The rise of the pervert primordial

Chapter 804: Rest, Rewards & Reconnaissance (part 1)

Seeing Kana who was all smiles as the Komodo dragon king got up, raising her high into the air, Alice smirked to then ask in a loud voice.

"Will they surrendering count as the fight ending though?", which of course made a tinge of worry appear on the little girl’s face, if the blue flaming board didn’t recognize the lizard army surrendering as a victory from Aster’s group, no rewards will be given due to it.

What’s more, who knew if they will be allowed to just end things like this, the lizards were an army that was supposed to siege a participant’s group after all.

"Don’t tease Kana too much", said Aster as he patted Alice’s back a couple of times, pacifying that wild dragon sister of his who was just messing with the little girl because she was jealous of all the attention she was getting.

"This is fine right, real battles can be won without spilling a single drop of blood in some cases, or you can count their lives as a part of our reward if that’s not allowed, I won’t let a single one of my teammates to be taken away after all", said Aster to the sky.

The deal he struck with Wade said that in exchange for handing Fawn over to his side, Aster and the others will fight the animal army that was besieging Wade’s group, however there were no arrangements about what would happen if there were to be animals that survived the battle.

The most obvious result is that the blue flaming board will return them to their forest of origin, but now they had joined Aster’s side, not officially though, there weren’t enough spots for them as of current after all.

"...", the blue flaming board seemed to be pondering things for a moment before a message appeared in front of Aster.

[It is doable, however since these are all the animals capable of defending themselves, if you wish to take them in, you’ll have to bring in all their children and elderly as well, none of which will be required to follow you and the cost of this will be deduced from today’s rewarding session, be aware that this is the last instance in which rewards will be granted during this week]

Apparently, the day of the siege battle was the last event to be evaluated for the week, that meant that there won’t be new rewards daily after this, probably there will be other aspects that will be evaluated instead of daily performance for the next week.

"That’s perfect, I wasn’t planning on spending more than a couple of hours out of bed each day for the rest of the week, so my "performance" form this point onwards was only for Aster’s eyes~", said the wild dragon princess as she licked her lips, surprisingly she was the first one to speak in favor of accepting the conditions of the blue flaming board.

It couldn’t be helped, it’s not like the others hesitated due to their rewards being reduced, it’s just that Alice is always keeping an eye on getting "rewards" from Aster, so she was the first one to react as if by instinct.

"Dear heavens can’t you show a bit of decorum for once... I also support accepting the deal", said Aria to then add to herself.

’Humph, you think I’ll let you hog Aster for the next two days, dream on!’, cutely thought the ice princess.

"Ahem, it wouldn’t be responsible to just accept those that can fight while leaving others to their luck", Valentina’s opinion was as always, the one of a responsible older sister, well, that would normally have been the case but let’s not forget that she has become "younger" and some traces of rebellious attitude from back then showed, when she wasn’t careful.

"What’s more, if we are taking so many animals from that side’s forest, won’t that mean that those fools won’t be able to have a decent meal in a while, it serves them right", added the purple lightning princess, very much to Fawn’s surprise.

’I guess even miss Valentina has a vengeful side’, thought the brown-haired potential princess, luckily for Valentina, Fawn believed that she held a grudge over the Ocean Aquamarine family trying to fabricate false charges to take Nerissa as a prisoner, instead of this just being one of the moments where her rebellious younger self presented itself, courtesy of the little "surprise" that Aster’s Fey godmother hid in that elixir Valentina and Mikaela drank.

"Senior brother always takes care of us, so if he thinks these conditions are acceptable, we have nothing to say against it!", exclaimed the girls of the sect in unison, which made the lynx smile as she gazed at the Komodo dragon king to then say.

"It’s completely different to what you expected, right?", making the Komodo dragon king nod in response, though he trusted Aster and Kana after their previous interaction, to see that every single member of the group didn’t hesitate to speak in their favor even in front of benefits, it was something he didn’t expect to see let alone in a human group, but even on an animal one.

