Controlled Merchant

In fact, it was the exact thing they were paying him to deliver. They charged various nations differing prices but they mostly stuck around 500,000, which seemed rather reasonable as that was how negotiations went. But at the bottom of the page, underlined in blue, read, "Trity" and they charged them 1,045,785 styrs. Double what they charged everyone else, and this was the exact city he was delivering the information to. Trity wasn't even a large city, they sat in the middle of the ladder, barely gaining anything. This was a major loss to them as a whole and shocked Cyn.

But when he heard the door jiggling, he hurriedly stuck the paper back into the mess and fixed it just in time for Evren to walk in with two pink drinks.

"Ah, thank you very much."

"No problem."

Karkov continued, "and you made sure he was the most despicable, greedy merchant as well?"

"Yes."

Cyn thought, 'this is crazy! It's so unfair to them. How did they manage to rip them off like that? Man, how unlucky. I bet they would be furious to learn about this.' He tried to hide his smile by taking a sip as he thought, 'I bet they would pay a lot for this information. Man, I can get them to sign a silence agreement and get paid twice for this.'

At the end of their discussion, Cyn got up, shook his hand and left with a smile, towing the cart and more paper with him.

Karkov got up and finally asked, "and you removed all obstacles in the way, right?"

"We still have demons surrounding him, ensuring full protection."

"Alright. When this is over, capture and bring him to me."

"Yes."

The kids saw Cyn pushing over and hid around a corner. "That dude sucks."

"At least we got his money," she said, holding a bag of coins.

Karkov walked around meticulously, muttering, "this is where my reign begins. THIS is where the gods will die. And I will be their killer, the world's most revered person OF ALL TIME! At last. Revenge will be achieved against this unjust world. I will flatten it all."

The parrot flew to his shoulder and squawked, hatching its own plan. 'But for now, his ambitions help me without raising a single finger. This works well for me.'

Demon soldiers around him awkwardly avoided eye contact with him, sweating bullets as they thought, 'what's with this cringe monologue? Who is he talking to? Why is he announcing his plans??'

At the same time, in Falhalla, the three eggs that Cuddles laid were being kept comfortable by an old elf lady. She kept them in sight and near a crisp flame with two dwarf children and three elf children running around it, laughing and chasing each other. She watched the five through her old, withered eyes and thought about her younger days when she did the exact same thing. Except dwarves weren't there, it was all young elves.

She didn't know how she felt about mixing in with the dwarves, they were an addition she never expected. But they were brought by their hero and only helped so far, so she felt secure with them.

"Hey, Ma," an elf said to the old lady.

"Ah, Mesdelf. Come, come. Watch the flame with me."

"Isn't it cold out here?"

"No, the flame is very warm. A dwarf made a circle around it so the heat spreads evenly."

"The dwarves sure are handy."

"Yes, their hands are so big but they can be so nimble when making things."

He chuckled and looked at the dwarves' area beside theirs. In just a few months, they had mined out entire caves and created new homes for the elves while they started underground. At first, the elves refused their offer but the dwarves were relentless, their small bodies created too much heat, and living underground helped.

When the both of them went silent and could only hear the crackle of the flames, they saw something else. An egg twitched. It shook more and more, alerting the old elf who patted Mesdelf and shouted, "the eggs are hatching! The eggs are hatching!"

The entire village woke up and gathered around the flames, watching the eggs move and slowly crack. They seemed like they would open at any time but they simply kept shaking.

After ten minutes, an elf child tried to help pry the eggs open but an adult held her hand, shaking her head. "If we open it for them, they won't be strong enough to fly on their own."

All throughout the night, elves and dwarves waited around it, slowly sitting, then sleeping.

They continued until sunrise when the cracks of the eggs finally cracked open and tiny, naked beads poked out. They realized why it took so long, each of the eggs was almost an inch thick.

Mesdelf jumped up, waking people around him, and carefully watched them up close, ready to stop anything from getting to them.

