Smoke and death were heavy in the ashen ruins of Sealrite as I knelt beside the tenth beast since Duke Alistar’s forces had finished killing all the released monsters in the city. Even hours later, the air was still thick with the smog of dead and dying fires, and the city was polluted by the screams of the military and the mournful sobs of the bereaved.

I wasn’t sure what the death count was, but I’d passed a handful of pyres stacked to the brim with the disfigured bodies of the night’s victims. The plan had been to release monsters into the city to distract the city guards; it had not been to kill hundreds of people. The loss of life was unfortunate—not because of guilt or that the people of Sealrite were entitled to live, but because the massacre would no doubt delay my plan to resume the slave arena’s functions under my command for weeks, if not months. While many in the city would likely enjoy the distraction of entertainment, there was too much work to be done in rebuilding the city for average citizens to attend such an event en masse.

The sheath of my newly obtained dagger, which I’d snagged off a fallen soldier, clicked as I lifted it with my thumb and withdrew the sharp blade. Beads of sweat rolled down the back of my neck as I plunged the dagger into the monster corpse in front of me, aiming just left of where I figured its stomach should be. Honestly, I’d never seen most of the monsters released in Sealrite, so my knowledge of their anatomy was effectively zero. Still, most of the beasts I’d dissected earlier contained a core in the lower areas of their midsection, so the guess was as good as any.

The monster was an ugly yellow and purple, with a single massive eye taking up most of its head. Its body was just two fat legs connected to a sphere where its eye was. It was reminiscent, in a way, of a cyclops I’d encountered back in my previous world—minus the body.

I grunted as I sawed a deep line from the top of the creature’s head sphere to where its legs split, purple trails of blood flowing freely in the wake of my steel.

“That is so gross,” Nida said, lips pursed in a look of disgust. Most of the Paragons had left for their own ventures less than an hour after Duke Alistar’s forces had purged the city of danger, but Ethan, Nasq, and Nida, and a smattering of the others had chosen to remain with me for the time being.

After Duke Alistar and his knights had poured down like rain into the city, I’d only had a brief chance to speak with him before he’d been called away to deal with some of the more powerful monsters. Though he had left me under the charge of one of his knights, the knight had so far simply followed me around in silence.

While I wasn’t fond of being escorted around by anyone, much less the knight of a noble, I needed the duke’s favor for the next steps of my plan. Plus, most of the freed slaves who had chosen to stay by my side were currently putting up tents in a grassy area near the slave colosseum. It was a bit of an odd place to remain, but it seemed as if most of them were only familiar with the colosseum, making it a comfortable place for them. In a way.

“It would be a lot quicker if you would help,” I grunted, yanking my dagger out of the hardened carcass. “Gods, that skin is tough.”

Nida shrugged. “It looks like a three-star monster, so I’m not surprised.”

“A what?” I asked, walking over to where the body of a man was half-buried under a slab of rubble and cleaning the purple blood off my dagger with his shirt.

“You know, a three-star. Midtier.” At my confused expression, the tigerkin sighed. “My queen—my lady, there seem to be some interesting gaps in your knowledge.”

“Just explain,” I said dismissively with a wave of my hand and sheathed my blade. It was a lot harder to find a monster’s core when it had been killed long enough ago for all its heart energy to fade. I plunged my hand into the parted flesh and fished around for a hard sphere or diamond-shaped object. If I were at a higher level, I could have potentially sensed the core from the heart energy remaining inside it.

Nida sighed again, this time more dramatically, as she leaned against a large stack of wood from the fallen wall of what I guessed was some type of inn or tavern. “It’s how the hunter’s guild classifies monsters. One star is the weakest. Five stars are the strongest. So three-star monsters are middling.”

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“Huh,” was all I said, my teeth clenched together as I continued to search the creature's insides for a core. So far, I’d looked inside around ten monsters and found three cores. None were particularly useful for cultivating to the gold tier since their levels were too low. I wanted to examine the remains of the arachnid creature, which had to have been around the level of a midtier silver-level core. Once the duke’s forces relaxed a little, I’d have to make my way back and see if the creature had a core. Luckily for me, most practitioners of this world didn’t seem to know about monster core benefits to increasing one’s heart energy.

