Who slayed it?

'How did he reach here so fast...?'

His green eyes squinted with wrinkles on his forehead while he tried to understand the situation. What had occurred was, oddly, not part of his plan.

The figure of a man stabbing the sword into the basilisk's head was hazy because of the black flames. It didn't take him even five minutes to completely subdue the monster.

'It's a relief that he saved that guy, though.'

Even though it looked absurd how he appeared out of nowhere, Blaise decided to take his eyes off it. He was still left with multiple questions.

But he couldn't bring himself to ask those questions. If not for Adrienne's sudden appearance, the plan would've gone wrong, along with getting Jaden injured.

Adrienne managed to reach there right before, thanks to his unique origin magic. The first thing he did was keep an eye on whatever was happening with it.

When he noticed that Jaden was about to be eaten by the basilisk, he used the ability to teleport right behind him. He pulled Jaden by his collar to save him.

No one knew that Adrienne possessed such an ability that allowed him to teleport from one place to another. After he awakened his unique origin magic, he never revealed it to the world.

Keeping as many cards up his sleeves as possible was the best course of action for him, who had a lot of people aiming for his life.

Thanks to that, he had unknowingly outsmarted Jack and Ace. He had no idea that Adrienne had just killed the beast they had set free in the forest.

It was pure luck that he happened to be in another dimension when Heart was using her unique origin magic to detect him.

Thud

The huge body that grew colder upon pulling out the sword fell to the ground. The drops of black liquid that splattered around like a fountain drenched Adrienne's clothes.

Thnk

To ascertain that the basilisk wasn't pretending to be dead, Adrienne swung the sword onto the same wound twice. Seeing no movements, the kill was confirmed by them.

The flames that spread across the ground in a circle dissipated as he jumped down on the monster's body. Even after that, the temperatures continued to rise, but that was just around his body.

The black liquid on his white shirt evaporated without even leaving any stains behind.

"It's over. What should we do with the corpse?"

He pointed his thumb at the lifeless body of the beast he had slayed lying behind him. There was no expression on his face when he said that.

Unpike him, everyone else was astonished, bewildered, and confused by what just occurred. It was insane how he directly went for its vitals rather than dragging the fight longer.

Now all that was left behind was the corpse of the basilisk. He would've definitely burned it down to ashes if he was taking it on by himself.

Things were different. The basilisk had a lot of material that could be extracted to be used in brewing some potions.

Some equipment, like armour and daggers, could be produced using its thick skin and fangs. The poison and the black blood were effectively utilised when making a bunch of potions.

It would've been a huge loss for them if they just let go of the corpse without doing a thing. That fact made Blaise and Diona stare at each other for a while silently.

Hah

Both of them let out a sigh in unison and nodded to each other. It was obvious what would be better.

"I will extract its skin and fangs. The blood and poison will be handled by Miss Ainforć."

Blaise's explosive magic power wasn't really useful for harvesting skin without causing any damage. The fangs would be a lot easier to pluck out.

Still, Blaise had one more trick that could be useful to do that. He would be able to use a combination of magic from two different attributes to do it.

Simply put, he could use wind magic along with water magic to form a blade that would just cut the skin precisely with no errors.

Diona was the perfect person to be assigned to extracting the blood and the poison. The reason behind it was her spirit magic, which excelled at controlling wind.

She could use a strong suction, like wind pressure, around the corpse to pour out the liquids with the help of her contracted spirit.

'Good thing I can rest easy.'

Jaden was the person most lax at the moment. Blaise had left him out on purpose so that he could recover from his tiredness.

As for Adrienne, upon hearing Blaise's words, he just blinks his eyes once. Then he glanced at the corpse before shifting his gaze towards the path from which the basilisk had appeared.

"I have something to do. I'll return first."

Saying that, he walked into the foggy veil leading to the elven village. The footsteps they could hear disappeared within a second.

After his departure, Jaden closed his eyes, attempting to take a rest. Blaise and Diona went ahead and began extracting the materials from the corpse.

It took them thirty-five minutes to harvest everything they could. After that, Blaise woke up Jaden, and the three left for the Elven village.

"Will it be fine to leave the leftovers like that?"

They had extracted everything else aside from the flesh and the bones. They were useless since the meat tasted bad, no matter how good the cook was.

And the bones were hollow from within, rendering them of no use in forging equipment. Leaving behind such useless things was the best choice.