The very next morning, Zeeth stood in front of a mountain with hundreds of other students. "So this is the Game Dungeon."

"Welcome, all! To the preliminary rounds!" Dande excitedly yelled, "as you all know, we have a lot of kids in our school. Too many for a proper tournament, so this will be our cut-off. Separating the strong from the bunch, sifting the grains of sand to find the finest. Now, don't be saddened if you lose, half of you will, and tomorrow, half will lose again. you will be in the majority, there is no shame in losing. But losing should only ignite a flame under you to work harder. Get stronger. Do good for the world by proving that losers are the fastest growers.

There is only shame in quitting."

"Whooo!"

"Yeah!!"

"Pumped!!!"

"Now, for the rules. This here is our famous Game Dungeon, rented out for the next three days by us. Everyone will enter the Dungeon and be evenly dispersed throughout the floors. Teachers will accompany you and the round starts the moment a bell rings. If you start before the bell, you will be relocated and any artifacts earned will be taken. Inside will be an assortment of monsters generated by the dungeon. Each monster killed will become an artifact and each artifact retrieved will earn you points. Grade A will earn you five, grade B will earn you four, and so on until E. You may team up with other students, but only the artifacts submitted by you will be yours.

No cheating, stealing, harassing, fighting, or any other dishonesty will be allowed and will result in immediate disqualification. We will only accept artifacts from the dungeon. Trying to substitute any artifacts, not from them will result in point deductions. Don't waste our time with false artifacts. Each floor has the same difficulty and each floor will have the same quality and quantity of students and teachers. Everyone will be offered the same opportunities and there will be as little bias involved as possible. Teachers cannot interact unless it is to stop any form of rule-breaking. Please know, the artifacts will be donated to the school but the winner of the competition gets to choose one to keep and use in the tournaments."

"Awe."

"It's like this every year, kids. This isn't a field trip, it's a test. Now head in and await the bell."

The inside of the mountain was very different from Bloody Banks. Instead of being dark and violent, this one was brightly lit and carefully sectioned off. Teachers led the students orderly through the dungeon, leading them up and down several stairs, breaking off groups by their predetermined classes. Zeeth was left on the lowest floor with Zafrakos and students he had never met before. All of the S class kids were split apart as far as they could. He was meant to be with Krem and Grem but Krem was found starved and barely alive and Grem decided to opt-out to help his weakened brother.

Instead, every single person was a stranger, and even with his back on them, he could feel their attention on him. Slight twitches and eye movements proved that they all wanted to gang up on him more than any others. They should all be from various classes as well but their shared hatred for S classes bonded them. Other than him, they were checking the monsters that idly wandered about. There were golems of all sorts, plants, stone, water, minerals, etc, and they ranged from finger-sized to giants larger than houses. They don't mind the humans, occasionally bumping into them and conveying disapproval by getting up and yelping, "Grah?!"

There were far more small golems than large ones, which all shied away from the humans and in the shade of the walls.

"As you can see," Zafrakos said, "the only monsters that appear are golems. At the moment, they are docile. Golems are monsters of the dark so, with all these lights, they won't attack unless we attack first. When the bell rings, the lights will dim and fog will be released to evoke them. They will attack the nearest human and obviously, the stronger the mana in a golem, the stronger the artifact they will become. Just a disclaimer, this is a special dungeon, a Game Dungeon, which will turn killed monsters into artifacts. Not every dungeon is a Game Dungeon, but they are still good sources of money by selling the remains of the monsters you kill there. Every year, we get students asking why other dungeons aren't like this one, this one's special, it's worth several other dungeons."

Zafrakos planted a bell on a stick into the ground in the middle of the room, amazing a few golems that surrounded it. Zafrakos jumped up the stairs to watch from above. Almost instantly, the bell rang and things were set in motion. The lights dimmed and a fog densely coated the area. The golems screamed and rushed at anything they could see. Zeeth started right away, stretching out his slimes and killing the golems near him. The smallest ones sometimes exploded into pieces of rocks that the dungeon floor absorbed but for the most part, they became swords, daggers, shields, and other items made up of what they were. Rocks, flames, ice, black magic, and plants rushed out from his body.

