The trip back to the camp took quite a while longer than Ajax would have liked. The sun was already starting to go down despite him leaving late in the morning. It wasn’t something that could have been helped however. Had he known about the location of everything it would have been a much shorter trip but with all the investigating it had dragged on for hours on end.

He was also limited to his physical stats while traveling along the road, despite being a fair way from the camp using his mana to speed back would have been asking to get found out. Still the discoveries he made were definitely worth it, a source of natural mana to supplement the cores for Fluffy, strong opponents that he could use to train his magic as well as a distant reward for reporting on the location of the pond after the whole thing was over.

Not only that, but since it looked like his side would win now that they had the upper hand, the fact that the other baron knew but didn’t report the existence of the spring would most likely prevent him from challenging again over the whole pond. He should definitely take a recording item the next time he came out to ensure he had the necessary proof, the last thing he wanted was for his brother to get called up again a few weeks after all this.

Protecting his brother was one of the main reasons why he didn’t just get himself captured and wait out the war as a prisoner. That and the loose regulation regarding any equipment the prisoners have on them, losing his gloves over a greedy overseer was definitely not worth it.

As he entered the defensive perimeter of the camp he started to relax his guard. Now that he didn’t have to be so vigilant over his environment he started to plan out his hunt for the empowered bear. This was definitely not an opponent he would be able to beat straight up, the combination of strength, endurance and vitality would be too much for him to take down all at once safely. A few engagements from afar with his bow and mana infused arrows should let him weaken the bear enough to be able to kill it.

The fight against the fish would not be so straightforward, the fish had sufficient stealth that the same tactic would not work on it, and despite it being weak enough to finish in a single fight he wasn’t certain about his prowess while fighting in water. Well that would be a problem to figure out later first things first he had to deal with the bear.

As he arrived the guards on watch duty were a bit suspicious about someone returning alone at such a late hour. Funnily enough having Fluffy with him cleared it all up as everyone recognised the shadow cat that had recently joined their unit and knew it wouldn’t be accompanying a spy so they just waved him through.

Not having eaten since breakfast and having exhausted a good amount of his stamina and mana he headed off to eat, grabbing a large portion for both himself and Fluffy before spotting Tom and Kate and going to join them.

“Well look who it is!”Tom mocked good naturedly . “After sleeping in you just decided to disappear without a word and now you come back when it’s time to eat.”

“I thought it was supposed to be the person that bonded who would start taking on the traits of the bond, not their brother. You seem more like a stray cat though.” Kate piled on, though the smile on her face made it clear she didn’t mean anything by it.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Yeah, the day kind of got away from me there.” Ajax said with a bit of embarrassment. “I do have something to show for it though.” he patted the backpack with a bit of pride.

Ajax had planned to let both Kate and Tom in on the water but not the guardians. He didn’t want them to worry about him when he was hunting them.

“Oh, and what would that be?” the gravelly voice of commander Grievous sounded behind him.

“Oh, well …” Ajax turned around flustered. The commander wasn’t the person he wanted to see right now.

“I can feel some mana radiating off whatever it is.” he mused. That was also the reason he had come over. Feeling some unknown mana coming from the pack from someone that was gone all day raised some red flags.

“I went back into the forest near where I found Fluffy here.” he said scratching the cat that had returned to Tom’s side since it layed eyes on him. “I thought I might be able to find something that would have drawn the shadow cat here.”

“And did you?” not only the commander but Kate and Tom were also looking at him expectantly.

“I found the burrow they were staying in.” Ajax answered, careful not to lie just in case there was a skill that could pick up on those things.

Ajax pulled the pack closer to an empty table and took out the corpse of the big shadow cat. All three were surprised to see another shadow cat but they got really interested once they saw the wounds it presented with.

“I found it already dead in the borrow. I thought that we could maybe make ourselves three cloaks from its fur since the chance of getting some armor out of it is close to zero. There was nothing else close to it, I checked.” he said as he stepped away and let the three of them and some of the other soldiers that were eating examine the wounds.

Ajax was very careful with his answers, he hoped to be able to keep the pond to himself for a while longer, if the war lasted enough time he might even be able to claim a few of the fruits from the tree in the middle once they ripened before he reported it.

“Something strong definitely killed this. But it’s speed shouldn’t be all that high, look at how it crushed its legs yet it still wasn’t able to chase it down to kill it. We definitely need to set up a perimeter, don’t want any of us to run into whatever did this unprepared.” the lead hunter said. He came to look when he saw another shadow cat, he had snagged the claws from the last one but was also coveting something made of the soft fur it possessed.

“That’s an understatement. From now on all patrolls are to be made up of three people minimum, put as much of a description as you can manage from the wounds here and tell people to be on their toes.” the commander said.

After making the announcement he pulled Ajax to the side, knowing that there was something he needed to discuss with him.

“You did a good job bringing this to our attention, and you will be able to keep the spoils for yourself this time.” he nodded his head towards the greedy looks some of the guards were giving the valuable beast. “But since you obtained it on your own free time you still have to pay your taxes on it. It would be a lot cheaper to just pay using part of the loot rather than it’s value as something like this is pretty rare in this region. Is there a part of it you would be willing to part with?”

Ajax was a little surprised at this. So many years away from Earth and the relatable quotes all came back to him. Two things are definitely certain in this world, and it seems not even dying once is enough to get you rid of taxes.

“Would its claws and teeth be enough? I hoped to use the fur to make some cloaks for Tom Kate and myself, as for the core I think Fluffy would get the most out of it since it’s already attuned to his magic type.” Ajax asked.

“It’s a little close, but an argument could be made that the pelt is worth less since it’s all torn up. With the information it provided us about there being another large predator I’ll push it through.” the commander said then headed towards the table.

Once he made his way through the crowd he carefully pulled out his knife and dug out the core without damaging the pelt any further. He tossed it to Ajax and carefully repacked the body.

“I’ll take this to be examined. Our leatherworker was pretty excited about the bones from the other one, I’m sure he’ll be willing to make your cloaks in exchange for keeping them. Does that work for you?” he asked Ajax.

Ajax nodded. He knew the bones would usually be worth quite a bit more but more than half of them had to be broken from the fight with the bear, keeping that in mind trading them like this seemed like a great deal to him.