Damon P.O.V

"Now lets see where this thing is...."

I was currently flying in the skies above my territory in the middle of the night. For some reason, it was extremely calming with the silence of the night only broken by the occasional crickets chirping. The place had something soothing about it, when flying around would probably be considered the most stressful thing for normal humans I felt nothing at all.

There was a light breeze in the air that swept my hair to the side, it felt great to just take a break from all the things that had been going on so far. Char and Vilard were doing their jobs since I had gotten an influx of messages of gaining XP through them so I wasn't worried, though the XP amounts had started to get larger.

My hair swept across my face again, prompting me to hover over the plains for a bit to fix it.

"Did I always have such long hair? Ever since I've been here I haven't really seen what I look like since I don't have a mirror, well, we'll see later I guess"

Since it was late at night I wasn't too worried about any flying monsters coming out and attacking me unless they were nocturnal, however now I think that my level is a bit too high for the average C or even B- rank monsters so I was flying comfortably without a care to the world.

"Hmmm, there it is!"

The scorched land that I had fought the Salamander in finally came into view. I had flown my way past the stream and followed the exact path of where I had gone the last time to go and save Char. It was kind of eerie seeing the corpse of the thing that had almost killed me two weeks prior, but it was just lying there.

I landed right in front of the giant lizard, the red of the lava that was in it's body had all but vanished. The thing was gigantic, I had seen it before but I hadn't realized how big it was then because of the heat of the battle but it was easily 10x the size of me. 

"So, can I just break this thing apart for it's base materials?"

Just like the goblins that I had taken out before, I opened my dungeon tab and the same notification popped up.

[Detecting materials: Would you like to turn them into raw materials for the dungeon?]

The only downside to this was that it didn't tell me how much breaking down the lizard would cost in SP, but I wasn't too bothered by that. I had quite a large amount of SP so I could probably use it without worrying. 

"Alright, let's get this done."

I clicked yes and the entire lizard entirely disappeared, almost as if it had phased out of existence. I knew the goblins did that but I just thought that was because of their small sizes but there seemed to be no discrimination whatsoever in terms of size or species.

The only thing that was left of it was a huge dent in the earth from where I punched the life out of it into the ground, I didn't really know why I did that since I was never extremely aggressive in the past but I guess people change when they're staring death in the face.

[+ Magma Shards x 10]

[+ Heatproof leather x 200]

[+ Lizard Meat x 400]

-80 SP 

"Huh, that wasn't too bad."

I looked through the dungeon inventory. It was packed full of different kinds of stuff now since I had the skeletons grab whatever they could and bring it back to the castle. This made the inventory fill up with a bunch of monsters corpses, bandit weapons, and plants that they had all foraged or taken from bandits after most likely killing them. I felt that m0st of the bandit's equipment was from Vilard since he was on the outskirts of my territory though it could have been from any bandits that had wandered too close to my castle as well.

I shifted through the stuff on the inventory screen, most of it was useless as of now since I really didn't know what to do with it and most of the equipment brought in was broken anyways.

After last time I realized that I'm probably better at hand-to-hand combat instead of magic. Though magic was still on the table, I really wanted a new weapon that I could fight with since my old daggers had been lost in the whole lizard fiasco and they weren't exactly the best weapon either.

"Well, whatever the case, I think I can head back now. There doesn't seem to be too much I can do now so I think we'll be fine..."

I looked left and right to make sure there wasn't anything useful. The scorched earth had long cooled after the other two lizards left, making the ground black instead of red from the ash that had covered the entire piece of land.

As I was about to leave I caught a glimpse of light reflecting off of something in the ash. The moon had passed overhead at the perfect angle and the moonlight had reflected off the edge of something.

Being ever so curious, I walked over and bent down into the ash to sweep some of it aside. I did it for a bit longer before finally uncovering the thing that had glinted from the moonlight, it was a...a rock?

[Obtained [Monster Core Rank: B]]

While I couldn't really call it a rock, it was quite similar. It was completely black, which would have made it impossible to find in the already blackened ground if not for the moon's light, which was pure luck. 

Though I had no idea what it did and it had absolutely no description, I stuck the core into my inventory anyways. I had figured out a while back that the dungeon's inventory was connected to mine so there was absolutely no reason for me to be carrying around a bag when I could just open the dungeon tab and stick everything in because why wouldn't I use something so convenient? 