“What are you going to do with all the… what did you call them? Cores?” Nida asked, laying back on the broken wood planks to look up at the rising sun and the retreating moon. “Sell them? I’ve never heard of the merchant guild buying those core things, but they’d pay a really pretty gold coin for some of these materials.”

“You’ll find out eventually,” I retorted evasively as my finger finally brushed against something solid inside the creature. With a small burst of effort and heart energy, I grabbed the monster core and pulled it from the monster, the rigor mortis of the corpse resisting the change for only a split second before it gave in. The core escaped its confines with a slick suction sound, sliding from the insides without any gore or blood sticking to it. The core was a brilliant, untarnished yellow that pulsed softly against my palm. I slipped it into the pouch at my waist, adding it to the other three. I’d have to see whether four weaker cores could benefit me the same as one larger core. Back during my days as a princess candidate, I’d never bothered lowering myself enough to cultivate with a lesser core.

The duke’s knight suddenly swiveled his head around to look toward the residential section near the city’s center, his eyes widening for a split second before he nodded and turned back toward me. “The Duke wishes to see you now.”

I just snorted. “I’m sure he does.” I glanced at Nida. “Is Ethan still with the soldiers on the walls?” When she nodded, I shook my head in mock defeat. “Try to get him off the walls again. I need him down here looking for cores and collecting the monster pieces.”

“Why not ask Nasq?”

I snorted again. The moment the duke had taken control over the city and guaranteed that none of the freed slaves would be forced back into slavery per Lysorian laws forbidding the act of slavery, Nasq had taken off to the city’s library and hadn’t returned. “Why do you help?”

Nida smiled slyly, stretching her slim frame with a small moan. “I agreed to help you with your cause before you help me with mine. I’m not some monster parts farmer.”

The knight cleared his throat. “My lady, I apologize, but Duke Alistar insists you head to his estate for a debrief.”

I ignored him, still talking to Nida. “Go get at least a dozen of those camping out by the colosseum and have them help collect the monster remains before the duke’s forces and whatever hunters or merchants arrive from Lysoria get moving. We don’t have that much time to get a head start. Based on what the duke told me, I’d say we have maybe a week before the old city lord arri—”

“My lady, I must insist,” the knight interrupted. I slowly turned my gaze toward him with narrowed eyes and a deep frown. My core released a surge of heart energy toward the knight that instantly converted into Authority to bear down on the warrior as if he’d been transported deep under the ocean.

The knight dropped unbiddenly to his knees under the pressure, his hands barely catching his fall or his face would have aggressively kissed the dirt. I could sense fear radiating off him like a bad odor. To his credit, however, the knight did not cry out nor beg for me to stop. Instead, his face contorted into a look of pure concentration and focus, not showing an ounce of the fear I knew his heart to hold.

At the demonstration of willpower, I pulled my energy back, canceling the pressure around the knight, who let out a large gasp of relief and seemed to try swallowing as much air into his lungs as possible.

“Do not interrupt me again, Sir Knight,” I warned, looking down at the collapsed soldier. “I do not take kindly to such disrespect. Next time, I will not be so forgiving.”

“Yeah,” Nida piped in, twisting some of her silver hair around a finger. “Her ma—The lady doesn’t like to be interrupted at all. The last lady that did it didn’t even have the chance to regret it.”

The knight’s face paled at Nida’s words. Still, he did not speak and climbed back to his feet, albeit still a bit wobbly. “A… a thousand apologies, Lady Lilliana, for my rudeness. I had not intended to dishonor you.” He paused, and I could see him swallow, building up the courage for his next words. “I-I must still insist that you go see Duke Alistar.”

I nodded, accepting his words of apology. “I, of course, intended to visit the duke at my earliest convenience,” I lied. “However, I am currently in the middle of collecting material that will guarantee my financial stability. Will the duke cover the costs of my losses if I leave now?”

The knight was silent, no doubt communicating with the duke or a representative of the duke through some method before he shook his head. “That isn’t something I have the authority to provide you, but I can assign some knights to aid your people in the collections,” he said, referring to the freed slaves.

I was going to have to think of a different name for them. It wasn’t as if I could keep referring to them as freed slaves forever.

“That is acceptable,” I said, gesturing for the knight to lead me forward. “Lead me to him.”