Daimon got into the carriage and closed the door behind of him, not even a second later, he could feel the crazy girl's intense gaze on him, which made him sigh.
"I got the core, so stop looking at me like that, more importantly, what did you got out of those two?", he said as he took a seat, this time in the same seat as Sarah.
The crazy girl smiled and then moved sidewards a couple of times until she was basically stuck to Daimon, but without being in contact with him, as she had learned that he won't avoid her this way.
"They were really easy to trick, one would believe that someone that could turn others of their kind would be tough, but it was boring, I didn't even get to use any poison", she proudly said.
That's right, she didn't just beat the crap out of Jeremy and Dilan for fun, though she did have some fun doing it, Daimon previously asked her to interrogate them while he was gone.
That being said the crazy girl jumped the part of making a question, and instead went right for the beating, only after she got bored, she started the interrogation part.
"Their ranking is similar to the one at the Clear Water kingdom, from highest to lowest, Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount and lastly Baron, they just added "Blood" to the name, there is also a king but that guy had no information about it".
"To obtain a noble rank they have to get some accomplishment on the endless war with humans, or alternatively they have to present the heads of at least ten humans on the same rank as them".
"To be a Baron there is a need to be a middle stage Lord rank, for the next they have to be one minor realm above and fulfill different requirements, that guy only has information up to the Earl ranks, because of his father's social circle, but he really never interested into it, as he is the youngest, instead he just made party after party while using guys like Jeremy as his dogs to obtain "fine food", turns out they can also eat magic beast flesh, but it tastes horrible for them, also it doesn't bring them any extra benefits, unlike consuming human meat".
"Ah, right, turns out they get their realms boosted during the blood moon week, similar to what happened to us, but I would say their boost is weaker than ours, since even if they jump to the next major realm, they don't get the special benefit of that realm", said Sarah as she stretched her body trying to show off to Daimon, who didn't pay attention to it, which was still up to her liking as her smiling expression suggested.
She actually got more information, but the other things weren't of Daimon's interest, so the crazy girl didn't bother in telling him, to put it simply, Dilan was a useless second generation, his father got his rank by fighting in the war, while he just came out escorted to play around all the day.
Daimon contemplated things for a moment, he wanted some confirmation, because earlier he killed those two quite easily, calculating how much strength he used to crush those women's necks, it was way less than what would have been normally needed to kill an early-stage Arch rank.
'Are we being considered as Ghouls at night… no that might be possible for me, but Sarah has nothing to do with vampires, not to mention for us the boost gets weaker when we aren't exposed to the lightless atmosphere, so there is a high chance it disappears during the day', he thought.
Earlier he wasn't sure, normally any kind of boost should disappear at the moment of death, but even when he killed those two, they remained as early-stage Arch ranks, so he thought they maybe advanced not too long ago which added to the fact that they were mere guards, in an outdated world, made them have trash battle prowess.
Turns out that wasn't the case, well, they were indeed weak as they were just fake Arch ranks, maybe their battle aura reserves temporarily increased, but their bodies didn't get the natural reinforce that entering the Arch rank gives, it was a half assed boosting.
But that was from his point of view, for the people of this world, that would be enough to bring despair to a human on their same original realm.
"Wait a second… so is this why the rune mastering went this way in this world, they created those devices with cores that boost them without pushing them to the next realm, as a way to equal the Ghouls", mumbled Daimon.
Naturally technology will always focus one's problems, the rune masters and magic blacksmiths put all their energy in thinking how to equal the Ghouls.
"Anything else?", asked Daimon to which the crazy girl handed him a ring.
"Everything he had on him is inside that ring, I peeked into it earlier, and besides meat of obvious precedence, there is something interesting, they use magic equipment which is more similar to what we know, without cores", she said.
Daimon took out a lavish looking sword from Dilan's ring, leaving aside the luxurious aspect, and the precious jewels embedded into it, the runes were way better than the ones used in the things he saw in the stores of the town.
Still, Dilan had no mana crystals in his ring nor beast cores, meaning the Ghouls didn't value them, but their rune mastering was good enough to make up for the lack of the use of beast cores, which should be technology exclusive to humans.
It made sense, they used another source of energy, which was blood, that's why the scroll stank of blood, and that's how a gate was able to come so far, in simple words, they drained people out of all their vitality and used their lifeforce as a power source.
Daimon got more interested in the Ghouls with each second, out of the three major noble vampire families, the main lineage of the Nosfear family had the innate ability to control blood, their affinity was blood and use it in many ways.
But these ghouls used something that was closer to undead carnage spells, which get stronger the more things die, but focused in blood.
Daimon inwardly shook his head and then turned to see the crazy girl, the carriage had started moving, he decided to not deal with Dilan and the other woman, until they reached Tiria, because he might be able to use them to get the information he wants, with a mine core in the bag, he no longer had any need to get mana crystals, of course he'll accept them, but he won't go out of his way for that.
The only thing the human side had to offer for him now, was information regarding Jasmine.