"Yes, I wonder what our end could have been like if the ones we met back then were like them", said the Komodo dragon king as he saw the little wyrm jump to then land her upper body on Aster’s shoulder.

"You heard the ladies, we accept", said Aster to the blue flaming board who didn’t answer but instead expanded forming a large sea of blue flames out of which smaller, older and pregnant monitor lizards, Komodo dragons, boars and deer slowly came out.

"Hey, aren’t there a bit too many of them?", asked Tiana, the animal army totaled four hundred and combined both male and female adults from the previously mentioned races, however the non-combatants more than tripled that number by the time the blue flaming board returned to normal.

"Mister lizard says that this is all of them", said Kana to Aster after seeing the Komodo dragon closely inspecting and informing of the situation to the newcomers.

"They might be numerous but families are meant to be together", said the youngest of the three sisters, Nina, to which the little girl added.

"No, I meant that these are all the animals that lived in that forest".

"...", it took everyone a second to process what Kana had just said.

"I’m not well-versed in mortal ecosystems, but shouldn’t there be a lot more animals and of different races as well, in a forest of that size?", asked Tiana, though Wade’s side could only see Aster, all the girls of the sect could see what was happening on their end, so from afar they could see that the forest on their side was maybe smaller when compared to the one Guardian watched over, which seemed endless, but it still should be around a third of it in total length.

Just to give you an example, the number of animals from different races in Guardian’s forest surpassed a few dozens of thousands and that’s without taking into account fish that lived in the water bodies that passed through the forest and insects, since they were regular mortal animals.

"There used to be a lot more animal races living in our forest, but only reptiles, boars and deer survived the events of back when we were betrayed and we were the "luckiest" since all of our children survived, which is why we are the most numerous race, because after that, a couple could only give birth to a single descendant once or twice during their entire lives".

’That explains their comparatively small number and also why the boars and deer follow the lead of the Komodo dragon king without the need to be intimidated even if it leads them to their deaths’, thought Aster.

The reptile races are more than four times larger than the boar and deer, so they could have hunted the latter to extinction since a long time ago, yet the Komodo dragon race must have prohibited others from attacking them during a large part of the past three hundred years.

Luckily, the monitor lizards and Komodo dragons are excellent swimmers and they naturally eat fish and also can eat fruit some more than others, as well as insects depending on the specific race, so they probably based their diet on that and left the boar and deer alone to repopulate for dozens of generations.

Therefore, the Komodo dragon race which protected them became the undisputed leader of the forest and was so respected that the boar and deer were willing to follow them to death, as they wouldn’t be here without their help.

"I bet those guy’s faces when they realize they can only eat fruit and some scarce fish considering the lack of nets I noticed, will be quite the sight", said Felicia as she softly laughed".

Just a bit of fish, fruit and wild vegetables which exists in abundance in the forest is enough sustenance for humans, however after a few days of that, let alone those guys from high ranked Stellar Systems but even the mercenaries will get tired of it, especially because they don’t have a chef who is talented enough to adapt spirit recipes to mortal level, basically eliminating the cultivation benefits but maintaining the good taste of the food like Sarina.

"Let’s clean this place up first, then you’ll be free until tomorrow’s dinner, consult on which animals can be taken to be processed with Mylene and Vivian and don’t forget to take turns so that everyone gets to complete the cleaning up mission", said Aster to the girls of the sect as he saw Vivian finally returning accompanied by Mule and the old cobra king’s groups as well as the war chariot unit.

The reason as to why the white-haired girl didn’t return right after finishing things up on her side, is because she was the other one to whom Aster had granted the usage of the first technique of an attack type manual, Vivian was to use it in case the supervisors went overboard with the corpse poison.

But there was no need for it, in fact the vast majority of the corpses from the dead animal army was burnt in the pit traps and had their toxins neutralized with the help of Mylene’s potions which were added to the shafts of the flaming arrows used to lit them up.

