Once the carpenter's assistant was far enough, Drakos asked Alvaro why they needed the logs, that was the moment when Alvaro's eyes shined brightly, and just for entertainment purposes, one could say that his eyes changed to dollar signs...

" I need you to sharpen these logs and make them pointy."

Said Alvaro and handed Drakos the machete. He gave Alvaro a confused look but since he is working for him at the moment, he couldn't really complain.

Since they had one machete, they took turns to sharpen the logs, once Drakos was tired, Alvaro took the machete himself and carried on until almost all of the logs were pointy enough to be used as weapons.

"Mr. Alvaro? Could you please explain your plan to me? "

Asked Drakos with a slight cowardice tone in his voice, that was because he felt like he was missing something obvious and felt kind of stupid.

"One step at a time my little money maker. One step at a time. Now let us place them sharp ends looking up."

Said Alvaro and basically denied to answer the question clearly. Once they had placed the logs appropriately, they had made something like a spike trap, Drakos figured that was the plan but he didn't know why they made it, maybe his employer wants to lure a powerful creature into this trap, he thought. The only problem was that it wasn't exactly a trap, the logs weren't hidden in a pit or anything, just jammed into the ground, it was very noticeable from all angles and that didn't make it exactly a good trap.

"Alright, now it's your turn. Could you possibly summon Blue Backed Wolves?"

Asked Alvaro while directly pointing at Drakos.

"Yes...?"

Alvaro struck a winning pose and then continued with his plan.

"I want you to summons a few Blue Backed Wolves right above the logs."

Drakos was confused but he agreed. After chanting for a couple of seconds, a shadowy portal appeared above the makeshift spike trap that they made. Not long after, a wolf with blue coloring appeared from the portal and immediately fell onto the spikes and died. Alvaro looked mightly happy by the result and walked closer to take a look at the corpse of the summoned monster. He then turned to Drakos to ask him,

"How long will the summoned monster hang around if it is killed?"

He asked.

"About 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I can dismiss the creature and recollect the spent mana."

Replied Drakos who at this point figured the scheme of his employer.

"Let's get our dentist gloves on, pluck the teeth off this poor bastard."

And Alvaro's grand plan was finally revealed, summoning the required creatures above the trap would yield effortless kills to the party, even though they didn't get any experience from the kills cause they were summoned, they could still harvest the remains for the reward. Alvaro had one thing in his mind, he doesn't really care about experience or power, even though he was kind of disappointed when he learned that he couldn't be overpowered. He had a vision. To build his own gambling club in this alternate world and challenge his own luck against the people of this land. If there is a way to increase his luck through leveling, that would mean that at some point, he could even manipulate the results of dice or cards he is dealt. His vision was to exploit the luck status he has been given and see exactly what kind of results that would yield.

One after the other, Drakos summoned the wolves and both he and Alvaro butchered the corpses to gather the quest items and the furs of the wolves. Alvaro figured that a cloth or hide merchant might want to purchase the furs. Their skills in skinning weren't great though and most of the furs were destroyed in the process. After a few failed attempts of skinning, they gave up and decided to stick to just harvest the fangs and scraps of the skins they could get. Even if they are only scrapped leather, they might fetch a decent price.

Once they were satisfied with the loot, both Alvaro and Drakos walked back to the town of Drenoah, they went to the adventurer's guild and the guild manager actually verified the looted items and the kills. Alvaro's plan was a success. Even Drakos looked happy with the result despite the unorthodox method by which they got the items. The reward was a bit small but that was to be expected since the quest was meant to be an easy task. Alvaro didn't care a lot about that particular quest reward as this was mostly an experiment to see if his plan would work out.

Without any hesitation, they both walked towards the quest board.

"Take a look at the board and sign us for any kill quest that we can do the same way."

Whispered Alvaro,

"What are you going to do, Mr. Alvaro?"

Alvaro placed both of his hands on Drakos' shoulders,

"I believe you and I will make a fortune my friend. I am going to look around at the market and see if I can unload the skins we just got. I have one last piece of advice to give you."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Said Alvaro while smiling.

"What is that?"

Asked Drakos also smiling in response, without knowing Alvaro's intent.

"If you think you can cut me out and do this by yourself, I will find you. And I will kill you."

He said as the smile slowly turned to a death stare that pierced through Drakos' very being. Shocked and afraid he tried to respond, his words were almost incomprehensible from the shaking.

"Y...yes... I...Wouldn't...Even... Dare to do something like that... To you..."

Alvaro's expression changed once again, this time he put on his poker face and waved goodbye to Drakos who at this point was close to pissing his pants.

"All right, let's see where I can sell these grey items."

Thought Alvaro as he was slowly walking outside the adventurer's guildhall. He made his way for the market, looked around for the right person to unload the scraps of leather they gathered. At this point, Alvaro figured that despite the fact that the creature was summoned, the skin and teeth that were removed didn't disappear with the rest of the beast. The only issue was that it worked in a way that Drakos didn't recollect all of the mana spent in that case and he actually had to rest so his mana could replenish.

