Christopher's caravan easily passed through the Greddor forest and towards the Biggest city in the area.
They had of course already inquired about the closest town or city and were directed to a trading town, but in all actuality it could easily be called a city since it stretched for kilometers and had a surprisingly large population of thousands of people.
On their travel Tris had become extremely irritated by Rosetti, she simply didn't know her place as she called her shameful woman and slutty whore each time she tried to take advantage of Christopher inside the carriage, making her regret taking her with them, Christopher on the other side was happy about this as he had found the perfect countermeasure to Tris.
For some reason whenever Tris heard Rosetti's remarks and insults her mood would turn bad, it was like liking a game very much and then having someone else calling it crap, that sort of experience.
Of course you won't stop playing the game, but how could she talk back when the thing she did was indeed stupid in a way.
The city was nothing like the small village, there were large plantan structures made of fossilized vines and other organic matter that had undergone fossilization, in a way there is no way for it to be as good as a house made of bricks, but it had great achitectural and aesthetic value.
The buildings started from the ground and went alongside the trees, going upwards, there were also bridges and tree houses higher above the ground.
"The structures on the ground level are the stores and buildings for other races, only forest ogres are allowed in the structures high above"
Rosetti explained, but that made Tris laugh at the Ogresses naive thought, money opened many doors even to the most prestigious and forbidden of locations.
"Lets book the Inn and then go to the Auction house"
Tris said in a good mood.
"What's an Inn?"
Rosetti asked, making Tris' face suddenly change colors for some reason, it wasn't because of anger, but because she remembered a well known fact, forest Ogres have no Inns, even their own Ogre guest will have to be invited into a house or stay on the streets, The forest Ogres did not care since they traveled by leeping from tree to tree with the help of their symbiotic vines.
Before howerver they could go any further, A group of Forest Ogres in luxurious clothes fell from above, there was even a person whom Christopher had seen once before, not that he would remember him anyways.
He was the Greddor Emissery that was sent to Nivava and had tried to recruit him.
"Wellcome to Greddos, we would like to invite you as a distinguished guest"
The emissary said, making the whole caravan startled, all but Christopher and Tris.
Christopher because he remember the guy from his voice and tone and Tris because she knew that most Countries already know his identity.
"Not interested"
Christopher said, making everyone freeze. Giving no face to a noble of another country at their homeground, wasn't the best thing to do for locals, but he didn't care at all.
"Ehem, young hero, I can understand that you don't want to join our kingdom, but you shouldn't ignore this invitation, making friends is never a bad thing"
The emisary with the dark green sideburns said, the others had small beards on their faces.
"Then why don't you come in my Carriage to have a nice talk as we travel towards an Inn?"
Christopher asked with some self confidense, making Tris somewhat embarassed, he had missed the point that there were no Inns to begin with.
There was a small smirk on the Ogre's face as he spoke.
"Young hero you probably don't know but there are no inns in Greddor, that's also one of the reasons for our invitation"
Christopher at that moment felt like an idiot, he wanted to ask Tris if the Ogre was telling the truth, but judging from her expresion it was so.
"I'm called Christopher, I feel somewhat ashamed, but your name still eludes my mind"
Christopher said, trying to change the topic.
"My name is not important, all you need to know is that I and the men besides me represent the most prominent Nobles of the Greddor country"
The emissary said, since they were representing the four Trading Cities of the Greddor Empires and he himself represented the Capital city's ruler, the Ancient Forest Ogre Greddor himself.
"Well Me and my followers would like to see your auction for some valuable stuff, I hope we could have a nice discussion there"
Christopher said, his tone polite and gentle, could even be called submissive.
"We understand, then how about we escort you to the Highest auction house?"
The Ogre emisary offered.
"I hope to see from the lowest to the highest auctions, you don't know what gemstones might be hidden in the dirt"
Christopher said, but the emissary just laughed and the group begun to accompany the caravan as it headed to the lowest auction house.
Inside went only a small group from the caravan, Christopher, Tris, Tanna, Rosetti, Riff and Raff and the two Rogue Bodyguards, accompanied of course by the emissaries, whom were rather surprised by seeing Christophers fingers each wearing three rings, it was simply stupid in a way, as the rings didn't let his hand close properly.
Of course the aspect of male and female otherworder heroes forming a harem was not uncommon, it had happened numerous times and most of them the hero simply left in the end leaving his wives with great descendants to look after them, but Christopher's harem for some reason had an Ill Forest Ogress, her illness being one that most Ogres would simply commit suicided if they had that illness.
"Dear guests, wellcome to the..."
The one whom wellcomed them inside was a dwarf, but after noticing the emisary's group he fell on his knees before continuing.