"Understood senior brother~", happily said the girls of the sect as they put hands to work, in batches they went into the camp to accept the respective missions and started cleaning up the battlefield.

Of course Aster won’t feed the lynxes and wolves that were spared with the meat of their fellow race members and their meat while technically edible for humans, it’s not exactly tasty, therefore all of that will be turned into food for the reptile races, with the exception of the king cobra race who will have most of the corpses from the desert snake race, besides some that will be used as a new ingredient for the meals of the sect since snake meat is completely edible and can be a delicacy depending on who is preparing it.

The lynxes and wolves get all the jackal’s corpses since their meat is also not really for human consumption, the eagles and other birds were fine with meat from any of the previously mentioned animals and like fish quite a bit as well, so they are the least worried about food.

As to how was all this meat going to be kept from spoiling, the supply storage privilege allowed the group to keep up to three different objects per day, there was no limit for the size or weight so long as they could pay the respective price in low grade merits and luckily "corpses" are an object which are not differentiated by race, so all of those count as a single one, the price will be quite high though, but its fine, there are more than two hundred girls who have been earning merits like crazy every day for the past five days, so with everyone contributing a bit, it will be more than enough.

The bear was not a dead animal, but Guardian said that he liked to eat rotten carcasses not to mention that whatever made him go crazy might reside in his flesh, so he won’t be used as food, however his tendons, bones and skin are valuable crafting materials so he’ll also be processed, in a separate area to avoid cross contamination and under Mylene’s supervision as she wanted to study the corpse a bit.

"Let’s go take a bath in the meantime...", Alice who was rubbing her face against Aster’s chest, shamelessly ignoring the fact that even Kana and Espi were helping cleaning the battlefield, was dragged away by Aria before she could escape from her assigned duties.

"Don’t try to start lazing around early, here use that stupidly destructive strength of yours to help loading the heaviest animals into the carts", said the ice princess as she pointed at the headless and armless corpse of the bear.

"Ahhh how annoying, fine but I’ll go before you during the next two days~", said the wild dragon princess as she kicked the bear’s corpse making it half go up into the cart.

"This and that are completely separate subjects, the less time I have to spend making sure you do your work properly, the faster we’ll finish with our part so hurry up unless you want little Kana, miss Sarina and Espi going ahead of us", as if adrenaline was directly injected into Alice by Aria’s words, the wild dragon princess directly grabbed the bear’s corpse and tossed it properly into a cart.

Aster who was amused by those five who turned every possible thing into a competition with the idea of asking for a reward, chuckled to then interrupt them since he needed Kana’s help for a bit.

"Kana, please call the king of flying beasts and come with me for a moment, Agnes, miss Valentina and you too", he said as he gazed at Fawn.

"Mm", those four nodded and after a couple of seconds the group of six, Aster and the giant eagle included walked towards the camp led by Aster.

"You already received them, right?", asked Aster to Fawn, to which the brown-haired princess nodded after a moment.

"Yes, there was a message saying that since I have changed groups, the difference in merits according to my evaluation grade, overall performance and disposition if I would have been in this team from the beginning of the development week, was credited to my remaining balance", she answered.

It was easy to see the surprise in Fawn’s eyes, throughout the five days she spent in Wade’s side, she has contributed with her own merits to the camp many times, however not even a few seconds after arriving to this side, she was instead given a massive quantity of merits.

"Those are yours and I would normally not interfere in how you decide to use them, however my deal with Wade stated that I can only command you to earn your keep and not revealing anything that happens while you are with us, which means that you are not only not required to participate in battle, but you are also not allowed to".

"Don’t get my wrong, you are free to go out to hunt and fight in small skirmishes so long as you follow some basic rules, but I won’t let someone about whom I know nothing take part in important battles where the lives of my people could be at risk, if you want to fight with us, then I must know your strengths and weaknesses, your attack and profession type manuals and the overall focus you have in mind to improve while in this place", said Aster.

