On the move again, the party traversed Medous Forest with its reserved-tempered members trailing slightly behind Zalroth. As he walked, his animosity oozed from him like a potent poison, sending shivers of dread through Nagami's psyche due to her proximity to Zalroth; the sensation was entirely suffocating, giving the others the feeling of multiple elephants being stacked on their shoulders. Unlike the others, Metsu whimpered, drudging her feet through the ground in a strop, her mind utterly preoccupied with not getting the very rare-grade monster core and sinking her spirits into the gutter.

  "But... very rare copy...," Metsu uttered meekly, her voice filled with sorrow at the prospect of her giant fly beetle mount still being beyond her grasp. Fueled by Metsu's sulking, the more outspoken members of the party cast their eyes filled with annoyance at the back of Zalroth's skull, and not so subtlety letting him know he should say something. Despite the piercing glares of his companions, Zalroth paid the others no mind, keeping the majority of his focus on checking, but reluctantly decided to address the others so their annoyance wouldn't come back to bite him.

  "Look, we don't know how rare these things are so we can't go wasting- using them on anything other than Dungeon Arches until we can get a steady supply," Zalroth stated calmly while Nagami piggybacked on him. Despite trying to subdue it, his annoyance at not acquiring the power-boosting ability crept through his calm facade, manifesting as a fixed unmoving glare. Metsu lowered her head, meekly accepting what she knew to be true as the group needed the monster core for when they found a very rare dungeon arch.

  "I know...," Metsu whimpered in resignation. Her pitful sigh slashed right through the other, the strength of her sadness being too much for them to bear. It brought them to their metaphorical knees with an overwhelming pang of guilt in their hearts from not finding any retort for Zalroth, knowing he was most probably correct. A small pebble hit the back of Zalroth's head in time followed by a spiteful huff. Zalroth glanced behind himself, catching Nowa staring daggers at him with enough venom in them to kill someone many times over.

  "You have such a way with words don't you, Leader," Nowa remarked teasingly, extenuating her use of the word leader to antagonize Zalroth. Involuntarily twitching, Zalroth could feel his fingers curl with minor irritation, in both a mental and physical sense.

  "look as soon as we find another monster with one Metsu can have it-". Right as he finished his sentence, a recently made monster corpse crashed right in front of Zalroth and he could only frown, not from the corpse appearing itself but from it deciding to show up after he'd already incurred his allies' wrath.

  "How do you do it?" Nagami uttered in bewilderment, left to ponder on how Zalroth can have such practical bad luck. Zalroth scoffed at the question, whipping out his silver combat knife from his inventory before slashing it through the bear-like monster and cleaving it in half. Returning his knife to his inventory with a minor flash, Zalroth aggressively swiped his hand between the monster's two halves and tossed a reflective object behind himself in one swift movement.

  "There you go," Zalroth uttered exhaustedly as the very rare monster core landed on top of Metsu's head, landing with a light thud and remaining perfectly balanced in place. Nagami lightly giggled at Metsu's shocked expression while Kaiea inquisitively gazed up to the sky through the hole in the forest roof left by the monster.

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  "Say, where do you think that thing even came from? I mean, Zalroth's unexplainable bad luck is one thing but it can't just poof things into existence," Kaira murmured cheekily, speaking with a sultry tone as he playfully nudged an unamused Kaze in the arm.

  "It most likely got flung here by the Level fifty-thousand dragon over there," Zalroth stated calmly while the others turned a sickly white from the sudden news. The others were too stunned to speak, the effortlessness and calmness at their assigned leader's delivery only making their stunned states even more prevalent.

  "YOU CAN'T JUST DROP THAT ON US SO CALMLY!!" Nagami exclaimed in terror as she grabbed Zalroth's head and frantically shook him.

  "You're overreacti-".

  "How can you say I'm overreacting!" Nagami yelled, cutting Zalroth off as she shook his head once again. Nowa placed a hand to her chin, rubbing it like a wise man with a beard. Watching his cohort's bizarre thinking method, Kaze rolled his eyes dismissively.

  "You know that doesn't make you think better, right? I've tried" Kaze remarked casually, causing Nowa to turn slightly rosy-cheeked from embarrassment.

