His expression turned grim. Ace never thought a dragon was still alive.
"I have been watching you. For a weak human to have the bravery to come here, you must have a reason. Say! Do you want to help me? I will be really grateful if you want to do me a favor." The dragon said in a weak tone.
Ace looked at the big lizard with curiosity, 'It should be the so-called quest. Let's hear what he wanted. But before that….'
Ace then inspected it. Then its information was revealed in yellow color.
[Gon]
Race: Earth Dragon (minor)
Level 26
He saw that his HP bar only had a thin line of red, He predicted that it only had 1 or 2% left. In other words, it was dying.
"Of course, I will do it, if I can. What do you want me to do?" Ace answered.
"As you saw, I'm dying. Fortunately, the ants were too stupid to realize that I was still alive. At first, I thought I would become their meal. But, God seems to want to give me another chance. So I need you to give me some cores of the ants that were killed by you, if you don't mind," The dragon said.
Ding
[Quest: Give me some cores]
[Mission: Give 10 level 8 granite ant's (major) cores
Reward: 1000 exp, Gon's friendship, Gon's gift(s)]
"Is that all?" Ace asked. He felt it was weird. The quest was too easy.
"Yes, please! I don't have much time," The dragon said.
"Wait a minute," Ace said and then took out 10 white crystals from his inventory.
After opening them one by one, he got a total of 300 dirac, 10 ant's cores, and 1 scroll. He was curious about the scroll, but he chose to endure it for the moment.
"Here are them," Ace said after putting the cores in front of the dragon.
"Thank you. You save my life, " Gon then opened his big mouth and the chores were sucked into his mouth.
Then, after some moment, Gon's body glowed and he successfully leveled up. All injuries in his torso and limbs were healed instantaneously.
'So, level up could restore one's condition, huh?! But how could he get experience by eating the ant's cores?' Ace asked inside of his heart but his face still maintained a poker expression.
After leveling up, Gon sighed a deep breath and then turned his attention to Ace, "Human, no! Should I call you Ace? Maybe you thought what you had done was merely a minor thing, but for me, it was life-saving. I, merely a lowly soldier from Dragma valley, couldn't give you many valuable things."
The dragon then thought for a moment, "However, our harvest was rather abundant just now. Wait for a few minutes, I will gather the loot for a while. I will give you some of it. After all, if you didn't help me, we won't be able to get any loot from today's expedition."
Ace could only nod. However, inside of his heart, he worried that the ants would come soon.
Gon then started wandering around the battlefield. At every ant carcass he was passing, he stopped and did something like picking something on top of each carcass. He was doing it leisurely as if didn't worry the ants would come anytime soon.
As the time passed, no ants came. It made Ace feel at ease, "It seems he knows the ant won't come soon, but how? Was it not the first time he and the other dragon came?"
It seemed the dragon heard his saying, he then grinned at Ace and said, "Of course not. We, the soldiers of Gragma Valley always maintained the population of each species around our nest. If not, they will make a riot. This time, the ant's population was more than our prediction, so we have had casualties. In a few days, a bigger campaign will be made.
The majority of the ants usually sleep at night. So the worker ants will pick their companions' remains the next morning. As for the ant soldiers, I guess they are still chasing my companions. You know, they are quite persistent. So, how could you come here? I never heard a human's settlement near here."
Ace scratched his head, he thought anything reasonable. He thought a bizarre but reasonable explanation such as he had been transported by an array in the ancient temple. Just as he wanted to say that, he got a sudden urge.
'Why must I fabricate such a reason. In the prologue, it was clear that the sage of the human race summoned us. And they called us guardians, right?' Then a crazy idea appeared in his consciousness.
"I'm a guardian. I was summoned by some people. But somehow, I appeared in this area. And it seemed the nearest human settlement was around 1,000 km from here," Ace said with 'It's a bad day for me,' attitude.
"...," Gon was silent for a while, he then looked at the human in front of him with an investigating gaze.
"So you're a human race guardian. No wonder you weren't afraid when looking at me. And it also explains why you are here. It must be good, can resurrect after death," Gon said with an envious tone.
Ace was surprised Gon knew the term of guardian. Then a shocking conclusion emerged in his mind. He needed to confirm it to Gon to be sure. And if it was the truth, it would be groundbreaking news for the players of desolate world.
***
Ace should be happy to get 100 white crystals from Gon. He gave it to him as gratitude for saving his life. However, he was not, because there were too many shocking facts that he got that making him worry.
One of the pieces of information was that a bigger dragon troop should be deployed to reduce the ants' population in a few days. He hoped no dragon would see him at the time. Because not every dragon was open-minded like him, and many of them were belligerent to another intelligent race who entered their territory. In short, he asked Ace to leave the area immediately.
Ace at first felt offended by Gon's warning. But he changed his opinion after seeing the sincere look of the dragon. His new friend merely cared about his safety.
Gon also advised him to go to the East to find a human settlement, and not to the West, which the system told him. Because there was Thunder Jaw mountain range in his way about 700 km from his current position if he wanted to go to the nearest human settlement. It was a forbidden place for everyone in the area, as it was the territory of the family of Thunder Phoenix. The average level of them was around 70-90, and the head to the family was a lord monster with a level around 90. Gon said that he was the real hegemon of the area. No one dared to offend his family members.
Gon also explained many things about the situations around the area. Such as monsters' distribution, other races' settlements, and the relationships between them.
However, what made him alarmed because Gon affirmed his guess that not only humans had guardians. Every intelligent race had a concept about guardians. Immortal units existed after being summoned to defend the existence of their race. The dragon also said his clan also had some guardians.
Ace ran toward the hill that his family resided hurriedly. He wanted to tell the information that he got from Gon to them immediately. His mind became so messed up, making him forget that he could call them by party channel.
***