"..."
The bloody-black-haired young man gulped down his saliva and reached out for the first of two loaves of the gray mole-rabbit bone bread and hurriedly ate it without a thought.
And then the other one too...
Despite fully intending to use the monster core of the rare spawn mole rabbit within the same training session, Viria devoured every piece of the mole-rabbit bone bread that he bought.
Having satiated the burst of hunger caused by the burning of calories caused by the cultivation training, the young man tugged on his sweaty and bloody clothes of his to get some relatively fresh air on his skin.
After that, Viria took the rare spawn mole-rabbit core and focused on it.
The heat it produced was much, much greater than he expected β to the point of the dark-red shard to feel almost as if it was about to scald his hands.
The energy that sipped into his body and began circulating through was much more violent too, but against common sense, it also felt much, much better than the gentle warmth of the energy released by the common monster cores.
The time it took for the completion of the cycles and the energy of the core to dissipate was definitely the same as every other core, but for Viria it was over in a flash.
The energized young man jumped up on his feet with his face glowing from sweat and excitement.
"Ahaha~! I need to get my hands on more monster co...!"
*GRUMBLHGHGHGHHRLLL..!*
Viria trembled as his mouth stretched into a wild grin, unable to stop himself from lusting for the wild sensation of the spiritual energy nourishing his body β when suddenly his stomach let out a loud noise that changed into a distress call of the young man's bowels crying for help.
"URGH...!"
After the sound as the only warning, the wave of pain assaulted Viria's body and he bent in half gritting his teeth so hard that he almost broke them.
With his mind clouded, the young man was barely able to leave the shack β his body was sweating so profusely as if some dirty oils were getting squeezed out of every square inch of his skin, making him slip and fall.
The contraction in his stomach was so severe that he only managed to crawl towards the small rock formation behind his new home.
What happened there would be best left as a mystery, but going just by the sounds, whatever was inside Viria's body was fighting to get out in every way possible...
-----
As the day was coming to an end and the lamps replacing the sunlight would become dim switching into the moon mode, the three kids were finally done with selling off the haul of the young man's night hunt.
The timid Tir, with her bangs covering her eyes, was clenching the stack of colorful bills that despite being thinner than the previous day's one did indeed contain a single black bill.
"This is definitely his place, right...? He wasn't in the clinic so he should be somewhere around..."
Despite being the fearful one, Laor peeked inside the empty shack and said after finding nothing.
"Something must have happened to him, look at the door, and this... what is this...?"
Kirrie pointed at the loose door pushed away from the shack and then turned her attention to the dark oily substance on the ground.
The resolute girl crouched down and poked the odd stain- a first mark on the trail leading from the shack towards a rock formation by the inner wall of the prison dungeon's first floor.
She looked at the substance that stuck to her and put her finger close to her nose to smell it.
"Hurgh...! Yuuuuuck...! It stinks like poo or worse...!"
Kirr cried out in disgust, pushing her hand away and hurriedly wiping her finger against the ground to get rid of the filth.
"Should... should we go back home and find that mister tomorrow...?"
Tir asked looking around with a worried expression.
"And make it seem like we were trying to keep the bills?! What would we do if the handsome mister would hate us...? Or... or stealing was added to our crime lists?!"
Kirri gasped in a worried voice but then hesitated and added another reason after her initial one causing Tir and Laor to look at her with grumpy expressions.
"Then... maybe we will leave the bills in his shack?"
"And let mister's property get stolen by some random passerby?!"
Tir pointed out but Kirri gasped honestly offended.
"Then why do you expect me to...?"
"Umm... hey, you two...?"
The girl with the long fringe pouted and complained when suddenly Laor spoke up, getting the attention of both of her friends.
"You found him?!"
Kirri asked excitedly, straightening her back and looking around.
As it turned out, the frightful girl did indeed notice Viria.
At least, it should be him judging how close to Vira's shack he was.
The thing was, Laor was pointing at a dirty hand waving at them weakly from behind the rocks in the back.
The limb was definitely smeared with the foul substance that disgusted Kirri so much earlier too.
"U-umm... M-mister...?"
The resolute girl gulped down her saliva and asked, approaching the rock formation cautiously, stopping halfway between the shack and the hand.
"Yeah, it's me Viria... Weren't we introduced...? Listen... you don't want to come any closer..."
The voice that responded to the resolute girl's call definitively belonged to the young man they all agreed to work for, although the man in question did sound extremely tired and weekend at the moment.
"Can we help y... wait...! Why wouldn't I want it...?"
Kirri stepped forwards with a worried expression but almost immediately she furrowed her brows and took a step back while asking.
"...I... you know? Don't sweat the details... I would be very grateful if you throw the blanket from my shack this way, and if you got any green bills, I would appreciate you leaving two for me. Oh, and maybe one blue, just in case."
The exhausted Viria didn't have the energy to explain and just asked in a pleading voice.
The three girls looked at each other with hesitation β that is, Tir and Laor were hesitant.