Then I saw her activate them, pouring mana into them—two of the crystals, just like I told her—seeing sparks of purple electricity flashing on the crystals before she threw them. That Tidejaw probably noticed this and tried to close its mouth, making one fall in its mouth and the second one dropping on its head.
Then I heard a *BOOM* sound. It sounded more like a lightning clap, especially during rain back on Earth when lightning strikes. That's how it sounded.
When I looked at it, I could see the Tidejaw's mouth had already burst open, while the front legs of the wolf seemed to have snapped due to it using its front legs to pin the beast down while it bit it from the top.
I turned back to Aria and shouted, "Now!" Then she threw the second batch of crystals. I had told her to pour every bit of mana she had in this one to make it more devastating than the last, and it worked. This one was even louder than the last one, falling directly into the middle of the beasts.
When it all settled down, I saw the Tidejaw had already stopped moving, probably dead, but the wolf was still alive, staring down at me, though it couldn't move its body, probably due to the shock. It had a lot of burnt patches on its fur.
So I turned to Aria and asked, "Do you have a sword?"
She replied, "I do." Then she gave me one, and I took it, walked up to it, and it kept growling at me, probably trying to intimidate me. As soon as I got within range of it, I struck the sword straight through the eyes, with it howling. I kept stabbing it.
Then I turned to Aria and the others, who were just watching me with weird expressions, simply because they couldn't understand why I kept stabbing it, and shouted at them, "What are you waiting for? Come help me kill this beast! If it stands up, we're all dead!" Then they hurried and started attacking the beast. After a while, the beast died.
Everyone turned to me. I had a frown on my face, and I asked them, "What?"
This time, it was the huge guy who spoke. "I never knew you would face two Arcane Fang beasts while being rankless."
I simply didn't even look at him. I just rested my head on the tree I was on, staring at the beast corpse. Even if I didn't show it, that pressure was breaking me apart. I just shielded it. I didn't even answer the huge guy.
I turned to Aria. "Can we eat it?"
And she replied, "No, they are Arcane Fang rank beasts, peak at that. Our bodies won't be able to sustain the energy they contain, and we might likely explode."
I nodded. Then I asked, "Is there a way we can store the corpses? And we need to leave this place and head back to that waterfall. It's not far from here. These beasts are probably the overlords of this place, so no beast will come here for now except stronger ones."
She replied, nodding, "I do have a storage pouch to store two of them, but what about their cores?"
And I told her, "Pluck out their cores and bring them to me. Put them in an extra spatial artifact." Looking at how she brought out three more spatial artifacts that looked like small pouches, she probably took them from those guards back then. I didn't say anything.
After she dug out the cores of the beasts, she already put them in the spatial pouch and brought them to me. I took them from her while she stored the beasts. On our way back, which was probably a five-minute walk to the waterfall, we came across a Mana Sprout-rank level snake called a Feyroot Viper, holding onto a tree for dear life. That's what Aria called it. Even though she looked like that, she's quite knowledgeable. She caught it, saying that was what we were going to eat for later that evening.
I didn't reply, like always. We got to the waterfall. I stripped down naked. By now, the girls already considered me shameless, so there wasn't much reaction like last time. I just went in. Fair enough, the crocodile was the overlord of this place; there were no fish in here. The water was probably deep. I had no reason to dive deep, so I just stayed on the surface to wash myself.
I looked outside. I could see Aria skinning the snake with the help of that female human, and the elf girls setting up their leaf hut again. I turned and already saw the scar-face guy in the water, also taking a bath, but only his shirt was off, and the huge guy bringing back logs, probably from all those trees the Tidejaw magical beast's tail cut down while chasing us earlier.
I came out from the water, went up to the tree where my clothes were, wore them, and climbed up the tree and just lay down on one branch. I was just looking at the place where the beasts fought, seeing how things turned out today. I just lay there until I heard a knock on the tree. Not knowing how much time had passed, it was night time already. I looked down, seeing all those kids around the fire place, probably eating the snake meat.
I looked down to see who knocked the tree, and to my surprise, it was the human girl and Aria. I looked at Aria. She didn't say anything. And I looked at the human girl and asked in a threatening tone, "What is it?"
She looked hesitant, then summoned up courage, saying, "Thank you."
I looked at her like someone looking at an idiot, asking her, "For?"
And she said, "For saving my life and giving me the grace to live. You could have simply killed us there, but you didn't. You led us here all the way from that place and still found a way to protect us. Assuming you didn't change directions while we were running, I would be dead by now. So I say thank you."
I just looked at her and asked, "Your name?"
And she replied, "Julia Atticus."
I raised my eyebrows. I've heard that name before, probably from the memories. So I asked, "Noble?"
And she replied with a smile, "Yes, a baron family."
And I nodded and then said, "What if I didn't do any of those things? What if I chose to kill you here? I can simply order Aria to slaughter you all because I feel like you guys are too heavy. What if I just wanted to ditch you guys or use you as a decoy for escape?"
She bit her lip, didn't reply to me. Then I said, "Good. Then don't disturb me. I'm not doing this for anyone but myself."
Then I looked at Aria. She seemed to want to say something. Then suddenly Julia knelt down, saying, "Please let me serve you."
I looked at her, saying in a slightly irritated tone, "Serve me? What can you provide me?"
Then she said, "I don't know about other noble families, but I can promise you that half of the wealth of my family will be yours, and I will always stand by your side and never betray you. And you can also put the slave seal on me like you did to Miss Aria."
I looked at Aria and didn't reply, not because I didn't know how to draw the diagram of the slave seal. I can't simply chant those things the voice said, and any mishap might lead to something bad. When the voice wakes up, I will tell it to teach me the slave seal.
Then I looked back at the still kneeling Julia and said, "Then you will have to prove your worth. What rank are you?"
She replied, saying, "I'm at Manamancer 5th stage and early years at Aurora Magicorum Academy."
She said that with a slightly tense face. Then I simply nodded, saying, "OK, then you will have to prove yourself."
Then she simply said, "Thank you," and left, wondering why there wasn't any change in his expression.
And he turned to Aria, asking her, "And you?"
She replied, saying, "I came to give you this," showing me the snake meat she prepared.
I jumped down from the tree, landing in front of her, taking the snake meat from her, moving out of her presence to the woods, where I sat down and ate it, savoring the taste, wondering why it tasted so good. Was it because I hadn't eaten meat for a while, or was it because of how it was cooked? It was probably roasted.