"What?" Belialthorn asked as he bent to take a closer look at where Rota was pointing.
Rota shoved the monster in its neck with her spear, metal clinking with metal and Belialthorn finally saw what she was pointing at. A thin metal band circled the Vore's neck, heavily inscribed with glyphs.
Belialthorn narrowed his eyes as it started clicking in his head, especially when he saw a familiar crest imprinted on the metal band around the monster's neck.
"Are people keeping them as pets? I've never heard something like that been done before." Rota said already calculating how much she could make by selling Vore's pup.
"Certainly not." Belialthorn used his finger to bring a drop of the monster's blood to his nose. A deep sniff confirmed his suspicions.
"Can't you see how ridiculous it is this big? It's obvious some rich people have been feeding it." Rota insisted and Belialthorn could not tell if it was jealousy he detected in her tone. He decided he didn't want to know.
"Can you see that on the band? See that right there under that glyph?" Belialthorn asked.
Rota squinted "Where?"
Belialthorn eyes could pick it out easily enough, his Demon eyes far superior to human's own, especially a low-level human. "That little drawing of a robed man holding a flask."
It took some more squinting before Rota finally saw it. "Oh that, looked familiar. What is it for?"
Belialthorn frowned. "That's the insignia of the Holy Church."
Rota flinched, that name mixed with a very bad memory in her and the Holy Church was also a constant reminder of what she had dreamed she would never be— rich, powerful, and strong.
Belialthorn saw the way she flinched and the way she subtly moved away from the Vore.
"What is the Holy Church doing with this....mutant monster?" Rota asked giving the monster a disgusted look.
Mutant monster..... Belialthorn liked that name. He shrugged. "Aren't they the largest collector of monsters, dead or alive in the kingdom?"
"How are you even sure it was them? Anybody could just slap their insignia on the band." Rota argued.
"The chemical smell, can't you smell it in the blood?"
Rota gave him a look. "I smell nothing except blood and the rotting smell of the Vore. Are you sure you are smelling it right? Do you even have any smell skill?"
Belialthorn shrugged. How would he explain that he was a Demon with a superior Bloodline? Or that he had killed a high-ranking member of the Holy Church of Havenbrook, thereby knowing the acidic undertone smell of Alchemist.
"From whoever it might be, the monster was not normal and it was probably experimented on. Look at its fur, see those signs of torture." Belialthorn pointed out.
Rota nodded as she followed his pointing finger to the patched areas on the monster's body. "What are we doing with the body?"
"We are not doing anything except leaving it here, also we won't turn the bounty in since the Vores were already dead," Belialthorn said.
Rota grumbled. "So we just wasted our time? And I got hit for nothing!"
"You leveled up, didn't you? That should count for something." Belialthorn said.
Rota waved her bloody spear up. "That's not important! What's important is the coins for the hard work!"
Belialthorn shook his head at his warrior. He didn't know what type of life she had lived but it was obvious she valued money over any other thing. Probably the only reason she agreed to the partnership was because she was desperate for money, and food.
"Don't you know have higher levels meant higher pay?"
Rota's eyes darted to the wilderness and she repressed a shudder. "With higher risk too."
"You can't do without risk. And trust me you don't want to remain weak." Belialthorn's voice was mixed with iron now.
"I know what happens to the weak," Rota mumbled.
"Good, now let's return to the town and start preparing for the next bounty," Belialthorn said.
"Next bounty? Do you by any chance see the state I'm in? I can't fight again today!" Rota protested. "And we've not even finished talking about this dead monster. Like how did it even get here?"
Belialthorn could probably trace it back to where it came from but why should he? It wouldn't benefit him in anyway.
"That matters not. We've killed it and that's that," Belialthorn pointed a warning finger at him. "Don't tell anyone you saw this monster."
Belialthorn wanted nothing to do with the Holy Church and its Mutant monster. He had sated his anger by killing Cana so nothing of the Church interested him.
"Who do I want to tell?" Rota had always lived her life alone ever since her mother died when she was twelve. Not like her mother had her time when she was alive but it was at least better then, even with the hated gaze her mother threw at her.
She had hopped from one odd job to the other after that, barely eating one meal per day. There was simply no time to make friends when you were fighting off starvation with one small meal a day.
And if there was time, who would want to make friends with a gutter slum rat? People avoided her if they could and pretended she didn't exist.
It was why she was so surprised when Thorn spoke to her, and even went as far as proposing a partnership. It had seemed a cruel joke at first.
"Very well. We saw nothing and know nothing." Belialthorn said and Rota nodded along with him.
Belialthorn wasn't afraid of the Church but he had made up his mind to stay under until he was powerful enough to shake things up.
"If only this dead meat was eatable." Rota kicked the dead monster and that was what drew Belialthorn attention.
To the glowing glyphs on the metal band around the monster, the glyphs glowed dull red and Belialthorn's very being screamed danger.
"Watch out!" Belialthorn jumped towards Rota just as the monster exploded with bone-shattering force.