Caleb learned that the coins they had produced were called Sovereign Halos, and they were five times the worth of ordinary halos. There were names for other coins as well, the ten-bris one was called Ghi-bri and the five-augs one was Valla-aug. Which often referred to as ghi and valla.

While the Sovereign Halos were also called sovereigns to differentiate from halos, most didn’t refer to the coins as such. Out of respect for the royal family, they said.

All it took for Caleb to learn of the names was a view of the price chart.

And they had struck a bargain.

When they first held the sample, Caleb calculated a single bar of steel ingot could net them thirty-four sovereigns with some excess. Yet the price was at a fraction of the resulting outcome.

Of course, the entity took advantage of that and purchased a ‘substantial amount’ as they’ve advertised. The goods had provided enough materials to manufacture their vehicle and fully enhanced their outfit. With enough excess to produce almost two hundred thousand of the coins.

In the course of assembling the all-terrain skittracer inside their inventory, Caleb had automated the tasks and ejected by-products in the shape of those same gold coins. Limiting the allotted space, they had taken in exactly a hundred and fifty thousand sovereigns and left the rest outside.

The entity doubted they needed to acquire more things, but getting in a habit of managing travel supplies was a good thing to do; Caleb had only been here for three days, after all.

Heavier by more than four hundred kilograms, their outfit had taken a metallic shine while staying relatively the same in appearance. Along the way, Caleb made a pair of gloves and a thicker belt to go with the outfit, too; everything was replaced with various alloys to facilitate the smoothness of fabric. Even the fine furs and feathers retained the organic look.

A good investment of their time and effort for sure. This way, Caleb wouldn’t be caught in a position where they didn’t have metal to work with.

They had used a decent amount of the left-overs to purchase trinkets, potions, and novelty products. Actually, the potions were essential items; they needed to refill mana to fit the available amount displayed on their [Status]. But the rest? Caleb could use them for fun, or throw them at enemies. By means of [Electromagnetism], they could be considered railgun ammunition.

Single-use items were so convenient.

Leaving the surplus coins to the staff as tips would have been fine by Caleb, but that would shackle them with favors. And one owed to a major entity like themselves was never a small thing, regardless of its significance. So, they had the gold deposited in the guild’s coffers to be withdrawn at any time they wished at any branch. Without any fees involved.

Caleb departed from the Merchant Guild with a much heftier coin purse. And it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

Swiftly making their way to the gatehouse, Caleb only had to wait a few minutes in line to make it past the first checkpoint. Bearing the royal seal, the permit even spared them luggage inspection. Aside from several sets of spell circuits built into the structure, this wall was largely the same as the one inside the city.

Having sent the candelabrums to the palace – of course, the entity made a pair; sending just one would be weird because they were a set despite the fact that only one of them was used – Caleb no longer had business in Jarkenth and made their way outside.

Chissinor was to the west-north-west and they expected it would only take four days at most with the speed of their vehicle. Rest included.

Though it was business-related of sorts, this trip was their leisure time, after all. And as though sensing their elation, the gallee eggs in their processing unit hatched. Unfortunately, only two survived the digestive fluids, and soon, they too perished.

The squirming was curious and fascinating.

*****

Since Caleb had decided to collect data, they chose to stay off the beaten paths laid out by their map and went deep into the wilderness.

It would be hard to meet any wild animal or monster brave enough to engage with them in any way, but Caleb only needed to get one of each to trace every single organism of the species. This didn’t include unique individuals; they were labeled as such for a reason.

However, the magic would latch onto them as soon as they consented all the same.

Weaving through the dense foliage, Caleb’s skittracer maneuvered in absolute silence. With thirty-two legs at the bottom and thirty-two legs on either side, its three-jointed legs cushioned contacts against rocks, trees, roots, mulch, and mud alike, delivering minimal damage to the environment. By assembling the vehicle with mobile, sliding parts, the entity made sure they could enjoy the ride in almost absolute stability.

It certainly felt like they were gliding.

They needed to trim a few branches here and there since the thing was five meters tall and four meters wide at least when every piece was tucked in, but those occasions rarely happened.

There was only a single time when the entity had to turn around to find another path after five hours.

Caleb had stripped the skittracer of every combative mechanism to create this one-person carrier, and the smooth operation proved every bit worth their effort.

Even without [Electromagnetism], moving the vehicle would have cost them at most three hundred mana in the last five hours, but the Gift had made it completely trivial.

Stopping the construct near a small, unmapped lake, they popped the egg-shaped hatch open and settled down for a break. A normal human would have collapsed from fatigue by now, so they were already stretching the laws. Not unreasonable, but definitely not something a mage of their perceived caliber could have done.

