Chapter 37: Calamity beast

"Metal!?" He exclaimed in surprise. The moment he saw her, it was as if some invisible connection appeared between him and her. It was hard to explain, but she felt the same way towards him.

She let out a small laugh. "I know it's crazy, but as soon as I had the breakthrough, it was as if I felt a link between myself and my surrounding," she explained. "At first, I thought I got the earth affinity, but when I delved deeper into the feeling, it was more than that. Silhouettes of veins running through the cave walls, small particles on the ground, and even the very silhouettes of your sentries outside were visible to me without opening my eyes. That's how I knew it was metal," she further explained, caressing the earth and then getting up to touch the cave wall and finally his chest.

Seeing her up close, he also noticed that she had grown a few inches as well. The tone of her muscles were more defined, and imperfections she had before were gone, leaving perfectly soft skin.

"You think the stims I have given you had anything to do with your new affinity?" He asked and pondered on it.

"What do those have anything to do with it?" She asked, confused at his question. It occurred to him that she really didn't know what the stims were made of as he took one out for her to inspect again. When he handed it to her, it was her turn to be shocked.

Holding the stim between her hands, she raised it up in wonder. "They're alive!?" She gasped as she peered into the slit window on the stim. She saw the object in a whole new light now with her new affinity. It was now possible for her to see the tiny nanobots swimming around inside. Before, she thought it was some magical healing silver elixir.

"You might be right, but if I was able to gain the metal affinity with this then you don't think Jason—" she was saying when Vulcan finished her sentence.

"Will also gain the metal affinity?" He said, and she nodded. If his stims were the trigger since they essentially healed one's body, then when finished with their task, would fuse with the host's body, that would explain it.

For now, they would leave it for later testing and further research. He told her that they had to return to Krestfall; otherwise, the guild and the lord would send a search party for them. To her surprise, it had been a few days since it took her a bit to have her breakthrough. He also explained that he had already dismantled the wyverns' bodies so they could head out already. Agreeing with that plan, Jess walked over to the edge of the cliff as she began to climb back down.

"What are you doing?" He asked her, confused about what she was doing.

Realization hit her, and she walked over to an invisible Commando sentry. This made Vulcan also realize that people with this metal affinity could see him even when he was invisible. Jess giggled at him staring at her actions. She then jumped up into the air, and like metal attracted to a magnet, she attached herself to the sentry.

"Pretty cool, huh?" She laughed even harder at his silence.

Things were going to get more interesting with her being able to do that now, he thought. He already had his own jetpack on, so it was fine to leave already. As they took off, he left a platoon of commando sentries with the medium factory cube in the cave. Flying away, he noticed that she was looking back at the cave with interest. Once he activated the factory and the changes occurred, she gasped. He already let her in on some of his secrets; might as well let her know about the factories now. While she was staring back, her magnetic hold on the sentry disconnected.

Thankfully, he was paying attention to her, so he caught her before she slipped away more.

"Sorry about that. I'm going to need a lot of training with this new affinity," she said embarrassed, "but hey, where are we going? The hover bikes are down the mountain!" As she pointed at the ground.

"No need, we got the jetpacks now. I already had the bikes collected," he explained as they flew into the distance.

After a while, they could see Krestfall as it appeared on the horizon. Just as Vulcan was thinking about how to take the Alpha Wyvern's head inside the town without revealing to everyone that he had a Spatial storage ability, he saw a small cart on a road leading towards Krestfall below him. The commando sentries dove towards the ground a little behind the cart as they dropped the 'Dark sentry' team and stayed a reasonable length from them. During the time that Jess was meditating, he got a new set of armor for the entire party so no worries of being spotted in their true forms. Taking off his jetpack, he put it away for no one to see.

"What are we doing?" Asked Jess.

"We're going to catch up to an empty cart up ahead that's going towards the town. Come on," he said, not explaining further as he ran ahead.

They soon caught up with the cart, a middle-aged man was up front with his wife and his child between his legs as he showed him how to handle the horse reins.

"Excuse me sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Asked Vulcan as he ran up to the small family.

This startled them, not just because he abruptly came out of nowhere, but he was also intimidating with his size and armor.

"Ah yes, what can we help you with?" Asked the man as his wife hid behind him while his son admired Vulcan.

"I was actually hoping if I could buy your cart. My team needs it for something important if you don't mind," he explained to the man.

"Well, you see we don't have much with us but this cart and our horse. So you're putting me in a difficult situation, mister," said the man, thinking that Vulcan wanted not just the wagon but the horse as well.

"I didn't explain myself well; we only need the cart. You can keep the horse. In exchange, how about this much for compensation?" Handing over three gold coins from a small bag around his waist. The fewer people who know about his Spatial storage, the better.

"T-three gold coins! That's too much, mister, it's just a simple wooden cart," the man gasped at the gold coins. Even his wife looked over her shoulder and opened her eyes wide at the gold.

"John, we need the money if we're moving to a new town. Think about our son!" His wife whispered into his ear, but Vulcan heard it all.

After thinking about what his wife said, the man accepted the offer. Getting off the wagon and taking a small burlap sack from the back, he unhitched the cart from the horse pulling it. He then helped his wife and child get on the horse while he walked alongside them after taking the three coins from Vulcan.