'According to Gary we'll finish going through the towns by midday, and we don't need to leave the carriage until the las tone previous to reaching Tiria so…', honestly Daimon felt reluctant of what he was about to do, but he couldn't waste the time of the travel, and meditating was of no help for him.
These carriages moved really fast, so a travel that normally would take at least three days, was reduced to twelve hours, due to the lack of magic beasts in this special route secured by Gary, it was already past midnight at this point too.
He snapped his fingers and a large bottle containing tons of small black mineral shards appeared on his hand.
Sarah immediately recognized that and her eyes sparkled, as she giggled.
"If I knew the reward was going to be so enjoyable, I would have made sure to make those two spit till the last thing they knew~", she said as she started undoing the buttons of her blouse.
Daimon had to stop her from completely undressing her upper body, he placed his hand on her shoulders to keep her blouse on her body.
"Just the area of the back is enough", he said.
"Hehe, don't be so shy, you have already seen what's there to see during the previous treatment anyway~", her ambiguous words made Daimon's eyebrow twitch.
He didn't spy on her with his mana sense, and he wasn't going to do that this time, because he didn't want to exhaust himself, in exchange he will use more pieces of the dark mineral, but it was price he was willing to pay.
Sarah just left her body ball frontwards on the seat, laying down on her stomach, with her back fully uncovered, she even undid the laces of her bra, since they were actually on the way, making Daimon feel the urge to burn her with his flames.
He took out a couple of pieces of the black mineral and placed them on her naked back, to then press his hand against her soft skin, and lit it up in his white flames.
"Hyaan so rough~", Sarah's exaggerated voice echoed through the carriage, luckily the thing had isolation properties, otherwise all the guards would have heard that.
"You little…", Daimon saw Sarah's legs happily swinging and he sighed, the black pieces of mineral started slowly melting, since he wasn't going to use mana sense on her, he just guided himself with his infinity eyes, making sure he didn't see more than what was needed.
While the crazy girl was enjoying her treatment to the fullest, the caravan quickly advanced through the wasteland, and in less than a couple of hours at full throttle they reached the nearest of the settlements to Brown Wind town, Orit Town.
Apparently, Gary had informed his acquittances in the town beforehand, because there was a tall middle-aged man wearing heavy armor waiting for them at the entrance of the town.
"It's been some time sr. Tanner, have you decided already?", said Gary who got down of his carriage to talk with the tall heavy armored man.
"Yes, I still think we should bring my team though, but they can survive without me for some time anyway", said the man as he thunderously laughed.
"Maybe next time, my funds aren't endless you know, so this time I'm only hiring peak Lord ranks, in any case is only precaution due to the unfortunate timing and a personal affair", said the short merchant.
"Very well, I already talked to the chief, as long as you can all pass through the detection measures, we can take the shortcut to Yila town, though Orit town", answered Tanner.
Gary nodded, as he took out another carriage, which was twice as large as the one Daimon was give, it wasn't that he was getting better treatment, as that one will be shared by all the peak Lord ranks, they will pick up on the way.
If anything, Daimon was getting a better deal, since his carriage was spacious enough for at least six people, but it was exclusive for him and Sarah.
Tanner and Gary entered their respective carriages and the caravan approached the gates of the town, being scanned one by one even through the carriages, the moment Beni saw that her face paled, in the cage next to her there was a flesh eating demon, and if they were caught trying to get it into a town, they'll be imprisoned and probably executed, unless there was an high ranked adjudicator vouching for them of course.
But Beni's despair expression froze when the light of the gate fell on them and nothing happened, they were allowed to enter the town without any problem.
'What the hell is going on!', she screamed in her mind, naturally what was happening is that the mask Dilan was wearing had concealing properties, it's something that Liz made after she studied the Hollow Suit, naturally it was an inferior product, that only worked up to two major realms of the one wearing it, and no matter what it couldn't trick anything past the peak Arch rank.
But it was still Liz's work, it was more than enough to trick the outdated detections arrays of this world, of course if there were to be a closer inspection and the mask was removed, then Dilan will be discovered but Gary was taking care of that, so Daimon only gave the Ghoul one of those masks.
The caravan advanced through the city without any problems and soon left through the gate at the north, Orit was surrounded by two rock formations so to pass through here, you either had to surround it and waste a lot of time, or pass through the time.
It was made like that, so the travelers would have to pay a fee to go through it, and as result of that, this town was in a better state compared to Brown Wind town, at least compared to the old one.
Though there wasn't a scumbag as big as Jeremy here, otherwise he would have known it, there were still many unsightly scenes, such as brothels or people stealing here and there, but it was more of a race for comfortability instead of survival unlike in Brown Wind town.
…
As the hours passed, the previous repeated four times, the difference was that at the third and fourth towns, instead of just one, Gary was able to hire two peak Lord ranked people instead of one.
The reason as to why Brown Wind town which used to be relatively safe ended up in such a horrible state, was that Ender's father one of the previous two Peak Lord ranks that guarded the town, along with the chief, died.
It took some time before Hal advanced, but of course he wasn't like Ender's father, then the old chief suffered that wound and only after that, Ismael advanced, those two didn't care about the town, so it declined.