Well then, I think it's about time to go

I turned around one last time before lifting off from the ground and gliding back towards my castle once again. I didn't know what was going on but I had leveled up at least once in this whole night just from Vilard and the rest killing a bunch of stuff so that was a pretty good deal if I do say so myself.

I wonder what I'll make today, I haven't eaten since I've been here after all

---

Artia P.O.V

"C'mon Ms. Hero, we're gonna miss our ride!"

"Coming!"

We had just finished eating at a local pub that served a bunch of seafood, it tasted pretty good but it wasn't anything to write home about. The bustling streets of the city were packed full of venders and merchants, making their living from the many travelers and adventurers that came through the area. 

On top of that, there were many carriages that came through the streets to take travelers and adventurers to different places since their line of work always required them to move around, which was what we were doing right now. 

We had booked a carriage to bring us to Agrestia, the state that we had accepted the quest from. The reason we had to book it instead of just hopping on one of the carriages and going was due to it's distance from the capital. It was one of the furthest states from the capital, which we were currently at, so there were a limited number of carriages that would reach there.

"I'm here, I'm here!"

I sprinted towards the carriage that the rest of the group had already loaded into and sat down before sighing. Elynea stared pointedly at me, which would have made sense if we ignored the fact that she was the one who told the driver to go before I got on.

"I thought heroes were supposed to be quick acting to save everyone, so why exactly are you like this?"

SMACK!

Elynea lurched to the side and held her head in pain as Thogir lowered his hand after smacking her.

"Sorry Ms, this elf here really doesn't know manners at all. She was a princess in her old kingdom before getting kicked out, so contrary to whatever she says she's just as poor as all of us here. She just won't admit it"

"Argh! You bastard!"

I had pretty much determined that it was a bad idea to have both of them in the same confined space at once, seeing how they had almost started a bar fight just an hour ago while I just looked on aloofly, accepting the fact that I was probably going to have to get used to all of these otherwise crazy events. 

I just shook my head, I really didn't want to start an internal conflict.

"Alright everybody just...chill out. How are we exactly supposed to work together if we keep on fighting each other!?"

Though it was never Thogir's fault to begin with, he was being rational after all but I really don't want my head smashed against a window please and thank you.

"I see no problem, if anyone has qualms with me I believe that the only way to solve it is through a show of force"

"Now ye starting to sound like a dwarf!"

"Do not compare me to you!"

Oh lord have mercy

As Elynea kept on attempting to attack Thogir, Will grasped her arm and stopped her from slugging him across the face.

"Sit down."

He yanked her back down onto her seat before crossing his legs and staring out the window. Despite how he looked, Will was probably the most mature out of all of us by far. Though it felt more like he was babysitting us than anything.

He glanced at me.

"Don't stray away from one of us. Though you are the hero, you have no combat experience at all. I heard about the fireball incident and I pray that does not repeat again, understood?"

"y-yes"

Damn this dude is scary, what the hell!

He looked at the other two, who had since given up on fighting each other and both sat in absolute silence, occasionally giving each other the death glare before turning back.

The carriage rumbled on as time passed. We really didn't say anything though I did make some small talk with Thogir, who was probably the most approachable character out of everyone in the group.

"So, what should I do when I see a bandit? I haven't killed anything in my life before, I don't know if I should..."

Thogir nodded 

"It may be difficult to take yer first kill, for us it was easy since we were always at risk but for ye I think we can manage with some stun spells once we grab some books. From what ye teacher told us, ye can learn anything from just understanding or seeing it so there shouldn't be much of a problem"

But I really don't want to kill anything... well, I suppose they probably deserve it if we're going out to hunt for them but still.

Though this was still weighing heavily on my mind, I just ignored it for now. If it really comes down to it, I wouldn't really have a choice regardless.

Let's just enjoy the moment.

---

Guys, guess what.

It's my birthday tomorrow!!!! 

Also, I'm going to open up a Kofi account so if anyone wants to donate, it would be greatly appreciated but I'll still continue putting out chapters regardless.

I'm just glad this story is finally moving forward, I might do a rewrite of the story later on but that won't be till chapter 50 or so.

See you guys tomorrow!