Give me the reward

"Darkening!" — Drayan shouted to the wolf.

"Woof!" — Darkening got the message.

Darkening propelled himself forward, leaving a crack in the ground.

The wolf shot like a missile towards the creatures. Drayan held his dagger firmly.

Darkening and Drayan passed by the boy at tremendous speed, and threw themselves at the group of 30 fierce monkeys.

With the speed of the running wolf, combined with the strength of Drayan's modified-level body and his mutant-level dagger, the high-level evolved monkeys were easy prey.

The first one that approached had its head cut off. The second was split in two. The third was sliced into four parts.

Drayan passed among the monkeys, decapitating each of them using his left arm. He might have been using a dagger, but his attack range was so large it seemed like he was wielding a sword.

His hand moved so agilely that it gave the impression he could stretch his hand like a rubber man.

Just the wind generated by the movement of his hands moving the dagger increased his attack area, causing the monkeys to be hit and fall one by one.

The speed of Darkening running and Drayan moving was so fast that the monkeys couldn't react.

There were 30 monkeys; Drayan killed 25 of them at a terrifying speed. Drayan was like an elephant crushing an army of squirrels.

The monkeys had no chance. The five that were farther away realized how dangerous that human on top of a wolf was, so the five ran away.

Drayan let them flee; it wasn't worth chasing them when Drayan didn't know the forest well yet. Besides, they were just evolved creatures; it wasn't worth hunting them when Drayan had several bodies of evolved monkeys under the wolf's feet.

Drayan dismounted from the wolf and took a better look at the bodies.

"Great. We'll have monkey soup today." — Drayan smiled.

"You... Thank you so much, savior! You're my hero!" — The runaway boy hugged Drayan's body.

Drayan stared at him seriously before pushing him away with his hand.

"Don't think I saved you because I'm a nice guy. The reward, I want it now."

When the boy heard Drayan's words, he wilted like a flower without water, and the smile on his face slowly faded.

"Why think about the reward now? Let's talk a bit. How about we eat the evolved monkeys-"

"Tell me! Do you have the reward or not?" — Drayan pointed the tip of his dagger at the boy's neck.

The boy raised his arms, and sweat began to trickle down his forehead. His legs started trembling, and it seemed he was about to urinate.

To the boy, Drayan or the pack of monkeys were the same, both too dangerous.

Drayan, seeing how scared the boy was, relented and removed the dagger from the boy's neck.

His body relaxed, and the boy fell to his knees on the ground.

"I thought you were going to kill me..."

"I don't kill without a good reason. And besides, I gain nothing from it. Now, help me gather the monkey meat, you must at least be useful for that."

Drayan said coldly, and turned his back to the boy. Drayan started gathering the meat along with Darkening and placed it near a tree trunk.

"My name is Tone."

"I didn't ask your name."

"Well... It's just that... Really, you're right, I'm sorry. It's just that I have a strange personality..."

"Whatever. My name is Drayan. Now stop the unnecessary chatter and gather the meat, if you don't do it, I won't give you any monkey meat."

"Wait... You're going to give me some meat? Thank you so much! You're an angel!"

Angel? Soon he'll call me a fallen angel. — Drayan thought for a moment, with a small smile on his face.

With all that excitement, Tone jumped into Drayan's arms.

"Hug me again, and I'll make you food for my wolf."

Tone looked at the wolf that was shredding the monkey's body using his claws and mouth. The bloodied wolf looked at Tone and bared his teeth. It was as if the wolf was saying that he could tear Tone apart at any moment, just waiting for an order.

The only thing preventing Darkening from doing so was Drayan's command.

Seeing the wolf looking at him with such bloodlust made Tone's legs tremble again.

"Sorry..." — Tone then retreated sadly, away from Drayan and the wolf.

Tone began gathering the evolved monkey meat calmly.

In a short time, the 25 bodies were gathered together, like a mountain of corpses.

"That's what I call a feast."

"Can we eat now?"

"Sure, take your share." — Drayan then tossed a headless monkey body to Tone.

Tone picked up the body and looked dissatisfied.

"Just this?"

"What? You want more? If you want, just hunt."

"You know very well I can't do that." — Tone stomped his foot on the ground, full of indignation.

Drayan just decided to ignore the boy's childish behavior.

Drayan smiled and sat down to eat a monkey leg, next to Darkening who was eating an entire body.

"Why are you being selfish? You have so much meat. It won't hurt to lend a bit."

Drayan continued ignoring him.

...

A few minutes passed since then.

"Alright! What do I need to do for you to divide the meat equally?" — Tone asked, frustrated with the situation.

Divide equally? I kill all the creatures along with Darkening, and he wants me to divide the meat equally with him? This guy is irritating me.

Drayan remained calm and thought about taking advantage of the current situation.

"You should know. But you owe me a reward, and I haven't received it yet. First, give me a valuable reward, then I'll think about giving you a bit more meat."

"Damn! Alright! I'll give you something! Two creatures! I'll send my genes and microorganisms that can summon two modified creatures!"

"Modified?" — That caught Drayan's attention.

"Yes, exactly, I'll give you two modified creatures, so give me at least 10 pieces of monkey meat, and get me out of this scary forest, please! I feel like I'm going to die if I stay here!"

Drayan could understand Tone's fear, but Drayan knew when to pity someone, and currently, he didn't pity Tone.

"Hey, you like to live, right?"

"What?" — Tone swallowed dryly at the question.

"Don't play dumb. Tell me, how can someone as weak as you hunt two modified-level creatures?"

"It's because... It's because... I killed them when they were pups!" — He shouted, closing his eyes.

"Then summon them. I want to see these two creatures."

"I can't... They're very dangerous, you know? And I also can't control them. For our safety, it's better I don't do it..."

Dangerous, huh?

Drayan thought about the possibility of these two creatures being as strong as Cent. There are some pups that are very large too.

If that's true, it would indeed be dangerous to summon them, but... That's obviously a lie.

Drayan could understand it was a lie for one reason. Someone with two modified-level creatures would die to evolved-level monkeys? Even if the creatures were dangerous and he didn't have control over them, it doesn't make sense for him to let the monkeys kill him when he could use those two creatures and seize an opportunity to escape.

And his creatures aren't pups? He can't even control two pups? Even if the pups are adults now, he should still be able to store his creatures in his body in case they wanted to devour him. But of course, he would have to be quick to do so and have minimal control over them.

With so many errors, Drayan concluded it was a lie.

Does he think I'm an idiot? Pretending to be dumb won't help him. It's likely he would give me two evolved creatures instead of modified ones. — Drayan frowned.

Tone was playing with danger. He wanted to grab ten pieces of meat and still use Drayan as his protector, all through manipulation. But Tone's plan was completely destroyed by Drayan's reasoning.

"I understand your plan. Give me two reasons not to kill you."

Drayan cast a frightening look. Tone thought he was facing a modified creature when he felt the threatening presence coming from that human with a scarred face and one arm.

This guy... From his scars, I can tell he has a lot of fighting experience... I feel he has been on the brink of death many times, all my instincts tell me I have to be careful with him...

A red aura, emanating pure killing intent, was gradually coming out of Drayan's body.

Tone didn't know what to answer, but he knew his next words would save his life.

Tone's face was sweating as if he were inside a hot oven.

Tone swallowed dryly, clenched his fists, and gathered the courage to speak in the face of Drayan's terrifying presence.

"I'll give you my sister!" — These were his words.