The travel was not too long, after almost 30 minutes Daimon could see a place that fitted perfectly with the name “tri-horn valley”, it was a plain land made out of rocks without any tree or other vegetation, due to the current cold weather there was snow here and there but what truly caught the attention of Daimon was the three mountains that surrounded the whole place.
“I guess it’s not called tri horn valley only for those magic beasts called keratos”, he thought.
They landed on top of a big rock besides one of the three mountains and as soon as their feet touched the rock, the ground started tilting as if something really big and heavy was approaching.
Daimon’s eyes widened a bit, rushing towards them he saw a huge gray skinned beast, it had four legs, with three big claws on each one of them, its back and shoulders were covered in spiky bone plates, of course it had three horns, well more accurately it had three big horns and a little one on its forehead, one thing that caught his attention was that the beast didn’t have eyes.
Aura saw Daimon’s curious expression and she explained.
“Keratos don’t have eyes, instead they “see” thanks to vibrations, that’s why it detected us really fast once we landed, I told you that there is no problem in hunting this type of magic beasts before right?”.
Daimon nodded.
“Yes”.
“Keratos are basically a plague, they are hard to kill for those who are not specialized in combat due to their hard skin, they reproduce without the need of mating, they eat everything including earth, rocks and even other members of their own race, unlike other magic beasts although they reach the Arch ranks quite easily, they never develop rationality”.
“Luckily, they only like to live in secluded places where there are not too many other living beings, so they rarely cause trouble in towns or cities, for some unknown reason if their population is not properly controlled, they migrate to other places… the most accepted theory is that they don’t like crowed places even if the only species are them”.
Aura stopped the explanation, she disappeared from where she was standing and the next thing Daimon saw was that the Keratos which was rushing at them tripped and rolled a couple of meters breaking the ground and on its path before its body didn’t move anymore.
Then Daimon saw one of the weirdest scenes he has witnessed so far, Aura’s slender tiny figure dragging the huge beast by its tail was quite a funny situation but he didn’t laugh, instead he focused his attention in the notification that appeared in front of him.
*Ding*
[Aura Argent has slayed early Arch ranked Keratos X1, do you wish to sell it to the system?]
Daimon nodded and the girls were surprised seeing the huge corpse of the beast disappearing without leaving any trace, after a moment there was a new notification.
[The host didn’t participate in the fight so the selling price will be reduced in half]
[50,000 coins were successfully added to the balance]
Aura returned to her previous position next to him and asked.
“So, did it work?”.
Daimon was more or less convinced by the result, when he killed the manticore he got quite a big sum for its corpse but the difference in strength was also quite big, on the other hand Aura was far stronger than the Keratos so the number of coins he got was not that bad.
“Yes, but we are going to need to hunt quite a lot of them… wait can you try this time with a stronger one?”.
Erin answered.
“I will do it this time”, without waiting for Daimon to say anything she dragged him along and flew until they found another Keratos who was fighting with other one.
Erin smiled before she pointed her hand at the ground below the Keratos, a giant black magic circle appeared on the ground and before the Keratos noticed hundreds of black spears pierced through its bodies.
Just like when Aura did it, the beasts died immediately without time to fight back.
*Ding*
[Erin Revy has slayed middle Arch ranked Keratos X2, do you wish to sell it to the system?]
Daimon accepted and this time the coins were immediately added without any notification, so he checked the balance on the status window.
[Current balance: 1,250,000 coins]
…
“Oi Evangeline, be a good girl for once and help to automatically sell the corpses of the Keratos without me confirming it”.
Evangeline laughed.
“Done, you see how easy it is when you treat this lady kindly”.
Daimon shook his head, “whatever”.
“That was better auntie we got four times the amount than before, let’s return with mom and the others, I want to see how much will we get if the one hunting is big sister Liz or Elaine”.
Erin was not really too interested in beast hunting unlike Aura, but she enjoyed “keeping” Daimon for herself so she unwillingly took him back to the rock where they were at before but while in the air, Daimon suddenly received a lot of notifications.
*Ding*
[Elizabeth Revy has slayed middle Arch ranked Keratos X5]
[Elaine Revy has slayed early Arch ranked Keratos X3]
[Aura Argent has slayed peak Arch ranked Keratos X1]
He felt amused by their reactions, “girls surely are competitive”.
Erin saw Daimon’s expression and she could more or less guess what was happening, “that’s good, those three will do all the hard work while I relax and drink some tea with little Daimon ♥”
Once they were back on top of the big rock, the only one left was Aisha, of course Aura maintained a barrier covering the whole rock to avoid accidents, since Aisha couldn’t participate in the fight she just sat down and cultivated, her magic core had a completely different mana absorbing ratio than before so she was actually calculating how much mana should she absorb to not surpass the two-star mage rank which will make her not be in the same class as her son.
Daimon opened the status window, since there was no need for him to confirm the sale of the corpses to the system the notifications also stopped after each of the girls killed a Keratos, but there was a log where he could see all the activities registered by the system.
Seeing the lines appearing one after another, and his balance going up like rocket he didn’t know what to think anymore.
“I guess being surrounded by strong beauties has its advantages”, that was his conclusion.
Erin took out a large piece of padding from her storage ring, she placed it on the ground and sat down over it, of course Daimon had his own special “spot”, he sat on her lap while Aisha also joined them.
Although in Erin’s mind Daimon was too little to understand some things about relationships between men and women, she still wanted to explain her past story with Edgar, Daimon didn’t ask but she agreed with the policy of “no secrets in our family”.
After contemplating things for a moment, she spoke.
“Little Daimon are you not curious about that guy who was judged by me before… from certain point of view he is Liz and Elaine’s father”.
Aisha slightly opened her eyes, interested in what her son’s answer will be like.
Daimon who was checking the shop of the system until a moment ago closed the interface and turned his head up to see Erin’s face.
There was silence for a moment until he spoke.
“Do you like that Edgar guy?”.
Erin shook her head.
“No… in fact I never got along with him, since the first time I met him”.
Daimon nodded.
“Then it’s okay, auntie has treated me really good since the very first time she met me so, even if that guy got to know you before than me… I’m still the winner”.
Aisha laughed a bit, that was a quite a childish way to see things but it was also a good answer.
It was clear for everyone that Daimon acted older than what he was, but it was not to the point where they should expect him to give a philosophic answer about love, so he tried to use a more “selfish” way of approaching the subject and it worked.
In fact, he has been trying to leave that impression in them, that’s why he “showed off” his skills for Aura, like how a child would brag about any little thing he achieves, the only difference was that, the things Daimon could do were worth bragging about.
Still, showing some concern about how they felt was also understandable, considering how all the girls already accepted becoming his future partners and he was aware of it since that was one of the conditions to become a soulmate.
“If auntie wants to tell me about her past, I’m more than happy to listen to your stories but even if I don’t, that won’t change the fact that I enjoy spending time with you, just like I do it when mom, big sisters or… master Aura are with me”.
“Hey, what about me?”, said Evangeline.
“You are a pain in the ass to deal with, but I guess that… when it matters you are quite trustable”, he answered.
Daimon felt a strange familiar gaze focusing on him and he smiled.
“You too Narasha, I hope we get along since I will be trusting my back to you in future battles”.
Narasha was surprised; she felt jealous for the first time in her life!!! and Daimon somehow felt it.
“Y-yes… thanks Daimon”, she said.
Daimon was relaxed on the outside but in his mind, he was jumping of happiness.
“Thanks to the heavens that using core synchrony also made easier for me to understand how they feel… probably because we are now closer than before”, he thought.
