Looking towards the blood serpent, fond memories of his own construct army flooded his mind, though Rex had to admit, there was something special about pet like creatures, with a mind of their own, yet still having you as the center of their world. The small, dozen centimeter long snake was slithering between his right hands fingers as he walked back toward the village, a magnificent display of his controll over the concept as he had condensed it many times over from its original size of over four meter lenght. What was even more impressive, was the fact the little reptile like creature, blood construct merged with the essence of a living being, could freely change between its miniature size and its full lenght. Rex estimated a low, A rank power would be its limits.
And as it was excitedly circling his hand, quite pleased with its master, Rex realized he had just aquired a companion of sorts, even if it was not on the same level as humans. Its power alone could make it a terrifying creature, should Rex left it go wild in some random settlement. Not that he would, having more than enough mana to sustain it, should it overexert itself. Gorging on blood would also serve the same purpose, allowing it to quickly replenish and recover any injuries suffered during lareg scale battles, provided there is plenty of bloo around, something that was a guarantee, unless of course Rex was messing around, using said blood for other purposes.
''Should I just bind it to me? Rex mused on his way back, and eventually decided to do exactly that. Something that was more than easy, seeing as the conjured creature was attracted to Rex, his comprehension and controll over the concept making him the fire for the moth that was the construct. Tapping into his soul concept, Rex established his first brand ever in this world, claiming the snake as his personal pet, linking the animalistic soul at the very center of this construct as one of his subjects, and with that, the blood forming it strenghtened, this new servant of his recieving its first reward.
The stench of burned flesh still lingered in the air, yet was slowly,but surely, dissipating. A few of the villagers still watching over the last bit of the pyre, upon noticing him, looked down towards the ground, clearly fearfull of him. He could not blame them. Such insane power was clearly a point of fear, such people often being fickle and rash, doing as they pleased. He soon reaached the village elders home and after a few knocks and an invite, entered, bowing his head to not hit it on the doors frame.
"It is done. There shouold be no other bandits for the time being." He spoke, a weight coming of off the elders shoulders.
"Thank you. Thank you. I dont know how we can ever repay you." the elder started to sob, falling to his knees.
"You dont have to. I already got paid. Dont you remember? Your granddaughter will serve me after she is done with her three years of service at that religious thingy you have. Isn't that right?" he then looked to Zena who had just entered the room, having woken up as Rex entered. She nodded her head a few times, aware of just how acomodating Rex was being. "Do make sure they dont defile your body though. Plenty of lecherous and arrogant fools find their way in positions of power in such places." Rex then gave her a small amulet. "Wear it at all times, and should you be in danger, crush it while asking for my help. I will be informed, allowing me to go and collect you, as well as a small little something will hapen, hopefully saving you in the process. My servarnts, even if future ones, are off limits to anyone."
Zena just nodded, tying the talisman around her neck, both thankfull for his help and slightly aprehensive at what her future held.
"I will retire to the room you showed me previously. When another carriage arives and asks for me, please come and get me. I have things to think over in the meantime. And I have no need for food and the likes, so there is no need to interrupt me for that."
"Understood sir. We will not disturb you." The elder bowed, allowing Rex to leave and get on with his things. And so, in a relative peace, the slight ruckus the village folk created when they celebrated the defeat of the bandits not including, a couple of days passed by, Rex's temporary rest inerrupted by the arrival of the promised carriage. He was greeted with a deep bow, the coachman introduced himself as Axel, and informed that he was sent by Regal to bring him to the trackers, as agreed beforehand. Rex spent a few minutes instructing Zena, reminding her of the details of their deal, and then, boarded the carriage, departing from the small, heading towards his next destination.
"Say, Axel, do you think a crippled vampire, or a manticore. Which one is stronger?" Rex asked the man guiding them forward, earning a confused 'Eh?' innitially, only for teh latter to shrug in uncertainty.
"Would not know sir. I am but the coachman of a carriage, What would I understand of such things."
"Well said man, well said. What good does wondering about things we dont have to deal with, or are likely to never encounter? Better deal with whats ahead of you, while prepearing for the unknown. Still, I do hope the manticore is not as muc hof a letdown as the other one." Rex sighed at the end, causing the coachman to shiver. There were few A ranks who would ever dare to boast such a thing, but none would do so in front of a single carriage driver, unless, maybee, just maybee, it was indeed a dissapointment, and their need to went a bit got the better of them. And that thought, was quite scary in and of itself. That meant, he was transporting a true monster among monsters.
