Chapter thirty-eight - I'll take half!

Locke returned to his new home, carrying a wooden vase with a beautiful red flower in it, he entered the house and sighed. After putting the plant in a window where she could sunbathe, Locke filled a glass of water and poured a little on the plant, a small baby-like figure rose from the flower bud, giving a laugh of pleasure, she looked at Locke happily and then returned to the flower, which closed again.

The small plant, which Tia had explained was an alraune, had been another reward given by Dryad, according to her, the small plant and she had a direct link, so that they could pass messages without Locke always having to go to the center of the forest.

Feeding the plant was easy, she just needed sun and water, although Locke never had a plants in his apartment, during the little time he spent with his maternal grandmother Locke used to help with her garden, gardener was also one of the odds job that he did in the low moments of his life.

After 'accommodating' the plant, Locke proceeded to erase all remnants of the magical formation responsible for the curse, the process took a reasonable time, and Locke only managed to erase everything when the sun started to set.

After finishing, Locke cleaned the entire house thoroughly, making it as perfect as possible.

'Dude, have you noticed that you're a cleaning freak?' Tia commented, mocking Locke.

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm not a cleaning freak! I just like my house tidy!" Locke replied offended.

'My boy, not even a CSI would find a gram of dust in this house now! This is certainly not normal behavior!'

"You are being delusional!" Locke cut the subject short.

With the end of the cleaning Locke prepared a simple dinner, some fried rice and vegetables, with strips of meat on top, Locke avoided using the meat of the Raijūs or the sky dragon, since Tia moaned when she saw him eat anything more elaborate or spaciel without her, to appease the fairy he had to promise to have a big barbecue when she regained her form.

Locke went to sleep early, something he hadn't done in a long time, he woke up early the next morning, feeling refreshed. He prepared a cup of coffee and then took a dip in the pool, after swimming for about half an hour Locke got out and took a shower, he poured some water over the alraune that laughed like a baby. Locke then went to an open area between the yard and the house.

"Time to get our reward..."

'Take care! maybe now they'll choose to attack you!' Tia commented.

"If this ends up in a fight I will be ready." Locke replied. "Just in case, Better be safe tham sorry, right?" He transformed into his draconic form.

Locke activated his mana, which quickly started to form a magic circle around him, ready to perform the dimensional leap, unlike the first time he created this magic, this time the process was fast, so Locke was surrounded by a mana dome, which imploded and disappeared .

In Rudra's ex-kingdom, near the golden gate, a black sphere grew rapidly in the air, breaking and revealing Locke, crouched on one knee, his wings that enveloped his body opened and he stood.

Locke stood up and watched the environment, the gate was guarded by two blue-skinned humanoid guards, who watched in silent surprise as they held their spears, as soon as they realized who he was, they dropped to their knees while shouting together.

"THUNDERBREAKER! THUNDERBREAKER! THUNDERBREAKER! " The guards cried out together.

"Get up!" Ordered Locke. "You don't have to kneel for me!"

"Thunder Breaker! You are our savior and liberator! You have freed us from our greatest scourge! Even if we are no longer slaves, we will always have you in the highest respect!" one of them proclaimed.

"My lord, allow me to leave and warn the big sister of your arrival! We were waiting for you!" The second guard spoke, as he stood up, he bowed his head three times in a sign of respect and ran quickly towards the palace before Locke could say it was not necessary.

The first guard watched Locke with eyes of deep admiration, like that of a child looking at his greatest hero, his passion made Locke a little uncomfortable. He invited Locke to the small guard post near the golden gate, so that Locke could sit while he waited.

Out of politeness Locke accompanied him, returning to his human form while getting dressed using the inventory at the same time, a maneuver that he had mastered in the past few days. Locke's transformation filled the guard with even more admiration, his father also had the power of polymorphism, which was the hallmark of a powerful creature.

While waiting at the gas station, the guard offered Locke a cup of tea, which Locke accepted, the tea was not unlike the teas Locke had drank on Earth, so Locke drank it without any problems, while waiting, Locke started a small conversation. .

"What is your name?" Locke asked.

"Oh, I don't have a name, my lord!" The guard responded excitedly. "Our father only named those who had at least a little potential! For those like me I was only given a number! I am 97, the one who left was 32! "

"A number? Did your father give you a number? This is horrible!" Locke was disgusted.

"It could be worse, my lord! At least we, the numbered ones, didn't have to worry about being eaten by our father! Our named brothers lived in constant fear! " The guard laughed at the end of the sentence.

"How about now? Now that your dad is gone isn't it time to get a name?"

"No, my lord, my whole life I lived being 97, I can't get used to being called any other way!" The guard joked. "Some of my numbered brothers even chose a name, but I'm too old for that!"

At that moment Locke can feel a familiar presence approaching, surrounded by other presences.

"It looks like your big sister is here!" Locke stood up.

He and the guard left the guard post just as Byakuri and her entourage arrived, on top of a beautiful carriage pulled by huge horses.

"My Lord!" Byakuri and her entourage spoke together, bowing to Locke in a show of respect.

"Enough of that! I already said that you don't have to bow! You are free now!" Lockre replied with alarm, he still did not deal well with all that respect that was shown for him.