Watching them get a good distance away, he stored the cart, and they flew up into the sky again, but this time heading towards the west gate of Krestfall. Not too close to be seen, but enough distance where they could have Vulcan raise the cart so he can pull it. They laid some sort of tarp on the cart then placed the Alpha wyvern's head on it, with another tarp on top to cover it from anyone seeing what was underneath. The head was barely fit on the small cart. Since the thing was far bigger than the actual cart, and before placing it, he placed plasma spears inside the tarp so Jess could use her new metal affinity to lift the metal spears to not have the cart hold all of the weight. With Vulcan's strength and her metal manipulation, they arrived before the west gate in half an hour.

While moving closer to the gate, people were dumbstruck by the size of their cargo. How could that tiny wooden cart hold such weight? When they stopped for inspection, he presented his guild silver rank badge.

"Hey, let 'em through. Special orders from the town lord!" Called out another guard who seemed to be in charge at the gate. The guard captain was familiar to him as he had seen him plenty of times before, since this gate was the one they mostly have used. With that, they were let in without any hassle.

"Vulcan, speed it up please. I'm starting to get tired over here," Jess said with a straining voice.

Redoubling his efforts, he walked at a much faster pace towards the guild. Once they got to the guild, there was a place in the back of the building where he could leave the wagon. Finding a spot, he told her to gently lower the head to see if the cart could hold it. With some concentration, she lowered it as the cart let out a few groans, but in the end, it was fine.

"Vulcan, you're actually alive!" Yelled the guild master as he came out of the back door of the guild building. Turning around, he also saw Marchioness Valeria with him.

"I appreciate the confidence you have in me and my team," said Vulcan, "Marchioness Valeria, a pleasure to see you once again," as his team bowed before her.

"It's wonderful to see you again as well, Vulcan. Esteban and I were just discussing about sending Lucius's team to go find you. Once I recieved word that you arrived in town, we simply waited for you. I take it that since you're back and carrying something on that cart, that you managed to finish the mission. Can you please explain what happened?" Asked Valeria, inquiring about why it took so long for them to come back.

"Well, no need to be rude, my lady, but your information on the wyverns was not exactly the best. In the intel you gave us, it was said that only a small group of wyverns numbering around 5-10 were spotted. It never informed us that this thing was going to be there," he explained as he cut the ropes holding the tarp together and revealing the massive head of the Alpha wyvern. The lord along with her butler and knight were stunned as well as speechless.

"That's a-" coughed the guild master as he choked, "That's a damn Calamity beast Alpha Wyvern!" Yelled Esteban as he ran up to the head and hugged it. He ran his hands across the scales covering the mouth of the thing. "How much? Tell me how much you want for it!?!?" He yelled as he grabbed onto Vulcan's shoulders and shook him. He probably wanted to buy it off of him so the guild master could add it to his wall of head mounts.

"Esteban, can you please relax, we have more pressing things to ask!" Ordered Valeria as she collected herself from the surprise from earlier. "Vulcan while I can certainly see that you have brought back sufficient proof of your claim of the mission completion. But that also brings many more questions, can you please explain what happened? Calamity beasts can't be easily slain you know." Asked Valeria as she had her full attention on what he had to say.

Preparing on what he was going to say, Vulcan went on to explain what had happened. Leaving out details such as the ore vein, Wyvern eggs, silver-grade herb, and things about his own personal abilities. In the end, he told them that he had basically done the same stunt from the ant queen fight. He allowed himself to get eaten and then killed the thing from inside out. Although suspicious of him, Valeria couldn't arrest or punish him. This was a Calamity beast that his team saved her town from after all. That and the fact that their were 20 other smaller wyverns that they also dealt with.

"So did you leave the bodies without at least dismantling them?" Esteban asked afterwards.

"Unfortunately, yes. Their were many strong beasts around and we were tired after the fight. We were only able to take their cores as well as some of these from the Alpha," Vulcan said as a sentry passed one of two bags it was carrying that was filled with scales they collected off the body of the Alpha.

Esteban examined a scale, using his knuckles he tapped on the hard thing. "These are of impressive quality; you can have an experienced Smith ground these down and mix them with an equally strong metal to create some armor or weapon of unique quality. But if that's not what you want, you can sell it to them for dozens of platinum coins," Esteban explained.

"Wait wait, they can mix it with metal?" Vulcan asked in surprise. He had earlier thought of inspecting the scales to see if they could be used to make him a rank 4 sentry body. With how strong they were, he thought it would work, but the system didn't identify them as a material he can use to make a sentry body.

"Yeah, you didn't know that?" Esteban asked in bewilderment as Vulcan shook his head.

"Well if they mix it with an iron rank metal, then they can make a silver-grade ingot with the scales probably—" He explained before Vulcan interrupted him.

"What about a rank 3 met...I mean a silver-grade metal!?" Vulcan waited impatiently. He knew these backwards people used the same system of their cultivation on the metals as well. If a rank 1 metal was earth ranked, then rank 2 would be bronze ranked and so on.

"Well then they would be able to make a gold rank ingot," said Esteban.

With this new information he now had, maybe now it would be possible to get a rank 4 ingot if it was an alloy made with the scales. He wanted to run immediately to the closest smithy, but he had to remain composed without acting too strange in front of the guild master and town lord.

Thankfully for him, something else distracted everyone's attention from his behavior as the cart that was holding onto the Alpha's head collapsed and fell apart.