The two week or so travel seemed like yet another, daunting and excruciatingly boring task, wasting away Rex valuable time, untill, rather soon in this new journey of his, Rex realized something particularily important. He had Snek now, the blood snake he ow so generously liberated from the imcompetent vampire he allowed to pass onto much better fields of hunt. And with yet another A ranked monster serving as his huard, he could use the time so much more efficiently, expanding his secondary space storage all throughout the journey. And since he did not need to maintain peak combat readiness, as well as the fact that he was, notably more powerfull than before, such risky action was not much of an issue.
So, with such smart, and previously reckless and risky behaviour, he smoothly proceeded with teh expansion of said space storage, reaching an unreasonable size, should he decide to share said knowledge with others, better versed and educated on the subject. At the ned of the two, otherwise uneventfull weeks of travel and non stop spacial storage expansion, it had reached the size of a large barn. He could surely fit a few worths of fully grown dragins in there and still have plenty of space to spare, thus, on one of teh last days of the travel, during one of the short stops, he moved the entirety of his hidden belongings from the primary space storage to the new, larger one, switching his target for expansion around. It would take way less time in advancing the smaller storage space to the same size as the larger one after all.
Rex also used their short stops to hunt down some unfortunate creatures, wandering too close to their resting spot, allowing Snek to feast on their blood. He had learned along the way a rather interesting fact regarding his new pet. Snek was, at the end of the day, an actual, living creature, even if rather odd in its state of existance, as such, some regular feeding was a given, lest Snek grows weak and sick. Rex could not have that, and through their soul link, courtesy of his brand, he could get the general gist of its diet, which consisted of two things- either copious amount of quality blood, who would have guessed, or monster cores. The latter was a particularily favourite food of his, munching down on as many as Rex was willing to provide. And since he had quite a few extra laying around, for research purposes, they were all fed to Snek, tthe now little snake happily napping most of the day in Rex's sleeve, cozily wrapped around his wrist. Though it was well aware of its surroundings, on the lookout for any fool brave enough to attack its master.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
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"We are here." after a few knocks on the carriage wall, and after Rex opened teh small window to the coachman, the man in question stated. Rex jumped out of the carriage, stretching and yawning, as his gaze went over his surroundings. From what he could see, they had arrived in a rather poorly looking and run down outpost of sorts, an aged wall made out of wooden beams surrounding him, and even that seemed in quite the disrepair. Just a few moments later, they were aproached by a group of four people, all dressed in the typical adventurers raincoat, most of their features hidden from ones sight. Still, Rex could read enough from the way they moved. 'Three men and one woman.' Rex noted in his head, evaluating their danger level, should a scuffle ensue and he was in need to resolve said altrecation permanently.
"You Rex?" the only woman asked.
"Who's asking?"
"Tsk. Fine. You the one Regal sent to take care of the manticore? And where is the rest of your team?" the woman asked, tsking, yet changing her question. She was good, sure, but not quite there to actually get him worked up, let alone take him out, and the woman, she felt it too, resulting in the cautious aproach she was taking at the end. Still, her pride had to be placated somehow, and thus, the rather rough and ragged aproach it was.
"Yes. And I am all that is needed. Just point me towards the creature and be ready to harvest." Rex replied, moments later aksing another question that came to his mind. "By the way, how fast are they in flight?"
"Huh?" the woman looked at him questioningly, but answered a moment later regardless. "Nothing special, I would say most birds are capable of greater speeds than them, why?"
"So slow. Nevermind then." Rex sighed, discarding the fresh idea of possibly capturing one for his own transportation needs. A slow air mount was not the way to go after all. "Anything properly fast, capable of carrying a human on along with them in these mountains?"
"Ehh, I dont think so?" unsure herself, the woman still answered. Even if there was anything of the like, she or her team sure as hell had yet to notice it, whatever such a creature might be.
"Oh. Sigh. The manticore it is then. Chop chop, time waits for no man." Rex urged the group to move out, more interested to get back and figure out his next move. He still needed to hunt down a group he could mess around with, and it seemed less and less likely that he would find one in a small, backwater nation as the one he was in. Still, he had some prior engagements to note and consider, should he plan on leaving and traveling far away.Two weeks to a month of travel time was already incredibly slow, so anything further wouldstrain his ability to assist those he had promised to do so.
