Guests

"Twenty-seven Beast Cores, three complete and the rest of varying degree. Seven unappraised Skill Runes. twenty-nine 3-Star and Six 4-Star Monsters to be delivered butchered, not including the meat as it would be kept by the Seeker's Guild. There will be no tax as Sir Isaac generously donated the majority of his catch to everyone. The other twenty percent of the hunt would be split to those who died in the Night Raid, the other Twenty Percent to the Seekers the rest was given to be split to the four Leaders."

"Is that all?"

"Yes, Lady Yulia."

"Then you may leave. If you have any questions for inventory, ask Oliver who is outside."

The messenger was dismissed soon after leaving Yulia alone in her office. She read the documents she was handed and then placed them aside.

'Although 40 percent of Isaac's solo hunt will go to the Knights, we are still the one who won the most. At first sight it looks like they have more, but because the Knights have more people and spent the most, monsters, cores and some Skill Runes will not be enough because we'll have full rights to the subjugated Forest and Mountain.'

Land, the most important treasure held close by big and small powers. Land was hard to come by as one could not easily claim an unclaimed region as their own by planting a flag and shouting the loudest that the land was theirs.

To earn the right of claiming an unnamed land it must first be subjugated. Subjugation was not something so easily done. Monsters weren't so easily defeated and their number would overwhelm forces that's equal to their own.

For a subjugation to succeed a large force must be expended, that means a lot of resources being expended. Unless a perfect plan was to be implemented, death would happen. With deaths, training new recruits would become necessary, which also means another set of resources being expended as well as a huge amount of time.

A subjugation would also dictate the politics of organizations depending on how it goes.

A subjugation was not as simple as one man recruiting people and killing monsters. Subjugation was politics.

'because it was Isaac who cleared it under our banner, by the Law of Subjugation no one would be able to contend for the right of ownership after the Church lost it to monsters. We might have to give up parts of it to them if they claim they weakened their forces, but the crux of the matter is that it was Isaac who slew the Anarchy Lord.' Yulia's eyes turned to slits.

She got up from her seat and then looked out her window that reflected her proud smile back to her, 'I knew Isaac was great as Father claimed him to be, but he's exceeded my expectations.'

Yulia does not know how Isaac did it, but, the fact of the matter is, he managed to defeat the enemy alone, 'Thanks to him we managed to start building the Tower. It appears I owe him a lot, I'll have to give him something when he returns.'

"My Lady, someone has come to see you."

The door behind Yulia opened and Oliver, the head Butler, walked in.

"Who is it?"

"They say they are friends of Sir Isaac and they have a letter of recommendation."

"Isaac's… friends?" accepting the letter, Yulia opened it and began reading.

Its contents were simple, telling her that those who arrived were people he knew and at the end of the letter were the words, [I know what truly happened to the Mountain] followed by an illustration of a skull and Demonic Red Eyes, 'This is our agreed code to ensure there's no forgery… so this means that Isaac really isn't coming back?'

It took her a while to think but eventually Yulia had Oliver, whoever these people were, into her office. Three people walked in, an Archdemon, a little human girl hiding behind the Archdemon and a Draconid.

'From his eyes he might be an Archdemon or a Demon Lord. The little girl might be his daughter and from the way the Draconid only wears his pants and wears a bracelet of fang… he's a Shaman or a Priest of some God, but I don't know who.'

Being a Town Lord of a town that wants to have transactions all throughout the multiverse, Yulia was well-versed in identifying people. She picked apart clues, but he was unsure of who they truly were, the only thing she was sure about was that they were not lying.

"What can I do for you?" she asked.

"Good Day, Lady Yulia, my name is Kartari, this one here is Mia and he is Davil. We've come from afar after brother Isaac pointed us the way after speaking your name with great favor."

Tari introduced himself with poise, and Davil just looked at him, his mouth agape, 'This little….' he did not think that Tari could ever be civilized yet, here he was.

Tari continued, "We ask for nothing more than to give this little one shelter for a while. If payment is needed, it would not be a problem… as for why…."

Flicking his wrist, Tari summoned a blue flame.

A knife quickly appeared on Tari's neck in response, the old butler whispering, "Do you want to die?"

"No, I mean no harm."

"Mean no harm? Summoning such strong flames in an enclosed space and you call that meaning no ha-"

"Grandpa Oliver… wait." Yulia called out for Oliver to stop as the letter changed. Invisible letters appeared when the map was heated. Word by word it appeared and when she got to the last letter, the paper turned to ashes.

Yulia looked at Mia with widened eyes.

Mia hid behind Tari, shy and somewhat afraid.

'...the Anarchy Lord!?' Yulia couldn't believe her eyes.

She just laughed as she slapped her forehead.

***

Slash!

With a swing of his Scythe, Isaac killed the monster he'd been hunting for the past three hours. As its blood flowed, Isaac took its life and his mind suddenly got heavier, it almost turned dark, but… he held onto his consciousness though with great difficulty.

"The Scythe gets stronger the more I can kill and I killed at least three dozen of those monsters. It infects my mind and then whispers for me to kill until I don't know if I am me anymore and everything goes black and I can't remember anything."

Isaac found the Scythe from a wandering warrior possessed by the frenzy. The wielder had been fighting for ten days, killing over a hundred people, both young and adult. Isaac received a request from the Guild to take care of the matter. Isaac killed the previous wielder and when couldn't destroy the Scythe, he kept it. It became another answer to his growing problem.

'I had always been able to keep it in check. I killed more than three dozen of those rats and I was able to keep my sanity. However, this time… I was taken over even when I didn't want to. That was not a pleasant experience. Is the Scythe getting strong or am I getting weaker?' Isaac asked the question as he continued his journey deeper into Inhilgar carrying the Scythe that needed to be mastered.

Five days later, Isaac arrived at his destination and before him stood before the ruins of a long lost empire.

'Finally, I'm about to find out about the truth.' Isaac excitedly ran into the ruins.