“This is…” Malaki’s eyes widened. As a mage, he obviously had a good ability to sense mana. The fruit in his hands radiated so much mana that he instinctively felt he was holding a miniature sun!
“This the treasure that all those monsters were rushing for. I got my hands on them. From what I understand, it makes people stronger.” Leon explained. They had not seen the golden fruits, so they had no idea what it looked like.
The moment Leon finished speaking, bombs went off in the minds of the trio that had been part of the contest for the golden fruits.
“You’re giving this to us?” His anger having evaporated in a moment, Adrian pushed Malaki to the side and stared at Leon with wide eyes.
“Why not? It’s a good way to show my sincerity.” Leon shrugged. “Anyway, why don’t we get to know each other a bit more. I believe we started off on the wrong foot.” He extended an open palm in their direction.
The people looked amongst themselves and eventually sighed in defeat. They could not really refuse, and Leon had even given them a treasure that could increase their strength.
“Fine.” After deciding amongst themselves with silent gazes, Adrian nodded. They returned to the small camp with Leon following behind them. There were a couple of raised stones that they could sit on, but there were only enough for the others to sit with the exception of Leon.
“Hold on, let me-” Malaki started, intending to raise a seat for Leon, but Leon simply waves his hand and a small seat rose up for him.
“Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He nodded at them, realizing his smile would most likely freak them out. After taking a seat he looked around for a moment before speaking up, “Do you all mind a little introduction?” He asked playfully.
One by one, everyone introduced themselves. William’s sister-in-law’s name was Helen, and she was a rather timid woman. Especially in front of Leon because of how fearsome he looked.
“My brother is not here at the moment. He is resting, his name is Harry.” William told Leon when Leon asked if that was all.
“Oh, right. From James’ memories, I saw that he was quite badly injured. How is he doing?” Leon asked.
“He is recovering well, thank you.” William nodded stiffly. He was not too comfortable around Leon. None of them were.
Leon sighed deeply and shook his head. Only time will make them lower their guards toward him. He turned his attention to Nedra who had remained around his neck all this time. She was giggling at Leon’s discussion with the adventurers.
“Oh, I forgot.” Leon’s head snapped up. “When do you plan on continuing your journey?” He looked from Adrian to William. William also looked to his newfound friends, not knowing their plans.
“Perhaps when Harry is up on his feet. But that will take a while.” Adrian replied slowly, looking around to see that his friends and new companions agreed with him.
“Hmm, that will take a while. I was hoping to rush around quickly in search of anything valuable enough for me to take.” Leon rubbed his chin in thought. At that moment, Nedra untangled herself from his neck where she had been hanging motionlessly. She crawled up to his head and settled right behind the bump that resembled a small crown on his head. The contrast between her white carapace and the black bone that made up the crown made it stand out, drawing the attention of the adventurers to it.
“Y-you are an Undead Noble?!” William’s eyes bulged as he recognized the similarity between Leon’s form and some images he had seen in a book somewhere.
“Oh? You know what my race is?” Leon looked at him with surprise, his stiff, bony features contorting slightly to show off his surprise.
“Ah, yes. I saw an image of the race in a book once. Although, no offense, your ‘crown’ is a bit smaller than the one I saw in the picture.” William cleared his throat and explained.
p “Hmm, do you have that book here with you?” Leon asked. He felt curious; if he could get more information on his race, then it would be very good to understand his future growth trajectory.
“Um, yes. I think it should be somewhere around here.” William mumbled and got up, heading into the tent where his brother was resting. He ruffled through some of the bags for a couple of minutes before returning with an old, brown leather book. He tentatively handed it to Leon, who collected it happily.
Leon skipped the first few pages that depicted weak monsters that were not even in the C rank. They had the chance of growing to that level, but it was not too common. Before long, he started seeing monsters that were born with C rank strength right off the bat and even had the chance to grow stronger.
“You can skip over to the ‘U’ section. It’s just like a dictionary… Ah, do you know what a dictionary is?” William tried to explain.
Hearing the unintended insult, Leon slowly raised his eyes that glowed with an eerie purple color and glared at William. While he did not look as if he was actually glaring, the aura he released was clearly able to show that he was annoyed and irritated.
“Ah, sorry.” William raised his hands in surrender and sat back down uncomfortably.
Leon did not rush to the U section immediately, and instead took his time to browse through the book, allowing his curious mind to take in the sight of so many different monster species. When he got to the G section, he was surprised to see a creature he was very familiar with.
In bold, black letters, the words ‘GHOST CENTIPEDE’ were written out. The purple-black, many legged creature was drawn quite clearly, and it mostly conformed to Leon’s memories of what the creature looked like.
He read the description under it slowly, and found out that creatures with the term ‘Ghost’ in their names were usually born if a larger amount of Unholy energy was gathered, or if they were born in places where a lot of death had occurred. Then they would take on the characteristics of Unholy energy.