"I will bring the Manager Immidately, I hope the honored guests will not take offense"
The dwarf said as he sprinted away and brought a forest Ogress with him, she had a strange blue fire crawling over her body like a snake, that was an Azure fire vine, showing just how prominent her husband was.
"Dear is this the hero you were talking about?"
She said as she looked at one of the Ogres behind the emisary, whom had strange Blue hair but not a hint of flames on his body.
"My Jasmine, I told you that If there was a chance you will see him, the human male is the Mage hero called Christopher, and the seven accompanying him are his companions and bodyguards"
The blue haired Ogre said with a smile as he went to accompany his wife.
"Dear guests, I'm the Manager of the Auction houses of Greddos, would you like to look at the goods at the top, or some other floor?"
She asked the guests with a happy alluring face, her figure being like a top model's while only her arms being somewhat longer and her slim fingers being long with nails being like daggers, but her figure was voluptous and alurring non the less, she could even be called a top class beauty.
"Could we go through all the floors one at a time?"
Christopher asked, of course he didn't realy mean it as a question, he just wanted to be polite.
"Allright, lets begin from the Top"
She said and the floor under their feet elevated as if it was meant to do so, but it looked as if it was alive.
"The highest floor doesn't have many goods, but their worth is immense"
She said as she showed them to the only three items there.
Christopher found there his most beloved Flower the rose, a pity its color was pitch black and it had signs of rotting, as if it had begun to decay.
The second Item was the Elixir known as Panacea and the last one was a skillbook known as Plantan symbiosis.
"This symbiotic plant is known as the Abyss Man-eating flower, it's a pity that this seemingly legendary symbiote has not found a master yet, although you must be warned that it's also called as the Abyss parasite by some due to it's special ability to drain life from anything it touches"
She said, making all those present whom knew what it was twist making a disgusted face, as if they had stepped on dog shit.
"My jasmine, please don't shame me in front of our honored guests"
He husband said.
"Truth is this plant is as common as dung, the only reason why it's in the top level is because this seedling belongs to a famous individual, thus it's a collective piece"
The Blue haired Ogre explained, making the others' faced become somewhat more human.
"Next is a panacea, probably what the young lady there wants, right?"
The man said making Rosetti somewhat ashamed, she didn't even have the courage to ask for something like that, what she was hoping for was some antidote from the lower floors, not a miraculous elixir.
"Is it a product of Julia or Hiberna?"
The emissary asked with a mocking tone, since in the capital the panacea didn't make it to the last floor unless it was the product of the most famous Alchemists.
"Our small City of course cannot compare to the ever prosperous capital, where the top floors are full of the Ancestor's elixirs"
The blue hair Ogre said, visibly trying to suck up to the Emissary, making him rather content as he was showcasing his own importance in front of the hero.
"What's the price of the Panacea and the Skillbook?"
Tris asked.
"It's not much, three bricks for the panacea and ten for the skillbook"
The female manager said.
"Isn't that double the market price?"
Tris asked, she knew that the price was 1 brick, as for the skillbook it was questionable, but about right.
"Here is not the capital and panaceas don't grow on trees you know"
She said with some disdain in her voice, trying to intimidate Tris a little.
"My Jasmine, I think we should drop the price for the hero, after all..."
He then begun to whisper something into her ear making her face seem disapointed, as if she was giving up on something.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"If the hero decides to join our kingdom we could gift all three of the items here to him for free"
She said, but her words came out as it pained her to say so. The emissary's face was rather happy and he nodded in agreement to her words, they had to try with everything they had to hold the hero there in their country, of course he knew better than to think it would work, but every try counted.
"No need, to begin with we will decide what to buy once we have passed through all floors"
Tris said, as if it was her making the shots, making both the Emissary and the manager lady somewhat surprised, Christopher didn't really care, in reality he didn't really want some symbiotic plant on his body, even if it was earthshaking, he wanted his own strength.
In the end they only bought three cures for Rosetti's illness, a strange white cotton flower symbiote for her and some skillbook called vibrating touch which Tris learned without even a second throught, there were also a few spellbooks in the mix which went to christopher, but in general they didn't spent much, the most expensive thing in the mix was the strange Cotton symbiote given to Rosetti, whom after drinking the first cure potion saw no effect, the second the same, the third however turned her hair into a healthy Dark green, but after she took in the symbiote they turned light green with hints of white, as if she had turned old or something, but she seemed rather happy with the symbiote.
Their stay at the city only lasted for three short days, as they travelled from auction house to auction house, buying not a few elixirs and other stuff.
The most however important stuff, was Tris' change, she had her face changed, making it a complete copy of Rosetti's, she even dyed her hair and made them wavy like Alexxa's.
