Master Of None

”You were hiding quite the partner!” Walker was thankful Laurence had waited for the opportune moment to let his other tamed beast attack. However, not a single one of them expected the intimidating red and white striped tiger to chomp in to the alpha with flaming jaws. This was not a monster they would want to fight at their level.

Laurence laughed a bit, he was embarrassed to show off his long term tamed beast. ” well Bengal hates the cold since she’s a red striped tiger. I also can’t bother her without good reason,” in response to that the tiger gave a low growl, ” yes yes back to the beast ring where it’s warm.” Laurence returned Bengal to the beast ring. ”She’s very temperamental but I had the luck to run in to a traveling circus as a child. A mother had given birth to three eggs instead of the predicted two so with all my money and belongings I purchased one. From that second I left to find the tamers guild and the rest is history.” Walker wanted to pry a bit in to how Laurence had progressed as a tamer but knew that they had plenty of time left in their travels to talk.

”Hey walker get your butt over here and store away these wolves. We should save them to sell for materials when we get to the beast kingdom!” Midnight and Gil had dragged over the farther wolf. Now Walker could run and quickly store them away. The fur was sure to be valuable to those wanting to craft certain gear. Even the claws would most likely fetch a decent price.

After storing them away walker remembers the secondary reward from the guild issued quest. ”Hey let’s start looking around the area for the lost merchandise. If anything survived we can claim it as ours.” Having no idea what was being transported walker decided to use his mana manipulation skill and most of his remaining mana to remove as much snow around them as possible.

Placing his hands in to the cold snow he allowed his mana to drain away. Envisioning the snow melting and evaporating away leaving the empty ground the surprised shouts from the others fell on his ears. He had closed his eyes to focus on this task with all his might, as they opened he didn’t know what to say. A huge part of the area had become cleared of snow and ice, a bit of mud and grass was now in its place. Steam rose at the edges of the cleared area, everyone was staring at Walker whose hands were now grasping mud, beads of sweat trailing down his face as he noted heavily. He may have used too much mana all at once.

” That was so cool! You should do that everywhere we walk, no more snow just grass and easy traveling!” Elise seemed to be fantasizing of her path being completely unhindered but with a flick to her head from Laurence.

”You know there isn’t anyone who has enough mana to do that, not get looking for that merchandise. Walker worked hard to make it easier for us.” Shaking his head Laurence helped walker up and tossed him a small towel he had in his coat. ”That’s a impressive trick you’ve got there.” The two smiled at each other, Laurence had surprised walker with his tiger and in turn walker surprised Laurence with his mana manipulation yet again. Their rivalry was one born from friendship and would surely push them both to be better.

” Leader! I found broken crates over here!” Su was the first to spot some debris. She had found broken crates which seemingly held food before they were clawed apart. The glacial wolves must have eaten well.

Now that they all had a narrowed down area everyone moved to where Su was soon finding the remained of a merchant carriage. Luckily there seemed to be no bodies within the remnants. The unfortunate souls had most likely been devoured bones and all leaving only what the wolves didn’t want to eat; the extra merchandise.

The carts white top had been torn to pieces and stained with mud. Only one wheel seemed to remain intact, no longer attached to the cart. It was easy to tell that the cargo Ha mostly been food. ” I think we got tricked in slaying those wolves...” Gil was not excited to see the crumbs of cheese and breads.

”Well it was a daily quest too so we were lucky a guild quest existed in the first place. We also have a vip auction invite, who o owns what we can gain from that.” Quickly highlighting the silver lining walker was also picking through the broken crates.

”Ha Ha yesss! Jackpot!” Dancing around in front of four small crates filled with different herbs Remey was making a fool of herself. ”We have a ton of herbs here, the can’t be rare but we won’t need anymore herbs for potions for a while!”

Seeing that Remey was excited about herbs was definitely a perfect comedy but she rarely got to practice her hobby due to how busy the party had been. ” let me store them away when we are back at the mansion we can play around with them. We can make our very own health potions to save money for other things.” This excited Remey to a high degree. Su and Gil were fairly confused as they didn’t know Remey had often bought and made simple teas from herbs to keep the children in the orphanage healthy. This side of Remey was more rare than diamonds.

”Ah I think I found something the glacial wolves didn’t want to eat.” Holding up two pouches of what appeared to be crystals, along with one torn open pouch. ” I would bet this pouch had water crystals at one point that the wolves swallowed. These two happen to have earth and fire crystals.” The two pouches had about ten of each crystal but it was a nice find.

”Take the fire crystals, I’m sure Hyde and Bengal will be happy to have them.” This was just what Laurence wanted to hear. The fire crystals could help boost their strength. The earth crystals however were useless.

”Can I have the earth crystals?” Riley who rarely spoke had just said his first words in a long while. ”My demon boars hold an earth affinity, I could use them.” Walker hadn’t bothered to research the demon boars but hearing this it did make sense. They were tough beasts and earth was a tough element.

”Sure thing, I didn’t realize they were earth affinity monsters, I’ll keep it in mind as we look for more.” The two nodded to each other as Riley caught the pouch of earth crystals. Walker was glad to hear him speak up and join the conversation.

” ooo I found something! I found something!” The hyper voice of Elise called out to everyone. Pulling a leather backpack from underneath the remains of the cart she dragged it to an open space. The weight seemed to be almost more than she could lift, why could be inside that had so much weight?

Gathering around the leather backpack Elise unhooked the straps opening the top. It fell over spilling small green grey rocks out by their feet. ”Rocks... I found rocks....this sucks!” Elise was crushed, she thought she had found a backpack pull of gold but instead it was useless old rocks. ”Who even walks around with a bunch of rocks on their back anyways?”

All of them seemed to echo this feeling but out of curiosity Walker still tried to appraise these rocks.

’ orichalcum ore

Created only in some of the toughest underground environments, this ore gains strength above most other naturally occurring ores. Used to create armors that are nearly unbreakable. This ore is extremely rare and often sold for very high prices. The ideal crafting component for a unique weapon for one with a master level system.’

”... they must not have known this was being carried...” whispering in shock walkers words were barely being heard.

”Huh? What do you mean they must not have known? Why would they care about rocks?” Remey echoed Elise, the pair had the feeling that walker was loosing his mind.

”Ehmm” clearing his throat he continued louder this time, ” if they knew this was part of the merchandise they would have put more than just a request with the guild. I think soldiers would be here too.” This brought on another wave of confused looks, now everyone shared the same thought that walker was crazy.

”Ha so you collect rocks now? You know these aren’t even pretty gems so you shouldn’t give them to your new girl friend.” Thinking walker was trying to make them a gift for his new found infatuation Gil decided to let loose a bit of teasing.

”No Gil stop being an idiot! This is orichalcum ore! Having just a tenth of what’s in this back makes people a target for assassins and bandits. The amount here is impossible, if the garnet family knew about it they would sell everything to get this back!” He may have been frustrated for a moment but quickly calmed himself. ” this is serious I know I’m overreacting a bit but we can not tell anyone about this.” Walker picked up the spilled ore and stored away the backpack. ”Naturally when we figure this out we will split it between us but for now I think it’s best we pretend we didn’t find anything more than some crystals and frozen cheese.”