Supreme Monarch

As the minds of the Hunter's finally settled down a little. Anne quickly rushed over to Dohel's side — who had collapsed on the ground a while back after completely exhausting his mental focus, mana, and stamina alike.

She quickly brought out a small bottle from her pouch and made him drink the bottle's entire content. It was one of the items that were a necessity for a Hunter party. A general recovery potion, although not as expensive as a mana potion, stamina potion, and healing potions, was still a very expensive item.

The potion boosts the natural recovery rates of the body for a short amount of time. While not as effective due to the short duration, it was still considered one of the best items for Hunters especially when used in combination with recovery magic.

The others had also collapsed on the ground upon seeing this as they breathe a sigh of relief. They were also breathing heavily as they cautiously eyed their surroundings with their weapons being at arms reach.

Tyler on the other hand had something else on his mind. He had never seen a salamander before so he had no idea on the worth of their cores as they were so comically weak to fire-based attacks. Whatever was made with the cores or scales would probably have the same absurd weakness.

Then again, it would be their only weakness. If one equipped a full set of armor made from both the core and scales of a frost salamander and also equip a charm or item that provided ridiculously high fire resistance, they would have an insanely high defense against physical and magic attacks due to the high durability of the monsters.

Such a thing would surely be valuable even if tools that gave high fire resistance were hard to find. Looking at the current state of the Hunter party he was accompanying, he couldn't help but feel a little bad. When he had asked Zelda to go on ahead and send large hordes of monsters their way, he hadn't expected it to happen so early.

Then again, perhaps this had actually been a nasty coincidence that had nothing to do with him. It would surely be troublesome if a strong monster coincidentally ran into them while they were engaged in a fight with a large group of monsters.

While such a thing was no threat to him, he still didn't want this group of five to die on accident so he was a little concerned as he wasn't sure he could actually protect them if a strong monster acted like these frost salamanders and lay traps for their preys.

Thinking of how these monsters had been intelligent enough to hide in the snow as well as dig through the earth and ambush the group, Tyler began considering something else.

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Taking a look at Nadine, she nodded and jumped off the carriage as her figure hovered in mid-air and she flew away to scout their surroundings. The carriage had remained untouched during the entire fight, despite several frost salamanders trying to attack it.

The six-eyed bull was also unfazed by the sight of large lizards rapidly approaching it. If they had used a normal horse, it would've been a hassle to keep it calm the entire time.

Nadine had taken care of all the frost salamanders that attacked quite easily due to their weakness against heat so the monsters hadn't even gotten a chance to challenge the bull.

Tyler nodded and alighted the carriage as he walked towards the party leader Dohel, who was now able to stand on his feet despite practically being in a coma only a few seconds ago. Magic was truly a wonderous thing.

"Mr. Dohel, how are you feeling? Are you better now?"

Dohel's usual light-hearted expression was non-existent but he still put up a smile on his face. He nodded slightly and responded:

" Yes, I'm quite alright thanks to Mr. Lix."

"I see... That is good then."

"We never intended for you to partake in the fighting but we hadn't expected the monsters to be so cunning. My apologies for getting you involved."

"Huh, no please raise your head. There's no need for that. I already accepted the job so I'll do what I can for us to succeed. I was only lucky this time around thanks to the obvious weakness of the monsters. So I'll be counting on your help if we were to be attacked again."

Dohel had a wry smile on his face but could not respond to Tyler's words. The others had a face that said they did not believe Tyler's words at all. Aine and Anne also looked at him in awe as well. It was as though he was someone at a level none of them could comprehend.

"We had originally agreed on splitting the profits from the mine 50/50 and because we had planned on taking care of the monsters along the way ourselves, we never discussed monster loots."

"That is correct."

"Well, how bout we do the same here."

Tyler tilted his head at Dohel who was trying to sell him on the idea that this was a good arrangement as they had killed the majority of the monsters here and would be sacrificing a lot to satisfy him.

While that may be true, there was also something else that factored into that decision but Tyler didn't care for it.

"Sure why not."

Dohel was about to say something else when he suddenly froze as he heard Tyler's words. It wasn't that he was trying to be ungrateful to someone that had just saved their lives. He simply had no choice but to try and convince Lix to accept this deal as they required all the procedures they could get from this trip. Especially after already giving up 50% of the mine to him.

However, he had never expected Tyler to immediately accept the deal and it had taken him by surprise.

"By the way, what do you plan to do now?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Well, obviously your information is incomplete and you're a little... ill-prepared for the monsters along the way. Knowing that, what do you plan to do next?"

