Emery had grown slightly immune to missions and other system details at this point, but this was still somewhat of a surprise to him, especially since the contents of the mission didn't have anything to do with him killing beasts.
He had to create a restaurant within a week. That wasn't half as hard as it sounded. He already got the location that he wanted. All he would need to do was ask Chris for some furniture and equipment.
But that was too shoddy a job. He wanted to do everything just right, down to the last details.
He quickly looked to the mission rewards to see what was in it for him. Just 600 exp and Partial Summon Merge? He had a vague idea of what it was, but if his thoughts were true, then it was more than worth it for such a simple task.
Before that, though, he wanted to sort himself out.
"Elyn, what do you say we go out one more time today?" he asked.
"Why?"
"I just want to improve and get stronger is all,"
Well, that was half the reason. Emery himself didn't know the other half of it. He got up from his chair and Citro darted back to his neck immediately after.
"Come on, no point sitting around on our asses. Maybe we could even go look at that Class Seven in the meantime," he realized. "I wonder if they've defeated it yet."
Elyn shook her head. "I don't think so. I feel like we'd know by now if they had already killed it."
"Fair enough. Alright, let's get going."
He walked out of the small shop with Elyn by his side and Citro on his neck. Oddly, this didn't receive many stares from the people around.
But he wondered if he would receive stares if he ever told them the reason he was trying to open the restaurant in this place. No one deserved to suffer. No one deserves to live life on an empty stomach, and worst of all, no one deserves to have to eat dirt.
His few months within the dregs of current post-society had shown him that a lot of them lived like that.
Adventuring, killing beasts and defeating Awakened was really fun, but he still just wanted to cook and help people while doing it.
Yeah. After some more thought, he concluded. They would definitely give him weird stares if he told them that.
'Whatever,'
They left Hemp's building again for the second time that day. There were still several people heading out to go see the Class Seven, so he didn't need to look for a very long time.
He followed after them and looked at Elyn through the corner of his eyes from time to time.
"Wait, what's wrong? Is there something on my face??"
He stifled laughter at that, but shook his head afterwards.
'She really reminds me of mom. I wonder what Dad would think if he saw me like this. Jumping into trouble after trouble willingly. He would probably berate me. I would too.'
The changes he experienced in these past few days were just beyond indescribable.
His thoughts managed to occupy him for the remainder of the five-minute run. Soon enough, they reached a very large human blockade. Emery took one quick look at some of their statuses and understood the situation almost immediately.
[Class Ten]
[Class Ten]
[Class Nine]
[Class Ten]
Almost every single one of them was a Class 10 Awakened. Chris was right. They were all hiding behind debris while the real powerhouses fought in front.
"What do they think this will achieve?" Elyn whispered, voicing out his own thoughts for him.
Some of them heard but only frowned without talking. Emery answered it for her.
"Just want to get a lucky hit in," he whispered back. "If they do somehow manage it, they are entitled to a small share. But it's unlikely and even far more unlikely that the Awakened currently fighting will pay them any attention,"
"That makes sense."
Emery said, tugging her towards a small space at the side. "Let's find somewhere that we can watch this comfortably."
They knelt just slightly below the very large boulder, watching through the wide gap to see how the fight was progressing.
The first thing was that he wasn't exactly sure what this creature was meant to be. It looked like a strange mix between a bear and a crocodile?
[Ding!]
[Name: Vengeful Rot Beast]
[Race: Beast]
[Threat rank: Class Seven Threat]
[Attributes:
STR- Class Six
AGI- Class Nine
INT- Class Seven
DEF- Class Seven
DEX- Class Eight]
[Skills: Rot Aura, Decay, Rot Paw, Rot Paw Barrage, Maul, Wither, Tremor, Rumble, Fierce Strike, Full-Body Decay Armour, Morph, Taint, Gouge, Vengeful Rush, Rot Flare, Rot Orb, Vengeful Rot Missiles]
That was a lot of skills.
"What's a Rot Beast?" he muttered out loud.
The creature was a strange mix between a bear and some sort of crocodile. It had muddy red scales and thick large limbs that sunk deep into the earth. Several injuries ran down the side of its scales, and it looked like it was on its last legs.
Several Awakened stood to the side, watching the creature cautiously. Emery found himself moving with the same unveiled tension that they did. Chris said twice that Class Sevens were a whole different ball game.
But that begged the question: How powerful were they compared to that Class Ten and that Class Five?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
Emery watched the scene with curious eyes as the beast raised a single claw. All the Awakened tensed up very noticeably except for one in particular.
He recognized the large man by his stature and unique clothes. The crown of bones seemed to have grown more apparent with each day that passed. His large spear was embedded deep in the ground next to him.
This man alone had caused Hemp's entire camp to shut up for the most part.
"Konnor," he muttered.
Then the unexpected happened. The large brutal man turned around to look in his direction. Not just in his direction, he stared directly into his eyes.