Treasure-hunting: Into the Unknown

"Hey, it's nice to meet you again!" Zachary said cheerily.

"Again? When did we first meet?" The Ghost Clan's young master shot him a confused look. For all she could remember, she had neither known nor seen Zachary in any capacity.

"You don't remember? We just met last night," Zach replied, staring at her pointedly. He wanted to ask why she had ignored him then, too.

"What are you talking about? We have never met before. I'm sure of it," the young master responded firmly.

"Really? But it was you last night in the waterfall. I saw you taking a bath with your treasure beast." Zachary curled his lips at the thought of last night.

"What?! You...saw me?" Her eyes widened.

"Yes. I was only about a dozen meters away from you, but because of your insistence, I'm inclined to assume you really didn't see me last night," Zachary said.

"Oh, that's not surprising. My eyes don't work well at night," the young master replied.

"I see. No wonder you didn't notice me then," Zachary muttered, finally coming to a realization.

"Wait, hold on a minute. What did you say? You saw me bathing with Lulu last night. That means you saw me nude..." The young master's mouth dropped open.

"To be fair, you are really flat-chested." As if to rub salt into the wound, Zachary bowed and glanced at her breasts, then shook his head.

"You..." She turned as red as a beet and trembled. As if it weren't humiliating enough to unknowingly let a strange man see her naked, he also had the audacity to point out her flat chest. Sure, what he said was true, but why did she have to hear it from a man, especially from someone like him?

"You bastard! How dare you say that! You are such a scoundrel! A cad! And a pervert!" She was flustered, stuttering as she shrieked.

"Hey, it's not like I expected you to show up there all of a sudden with no clothes on." Zachary pursed his lips, shaking his head slightly as he did so.

"What...? I... You..." Her voice faltered miserably. The young master now had nowhere to place her unbridled anger from a moment ago.

"Do you still

was impressed.

Polly, meanwhile, stood in the dark and looked at Zachary with a troubled expression. She had long worried that he would someday eat his own bitter fruit.

And she was right. Zachary was indeed going too far. Although he had offset some of the heat with the ice element, he started to buckle down under the pills' power immediately after grabbing them.

The power of one Sun-swallowing Pill was enough to make any Imperial Level warrior tremble with fear, let alone three. At that moment, Zachary went from bad to worse. His cheeks had lost all their color, and his martial energy surged wildly. He only had two options. The first one was to summon Anne, but then he would rather avoid using the one-off Summoning Token. Two, he could quickly escape from the Sun-swallowing Beast and take the pills back to the ground. This way, however, would give other warriors a chance to get the pills. Neither of the two options was then feasible.

"Andrew, can you lend me your power?" He had, in fact, a third option. Unfortunately, it was also the most dangerous one. He could ask for Andrew's help in refining and integrating the pills within the range of the beast's power. However, doing so without any protection meant putting himself at death's door. If a Sage Level warrior, negligent of the danger, came close to obtain the pills, the result would be less than favorable.