134 Gaining the Hide

"You can get close to them," Emile said. He stood next to the zebra who didn't move a muscle. He waved his hand around the zebras, and nothing seemed to faze them. He even touched them without getting any reactions.

Emile launched a fireball at a close distance. As if the zebra knew the attack was coming, it dodged with a high amount of grace and continued to stare at the meteors.

"Do we need to go back to the library and research the zebras," Emile said.

Nothing they tried worked. Even the spells that restrict movement didn't work.

"I guess we do," Flower Queen said. They could interact with the zebras, but as soon as they had the intention to strike, the zebras would evade the attacks.

"Wait, what if the zebras can sense hostility? I read something about the zebras not being an actual animal. They are meteorites that fell from space and gained a will. They all longed to reach the skies once again and float through the atmosphere," Scarlet Sunset said.

She used her finger and pointed at the zebra who continued to stare deep into the dark sky with a few meteorites zooming through the eerie moonlight.

.

"So do I use my flight to make them reach the sky?" Emile asked.

"Well, it's worth a shot," Flower Queen said.

Emile activated the skill flight from the flight stone. The skill went into cooldown. Emile grabbed a zebra. He had no hostile intentions, so the zebra didn't care about what Emile was planning.

Emile picked up the zebra with his immense strength value far above a normal player. He didn't find it too challenging to pick up the zebra with his hands.

He flew into the sky with the zebra on his shoulder.

The zebra's eyes gleamed into the darkness behind Emile's back. After 10 seconds of flying up into the sky, the zebra disintegrated into nothing. Emile could feel the weight decrease from his shoulders. Soon he wasn't carrying anything. He assumed that the Zebras became a meteorite once more.

The Zebra's hide appeared in Emile's inventory.

Some gold coins appeared in his inventory. The zebras gave fruitful rewards since they had a unique way of dying.

Emile fell down to the ground which took less time than it took to go up. Gravity worked one way, not both.

Emile didn't want to waste the flight skill which was active, so he dove down and grabbed another zebra. The zebra didn't budge and was easily lifted into Emile's hand.

Emile repeated the process of the zebras being flown into the air and dissolving from the world. He wanted to be as efficient as possible to get the most hide he could in five minutes.

On average he would get one hide every 16~ seconds. He was a few seconds quicker than the minimum time required for him to get all the hides. Five minutes of flight was more than enough time for Emile.

The party sat back and watched Emile fly up and down.

"You know, from a distance, he would look like a mosquito picking up a dead animal," FBS Fulcron said.

"What?" Nimble Rod said.

"I'm spewing random thoughts that come into mind," FBS Fulcron said with a shrug.

Soon, Emile picked up the 15th Zebra and brought it into the sky. He got the last hide that the quest needed.

"That was hard work," Emile said as he floated down. He landed on the ground.

"We really worked hard," FBS Fulcron said with a laugh.

Emile rolled his eyes as FBS Fulcron took some of his credit.

In Emile's inventory, there were 15 Star Zebra Hides and 15 extra gold coins. He kept most of the gold coins for himself, he gave two of them to Scarlet Sunset for being the person that provided the information. If he didn't have her information, he wouldn't have been able to get any hides.

She accepted without hesitation.

"All right. That was one part of the quest," Emile said as he cracked his fingers.

"We had to do nothing," FBS Fulcron said with a laugh. He poked fun of Emile for having better skills than them. Better skills mobility wise. A few party members had better debuffing skills.

"Volcano or Snowy Forest?" Emile asked.

"Let's go to a colder place tomorrow," Flower Queen said.

"It's getting slightly late," she continued.

"All right," Emile replied. They killed mobs for another half an hour before Emile logged out to sleep. The guild was busy hunting Rodia Cows.

___

"What, why do you want to cease trading with us?" the mayor of Lyria City said to another merchant crew.

"I got better offers somewhere else," the merchantman said.

"All right, Chiao!" The man said before leaving the mayor's office.

"Why are so many merchants ceasing their business with us? That makes no sense," the mayor thought as he watched the people leave his office.

"Sir, Sir I have bad news for you!" A man came running in and blabbered.

"What is it," the mayor gave an annoyed look at the man. He was mad at the merchant who left the city.

"The Alchemist Guild has left the city alongside their base of operations," the mayor's annoyed look quickly turned pale.

"Please tell me your joking," the mayor uttered out words.

"No sir, I would never joke with you," the man said with utmost seriousness.

"Did they give a reason?" The mayor calmed down and began thinking rationally. He hoped that it was a decent reason to appease his anger.

"They said that this place had a higher chance of failure when concocting potions or medicine," the man said.

"What kind of bullsh*t excuse is that? At least create a good excuse next time," the mayor thought in his mind.

"Thank you for reporting this information," the mayor said with a sigh. He couldn't lash out against the deliverer since it wasn't their fault for everything that happened.

"Sir, there's some more information, the Blacksmith Guild has also left the city and moved elsewhere," the man said. He waited for the mayor to calm down before dropping another piece of information.

"W-Why?" The mayor asked. he was breaking down on the inside.

"They said that the city gave them bad luck, so they moved out," the man said.

Losing the Alchemist Guild and the Blacksmith Guild was a big blow to any city. These guilds crafted a lot of the useful items that a city offered. Without these guilds, they would price health and mana potions much higher than other cities due to low stock.

Equipment would sell for a lot more since there were not enough people crafting items for the city.

The mayor didn't know what to do in this scenario. He could beg to the guild to come back, but that wouldn't change anything if they said no. He could ask another city for help, but that would ruin his reputation by a lot since he needed to help with something.

It all came down to reputation. If the mayor was willing to lower himself, he could get out of this predicament with ease. He could ask the cities to give him items and gold coins to create his own blacksmiths and alchemists. Sadly, the mayor wasn't willing to lose his reputation for anything in the world.

The dark ones took the mayor's personality into account when they plan these city destroying events which shows how much thought they put into their tasks. They choose Lyria City for a reason.

The city was getting closer and closer to being abandoned by all. One step at a time.