Chapter 83: Entertain Me
"That’s quite the amount of tokens," Conan muttered as he looked at the small magic tools in his hand.
They numbered up to ten.
He had gotten them from the three he just defeated, and although he felt bad for the ones that had lost their tokens to the trio, that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep them.
After they had passed out, shadows cocooned them, and the moment it unfolded, they were gone.
Conan had only seen one person with such ability, Adrian.
So at first it was just a hunch, but now he was certain that the gaze he felt on him was from Adrian.
BOOM!
The ground shook, pulling him from his thoughts and causing him to look in a certain direction.
"Right," Conan muttered, "the bait’s still in trouble."
He had been running for long enough and that should be enough of a punishment...right?
"I guess I’ll leave him at it for five more minutes," Conan said as he returned to the tree where he was observing the two.
***
"I-I give up," the boy, Orion, let out as his stamina fully ran out.
He had been running and avoiding the beast’s attacks for almost ten minutes now, and yet, Conan hadn’t shown any sign of helping out.
He had used his golems so much that he barely had enough mana to move a pebble, and the beast behind him was closing in fast.
With a sigh, he turned around and watched the serpent approached.
"Go ahead," Orion said as the beast stopped just a short distance away from him, "it’s not as if I can take you down anyway."
Even from the distance, he could feel the heat radiating from the creature as he closed his eyes and waited for the attack or to be teleported put of the test.
’I guess I really am going to get kicked out of the family,’ he thought as he continued waiting.
Strangely, instead of the heat getting closer of the sound of the serpent moving, the next thing he heard was,
BOOM!
"I guess that’s enough of a punishment for you," the sound caused Orion to slowly opened his eyes.
Standing before him was Conan, and by the looks of it, they had moved a distance away from where he previously stood.
Orion looked past him and noticed that arcs of lightning were all over the Serpent’s body, probably from Conan’s earlier attack but the beast just shrugged it off and turned back to them.
Conan narrowed his eyes, as his attack seem to do nothing to the beast.
Well, he expected that much, after all, his earlier scan showed this.
{Name: Lavascale Basilisk
Rank: B
Mana Type: Fire
Threat Level: Moderate to High
Recommended module: Ice Module.]
With a sigh, Conan muttered, "activate Ice Module."
{Ice Module activated}
With that, his hair became snow white again and his eyes turned blue, causing Orion’s eyes to widen.
"W-what the hell are you?" He asked, watching as the aura that came from Conan turned from electric to cold.
At first, he was certain that Conan had used some type of trick or magic tool that allowed him to use ice attacks, but the scene before him told him otherwise.
ROAR!!!
The Serpent let out a roar as it spotted someone that was a real danger to it before it coiled inward.
The next second, it launched itself towards Conan, but a massive [Ice Wall] suddenly blocked its path.
BOOM!
"This will be a bit of an headache," Conan muttered as his eyes narrowed.
The [Ice wall] was slowly melting, from just the beast slamming into it. He had never fought an opponent a rank above him, but since the interface showed that the threat level was moderate,
There was definitely a way to beat it.
BOOM!
The Basilisk’s heated tail slammed into the wall of ice, immediately breaking it into shards, but Conan had longed moved with Orion to safety.
"What do you know about ranks?" Conan asked because he genuinely wanted to know what he was facing.
"Ranks?" Orion asked, a bit confused and for good reason.
Given the situation, the last thing he expected Conan to ask was about ranks.
"Yes," Conan nodded as he explained, "that’s a B-Rank beast, I want to know the danger it poses."
"B-b rank?" Conan stuttered out, almost passing out from that info alone.
He couldn’t believe he had survived a B-Rank monster for almost ten minutes, but that was only because the serpent didn’t see him as a threat.
Conan on the other hand,
BOOM!
Conan quickly moved out the way, with a shocked Orion in tow.
"If you don’t snap out of it right now," Conan started, "then I’ll just throw you at it, I’m sure it’ll appreciate a snack before its meal."
"W-wait, please don’t do that," Orion finally got himself together as he turned back to the recovering Serpent.
"A B-Rank is equivalent to ten C-ranks," Orion said, "in other words, a B rank is capable of destroying more than half of the royal capital."
Given that the royal capital was as big as a medium sized country, then that was a pretty impressive feat.
But Conan didn’t know that.
"I see," he replied, having no idea if that was impressive or not.
Still, whether it was impressive or not, there still remained the fact that the interface marked its threat as moderate, which meant it was possible for him to beat it.
"Alright then," Conan said as he stood up, "I won’t be protecting you anymore, so you better get to safety."
With that, he turned to the Serpent and said, "come at me."
***
Adrian, still floating in the sky, was looking directly at the results of Alvíss’s project and even he had to admit,
The old dwarf was a genius.
The kid was now most likely at C+ rank or maybe even at the verge of reaching B-Rank without a spirit’s aid.
If the cult heard of him, they’d definitely try and possess him for themselves.
’Maybe I could use the kid as a bait to flush him out?’ he thought as he continued looking down.
’He probably won’t fall for that,’ Adrian shook his head, ’besides, even if he did, I wouldn’t be able to recognize him.’
The ’him’ he was referring to was the cult’s Master, someone whose identity the author refused to reveal.
He wasn’t even defeated, only completely written out of the story since he was a genuine pain in the ass for the protagonists.
And that same ’pain in the ass’ was targeting someone that now belonged to Adrian, Isla.
"We’ll think about that later," he muttered as he looked back down, "for now, entertain me, Conan."