Christopher was rather shocked when he first saw her entering, only her voice was different than Alexxa's, everything else was entirely the same.
Of course the first thing she did when she entered the Carriage was enjoy his attention.
'Now you are mine'
She thought inside, as she approached him, in truth she had an "acting skill", which however she used to fake climax when she was still working in the mines as a prostitude.
Now all she had to do was stay silent and wait for Christopher to act first, it would be impossible for him to hold himself forever, especialy if she did a little something, to bait him into his desires.
"You look quite good, almost as pretty as me"
Rosetti said making Tris curse the time and the moment she had taken her in, but disposing of her would be rather difficult, even the thing called Holy Pure Cotton was bought for her by Christopher himself, as Rosetti asked for it very, very much.
"Master when will we do that?"
Tris asked him passionately only to see his previously amorous eyes faint and close as he sighed, making her curse the moment and the time she decided to act first, this play of patience wasn't really her thing.
The Adventurers were however the most happy since they could sell some of their own stuff for Green coins, the lowest coinage in the Greddor, which however was equal to around 1 thousand dwarf point. Meaning that they made great business, of course there weren't many caravans that would dare to travel to Greddor without powerful merceneries to protect them, in reality the common adventurers they had with them wouldn't even dare to stick their heads anywhere near Greddor, even the road which was considered as the safest way of reaching Greddor could be considered dangerous, since they could be at any time attacked by poisonous beasts, meaning that even the weakest beast in Greddor carried some drug or poison, but the worst thing was that all monsters in Greddor were stealthy and liked to hide meaning that unless you were a scout or a rogue you wouldn't even know how you died.
Thus for them this journey was an opportunity to fill their pockets with gold, now the only problem was how they would carry it back home, since they knew that Christopher's travels went South towards the Wilderness.
"We are changing Plans!"
Tris suddenly declared to Christopher as if she was boss and the caravan which was heading towards the Capital of Greddor made a sharp turn and begun heading towards Nivava.
Through the same swamp they had once passed right towards the dungeon pillar's fortress.
Christopher didn't care as they begun a new journey, for him entering the Dungeon pillar was his foremost goal, entering a day sooner or later was of course of no great importance to him.
Of course he had no idea as to why they were going to the Nivava pillar and not the Greddor's.
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In Nivava's Pillar Nick, the tallest healer, was having a hard time.
It was in his nature to heal all those in need, the problem however occured when he understood that he could not cure deceases, He had miraculously through healing the adventurers and villagers daily risen to a shocking 92.
He had also learned the Magic arts skill and the memorization, while not forsaking to gain the faith skill, his focus however was as a result divided into magic and mental, since Mages needed Magicality, while healers used Mentality.
The problem however occured when he fell ill himself, the village had long become unwellcome to adventurer healers, thus he was in the end forced to learn the "Cure skill", something that was a waste of skill slots.
Having already filled 6/8 slots, he was reluctant to learn any more skills.
The problems however begun even before that, the main problem being the ex-queen and her son, Vivian and Verillio.
For some reason the Town guards would act very strictly when he handed over his quote, judging some of the cores as cracked and brocken, this went on and on making his villagers rather disatisfied with the ex-royals, since they knew full well why the guards and soldiers acted that way towards them.
Verillio was famous for being a stupid prick he had sent more people into the dungeon pillar than one could count in a single day, there were even rumors of a whole village being moved inside the tower, from the elderly to the children because they hadn't come out to wellcome him, rumors about him were rather well spread and he had the title of Red devil, because of his red hair, which he took after his mother.
As for Vivian, she did her best to serve their heroic master, even wanting to give him a child, which however Nick found to be a rather problematic matter.
"Lets think about it some more"
Was what he told her as they lay in bed, naked under the sheets.
As for Verillio he hated Nick's guts, he wanted to kill him and the reason was because Nick told him to call him "Dad".
Of course Vivian's bed skills might be enough to calm Nick, but they would do nothing to calm the villagers whom wanted to kill Verillio, whom of course was under Nick's protection, thus giving him a strange Title, the people called him the "Tall Devil".
In truth Nick had another two titles other than the Nobility title of Knight.
One was given by Vivian, the title of "tall lover", a title he rather enjoyed, it raised his popularity with the oposite sex, the other title was given to him by Verillio "Evil Dad", a strange title that made children and people with low mentality afraid and obedient to him, which wasn't exactly a bad thing for a mentality based healer class, the only bad thing was that it lowered his faith skill, something that the Tall devil skill had in common, but it had no positive side to it, unless you think that raising magicality was positive to him.
Truth was that after Virillio gave him the title, which Nick didn't exactly like at first, he had him punished at the village square, as he lowered his pants and begun to smack his ass red in front of the commoners until he called him daddy.
