What was he thinking?
Why did he talk to Elyn like that? She did ignore his words so that reaction was somewhat appropriate?
Emery wasn't very sure at this point. But that wasn't something he would compromise on. He didn't want the blood of others on his own hands, no matter what the person had done. What business did a chef have killing people?
Unfortunately, he wasn't really sure whether Elyn understood his point of view or not. She walked several metres behind him. He could still hear her very low footsteps hitting the ground.
Citro was curled around his neck. The mongoose had its eyes closed and from the faint breathing sounds, it looked like it had gone to sleep.
He was alone once more. Multiple companions, but it seemed they had all abandoned him.
But was it truly abandonment?
Elyn was a sentient being. She resembled a human through and through. She bled and thought like him. And if there was one thing humans were known for, it's their irrationality. The system appeared to create an instant bond between him and the summon. But who could tell whether that bond would last?
Who could tell whether they were faking the bond or not? It was somewhat of a tough question, but he was determined to find the answer.
A few minutes later, they approached Hemp's base. The building was as crowded as ever, but it didn't seem as much as when Barion brought him here.
Several Awakened rushed out all in the same direction. This scene repeated itself. What was going on?
He rushed into the building, looking back quickly to make sure Elyn was still following him. After confirming, he headed straight for the place where he'd seen Chris the first time. There were a sparse number of people there but the familiar man was there as always.
"Emery, just the person I wanted to see," the man greeted.
"Hey, Chris." the chef returned to his resting position and greeted back.
"Why are you in such a hurry? Did something happen?"
"That's what I was hoping to ask you? What's with so many people all going towards the same area?" he asked.
Chris rubbed the space between his brows a little before answering.
"Oh, that? Someone put a mission out. A Class Seven Threat was spotted in the area and they needed its full corpse. So these guys are hoping they can get a hit or two in and grab the money. Class Sevens are a whole different ballpark than what they're used to,"
Emery was a little relieved. He thought it was maybe Carlos' invading or something.
"Does it happen often?" he asked.
"Yeah, pretty much." Chris answered, "So it works like this. People put in mission requests for things they need or want done but they have to pay us a fee of a certain amount first aside from the mission rewards. We put the requests out and Awakened who want to take the missions also pay a certain fee. It's very straightforward when you think about it,"
He nodded after thinking it over for a few seconds.
"You mentioned earlier that Class Sevens are different from the rest. How so?"
Chris scowled. "It's just that. From Class Seven and up, beasts are incredibly strong. You remember that Class Five that destroyed the part of the city where you were, right?"
"Yeah. It was amazing."
"Right," the man nodded, "That Class Five could have destroyed the entire city with ease. I have no idea what it was trying to accomplish, but knowing how intelligent Class Fives are, it probably had a higher goal in mind."
Emery had no idea what to feel about that. He really was just toyed with by that gigantic dog.
"Class Sevens are similar, but aren't capable of that much raw destruction. But they could probably destroy a quarter of the city at full strength each,"
A quarter was still an incredible number to witness. But that wasn't what he wanted. He couldn't look at beasts the same after seeing that Class Five, no matter how strong they may be.
It set his bar a lot higher than it previously ever could.
"Right, what about the space I asked you to reserve for me," he changed the topic.
"Got it down and ready. What do you plan on doing with it?"
Emery chuckled nervously, 'Should I really tell him the reason? It's a bit embarrassing.'
He decided to resort to the more neutral answer.
"You'll see soon enough."
"Very well. What about your spoils for today? Let me see what I'm working with here,"
He'd nearly forgotten that. Distraction truly was a terrible thing. Emery nodded and activated the pantry. The first corpse fell out, tumbling over. Then the second… and the third… and the fourth… and it just kept coming out.
Chris grinned. "Well, I didn't expect you to have done that much in such a short period. Good job!"
"Not done yet,"
It was time for the final corpse he'd hunted. While he had to sacrifice a lot of the corpse to make that dish, the head alone was enough to fetch him a decent amount of money.
Finally, the black-scaled snake appeared out of thin air and collapsed on the heap of the other corpses. Its sheer size alone was enough to indicate its power while it was still alive.
"That's even more surprising. This should be about 350,000 in total. I'll transfer the money to your account soon."
Emery nodded, then paused. That was a bit too quick an answer. He was already suspicious of Chris. His non-response to Emery killing a Class Nine threat didn't make sense.
It was like the time Chris tried to mess with his mind. He noticed it almost immediately. So did Chris have a way of keeping track of him? Could he see from afar? Did he have spies looking at him all the time?
Chris interrupted his thoughts quickly, though.
"I wanted to talk to you about something earlier. It's quite important so I hope you don't mind,"
He raised a brow. "Sure, what is it?"
"I discussed with the other commanders and we've decided to take you to meet the boss in the next two days."