As such, they changed into something more casual: a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts. Entirely woven from metallic alloys, of course.

Caleb wouldn’t want to be entirely defenseless.

Lying on a lounge chair under the shade of a giant umbrella, the entity was half-way done with the tulk-fruit – something the Earthers would have called a coconut if not for the scaly exterior and creamy beige-colored juice inside – when they detected a humanoid presence nearby.

They were a tad bit annoyed by the development; the rustling bushes had chased away the small critters curious enough to approach the clearing.

Extending their senses further, Caleb could feel even more humanoids coming their way.

A few minutes went by, and a petit humanoid broke through the thorny bushes. A female human child if Caleb judged by their bioelectricity reading. But there was a firm layer of illusory enchantment on the child, so they could not be entirely sure.

From the edge of their vision, the entity saw the child scrambling closer.

“Hey! H-help me! You’re an adventurer, right? I-omhpm…” she rasped, panting as she stumbled and fell on her face.

The child groaned, but pushed herself up and hurried over to Caleb while dragging a lame leg.

“Can’t you hear me!? Hey!?” she grimaced, hissing. “I can pay, just-ugh help me out here!”

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“Well, hello to you too,” Caleb nodded. “I’m on break and won’t be accepting quests at the moment.”

Eyes widening, a host of emotions crossed the child’s face as her brows twisted, her mouth stuck between half a snarl and half a frown. Under the tattered hooded cloak, Caleb could see she had emerald eyes with a hint of blue in them and blond hair.

“What?” she raised her voice and immediately held both hands over her mouth.

Looking like she had just pissed herself – thankfully she didn’t – the girl hobbled over to Caleb’s skittracer. Possibly thinking of hiding herself behind the big vehicle.

The entity couldn’t say if that was a smart move or not since the construct covered everything from the ground up, so there was no gap for anyone to look from under, but she had to keep moving to avoid being seen.

Then there was the fact that some people possessed detection skills and Skills.

Soon, a group of nine, no, eight people – five male humans, a female human, and two male orcs – rushed into the small clearing; one male orc was staying out of sight.

Before anyone could say anything, Caleb slurped the rest of the tulk juice down in one breath and crushed the shell with one hand. Now that everyone was focused on them, they began.

“I’m not going to do anything, so do as you wish,” the entity smiled, streaks of lightning crackled under their visor. “but anyone who touches me will regret it. Understood?”

After giving these humanoid critters a proper warning, the entity laid back and enjoyed the warm sun on their legs. Not that they felt anything from the sunlight, but it was the experience that mattered.

Besides, Caleb had no idea what was going on between these people and wasn’t inclined to find out. Sticking their nose in someone else’s business would just produce an unnecessary influence on the world.

The brief period of confused silence was broken by one of the male humans, who seemed to be the decision-maker for the armed group. With a hand signal, they began to spread out while keeping distance between themselves and Caleb’s skittracer. These people seemed to be wary of the bizarre construct and their caution was completely understandable.

Although the same couldn’t be said for the hidden orc aiming an arrow at Caleb.

Pressing herself against the skittracer, the girl crept backward; slowly making the distance between her and the center of her pursuers’ formation. And she would have been able to get a tiny head-start if it wasn’t for the injured leg.

Faltering a little after her foot slipped, producing an audible drone of grinding pebbles, the girl kicked off and ran back into the woods using Caleb’s construct as cover. She managed to drop a small ball on the ground and it exploded into a rapidly expanding cloud of black smoke before the group could pinpoint her exact location.

Two further most from the skittracer held their positions while others gave chase. A barrage of arrows was fired in anticipation of the girl’s movement; only one of the arrows was real, but the damage they dealt didn’t differ from the physical projectile.

Despite her condition, she ran in a zigzagging path and dodged most of them.

Judging by her speed, unless the child could pull more tricks from under her sleeves, Caleb believed her abilities weren’t enough to getaway safely. Especially not with an arrow sticking through her calf; straight through her good leg, no less.

“Careful! Don’t kill her!” one of them shouted at the archer.

Screaming, the girl threw expletives at them. “Spineless bandits! Arggh! Unhand me you barbaric cur! I’ll have you all flayed alive whe- mrrhm!! Wurgghh!!!”

Wriggling fiercely until the captors finally tied her down and secured her mouth with a thick layer of cloths, the girl was thrown over a male human’s shoulder and carried off.

It was indeed a shame; if only the girl had arrived later when Caleb finished their break. Her attitude was pretty decent, all things considered. She didn’t have the time to summon her spirit as well.

Life was cruel at times.

As the man was leaving, he gave Caleb a look out of their physical vision and a few of them crept toward the entity with weapons still drawn.

Oh. So, these things wanted to play this way.