'Are you sure you should be showing off?' Black asked.

'We're gonna be leaving soon, of course, we should.'

'This would only make others hate you more.'

'That's fine. These kids are too annoying for me anyway, I don't want them following me.'

'Don't cry when that comes to bite you later.'

Kids all around him watched. Dadan stabbed a flower golem which became a glowing, yellow flower that he shoved in his bag, wiping his head in satisfaction.

"Hey, Izola, how many do you have? I only killed five, haha!" he said, in an attempt at a humblebrag. "Izola?"

Izola didn't reply so he looked at her and saw her staring at some light show that reflected from her eyes. He looked behind him where Izola was staring and saw an unbelievable sight. The weird kid he saw a while back was pouring magic out of him like a fountain. 'Without saying a single word! How is he casting magic like that? What the hell?!'

"Not a single one is missing…" Izola muttered.

Dadan turned around, "What?"

"Not a single one of his spells are missing. Nothing is hitting the floor, nothing is being wasted. Every single one is hitting a golem, like- like they're tracking them."

Dadan looked back and saw that too. Despite the magic rushing out like water, everything hit something. Each golem was struck by their countering magic, water golems were hit by plants that sapped their power, plants were burned by flames, and rocks were destroyed by black magic. And the artifacts that the golems dropped were picked up by plants on the floor, growing around them and pulling them to Zeeth.

Students around him quickly got over their shock and went after the remaining golems but too many of them were being killed by Zeeth, and even though new ones came from the walls, many felt they were having their opportunities stolen.

Izola turned to Dadan, angrily sputtering, "What the hell. We have to commence our plan now, Dadan."

"It's too soon."

"He's stealing all of our artifacts away!"

"What about tomorrow?"

"You really think anyone is going to come close to this guy? If anything, he's going to fail us!"

"Fine! Fine! You better not fail, this costs a ton of money!"

Dadan dropped his bag, alerting those around him and leading to a series of surprised looks and nods, parting a path to Zeeth. Of course, Zeeth heard everything they said and already had plans set out. He created a shard of ice and filled it with black magic, shaping it into a pyramid. Whatever plan they had, 'I know I can take care of it all.'

'You know? Or you think?'

'Have you seen their mana? There is nothing they can do that can stop me.'

'That might be true but you shouldn't think like that.'

Dadan rolled up his sleeves while Zeeth turned around. The students jeered at Zeeth while encouraging Dadan, going a little wild for him. And with good reason, he was a powerful-looking mage who had scars on his arms from battles. He must've been their hero, a member of the normal classes who had power that seemed to rival the Special Classes.

Dadan smiled and waved, closing his eyes to relish the cheering as he approached.

"Those are some cool scars," Zeeth pointed out.

"Yeah. Battle scars."

Suddenly, he clapped his hands together, activating a circle between them while fluidly scrunched down, preparing for impact. The next second, his entire body vanished from view. In the next, he was beside Zeeth, with a fist speeding towards his ribs, hitting him like a meteor. It was so fast that his slimes couldn't see what was happening and let the fist plunge into his suit and his slimes. It was so fast that the fist actually tapped him.

Everyone went wild over Zeeth flying away from the impact, which was just his slimes bouncing from the impact. The skin he wore turned red where it was hit and moved to try and cover the pain, squirming around. Zeeth tried to hold the skin flat so no one would notice but it looked like he was keeling from the pain.

'Tell the skin to stop moving!' he said to Black.

'It won't listen. The pain is unbearable.'

Zeeth looked at Zafrakos but he was trying to avoid looking at them as much as he could. 'These kids struck a deal with him before this even started.'

'This is so annoying. He isn't even using teleportation properly. Tell it that I will avenge it and heal its wounds if it stops.'