The question came as a surprise to everyone at the party and Dohel couldn't help but frown. It wasn't that he hadn't thought about that but, he had just been caught in on Tyler's display of strength that he had almost forgotten.

The frost salamanders were supposed to have been easy opponents to deal with as long as Kylyra could attract their attention and he would finish them off with firebase attacks. They had even destroyed the entrance of the cave because they didn't want any surprises yet, that was exactly what happened.

The information they had purchased did not mention anything about them being able to burrow through the earth and lay traps for their targets. Perhaps this was because anyone that experience this would not survive without an extremely powerful individual on their side like Lix.

"While I'd like to return and gather more accurate information so we could better prepare ourselves for this. I am afraid that is no longer an option for various reasons."

"So that's the case."

"Yes, my apologies for dragging you into this, and from here on out we will do our best to take care of all the monsters that appear ourselves so we don't have to trouble you each time."

"I see."

"Hold on!"

Tyler turned his head around to see who had yelled and to his surprise, it was Kylyra who was walking over to him with an oddly serious expression on her face. She came to a halt next to Dohel before speaking again.

"Sorry about this but could you please lend us your help from now onwards. We'll split everything 50/50 and of course, we'll also do our part and take half the monsters."

"What are you doing."

"Be quiet, I know what I'm doing."

Dohel was stunned speechless at Kylyra's sudden change of attitude. She was never this assertive and always free-spirited. Unless the topic was about food or sex, she would barely show any interest.

She was originally supposed to be the leader of their party, being the strongest of the bunch but her lack of interest and motivation had caused the job to fall on him.

Seeing as she was very serious about this, he had no choice but to back down and accept it.

Kylyra on the other hand was not in a very good mood. She and her comrades would've died earlier because of her. If she had known the effect Tyler's rejection had on her psyche would affect her abilities on the battlefield, she would've tried to immediately fix it, even if she had to have sex with any random guy.

Due to this, she now knew she wouldn't be able to fight at her maximum for a while and if she half-assed it, someone might die. This was something she could not accept and who better to help with it than the one responsible for it in the first place.

Tyler looked at the serious Succubi before him wondering why she was looking at him with such a sharp and penetrating gaze. It was like she was telling him to take responsibility for something but he was sure he hadn't done anything that need him to do that.

Not able to think of any such reasons, he quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind as this was fine as well. It didn't seem like Dohel wanted him to claim most of their profits so Tyler decided on an alternative.

He pretended to think for a bit before speaking in response:

"Why don't we do this. You'll all be responsible for taking care of the monsters just like you have been and of course, you're entitled to all the proceeds from that but, if we encounter something you can't handle yourself, we'll lend a hand and take 50% of the spoils."

"Huh... Oh, umm... that's fine I guess."

It didn't seem like that was a response Kylyra had expected but there was no reason for her to refuse such a beneficial proposal for their party.

Dohel saw her hesitate a bit and quickly spoke in her stead. "We accept your offer. Thank you once more for your help."

"Do not mind it."

••••••••••

••••••••••

Amidst the vile corpse-stench that hung in the dry cold air, Anne proceeded to heal the slight wounds on Dohel with the spell 'Light Healing'. With nothing else to do, Larut began the extraction of the cores from the bodies of all 35 frost salamanders on the ground alongside the reluctant Kylyra.

He also took off the fangs and claws of the creatures which needed extra care as they were extremely sharp. Tyler could see these items being used for really durable weapons but he was also aware that they also served another purpose for Hunters.

Larut and Kylyra swiftly finished dissecting the corpse of the beast and they placed them in a spatial storage box. The storage box seemed to be the only one the group had and up until this point, Tyler hadn't seen them use it.

After also placing half the cores, fangs, and claws in the storage box, Larut approached Tyler with what should be his share of the loot. Taking a glance at the bag, Tyler counted about eighteen cores and a lot of fangs and claws.

"You can keep those, I have no need for it."

"Huh, are you sure, they can be quite valuable you know."

"I believe you can also trade them to the Hunter guild for points so you could get promoted, I'm I correct?"

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"Ah yes... but these are still yours."

"It's fine, it would be better for you'll to get promoted so you can stop taking on such dangerous missions so please, do keep it."

A wave of surprise swept through the party of five. An unexpected gesture of kindness from the insanely powerful and mysterious man known as Lix. Someone they had assumed to be a bit self-serving but honorable. Now, however, they all felt like this man was more incredible than they had thought.

A being that would surely one day become a living legend. His name was sure to travel far and wide across the entire continent. He would become a great demon that could one day stand above even the seven greatest behemoths.

Everyone including Kylyra was certain of that.