The group went into the store, which unlike the previous one actually had a couple of clients, apparently the previous manager of the store of the chief has been gone since yesterday, but Ender didn't know it.
So other stores had been receiving the few visits that the chief's one has on a daily basis, though it seems that after listening to the offers they get, they still end up choosing the one from the chief.
At least the vast majority, because that guy who is now managing the store seems to be in bad terms with many people.
"Can you believe that bastard, he offered an eighth part of the market price in exchange for the meat of the desert rat I hunted the other day, he wanted the core for free and only then he was willing to pay three fourths of the public price".
"Hah, that's nothing, he said he wanted a go on my girl to pay me full price, I didn't have anything against him prior to that, but Lisa apparently rejected him a long time ago, so now I can't ever go to the chief's store again".
Two clients were complaining out loud about their problems with the new manager of the chief's store.
'Are you kidding me, he actually wanted her for that… and here I am trying to get rid of Sarah, I can't believe someone is actually trying to willingly bring such a calamity to himself', thought Daimon.
The magic world is quite chaotic back at the four galaxies, mages and knights have long lifespans, so indulging in pleasure to make by is normal, be it battle, lust, research, power or simple slaughter, it's nothing to fret.
At least that's what Aisha has taught Daimon, so he could imagine how corrupted people will get in a place, where there is a need for a detector of people who eat other people.
The crazy girl could somehow tell whenever Daimon was thinking badly of her, as the smile of delight on her face suggested.
Leaving that aside, this time Daimon followed Ender to the main counter, because he wanted to see the merchant that ran this store.
"Oh, now that's a rare sight, Mr. Ender paying a visit to other store than the chief's one, I guess things are that bad now", the one on the counter was a short man who appeared to be in his late forties, unlike some of the people Daimon saw when they entered the town, he looked rather well fed, as one would expect of a merchant.
Not to mention the guards here were also nine-star mages and there was an early-stage knight observing from the shadows, which of course Daimon detected the moment he entered the store.
"Well, since things are like this now, I hope merchant Gary offers a fair price, since I have to find a new associate for the things me and my team hunt from now and onwards", said Ender.
The eyes of the short merchant glowed, the new manager of the chief's store was put there thanks to personal connections, he honestly sucked at business and was just using the store to get as much benefits as possible.
"Oh, that sounds interesting, to get a contract with one of the four most prominent hunting teams is one of the rare good news one can hear nowadays, let's see what you got".
Ender retrieved the backpack on his back and took out those small bags in which the pieces of the corpses of the magic beasts were stored, and handed them to the merchant.
The short man looked into the bags for a couple of seconds and he nodded, there were quite a few pieces of edible meat in the bags, as well as bones, scales and other materials from the magic beasts.
"You got quite the catch this time huh, I'm guessing all your group already took their fair share of meat, which means you successfully hunted around eight Lord rank magic beasts, amazing", mumbled the old man.
Ender was surprised for a moment, the merchant accurately guessed the number of magic beasts, even when he was only selling meat and materials from four of them, as normally Omar's team will get half of the loot.
But he didn't show it on his face, and instead just nodded as calm as he could.
"Yeah, we got a lucky encounter thanks to these two friends who are accompanying me, so we were able to secure some food before the blood moon week, so how about the price?", said Ender.
The short man gazed at Daimon and Sarah as if he was scanning them, in fact he did, for a middle-ranked Mage Lord, he had quite a sharp mana sense, unfortunately in front of the bracelet of the god of mischief, he could only see what Daimon wanted him to see anyway.
"I see, how about a hundred thousand mana crystals, I can double the amount if you are willing to take out the cores of the magic beasts, or I can change them for dry rations of a decent quality".
Ender doubted for a second before he took out a leather pouch from his ring, Daimon's attention was drawn at the conversation the moment he heard the words "cores".
The magic beasts killed were mere Lord ranked ones, unless we are talking about a magic beast with a really strong lineage, there is no way they have a beast core, even peak Arch rank magic beasts rarely have cores and they are of the size of a pea.
But the things in that pouch which Ender took out of his ring were the size of apples, and those are the sizes of the cores of Stellar ranked magic beasts, who had already become rational, regardless of their lineage.
Strangely enough, there weren't cores like those ones in the rings which Sarah brought, but that could be because Omar lived day to day in a "luxurious" way and his subordinates were cut the same way.
'Now that I think about it, there weren't any mana crystals in the ring too…', thought Daimon.
"Here it is, I hope to you keep coming to my store in the future", after making sure everything was in order, Gary handed Ender a bag which contained the payment, luckily for Daimon, Ender took one of the mana crystals out to check it.
It was then when Daimon was momentarily taken back, the moment he saw that mana crystal, his eyes glowed behind his mask.
'That is a damn high grade mana crystal, are you telling me he got paid two hundred thousand of those for a few corpses of Lord ranked magic beasts', he thought.
Sarah was the same, what are high grade mana crystals, things used to power Stellar ranked arrays, and also used by Stellar ranked beings to cultivate.
"Ah, right, I have these other things I want to sell, some equipment and stuff that my subordinates aren't using, you know they want to stack some cash to go buy rations before the blood moon starts", said Ender as he took out the things Sarah looted from the corpses of Omar's subordinates.
One of the reasons as to why Ender chose this particular store, is that Omar and his subordinates never make deals with Gary, so he couldn't track the things he was trying to sell, to the soon to be announced deceased knights.
Gary checked the things, they were in a good preserved state so the price was surprisingly high, around three hundred thousand mana crystals, which previously Daimon thought were low grade ones, as that would have been the price of these crappy lord ranked things.
