Chapter 907: Starting the Hunt

As a celebration was going on in the main hall, Eisen, Jyuuk, and Brody sat down together. After Silber"s death, Eisen needed to gather a lot of materials to resurrect him. It was more than a million gold coins, three monster cores from transcendent monsters, and a ton of different scales and claws and meat from tons of other different types of monsters.

"I don"t understand why there"s so many different materials here... for a humanoid monster like giants, from my understanding, it should be things like money, bones, and whatever the monster"s main diet consists of. But... why is it so many different things?" Jyuuk asked, looking up from the list that the old man wrote down for him. Of course, since he was the taming expert, Eisen needed his help. Meanwhile, Brody was here because he was actually the most well-travelled and heard the most rumours about different powerful opponents, so he should know a couple clues about transcendent monsters in the central continent.

Xenia and Evalia had volunteered to keep the party entertained. Evalia so that she could keep up the mood of the envoys so that nothing else could happen on the last evening before they left, and Xenia so that she could keep an eye on the Filth and, more importantly, Aaron.

Eisen, looking down at the map laid out in front of him, quickly explained, "Silber"s powers came from him learning the techniques of monsters. To some degree, he also took in qualities of monsters into his own body. In terms of cla.s.ses, it would be... what was it, "Blue Mage"?"

"Oh! Okay, yes, that makes sense. My mimic beetle also-" Jyuuk started, slowly looking over at Brody, "We forgot to do the mimic beetle trick."

Brody sighed, disappointed in himself, "I guess it was just a bit too busy, huh?"

"Yeah, you can say that again..." the beastman responded, but Eisen just looked up at the two of them.

"Can we stay on topic, please? Where can we find all of these monsters?" the old man asked, and Jyuuk looked back at the map a little awkwardly. He took out a pen and marked a few spots on it.

"These are the habitats of the regular monsters, but the transcendent ones are a bit tougher to find, obviously. I"m sure they"ve been hidden away purposefully until players are at a higher level. That"s usually how it works in games like this," Jyuuk explained, and Eisen let out a long sigh.

"Brody, do you know anything?"

"I heard about a dungeon in the northern forests that"s rumoured to have a really strong monster in it, but I can"t really say for sure if that"s a transcendent monster or not. But it"s worth a try. Plus, apparently a black dragon is nesting somewhere in there. You might as well take that black dragon"s trial for your plan in regard to the draconic war, and see if the black dragon has some clues for you. Black dragons in particular are kind of battle maniacs, right? And are drawn to strong opponents?"

After Brody"s explanation, Eisen nodded his head, "If it"s a dungeon that could potentially have a transcendent monster in it, it would be at a pretty high rank and will have a lot of floors. I"d rather not waste time that I don"t need to, so trying to get information from a nearby dragon to make sure should be easy enough. What about elsewhere, do you know about other transcendent monsters?"

The fighter thought about it for a few moments, tapping his foot on the ground as he did, "I"m honestly not entirely sure. There might not be a lot on the central continent. Honestly, I feel you might have more luck in the giants" country, or even on our islands, y"know?"

"But we haven"t found any traces of transcendent monsters on the islands, have we?"

"No, but it"s still more likely to have one hidden there than the central continent, to be honest. Most monsters there are at too low a rank for it to really make sense," Brody pointed out, "How about you just take care of the first monster for now, and then the rest of us keep looking for more? A transcendent monster isn"t one that you can find easily, after all. Oh, and by the way; don"t even think of fighting that thing on your own, alright? Just find it, confirm it, and then call for us. You can summon us, so do that when you need to."

Eisen slowly nodded, "I know, don"t worry..."

"Though..." Jyuuk started, "What about the Mountain Gobbler"s monster core?"

"What about it?"

"Well, it"s still in there, right? Can"t we ask the Irngrad if we can... you know, extract it? Brody is the one that killed it, after all."

Eisen thought about it for a moment, "We could... but their capital has already taken so many losses. I don"t know if it"s a good idea to try and take the monster core as well."

Brody scoffed, "Oh come on, it"s just going to rot away in there anyway. Metaphorically. But you know, let"s ask him. When the Irngrad knows that Silber died protecting them all, then-"

"We can"t tell them," Eisen interrupted Brody immediately, "The moment we do, it could jeopardize everything. If we do, they"ll realize that someone there actively tried to kill them, and it"s going to cause a ton of issues that can just spiral out of control. And we can"t let that happen."

Brody and Jyuuk looked at each other for a moment. They knew that Eisen was right, but it was still too good of an opportunity to let up.

"... Let"s still ask the Irngrad. We can come up with some other excuse for why we need it. Maybe some... some powerful weapon to stop the draconic war or something. Or something to stop Samuel. But we can"t let anyone know that a bomb was dropped on us, or that Silber was killed," Eisen said very clearly. There would be no discussion about this.

"Alright, we"ll come up with something. Once all the envoys are gone, you head out to the northern forests," Jyuuk said, though he was glancing up at Eisen, curious about something, "By the way, didn"t you say that your system windows are getting messed up? Are you sure there isn"t anything missing for the materials?"

"I"m sure. I didn"t look at the system windows," the old man replied.

Brody raised a brow, "What do you mean? Then how do you know what materials you need?"

The old man straightened his back, "Actually, I didn"t even... I don"t know. I think something happened earlier. After Silber... after he died, I had a flash of a memory of when I... designed the bomb that killed him, and I refused that memory. And since then, the system just feels very... different. Like all the knowledge that"s supposed to come from these abilities isn"t just restrained to a text window anymore, but it"s more of a fullbody experience. If that makes any sense at all."

"No, I think it makes sense," Jyuuk nodded, and he was clearly incredibly curious about what it was like to experience things like this, "You"re probably at a point where you detached from the system enough that you"re starting to connect to the original way we"re supposed to experience, well... "Experience"."

"Hm. I guess so. Either way, it doesn"t really matter right now. I"m going to try and get ready for the journey," the old man replied, rolling up the map in front of him. He placed it into his item storage and left the room that the three were in before, silently walking down the hallway. Brody and Jyuuk were left alone there, looking at each other nervously.

"Do you think he"ll be alright?" Jyuuk wondered, and Brody immediately nodded.

"Of course. Luckily, this "death" isn"t permanent. He"ll come back soon enough, and at the latest, Eisen should start to cheer up a bit once Silber is back."

But Jyuuk wasn"t particularly convinced, "But... I don"t think that"s it. He seems more upset than usual. Have you ever seen him... that calm in a situation like this? It"s like he"s a machine, just doing what needs to be done."

"Haah..." Brody groaned, "Yeah, honestly, you"re not wrong about that. But either way, for now, we just do need to focus on bringing Silber back. We can try talking to Eisen after that. It"s not like he"ll sit down and listen to us before then anyway."