The villagers were somewhat shocked at first and even laughed at some point, but that didn't help them much towards the food shortage, even more so, since while they were hungry Nick and his royal bastards were eating their fill.
In truth however Nick had long forgotten about his target to level up till then, he was simply addicted to the feeling of ejaculating into the beautiful ex-queen's ass, he even imagined how it would be to do the new queen in and idea which was secretly implanted to him by Vivian.
In the end he solved the food situation by asking Chris for help, the one whom persued his little actress princess and the one with the greatest gains in cores, but what he asked of him was supplies not cores for the quota, supplying him with his own cores, which would either way be called as cracked and useless, which numbered no less than the quota, it was a plan to unite against the unfair threatment.
Of course there was a reason as to why the queen did nothing about this, in truth she liked how the soldiers pressed him to raise his status, under their stress Nick had risen to level 92, unlike some idiot whom decided to run away from reality, namely Alexander.
Nick however was the one whom was smart enough to come up with a better plan, which he secretly distributed to people whom he saw were having a hard time adopting to the whole hero thing.
Their names being Christo, Alexander, Angelo, Mina and Alexxa.
Chris, John and Anna knew about the plan, but they were doing well in leveling up, thus they consider it unworthy of even considering, if they wanted to do it, they could try, but it would be too dangerous at the moment.
Of course this divided them into two sides, the conspirators and the Heroes, whose only care was to defeat the demon king. By now they they had of course all learned that the demon king they had to defeat was that of the 100th floor, that was also the real push to turn them into conspirators.
Of course the first step of Nick's plan was rather simple, they would form an alliance where they would solve their problems a sort of round table, something to which all heroes agreed, thus making this seem as a simple innocent gathering.
"As the leader of the gathering, I would like to say that we've been had"
Nick announced to everyone, his tall frame visible even though he was still seated.
"When we supported the Queen we were promised help and support, let me ask you has any of you seen even a hint of support?"
The ones he talked to were the ones whom had supported the queen with himself included.
"At least you got some helpers, If I knew that we would be sent to manage a fucking primitive village in a world where we would never see sunlight again I would would have fucking went to the goblin Country instead, all they demanded was 50% of your earning, at the moment I gain 0%"
Angelo said rather angry with the whole thing, if it wasn't because his twin sister, Mina, wanted to stay and help Alexxa, he would have long left the country for some better one, the orc country sounded promising.
"It's not really that bad, all you need do is let the village run by itself as you reap the profits"
Anna whom had become a Duchess when she reached level 100 said.
"You must really be happy that your slave knows how to do all the job for you, mine is simply a cunt that can suck dick all day"
Alexander said making Anna somewhat skeptical, after all in her time in the village all the management was done by Joseph, giving her all the time in the world to hunt, something that others didn't have.
"I knew I should have selected the fatty, he looked smart"
Angelo said but his tone was that of mockery instead of seriousness.
"Stop right there, we came here to solve problems not to create discord"
Mina said as she acted as the mediator.
"Does anyone know how to..."
Chris begun to describe his love problems making the whole situation rather jolly, in the end instead of a strategy meeting it became a sharing of their experiences in this world.
"Now let me ask you whom of you thinks that staying here is better than returning, for example did the girls in the room know that in this world there are no labors when having a child?"
Nick said, making the three girls flash red, in truth only Alexxa knew, but she didn't know Ludicar well enough to have a child with him.
"Next the info that has probably made many of you shocked, the demon king of the 100th floor, I have looked through the text and found that there is no record of him ever being defeated, all heroes whom have left ascended the tower not descended it"
Nick said, making some of them shocked, especialy Anna whom was already level 120, in 80 more levels she would be sent to the next floor, but hearing that their destination is up and not down, made her somewhat skeptical about many things, why didn't Joseph inform her about it?
"Next info is about our cheat powers, according to a book, I have found that if our class' stat is raised to 100 we will gain a second cheat power, which is technicaly more powerful than the one before or equaly as powerful"
Nick said, making Anna even more angry with Joseph, she was sure that that bastard already knew about that as well.
"Lastly I would like to hear whom of you have a thought of staying here in this world and whom want to return to our world?"
Nick's question opened a rather deep window in their minds, the ones whom had a reason to stay were reluctant to leave, while the ones whom had no good reason to stay still pondered over it, in a way even if they did nothing, someone would probably still be able to defeat the demon king on the 10th floor, even without their help, meaning that it was pointless to stress over it, the points was whether they wanted to leave or no.
Lastly Nicked passed a small note over to each of them and then asked them.
"Are you in?"
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Back in Nivava's capital the next day the queen got ahold of one of those notes, she read it and then Laughed.
This is what it said
"I wanna fuck the Queen are you in?"