So long as Fawn didn’t kill needlessly nor attacked members of the races that are allied with Aster or targeted the children, then she could hunt, Guardian understood the need for living beings to kill in order to eat, she defended balance and that meant giving all animals a chance, both prey and predators.

Aster wasn’t making things difficult for Fawn on purpose, he knows the manuals of all the members of his group, originally, Aster only knew their subjects and the aspects in which they focused in specific, however after obtaining the "Unique Leadership" privilege, he now knows the powers of the first techniques of both the profession and attack type manuals of everyone.

Of course, he isn’t the only one, the receptionist girl naturally likes to gather and sort intel, so she already compiled all of that into a large book that is encrypted and kept in a safe on the storage, which is the most "guarded" place of the camp, since Aster lives there.

If Fawn wants to participate in serious fights, then she will have to provide her information as well, because Aster can’t have an "unknown" factor on his side affecting his plans, it’s easier to deal with a formidable enemy than with an incompetent ally after all.

A small frown appeared on Fawn’s pretty face, but it wasn’t due to what one would instantly think about, as her next words implied.

"Profession type manual... what is that?", asked the brown-haired Fey princess, apparently, they didn’t have that category available on their monolith, but let’s set aside her question for a second since Aster had a question of his own for her.

’I see, that’s why Wade didn’t fight tooth and nail to change the terms of the deal’, he thought to then say.

"Speaking of manuals, you seem to only have chosen one, an attack type one if I’m not wrong, why?", asked Aster to which Fawn was surprised for a second, finding hard to believe that the black-haired youth in front of her could casually pinpoint that after just a few minutes of being around her.

"The prices were quite high but more importantly, we didn’t have that much training time a day much less tome to do missions exclusively related to manuals, since there was so much to do on the camp every day, so everyone was limited to only chose one manual", she said.

Which made sense, Aster also limited the manuals that the members of his group would initially choose, though in his case it wasn’t due to a lack of merits nor time, with the talent those girls had shown and effort, he was sure they could reach a decent level on the four types of manuals within a week of time.

However, for mortal level, defense against weapons is basically useless, unless they were to obtain their first technique but it would be limited to one use per day for the vast majority, so instead of that Aster opted to limit them to attack and movement for protection and profession for development.

This way instead of all-round low progression, they would be triple manual middle progression in the same amount of time, that doesn’t mean he abandoned defense either, since armor and protective equipment can totally compensate for that, below technique level at least.

Those gloves which the archers and specific girls like Alice were wearing for example, their hands were perfectly fine even after all the weapon handling or direct fighting they did.

’I guess the blue flaming board didn’t give them more options to prevent them from directly killing themselves by spreading their focus too thin, and it took away the profession manuals as punishment due to their poor performance since professions are what makes it easier to progress in terms of "civilization" but left the other three to not decrease their survivability’, thought Aster before saying.

"Profession type manuals contain mortal knowledge regarding applications of a person’s specific talents, interests or both, depending on the situation one gets to see some interesting options that are not even a thing for cultivators, they have a strong impact in the wellbeing of the camp either directly or indirectly, I’m a blacksmith for example".

"So, if I want to be allowed to fight, I have to tell you about both my attack type and profession type manuals, show you my fighting style and compromise to follow your arrangements I guess", concluded Fawn to which Aster nodded.

"Okay, I can accept that", she said which made Aster smirk to his insides, they just arrived next to the monoliths.

"Vey well, in that case let’s have you choose your profession’s manual first and formal so that we can fill all the missing information in a single go", he said.

Fawn placed her hand on the monolith and after a moment of surprise she showed the options available to Aster.

She had three which were common, "Fighter" which was an obvious option for her, she also had a farming related one "Soil Expert" which is not that weird considering she comes from a family with a close connection with earth attributes, what was weird is that it wasn’t a battle related option when Fawn is obviously a fighter, the third option was "Bodyguard" which is also understandable as Fawn was stronger than most of her subordinates so she looked out for them.

The last option however was something she had never heard about... "Falconry Master".