  "Talking from experience, eh?" Nowa mumbled before lowering her hand and adding, "I was just wondering, did the dragon intentionally send that monster here because of Metsu's sulking?". Aside from Zalroth, everyone turned their heads at Nowa, the colouration in their faces returning as the implication of her question hit them.

  "As in... it's got a detection skill like... Zalroth?" Metsu muttered, left in a state of mortification as she clasped the very rare monster core resting on her head with staggered movements.

  "A passive ability that extends over a distance that's within their domain, a skill to convert plant life into a synthetic floral metal...," Zalroth whispered as he stared at the floating RPG screen before him, the monstrously long list getting a shiver of excitement from Zalroth.

  "You better not think of fighting it, dummy," Nagami murmured sternly, pouting and puffing up her cheeks as she rubbed her finger in circles against Zalroth's cheek. With the flick of his finger, Zalroth unsummoned the skill screen before standing up straight and punching himself in the back to free the tension in his spine.

  "Of course not, I'm not about to attack someone who saved my back," Zalroth stated firmly. As the girl continued to poke his face, Zalroth raised a hand before he flicked Nagami's finger off his face and got her to eep with shock. The blacksmith meekly rubbed her redden finger, her face wincing from pain. The stinging from Zalroth's strike permeated her hand, ushering her to act before she shoved her finger in her mouth and instantly felt relief as her expression softened.

  "So, we're skipping an interaction with the dragon, Zalroth?" Nowa asked amusedly.

  "If you have time to ask rhetorical questions, you can help Metsu budget her copies points or whatever it's called," Kaze remarked under his breath. At hearing Kaze's remark, Nowa glanced down at Metsu before flinching in offended terror as she watched Metsu spamming all the shadow points into SPD. Metsu peered up from her RPG screens and puzzledly looked around.

  "Wha?" Metsu muttered quietly before slowly and shamefully resending all her assigned shadow points.

  [Philip Algouse][Level: 127]

  [HP: 10][Hexa: 2550]

  [Class: Potion Mixologist]

  [Vitality: 1][Stamina: 1]

  [Attack: 1][Hexa Proficiency: 200](40 sill tokens)

  [Defence: 1][intelligence: 255]

  [Agility: 50][Speed: 1]

  [Avalible Points: 143]

  [Unique Skill]

  [Potion Synthesis]

  -The user can combine identical potions to increase their grade/rarity-

  [Skills]

  [Inspect(Potion)]

  -The user can see the status of any potion-

  [Abilities]

  [Super Potion Splunking][Unique][Passive]

  -The user can make potions extra potent, increasing their effectiveness by 555%-

  [Unothidox Materials][Unique][Passive]

  -The user can use things to make potions-

  [Quality Assurances][Passive]

  -When the user collects materials they are always Mid-quality at a minimum-

  [Nakamai Sakamoto][Level: 1]

  [HP: 1215][Hexa: 1725]

  [Class: Abyssal Devourer]

  [Vitality: 121.5][Stamina: 1]

  [Attack: 120][Hexa Proffiency: 1]

  [Defence: 182.5][intelligence: 172.5]

  [Agility: 21][Speed: 99]

  [Unqiue Skills]

  [No Unique Skills]

  [Skills]

  [No Skills]

  [Ability]

  [Hunger From The Abyss][Passive][Unique]

  -The user can endlessly eat things and never gets hungry or full-

  [Abyss Power][Passive][Unique]

  -Eating monsters increases the user's stats depending on the rarity of the monster-

  -The user's stat(s) won't increase if the corresponding stat is equal to or less than the user's, and the stat increase can not exceed the stat of the monster being eaten-

  -Only one stat(s) increase can happen per monster--Common gives 5% of highest stat-

  -Uncommon gives 15% of the two highest stats-

  -Rare gives 35% of highest stat-

  -Very Rare gives 45% of the two highest stats-

  -Super gives 45% of the highest stat, and 25% of the second and third-highest stats-

  -Legendary gives 50% of the highest stat, 35% of the second and third highest stats, and 20% of all other stats-

  -Unique gives 80% highest stat and 45% of all other stats-

  [Abyssal Dependence][Passive][Unique]

  -The User doesn't get stat points from levelling up nor can they level up-