"It's fine. It will decompose without any harm."

What Blaise replied to Diona's question was certainly true. If one had to say so, they had nothing to worry about since the harmful substances had already been taken care of.

The three never went back to check that spot since it was at the edges of the elven forest. They had very little idea that it would vanish within a day.

--------------------

"Huh?"

The sense of emptiness he felt left his lips gaping. The terror engulfing his heart due to the surprise he received became clear to him.

A cold sweat formed on his forehead when he stared blankly at the bundle of keys in his hand. The key that had a black stone glowing had turned colorless.

"It can't be-"

He couldn't believe what he was witnessing for the first time in a while. That wasn't supposed to happen. No, it was impossible for it to turn out like that.

The item in his hands wasn't something simple like a light-emitting key or something alike. It was a relic that was used to seal beasts into cages stored in a completely different dimension.

The glowing crystal's light fading away from one of the keys meant that the beast outside the cage had passed away.

"Basilisk is dead...?"

His plans had just started to go awry with the defeat of Basilisk. A true monster that would wipe out even the most skilled adventurers without any issues had been slayed by some unknown force.

However, he was certain that the one who killed it wasn't someone from the elven race. Their strength was too weak to defeat it alone, but who would it be then?

He bit his lips while clenching hard on the keys. There was no way of knowing a single thing about the people who managed to pull off the impossible.

Despite those circumstances, Ace was able to think rationally about what would be the best course of action.

'I should head there and see it for myself.'

That's right. Without even finding the dead body of the monster, concluding it like that made him feel uneasy. That was the reason he rushed towards where he sensed the basilisk a few minutes ago.

Also, there was a chance that he would find any traces of the culprit behind its death. There would be more than enough injuries to the basilisk if he had to see it for himself.

The closer he got, the worse the slithering marks of the beast became. It was as if it was chasing after something in one particular direction.

How would one know what it was? Thanks to the soil being dug out by the beast, there were no footprints or traces left behind.

Tsk

He clicked his tongue while feeling frustrated. It was obvious to him that someone had lured the basilisk like some fish in a pond with a bait.

"Just who...?"

Knowing that the elves were incapable of coming up with such strategies, it was easier to point out that they weren't the ones who thought of them.

There was only one way left for him to figure out what had happened. That was to reach the spot where he might find something that would be helpful to him.

What would even happen after he managed to get his hands on the corpse? Finding the person who slayed the basilisk just by looking at the wounds inflicted would definitely be impossible.

"I need to contact 'Diamond'."

All the members of the Terminus Consortium had abilities unique to themselves. Those abilities weren't something that normal people possessed. Simply put, they were not normal people.

Just like Heart was able to figure out the location of people, Diamond was capable of reading memories of objects and people.

Ace planned to retrieve the dead body and then ask Diamond to look into what had occurred with it before death. That way, he would be able to find out what he didn't know.

Of course, if it were an error of the magic tool on keys and Basilisk was still alive, then he would've been feeling more relieved.

"Huh...?"

Suddenly, his steps started to slow down. A wide, open place with a huge dent and a circle of black mud lay in front of him.

The size of it ascertained that that's where the basilisk had died. He was sure that it died after looking at the black liquid spilled here and there. But it was weird.

"Where is it?"

The corpse he had come to collect didn't exist there. There was no way that someone actually butchered bitter-tasting and pungent-smelling monster meat.

Now, there was no way of knowing what had happened, unbeknownst to him. If Jack were to hear about this, he would tell him the same thing as he was thinking.

'The plan should be stopped for a while...'

The basilisk was one of the strongest monsters they brought there. It dying like that without even any trace left behind meant that the person who slayed it was beyond just powerful.

He was lucky that he decided to retreat after seeing that situation. Adrienne had already begun suspecting that the appearance of monsters was a ploy by someone.

Those cases were on one side, and the empty space left behind was on the other. There was a small sound disturbing the peaceful silence.

Kyuung

The ball of black fur rolled out of a nearby bush and licked the black liquid on the ground. The highly toxic liquid would be fatal for a minotaur and even some stronger monsters.

Burp-

The sound of its stomach being filled vibrated its small body. After that, it shook off some dust that was on its body before heading in the opposite direction from where Ace went.

This small creature had been following a certain individual for a few weeks already. It was on its way to where it could smell the scent of that person, as usual.