Alvaro looked around for a couple of minutes until he found exactly what he was looking for, a leatherworker's station. The animal pelts and the fine leather all over the merchant's stand indicated that fact. Just behind the stand, there was a young girl. wearing a typical villager dress stained with the ointments that were used for processing leather. He walked slowly towards...

"Hey, there. Can I speak with the owner of the shop? I have some merchandise to sell."

Said Alvaro while trying to keep a joyful face.

"Of course, my father runs this shop, he is in the back of this wooden shed, you can go in the back and look for him."

Answered the young girl and pointed to a small wooden house behind her.

Alvaro went to meet with the leatherworker and discuss business. He had some expectations but he didn't really think that they would come true. As he walked to the back of the house, he saw a weathered middle-aged man with long brown hair and a long beard wearing some sort of apron as he was tanning the pelts on the rack. Alvaro approached him and immediately got to the point.

"Good morning, I am an adventurer and I have some animal pelts you might be interested in."

At this point, it was obvious that the leatherworker was a man of a few words. He simply grunted as he pointed for Alvaro to pour out the animal parts strapped to his back. He took a look at the almost ruined pelts and looked up to face Alvaro.

"These are very poorly skinned, I feel bad for the poor beast that was skinned this way. It's almost like this was done by goblins."

Alvaro wanted to smack the head of the man but he kept his cool, business is business and Alvaro knew he had to play the fool at this point.

"Haha, I am not so good at skinning animals. I am sure that a man of your talents can make even these poorly gathered pelts into something great. Am I wrong?"

Alvaro tried to subtly complement the craftsman and increase the possibility of him buying the pelts. He seemed uninterested though.

"(I didn't know NPCs would give me so much trouble)"

Thought Alvaro and he tried to barter this time.

"How much would you say this many pelts would cost?"

Asked Alvaro.

"Hmm... For 4 pelts of this quality, I can't give you more than 2 gold coins."

"Fine, fine. How much would they cost if they were of better quality? Let's say if you went out and skinned them yourself."

"If I went out and skinned the animals, the pelts would be in pristine condition. That way, it would be way easier to work the leather and probably cost as much as 1 gold coin and 50 silver coins each. Maybe even more."

Alvaro was a bit interested so he pressed a bit more.

"Oh, so the quality of the item increases the price a lot. I guess that's a given since the craftsman would have an easier time working with it and the goods produced would have fewer stitchings and thus make a better-looking item."

Said Alvaro and the leatherworker's eyes widened. He was surprised to hear such wise words from such a young man.

"You seem like a bright man, you know what? We can work a deal."

Said the man while pointing a finger at Alvaro.

"What kind of deal?"

Said Alvaro but he had a pretty good idea of what the craftsman was talking about.

"Instead of bringing me scraps that you skinned, how about I buy your kills and skin them myself? I would pay you half the price of a pristine pelt for every animal you bring."

Alvaro knew something was off. At first glance, this deal would be great, even if he sold at half the price, he would get the workload off and make more money from his kills all while completing quests. Having a steady buyer is amazing if only the bodies of the beasts were not summoned creatures. They wouldn't last long enough to bring the bodies back here to be skinned and the possibility of that man coming with them would compromise Alvaro's scheme and then more and more people would do the same. He wouldn't be able to pull it off if it was a known trick.

"No deal. I prefer to have a free selection of buyers and I am certain I can also improve my skinning skills."

The merchant agreed to the trade and after giving Alvaro his coins, he grunted and shooed him off like some sort of stray dog. That got to Alvaro's nerves a bit but he left and didn't even look back. He then decided to walk back to the adventurer's guild. There stood Drakos, at the entrance of the guild house, holding a piece of paper. When Alvaro got close to him, he started to whisper.

"I found one that we could do, Mr.Alvaro. It's identical to the previous one but this time, we have to summon and kill Xiszu Basilisks and collect their venom."

Alvaro sighed...

"Yeah, we can do it but there is a slight problem."

Drakos tilted his head a bit and made a confused look.

"What is it? I know how to extract the venom, it is not a problem. All you have to do is find the venom gland at the creature's mouth and..."

"That's not it."

Alvaro interrupted him.

"What is it then?"

Asked Drakos while being a bit scared of Alvaro's next words.

"The pitfall trap won't work forever. We need to actually do some proper quests to get good money. These easy kill quests won't be enough to make progress towards the big goal."

"What is the goal, Mr.Alvaro?"

Drakos never heard of Alvaro's great plan.

"I want to create the best gambling house in this world, my friend. I want people to travel from all around the planet to play at my clubhouse and challenge their luck. I want to get so much money that I could make an exact replica of the clubhouse with gold!!"

Said Alvaro as a single tear slowly descended from his eyes to his cheek. Drakos was also sobbing at this point, after hearing Alvaro speak with such passion, he couldn't help but get enchanted by him. Alvaro didn't care about power or status. He didn't consider the consequences of building a gambling house in Drenoah. All he cared about was wealth, money. Even if he had to travel to another country to do it, he would. His dedication is what made Drakos feel moved. When the spike trap gives out, they will go on other adventures...