In comparison, the other towns all had three peak Lord ranks guarding the fort, the chiefs and two independents, of which Gary hired one.
As for the last two towns which were closer to the only city in this part of the wasteland, Tiria, they had four of them, allowing Gary to hire two in each, for a total of seven peak Lord experts of five different towns.
Contrary to what Daimon expected, the sun wasn't coming in the morning unlike normal, even at 9:00 Am the sky was still dark, though it was certainly not as dark as at night.
And at this time the caravan finally passed through the last town, whose size was around five times that of Brown Wind town, there was still crime but it didn't happen in public, as they even had a public force of security, that kept a relatively peaceful front.
The caravan stopped a few hundreds of meters outside of Atir town, they have been travelling all night, and the guards wanted to have a small rest, to have something to eat, the last part of the travel was the most dangerous, so this might be their last meal.
Unlike before, this area had an abundance of middle Lord ranked beasts, the number of low ranked ones was really small, which is why to reach Tiria, one has to travel with some peak Lord ranks at least, and still not be unlucky enough to find peak Lord ranked magic beasts on the way.
The heavy armored Tanner was the first one to leave the carriage of the experts, while the guards started preparing the tables and the campfire to prepare the food, the other peak Lord ranks left the carriage.
There were five men and two women, three of the men were knights while two were mages, as for the women the two of them were mages.
"Hey, where is that Hal bastard, did he got scared and kept hidden below his bed in that shithole?", asked one of the male knights, who was hired from the second closest town to Brown Wind town, Dwell town.
Tanner sighed, as he is literally the one in the middle of those two all the time, as peak Lord ranks, they cooperate at least once every year in coordinates hunts.
"Ferris, that's enough, we aren't hunting this time, but escorting sir Gary, so don't make troubles for others, we'll have to fight side by side later", said Tanner.
"Well, Hal did steal some prey from him last time", said one of the male mages, a bald guy with a scar on his forehead.
"Uli, that was Ferris's fault for being stupid", added another of the male mages, making Ferris grit his teeth.
Gary bitterly smiled, he had no way to fully control all these guys, so he could only mediate as he approached them.
"Sr. Hal had a sudden emergency to attend, so he didn't come, instead I found a couple of strong travelers to cover his spot, oh, there they are", he said as he pointed at Daimon's carriage which's door was opening right now.
Luckily Daimon had a mask otherwise, the people outside would have seen the black expression he had on his face, even after he finished another treatment session on the crazy girl and sent her to sleep so that she rested, and more importantly he rested from her.
Sarah kept making softly laughing and giggling even in her sleep, while she hugged herself, the only good thing is that she was actually tired, so she didn't try anything, but Daimon somewhat felt the need to kick her a few times, of course he discarded the idea as she would like it instead.
So, the crazy girl was all smiles right now, she hummed as she playfully moved her head while walking next to Daimon, as if the wasteland was a picnic area.
Daimon on the other hand, though was actually in perfect conditions, in any sense, he somehow felt tired, but he recomposed quite fast as soon as he looked at the sky, which was still dark.
He closed and opened his hand a couple of times, the boosting had weakened but was still there, he read about it, but now he was sure that though the sun was in the sky, since it was covered by the moon, it still counted as "night" at least during the blood moon week.
The moon just gained a more reddish tone as the day advanced and will turn dark purple when the real night comes, that was going to be the case for the next six days, though Daimon didn't plan on seeing it to the end, he had set a limit of four more days as he didn't know if the time flowed different here or nor, so it was better to be safe than sorry.
Today was Tuesday in Neptune, and he had to return at most on Saturday, since the Global Raid and the Royal Ball would be celebrated that day, one at 7:00 Pm and the other exactly at midnight.
"Oi, I do respect you old Gary since you always get me some nice stuff for my subordinates, but are you telling me those two kids are strong enough to take Hal's side of the job, how the hell do you want us to focus on protecting the caravan if we have to protect brats!".
"Not to mention they actually had a carriage only for them, while we had to share", said Ferris as he smacked his hand on a table, cracking it on the process.
Tanner sighed, knowing that Ferris was just looking for a reason to fight, since he wanted to vent out his anger on anyone from Brown Wind town, as Hal pulled a fast one on him last time, if only he knew that Hall was as dead as one can be, and that the ones he was trying to pick a fight with were the ones that killed him like a big, his course of action would have for sure been different now.
That being said, his words did hold some truth, so the other experts turned to see the newcomers and frowned noticing that they were just early-stage Lord ranks, that was the realm Daimon feigned to be as "Gabriel", while Sarah also chose it, since she was now posing as a girl the age Daimon appeared to have.
Gary immediately stepped in, he was present when the masked young man, casually suppressed everyone in the meeting room and then killed all those middle Lord ranks, as if they were nothing.
Not to mention, Hal and Ismael supposedly died by his hands, in his mind both Daimon and Sarah were peak Lord ranks, but were hiding their realms, and also had either special abilities or some really strong magic treasure, which is why he gave them a private carriage.
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