Souta sat down on the corner to rest for a few minutes. He leaned his back on the rocks and sighed.
This was a bad yet good day for him. Bad, because he underestimated his opponent and almost died. Lucky, because he got a lot of exp, free attribute points, and skill points. It was really good that he took this quest back in the Ladros city.
Lumilia walked to his side and casted a healing spell towards him to heal the bruises in his body.
[Heal]!
Souta glanced at her and thanked her.
Lumilia just smiled and shook her head in response. This was the only thing she could do for her. She didn't know how Souta fought that monster on his own.
Souta closed his eyes as he let Lumilia heal the bruises in his body. He recalled the fight today and started to reflect on the mistake that he did. He started to simulate in his mind how he fought Ranny and the dark vine stinger.
He also recalled how Saya controlled his body and injured the dark vine stinger. Those powerful spells that she used were still in his mind. The only problem was that he couldn't cast it. The magic circle of the spell [Quicksilver] and [Damage Absorption Shield] was too complicated for Souta.
His spell was only a tier 1 and he was trying to jump to tier 3 without learning the tier 2. He still needed to master the structure of tier 1 and tier 2 spells before he went to tier 3 spells. That's the reason why Souta enrolled in the Ladro Institute, to learn the basic and advanced way of casting spells.
Right now, Souta was too dependent on his system. He wanted to cast a spell without the help of his system. He wanted to manually learn it as he was currently casting a spell without knowing its structure.
Bryan looked at the corpse of the dark vine stinger and asked, "What should we do with its corpse?"
"I don't know. Let's wait for Souta's instruction." Brando said as he glanced at Souta who was resting in the corner.
"Damn! Souta is really awesome, right? How could he fight this monster on his own?" Bryan said with a grin on his face. He could imagine in his mind how fierce Souta and this monster's battle based on the shockwaves from before.
"Yeah, even though it was severely injured and was close to death. We still have difficulty in killing it." Brando couldn't help but nod at Bryan's words.
If the dark vine stinger was in its peak condition then Brando wouldn't be able to block a single attack from it. Maybe, the pressure was all it needed to suppressed Brando.
'I still need to toughen my defense so that I could block an attack from this level of monster.' Brando thought as he clenched his fists.
After a while, Souta opened his eyes and used the [Summoning] skill to summon Yuko.
Yuko appeared beside him with a tired expression. Souta borrowed all of her energy before so it was natural that she felt exhausted.
Souta looked at Lumilia and said, "You can stop healing me."
"I understand." Lumilia nodded at him and she looked at the corpse of the dark vine stinger. She then asked, "Do we have to bring its whole body or not?"
"Yes, we'll bring its whole body. I'm sure that some of the people in this dukedom will let us borrow some caravan." Souta said as he stood up. He looked at Yuko and patted her head.
"You did a good job today. Just rest for a while." He said to her.
He then walked towards the corpse of the dark vine stinger and looked at it. The monster orb of this monster was shattered but it was still valuable. The fragments of it contained a little bit of best feram.
"Brando, Lumilia. Help me gathered the fragments of its monster orb." Souta looked at the two and instructed them to gather what he needed before he called Bryan.
"What is it?" Bryan asked him.
Souta looked at Bryan's face and changed his mind. He looked at Lumilia and said, "Lumilia, come here."
Lumilia walked towards Bryan and Souta and wondered why Souta called him.
"Change with Bryan. Bryan, you go there and help Brando gather the fragments of the monster orb." Souta said to Bryan.
"O-Okay." Bryan just nodded his head and walked towards Brando. He took a look at the fragments that Brando gathered.
Lumilia just looked at Bryan before she turned her head and looked at Souta. She opened her mouth and asked, "So what is it?"
"I want you to help me find the tamer's body. I think that we can found valuable things in his body. Also, it's important to have his body with us so that we could show it to the citizen of this kingdom." Souta said to her.
"Okay, so where are we going to start?" Lumilia nodded and asked him an important question.
"We'll go there in the destroy duke's mansion," Souta replied to her and he recalled something. "Also, we need to check if the guild master is still alive. After all, he's the one who helped me hold the dark vine stinger."
"Guild master is there?" Lumilia was surprised when she heard Souta's words.
"Yes, he did a good job in fighting the dark vine stinger." Souta explained to her how he met the guild master in the prison. He also explained to her what really happened in this dukedom and who's the mastermind behind the killings and this incident.
"So everything is going according to that Ranny's plan. What he didn't expect is your stronger than ordinary rank C adventurer." Lumilia said to him as she understood his explanation.
"Yeah, he didn't think that I could easily escape from prison and freed the guild master." Souta nodded at her.
Ranny greatly underestimated him at that time and he also underestimated Ranny which almost killed him. Luckily for him, Saya saved him. He was really glad that he took the [Vajra Sword Saya] in all of his equipment in the game.
He wanted to take the other [Soul Blood Earring] but he was glad that he took Saya first than the universal grade equipment.
Souta felt that the [Vajra Sword Saya] was a universal grade weapon with Saya in it. In the game, Saya couldn't do this so it felt that it was an ordinary dark grade weapon. But right now, his view of his sword slowly changed.
Saya became an important part of his survival in this world. He greatly appreciated her help.
'I should ask what she wanted later. Maybe, I could do something for her.' Souta thought as he glanced at the sword that was hanging on his waist.
"Is there something wrong, Souta?" Lumilia asked him when she saw him looking at his sword in daze.
"Nothing." Souta shook his head and he walked towards the battle site.
There's no hint of mana in this place anymore. The atmosphere in this place was chilly and terrifying. This was the result of the best feram of a powerful third evolution monster.
He glanced at Lumilia and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, the atmosphere here is weird and It slightly felt difficult to breathe." Lumilia shook her head and explained to him what she's feeling but she didn't have a problem with it.
Souta nodded his head as he could understand her. She's having a hard time because of the lingering best feram in the air. A lot of time had passed so the corrupted air wasn't thick anymore but it could still corrupt their mana pool if they stayed here for a long time.
While they were walking Souta describe the appearance of the guild master and Ranny to Lumilia.
He then saw something in his system. The [Soul Blood Earring] kept flickering in his system. He opened it and saw that the soul requirement was already complete.
[Harvester of the Soul: 1,300/1,300]
He couldn't take any soul because it reached its limitation. He needed to use it first before he could gather souls.
He understood why he only received that rewards from fighting Ranny and the dark vine stinger. It was because a lot of people died in this dukedom. When he was in the dukedom, Souta only has 673 souls in his earring.
He didn't hesitate and used this to increase his intelligence attribute by ten. His based Int attribute was now 370. If he added the attribute that he received from his equipment, he had a total of 430 Int points.
It was not that bad. If his based attribute reached five hundred points, then he would unlock the threshold rewards just like what happened to his magic resistance and mana.
As soon as he used the stored souls to increase his attributes, the souls in the surroundings were sucked by his earring.
[Harvester of the Soul: 884/1,400]
He was shocked when he found this. It means that the number of people who died in this place exceeded one thousand. And he still hasn't gone to the place where his earrings couldn't reach. It implies that Souta could gather more souls if he roamed around the dukedom.
Souta shook his head and placed those thoughts in the back of his mind. He and Lumilia had important things to do and that's finding the body of Ranny and the guild master.
