alongside the pouch of coins. 

It was a much smaller bag than the last so Tyler didn't bother checking its content and just placed it into his coat. He thanked the guild leader and left the meeting room. Walking down the stairs they were met with similar gazes as before but there was something different hidden amongst them.

Tyler ignored the feeling he got and walked out of the building. They hadn't taken the carriage today as he had paid the inn to take care of it for two days. As Tyler walked down the street with Nadine in tow, he turned a corner into a narrow and deserted alleyway and saw a male figure at the end of the alleyway, his face plastered with an annoying smile.

Several figures joined him and some came from behind as they all started closing in on them with the same sinister grins on their faces. 

"Oi, you're a rich fellow ain't ya, how bout you give us everything you got on ya, and let us also have some fun with you little toy over there."

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