Steady Progress
"Don't forget to sell to old man Croan next time you hunt a creature," He voiced out.
"Sure," Landria nodded before turning around to leave with Laura.
Today had turned out quite fruitful since he managed to make a lot of money from selling the Demon Yeti. Laura was just as amazed finding out that magical beasts could be sold for such a price.
She had no experience in this as she had never witnessed the sale of a magical beast before even though she had heard a thing or two about it.
This was understandable considering none of the town folks had managed to kill one before. The ones they usually hunted were not considered magical beasts since they couldn't even attack using mana.
"Here," Landria voiced out as he passed the money pouch to Laura while they walked along the streets of Clearksy town.
"What? Why are you giving it to me? It's yours," She said with a look of disapproval not accepting the money pouch he was trying to pass to her.
"I told you I wanted to be of help. I don't feel comfortable with myself eating your food, drinking your water, and sleeping under your roof each day without being able to contribute anything to your livelihood," Landria stated with expression gratitude while still keeping his hand outstretched.
"Like I said before you do not have to pay for all these. I am doing it of my own free will after all," Laura shook her head while speaking, remaining adamant about not accepting the money from Landria.
"I'm also doing this of my own free will, please accept it," Landria also seemed adamant in making sure Laura accepted the money.
"No, keep it for yourself. Remember you will leave one day. You need to have enough to survive on your journeys ahead," Laura stated with her eyes reflecting a kind gaze.
"Isn't it hard for you as well? You initially had to take care of Viktor, Mara, Orion, and Mira on your own which is already difficult and then I came along… Don't think I haven't noticed you've had to work twice as hard to provide meals for everyone, myself included. Since I can do something about it, please let me help," Landria voiced out with an unrelenting tone.
Laura really didn't want to collect a dime from Landria because she felt it would be like exploiting him if she took something from his earnings since he killed the creature all by himself.
However, seeing as this argument was not going anywhere she had no choice but to finally give in.
"*sigh* Alright but I can't accept all of it," She stated while collecting the pouch and opening it to take a small sum out of the coins there.
She passed the pouch back to Landria afterward and he checked the contents.
"You barely took anything," Landria voiced out with a surprised tone as he realized more than seventy percent of the money was still intact.
Laura had only taken around fifty silver coins out of two hundred. There were also five hundred copper coins besides this.
"What I took is more than enough to feed all six of us for the next one month… I won't accept any more than that," Laura said with a dismissive expression.
Landria was a little surprised seeing how much value the silver coin pieces had. Laura was even feeling a bit guilty taking this much but she knew Landria would not get off her back if she didn't accept to take anything.
Landria didn't mind if she took more but seeing her stance about being satisfied with this much, he had to accept. He was glad that she at least took something.
In a few minutes, they found a carriage that was headed back to Riverbeak town and wasted no time in boarding it.
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In a flash, another two weeks went by and throughout this time frame, Landria had hunted down magical beasts day in day out.
If he found any magical beats that were edible, he wouldn't have to look for a smaller creature to hunt since he would just cut some fleshy parts out and sell the rest.
Ever since Landria started hunting beyond the safe zone, the kids had been eating way better than before.
He would always bring back home some meat every evening upon his return from the Velves forest.
They would roast some juicy meat outside their houses and even share some with the neighbors since there was always a lot.
Besides that, the amount of money he was making each day from selling these beasts was way higher than the amount the hunters in Riverbeak town made.
He didn't even have to hunt every day if he didn't want to.
He would give Laura a portion each day even though she would try not to accept it.
Just like Laura had mentioned on the day of his first sale, he truly saw the need to save up a lot of money for when he would begin journeying back towards the Razledania Kingdom.
The town was quite small so the amount of money needed to survive in such a place was not much. However, making what was needed too was not quite easy considering the economic situation.
Landria found things easy since he hunted the Magical beasts no one else in the town could and sold them.
However, he knew heading to more civilized cities, materials, and cost of living would definitely be higher so saving for that time was a very good decision.
Landria would hunt down a magical beast beyond the save zone and devise the best way of killing them without using up too much mana.
Most times he would have killed whatever beast he hunted for the day early in the morning but he would still arrive back home in the evening.
This was because Landria was spending the rest of his time refining his mana core.
The concentration of mana in the outskirts of the safe zone within Velves forest increased the deeper he went. Landria needed for the mana concentration to be way higher so refinement would be faster but he wasn't so stupid as to go beyond the level he could handle.
So far from what he had observed, the magical creatures encountered were also stronger the deeper one went.
Every three miles the strength level of the magical creatures found in the environment would increase.
Landria hadn't gone beyond a six miles distance after the safe zone because he wasn't sure he might be able to handle the magical beasts there without depleting the mana in his mana core completely.
So far he still hadn't managed to achieve the third layer but he was having steady progress and felt he could manage to achieve it within the next month.
Still, he felt this was taking too long and didn't want to spend a very long time before he investigated the death of the King and punished the culprits responsible for his family's annihilation.
On this particular day, Landria sat beside the corpse of a large mammoth-sized magical beast with broad bat-like wings. He had killed this creature hours ago but just as usual, he was refining his mana core.
After some time he opened his eyes and looked at the sky. He could tell it was already late in the evening.
"I might need to create a mana reactor tool," Landria voiced out with a dissatisfied expression.
"I think I've acquired enough money to get materials for creating one but I've never tried it before. I might end up wasting money if I mess up the creation process," Even though Landria already knew the process, he still felt he had to be careful and make more research before creating one.
A mana reactor tool helped in gathering mana from the surroundings to a particular spot, increasing the mana concentration in the said spot.
Landria wanted one so his speed of mana core refinement would be boosted. Now that he had this thought, the next step was to put it to work.
Standing to his feet, Landria picked up the massive magical beast and placed it on his shoulders before heading out of the forest.
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About an hour later, Landria found his way out of the forest and began heading for home which was now in his line of sight.
"Hmm?" Landria exclaimed as he spotted three figures headed towards his direction from up ahead.
"Big brother Landria," A loud feminine voice was heard from up ahead.
"Mara," Landria already spotted Mara and Viktor amongst the two figures but the third person was someone he hadn't seen in a while.
"You... what do you want?" Landria voiced out as they arrived in front of him.