Max continued reading intil he became too tired to continue. Getting up, he headed to bed.

He liked his current lifestyle, learning new things daily and just living in both leisure & luxury.

But he wasn't delusional enough to think he can spend his life like this, forget about his urge to grow stronger, to learn, to live longer, and his greedy nature.

Even if he puts all that behind him, and decides to live like a hurmet, the world literally won't leave him alone, so he had to strigh for greater strength.

Max quickly drifts off into a deep slumber.

...

As the sun rose, Max was awakened by Lucy's mental messages.

It was the day Max had planned to teach her about farming and observe her work. Assuming this was the reason for her waking him, Max simply rolled over in bed.

"Not now, Lucy. We can do it in the afternoon."

Lucy, however, persisted.

' wake up, you need to see crows.'

She didn't come for the farming lesson, but she woke up Max because she wanted to snitch on the crows and technically on herself since she was part of what they're doing.

But in her head, if she told Max now he would be slightly angry, and slightly angry is better than angry in her books.

"huh? What is it?".

' come see.'

Max woke up stretching. "a hhh".

His symptoms were getting better, but Max didn't notice because he was more curious about Lucy's antics and why she didn't just tell him what's going on.

'come fast.'

"alright! Alright, lead the way."

Max was in a good mood, so he just went with it.

He strolled towards a stairway and ascended. Before long, he emerged from the underground structure as a stone wall opened up for him and then closed behind him.

As he stepped into the bright sunlight, Max had to squint his eyes.

" Where are they? And what's going on Lu."

A hand made of mist appeared next to Max and pointed in a certain direction.

'this way.'

Max just walked in that direction, but what he saw made him speechless.

"didn't I say keep low-key? What the hell is this?"

Lucy just pretended not to be here as Max watched all kinds of beasts and animals standing in a row.

At the front of the row, two squirrels stood trembling as they handed some nuts to ramla in a respectful manner.

Behind sand crow ramla were the other crows.

Delma sat on a small stone throne wearing real sunglasses, too big for its size.

Delma sat like a boss, while the other crows split on both sides, crossing their wings while staring fiercely at the rows of animals.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Posing like gangsters!!

Ramla showed the nuts to mok who was holding a pen and paper, and the other started counting the protection fees.

Max was speechless. He didn't know where they got the pen and paper, but he felt betrayed.

"even you mok? Is that why I taught you math? Is that how you use it?."

The squirrels were also speechless.

The mountain had become very prosperous in the past two weeks. There were nuts everywhere, so they didn't know why this bunch of crows still had to take theirs. Did crows even eat nuts?

They didn't understand what a protection fee was, but they were afraid, so they didn't disobey the strange orders.

After some time, mok nodded, and Delma waved his wings, and the squirrels left in a hurry as if given amnesty.

A wolf holding some meat stepped forward and placed the meat in front of ramla.

The same process repeated itself in front of Max.

Max reached his limit and wanted to intervene, but before he could, a 3-meter-tall deer with luminous horns approached the crows with malicious intent.

Delma didn't worry much, they can fight this deer on their own, but in order to avoid injuries and angring Max, they would let the big boss handle it.

Lucy could no longer pretend she wasn't here and had to make a move.

A Mist palme crushed the deer into meat paist in front of the frightened beasts.

"so you're a part of this, I should've guessed from the stone chair Delma is sitting on."

Max didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This air-head even snitched on herself.

Lucy didn't dare respond, and just pretended to not be here again.

Max was both helpless and angry.

'everyone come here immediately'.

The crows were stunned and flew to Max immediately as the crowd of beasts dispersed.

Looking at the crows in front of him, Max took the silly sunglasses from Delma.

"seriously! Didn't I say keep low-key?"

The crows looked at each other. From their point of view, they were collecting protection fees in a low key manner.

Max massaged his temples. "Then just me tell, why would you need the nuts and the other random things?"

The crows started explaining in both excitement and fever, and all at the same time.

Craw! Craw! Craw! Craw! Craw! Craw! Craw! Craw.…

Max understood something around the meaning of it's not about the money, it's about the rules and who's in charge.

" you!!! "

Max slammed the glasses to the ground in anger.

" don't give me that shit from the series we watched..... Sigh. "

The crows didn't dare argue back.

" That aside, where did you get the sunglasses, and the pen and paper? ".

The crows started looking around. They weren't trying to avoid eye contact with Max, but trying to locate something.

And Max knew what it was.

" Lucy, come here now."

Lucy appeared behind a tree, not far from Max.

" where did you get those things?"

'buy them.'

responded Lucy, trying to hide most of her body behind the tree.

Max was left speechless. He was sure that Lucy had stolen them, as there was no other explanation for how she could have acquired them.

But Max was concerned about a different matter.

"how did you buy them exactly?' Max was afraid that Lucy's buying had the same definition of stealing for ramla.

If that was the case, then there should be at least a dozen dead bodies around the mountain.

Although Max didn't really care if his pet kill people, but such an action would bring him a lot of unnecessary problems.

" When they don't see, I take things I like. ' answered Lucy innocently.

Max sighed in relief. At least it's not the worst-case scenario.

"you're all banned from using the laptop intil I say so, as punishment. "

Both the crows and Lucy wanted to cry immediately, but Max won't be having any of that.

"one more word and I'd make it a permanent punishment.

Lucy go back to the mountain. I'd teach you how to farm.

Everyone else, you're free to go play or whatever, just no more mugging or collecting protection fees. "

Max turned back and went to the farming area he had already selected. As for his pet's antics, it wasn't actually that big of a deal since Lucy was watching. If anything went wrong, she'd see it immediately and inform him.

In fact, Max didn't mind letting them bully the entire mountain just to play, the problem is that he told them to keep low-key although just in case, he did give the order.

And technically, they didn't disobey in their understanding, so Max took the opportunity to make them understand.