Immediately after Joanne fired her arrow at the huge flaming lion, both her and Raymond retreated onto a nearby elevation in the cave.
Alex saw this and knew they weren't planning on fighting the lion while it was in its enraged state, so he followed along and retreated just like them, only he chose a small pocket in the wall of the cave near where they entered.
"We finally did it! I can't believe it, I can finally reach Mid E rank after so many long years of toiling away!" Raymond couldn't keep his excitement at bay as he exclaimed to Joanne.
"I can feel I'm on the precipice of advancing my soul core to E-! Maybe we can try our luck with even E+ rank beasts when we both advance." Joannes usual cold and apathetic tone had been replaced with greed when the duo's scheme had been revealed.
'Heartless. You just caused the death of 5 people and even killed one yourselves, yet you haven't even shown a shred of remorse.'
Alex listened in on Raymond and Joanne's conversation from a distance while simultaneously keeping an eye on the lion's actions.
It wasn't like they were trying to hide anything they were saying either, since they were speaking loudly enough that Alex could hear them from 30 or so metres away.
However he noticed that they were speaking as if the fight was already won and the lion was already dead. Alex was confused about this at first but then the realisation struck him when he noticed the lion started acting more sluggish.
'Poison! That's what that purple slimy substance was on the end of Joanne's arrow.'
'It all makes sense now.'
It only took another 5 minutes for the lion to come to a complete stop and fall over on its side, heaving deep and heavy breaths and its flaming aura diminishing.
Seeing such a scene, Raymond and Joanne jumped down from their elevated position and approached the lion with huge grins on their faces.
If this were a cartoon, they would have huge dollar signs for eyes.
Raymond approached the lion's thick head and he locked eyes with the huge and intimidating eyes of the beast.
Rage filled the lion's gaze, beasts had their own pride and one of the things they hated the most were attacks laced with poison.
But the lion could do nothing about its situation now and only lay there helplessly as Raymond drew his sword and stabbed it deep through the lion's skull, penetrating its brain before it was stopped by something incredibly dense and hard.
"Jackpot." Raymond didn't even show much more excitement when he dug out the E rank beast core that the lion had buried deep in its skull.
'They somehow knew about its beast core beforehand, but how?'
As far as Alex knew, it was impossible to tell if a beast had a beast core or not until you had already killed it and dug through its skull to see if it had one.
When Alex saw the beast core Raymond held in his hand, a small part of him understood why these two had come to such lengths to slay this one lion.
This beast core wasn't like any Alex had seen or heard of. Instead of the milky white small stones he had seen many times, this one was around the size of a fist, with an orange hue surrounding it and even the occasional flame spurting off it every now and then.
This beast core was clearly special, but Alex was in no mood to stick around any longer to find out why.
As soon as he saw the core disappear into thin air in Raymond's hand, he knew he had to escape immediately. Thankfully he chose a spot to hide near the entrance earlier so there was only a dozen metres between him and the exit.
'I need to get out of here, these two definitely won't let me leave this place alive.'
He had no hope in reasoning with the two after they had essentially killed his whole team without batting an eye.
With a leap, he exited his small pocket in the cave wall and sprinted with his full power towards the exit, shifting his eyes back to see if Raymond and Joanne had noticed, but when he did, Raymond was no longer by the side of the lion's corpse.
'Shit!'
Instead, when Alex turned back towards the exit, Raymond was already there waiting for him.
'I didn't even see him move! Is the difference in ability between F and E rank really so huge!?'
Despair started filling Alex as the hope of making it out alive diminished drastically every second that passed.
"Tsk, you know I really did like you at first Alex." Raymond spoke to Alex with annoyance.
"I'm sure in another timeline we could have been great friends, but you know that can never happen now." Raymond continued speaking, ignoring any of Alex's attempts to find another escape route.
He knew the only escape from this place was the one he was currently blocking.
"You just know too much. Unfortunately, I'm just gonna have to kill you." Raymond sighed as if it pained him to say it, but Alex knew it was all fake.
"Why did you do it?" With nowhere else to go, Alex's shoulders slumped as he was forced to accept his grim reality. Instead he just wanted answers.
"Do what? You realise I have done many things in my life, you're going to have to be more specific, little Alex."
Alex didn't like the way Raymond called him 'little Alex' but what could he do about it? Who would he complain to?
"Why did you lead us all here just to be killed? If you'd have just told us the truth of this mission from the beginning then all these deaths could have been avoided." This was one of the few things Alex was still curious about, even though he was about to die.
"Oh come on, you've spent over a month in this world and you still haven't realised how fucked up it is? You really are the stupidest outsider I've ever met." Raymond laughed at Alex's stupidity for a few moments, not bothering to hide his mocking tone.
"Everything about this place is purely for selfish and personal gain. There is only one law that dictates the entire Primordial Expanse. I'm sure you can guess what law that is." Raymond threw a question back at Alex instead of answering.
'If you can't even answer this then I may as well skip all this talk and kill you now.'
"The law of the jungle." Alex said.