Daimon had previously told Ender to take the offer as long as it wasn't too bad, so he accepted right away and the deal was over.
"One last thing, these friends are travelers so they will be leaving soon, can you give me the most recent news, a map and some information about the cities that they might find ahead, as well as a threat encyclopedia?", asked Ender.
"Sure, the map and the news will go for ten thousand mana crystals each, as for the information about the cities, I'll give it to you for free, I only know around five or so anyway, that being said I'm the one who has travelled more among the merchants that come to this area".
With Daimon's greenlight, Ender paid for the things and received a few papers as well as a scroll made with the hide of a magic beast, which was a map.
After thanking Gary, Ender walked towards the exit followed by Daimon and Sarah, once they were out of the store, Ender turned to see Daimon and then said.
"I know of an inn where you can stay, the owner is a decent person so you don't need to worry about that, also if you don't have food, I'll recommend you to go and buy some, the blood week is starting anytime soon, and everyone will be quite tense, so it's better to stay in a room and safe, unless there is an emergency".
"Here is the money and the things you wanted, if you need something you can find me in the limestone street, I have to go sort out some stuff".
After saying that, Ender handed Daimon his things and then left along with his subordinates who had followed them in case something happened.
"Are we staying here, we have to go find Jas", said Sarah, which made Daimon shook his head.
"This place is vaster than what we originally thought, look at this", he said as he took out the map which he spied into using his infinity eyes earlier.
For a map the price was quite high, but there was a reason, this was a map published with the help of many cities that worked together to compile maps of their own regions into a single document.
The moment Sarah opened the map she couldn't help but click her tongue, they were practically at the border of the "world", in the nearby area there were around twenty cities, and some were literally in the way.
Daimon couldn't calculate the distance at which Jasmine was of them, but he could tell that she wasn't in the vicinity of the nearby twenty settlements at least.
"If we take detours we will waste too much time, so what's the plan?", she casually asked.
"We'll use a little amount of time to save a lot of it, I took a peek at the back of the store and there were carriages being charged, so that guy should be leaving soon, and we'll use him to go through the cities easily, but first we have to earn some reputation for that to work".
"Luckily those merits will come to us by themselves, for now let's get a place to temporarily stay so we can inspect those mana crystals and the couple of cores I asked Ender to leave for us", said Daimon.
Sarah nodded, she could tell Daimon wasn't losing time on purpose, but he believed this was the fastest way to reach Jasmine, so she didn't complain about it, a few hours won't make a difference on a travel of this scale anyway.
Also, he said that if Jasmine was in trouble, he would be able to tell, and since there is no bad news, that must mean she is safe at least for now.
Following the directions Ender left, they walked towards the east side of the city, it's not like there was a lot of visitors, but not everyone could afford buying or building a house, so there were actually quite a few inns.
The one recommended by Ender, was a rather average looking one, a four-story building with a pretty simple style, it was quite clean and well maintained, which was rare, but there weren't too many people around it.
"What the hell, one hundred crystals a night, are you kidding me!", there was only one person in line ahead of Daimon, but considering the tone of the voice of the guy, he will be leaving in a second.
And Daimon was right, the man smacked his fist on the counter and then left in anger, just as Daimon was about to ask for two separate rooms, Sarah went ahead of him, Daimon had given her some of the crystals they got earlier because she was the one who looted the corpses, in fact she was the owner of the loot, because all the things they sold were properties of the subordinates, as Omar's things would be too flashy.
"One room, with a single bed and a private bathroom, please".
The woman on the counter nodded and then handed her a bronze key, as she accepted the payment from Sarah.
"Let's go", enthusiastically said the crazy girl, Daimon for a moment considered getting a room for himself, but it's not like they'll be spending the night here anyway, so it would be a waste to throw some high-grade mana crystals just to stay a few hours un a room.
Daimon followed Sarah upstairs, their room was in he third floor which were the ones that had private bathrooms, feeling her gaze on his back he didn't forget to say.
"I'll burn you if you try anything".
Sarah giggled in response, but she didn't continue with the matter, this small "rest" wasn't to laze around, they had to read the stuff they got from the merchant, and to wait for what Daimon needed to complete the fake mission to happen.
They soon arrived at their room and with a little click, Sarah opened the door, which Daimon quickly close behind of him, by the time he did so, the crazy girl was already laying down on the bed, giving him a predacious gaze.
But Daimon ignored her and just dragged a chair that was across the room, to be in front of the bed as he threw a few things at Sarah.
"We'll change in half an hour so don't laze around", he said as he started reading the information they bought.
…
A few hours passed quite fast and before Daimon noticed, not only the sunlight had gone down a lot, but his time to start moving was approaching.
"I count fifteen outside and five on the roof", casually said Sarah, making Daimon sigh, if only she was less crazy, she would be a great addition to any team, as she had a wide area of expertise.
"Let's go out to make this own a "better" place", he said, Daimon had thought about why he was required to help this town, which was probably because the hero was the one that set up all this, when he stole Adam's opportunity, he had to make a great last-minute entrance, an absurd thing to do in real life, but a requirement for a hero.
So, he had to do some heroic bullshit to win the rewards, which was a hassle honestly, or that would have been the case if he were to follow the rules of this place, which wasn't the case.
'The easiest way to deal with shortage of food is quite easy… having less mouths to feed, and that manager guy is quite unrestrained to sent someone to kill us over that small clash back then, it was two birds one stone.
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