"Even if you have set us free, we will always be your servants!" Byakuri replied with a smile. "Not because any magic of a cruel artifact, but because of the will of our hearts! Please accompany me in my carriage to the city! "

"...Okay" Locke replied tiredly.

He boarded the carriage with the princess carp, while traveling back to the city he realized that she had the same eyes of devotion as the guard.

"Why are you all like that?" Locke blurted out.

"I didn't understand your question, my lord" Byakuri was confused.

"Look, I know that your father was an *sshole and such, I know that he devoured his own children and everything, but... are you really not angry with me? Not even a little?"

Byakuri laughed softly, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her obi. "I think you still don't quite understand what you did for us..." Byakuri looked Locke in the eye with those beautiful black eyes "My father not only devoured us, he raised us only as servants and as food! None of us were allowed to have our own family, none of us had dreams or ambitions, and our father would kill anyone who showed the least potential!" her smile was sad. "The only people in that kingdom were my blood brothers and sisters or the slaves that father used to make new children, now we are finally going to be able to live and get on with our lives!"

"I se..." Locke replied, he still felt a little bad, he hadn't killed Rudra to save his children, he killed him because they were enemies.

The carriage soon reached the castle, a myriad of beings of different races awaiting Locke at the entrance, as soon as he stepped out of the carriage they all bowed together, calling him by the title they had given him.

"Salute our lord, the Thunder breaker!" They shouted together.

Locke gave up asking them not to bow, he accompanied Byakuri to the castle doors and to the throne room, there were others waiting for him, everyone had different appearances, being a group formed by several species, again everyone bowed their heads out of respect, Locke just sighed.

"These are the oldest and wisest of all my brothers, we got together and decided together on how to reward our savior and deliverer, since you refuse to be our new emperor we decided that the second best way to reward you would be to hand over all of our father's treasure, but you expressed your desire for us to remove all the items that were of emotional importance to us, and we did so. "

A beautiful girl with a turtle shell and greenish skin approached, "This is our father's list of treasures, after we removed all things of emotional value for us! We want to deliver all of this to you! "

Locke took the list and started to read it, while reading his expression grew more and more somber. 5,000 tons of mytril, 3 tons of adamantite, 40,000 tons of gold, 200,000 tons of silver, 8,000 tons of precious stones... Locke stopped reading, since the list did not seem to end.

"No! This is too much! I don't need all of that! Just give me a bag with some gold and some herbs and reagents! I don't need to take all of this! "

"Far be it from us, my lord! How could we let his kindness go by with so little reward? You have liberated each one of us! Even all of our father's gold will not be enough thanks! " The turtle girl replied, while her brothers and sisters shook their heads in approval.

Locke looked around in despair and sighed. "This is going to be difficult ..."

***

A heated argument developed in the room.

"One percent!"

"A hundred per cent!"

"Two percent!"

"Ninety-nine percent!"

"Arghhhh !!! Fine! Five per cent!"

"Is this at least a serious offer? Ninety percent!"

"You crazy, do you want to drive me crazy?!? Ten per cent!"

"Eighty!"

"Damn it! Okay, twenty percent and no more talking about it! "

"Seventy! Take it or take it! "

"Why does it have to be so difficult? Thirty! Thirty is more than enough! "

"Sixty!"

"Why? Just Why? Okay, I'll close for forty! "

"Fifty and we don't talk about it anymore!"

"AHHHHHHH! FINE! FINE! " Locke shouted in revolt, "I'm going to take half! There! Are you happy now?!?"

'I never thought I was going to see this!' Tia said in amazement 'Someone protesting vehemently to get less payment!'

Locke had spent hours arguing with Byakuri and her family, bargaining more than a fruit vendor and a housewife, discussing how much of the treasure his final reward would be.

Locke had never been a materialist, he liked good things and such, but he did not have an intense desire for vanities, Locke valued hard work, and all this sudden wealth seemed strange to him.

Locke proceeded to store his share in the inventory, muttering throughout the process, Locke's biggest concern was how he would use it, after all, if this absurd amount of gold suddenly appeared on the Earth market it would likely destroy and economy and cause a huge inflation.

'Wants to know? F*ck it! 'Locke thought. 'I will only use it if and when I need it! At least I don't have to use any more points in the system to create gold!'

Locke also kept a lot of potions, herbs and alchemical reagents. He did not want to take the weapons and armor, as they were useless to him, but when Byakuri threatened to hand over more treasures instead of those weapons and armor he was forced to keep them in his inventory.

Finally Locke collected all of his reward, the treasure room, even though half of the contents had been removed, still looked quite full.

Locke was then invited to a banquet, which he politely declined, saying that he had urgent responsibilities in his world. Byakuri was not discouraged by his refusal, she asked him to return in the future and handed him a silver-green scale.

"This is one of the scales produced by the jade mirror, if you need to speak to me you can contact me through it, and I will be able to speak to you through any mirrored surface!"

Locke thanked her for the gift and left for the sky, ready to jump back home.

'I think she's interested in you!' Tia joked 'Don't you think she's pretty? The 'act' must be interesting with that fish bottom... '

"...You have problems..." Locke commented, trying to sound nonchalant.

'What? Are you going to say you weren't curious?' The fairy provoked. 'Come on, mate! Just imagine how wet she must be there! After all, fish live in the water...'

"I'm not going to f*ck a fish!"