Every member of the group worn armors crafted by different people and had almost no distinctive features which might lead some to believe they didn’t belong to any organization, or they were simply a ragtag band of raiders. If one wasn’t aware of the method these savages used to disguise themselves.

Most, if not all crafters had ways to brand their identity onto pieces they’ve worked on, and these equipment were the same. Though the marks had been erased, melted off, but that was evidence in and of itself.

The technique applied to all of them was the same. Five millimeters border from the insignias and welded by two millimeters overlay of the same material. Whoever worked on their equipment had used the same calculations for their Skills or spells.

All things considered; it was almost certain this development would occur.

Without a word, one of them cross-slashed his ax from afar, launching two ethereal copies of the weapon at Caleb and the female human next to him simultaneously fired a series of [Explosion] enchanted arrows.

Their armors folded in and crushed them into bloodied mulch before the attacks landed.

Pulled away by their clothes, Caleb hovered over the turbulent lake as axes shredded their lounge chair and a chain of detonations flung the umbrella into the air, torn to rags.

Caleb’s arm whipped around and twitched snappily as they fired [Paralysis] at the ones still alive. At a glance, it could be mistaken for a corpse’s final, jerky spasms.

They only realized their companions had been slain until both dropped to the ground in unison. It was a dull and heavy thud mixed with a wet, squishing drag; the sound would have been amusing if what followed weren’t stupefied gurgles of people who had yet to comprehend the sight they were seeing.

And gurgled they did, for the only one unaffected by [Paralysis] this time was the man with the child over his shoulder. Surprisingly, he had dodged the spell despite the minor tracking modifier.

Jumping out of direct sight, he dropped the girl like a sack of potatoes and edged around a tree.

“Ludrak! What’s the bastard doing?” he howled, calling out to one of his group.

In response, there were only furious grunts and moans from people trapped in their bindings. By twine and magic alike. After a few tense seconds went by and still not receiving an answer, he snarled in frustration.

“Ludrak!!” the man sounded desperate; he huffed and spat. “Coward!”

If he was referring to the archer, then woe to be the orc named Ludrak, branded as a coward while paralyzed and couldn’t defend himself.

Caleb wondered if it was normal for people to reach the worst conclusion in regards to others. It was pitiful enough for them to spare the human from his predicament, being alone in fear and anger.

Before the man could make another move, Caleb pulled on his equipment and trapped him in the armor without the hope of escaping.

Unless he could teleport out of it, of course. There was no telling what these people were capable of.

Alas, nothing of the sort did and he was immobilized like the rest of them.

Caleb returned to the small lake’s shore as the rowdy group was towed over to where their dead friends were, carried by the metal. The entity could have made them walk like puppets, but that was akin to animal abuse.

Slaying them was one thing, but stretching out undeserved agony was pointless.

Futilely struggling against his very own equipment, the unparalyzed man stared at Caleb in horror as the metal brought him before the entity, his hands were clamping over his mouth. Moments later, the orc archer rejoined them, wide-eyed and deathly pale. As pale as it was possible for someone with grey-ish skin, anyway.

It appeared orcs had a variety of skin tones aside from green.

Caleb let them watch the process of a hole being dug by disembodied hands of metal, courtesy of the chair and the umbrella they’ve ruined.

The entity made sure it was spacious enough for all of them to stay in at the same time. Quite fitting since they’ve only got themselves to blame for getting in this situation.

Once done, Caleb didn’t make them wait for long; the entity brought a large number of ingots out and turned them into a platform of metal, lining the hole’s surfaces. The hole was twenty meters deep, enough not to allow splatters to escape the confines.

The group was unceremoniously pushed in and immediately, a twelve meters tall cylinder of metal slammed downward, producing a quake that could be felt from kilometers away. It agitated nearby animals fiercely, but they would settle down after some time.

And the seven departed from this realm in an instant.

Fortunately, the [System] didn’t force absolute calculations and followed the laws of physics in scaling damage; it would have been gnarly if Caleb had to crunch them using a jackhammer. Or a drill. Or a blender. Anything could do it, really.

There were so many ways to handle fragile creatures.

Stripping the group, although none of them could actually wear anything in this state, the scraps were separated into ingots of iron, bronze, etc., and a tiny bit of mithril. Everything went back to Caleb’s inventory after refilling the hole. They even gave Caleb a level up notification for all the trouble.

While Caleb could have used magic to finish this group off, they were going to use [Electromagnetism] to collect their things anyway. The Gift conserved a lot of mana, so might as well use it.

They got on the skittracer and took off to find another spot to bait the wildlife, leaving the human girl to squirm on the ground. In time, she would be freed; there were others lying in wait. Caleb just didn’t know when.

Hopefully, the girl brought some sort of insect repellent.