'Means of proper transport it is then. That too comes with it own mountain of complications.' Rex thought, following the quartet of trackers, leading him further and further away from the outpost an into the rather dense and gloomy looking forest, the mountain peaks, covered in what looked like eternal mist, reaching towards the sky far into the distance. A rather good place for monsters to grow and develop.' Rex thought as his mind refocused on the taks at hand, his eyes following the actions and movement of the trackers, each adn every one of them carefully examining what little tracks they could find, slowly moving their group ahead.
Another hour later, Rex's attention was brought to what seemed like a spot of death, plenty of blood scattered around an indentation in the ground and plenty more still, within said indentation. Judging from the state of said blood, the killing must have been recent, a few hours ago at best. There was also a rather unique scent in teh air, even so long after the killing happened and Rex assumed it was precisely this scent that kept any scavenger at bay, all fearfull for their lives on an instinctual level.
"It is of a cat origin. Could be what we are looking for, but there are no definitive proof just yet. There are a few feline predators around these parts, and the scent alone would not tell us anything more." one of the three men spoke to their leader, Rex hearing everythig he decided to share.
"Keep going. I will take care of if if it comes to that." Rex gestured, more than eager to get on with it, his hands still itching for a proper fight.
"Aye aye." rolling her eyes, the woman replied, nevertheless giving the same order to her men, clearly in command of the small group. So, with the command given, the trackers proceeded along with the now rather obvious trail of the predator, moving away with its prey in possesion. Due to the rather carefree nature of the predator, it was quite obvious that their current target was one of, if not the proper apex predator in the area, not caring one bit of other possible dangers.
Yet anoteher two hours later, they had reached a cave entrance at the foot of a smaller mountain, not even remotely close to the gargantuan ones still far off in the distance, their peaks covered in mist and coulds. Observing the surroundings even more carefully, the trackers sighed in dissapointment, noticing a few details that displeased them.
"This is the lair of a striped savage cat. Not the manticore we are looking for. The woman pointed to a few balls of half digested, basketball sized fur balls. Back to the square zero. Maybee the other team has had better success."
"Is it worth to hunt and collect?" Rex asked, considering his options.
"Huh? Yes? Its fur is used to make quite good cold protection equipment, Liver and heart are used for quite high quality alchemy, and the flesh is in demand with a few reknowned hound breeders. The beast is quite vicious and savage though, so the risk is high enough as well." one of the men replied on instinct.
"So, if I were to take it down, you could get it collected, processed and sold?"
"Woud not even take a week. Who do you think we are, amateurs?" the woman scoffed, clearly insulted by Rex question.
"He he. One way to find out." Rex smirked, starting to move towards the cave "Wait here. It will not take long." he spoke as he stretched his hand, dissapearing into teh cave opening. A few moments later, the four trackers could hear loud hissing and screehing of a cat, followed by crashing noises and howls of pain. Then, more crashing and more desperate hisses of a feline nature, followed by a few more. Then, utter silence, untill the sound of footsteps reverberated from the cave. Footsteps and the sound of something being dragged. A few minutes later still, Rex siluete first appeared, moments later revealing the man in question himself, his body slightly slanted forward, one hand stretching back, pulling the body of a very large, two horse sized cat, its fur covered in stripes, much like a tiger would be.
"The rest is in your hands." Rex spoke when he stopped in front of the suprised trackers, a glint of appearing in their eyes. "Lets hope the other group has had more success in finding the manticore." Rex sighed, waiting for them to get to work. Credit where credit is due, the four quickly began the process, with quick and practiced ease they skinned the beast, collecting its valuable organs and skin, as well as large amounts of its flesh, leaving a rather thin carcass behind. As expected, they even had a space storage artefact, storing both the organs and flesh, leaving the skin to be rolled up and carried like a rug on one of their shoulders.
"Its getting late. Lest return and hear the results of the second team. We know that a manticore was sighted around here, as recently as past week. All we need is to pinpoint it's location. And we need to offload this haul as well. Good job by the way. You will get a fair share." the woman spoke, much more friendly now towards Rex, who had just secured a fair extra spending money for her and her team. Rex might just be the guy to work with in the future. He did not seem to have earned a single scratch in the scuffle with the cat.
The return was rather swift and with no other incidents, though Rex did notice and hunted down a small boar, securing a rather tasty dinner. And thankfully, the second group had more luck than his group did, having found some traces of the manticore, going so far as to track it down to its lair- another smaller mountains peak, with a small cave at the top and some poisonous plants growing in its vicinity.
"We set out early in the morning. The sooner we are done, the sooner everyone gets paid." Rex said and with a nod of the rest of the groups heads, he retired for the night, his loyal Snek serving as his eyes for the duration, having napped most of the day already.