"What's inside them?" Avankor asked hesitantly, before stepping forward to get a closer look.
Using Elmando, Lucius opened a small section of the container, to reveal its contents. Avankor immediately shook his head once he saw what was inside.
"The half you gave us yesterday was a feast for my people, I couldn't possibly take two whole ones from you. And besides, we have nothing to trade in exchange for them. I'm sorry Havon, but I can't accept these," Avankor said.
Lucius had been expecting him to say something like this. However, the fact was that Lucius himself had no use for two whole Gargans either. And vacuum-storing them could only slow down the rotting so much. If he didn't want these creatures to go to waste, this was the only way to go about it.
"Tell me, have you ever heard of something called credit?" he asked after some thought, to which Avankor slowly shook his head.
"It's a concept in trade, where one side offers something, and the other side promises to repay them at a later stage. Simple, right?" he explained.
Though from Avankor's expression, he could tell that the king wasn't fond of this concept.
"How can you be certain that the other side will repay you? What if they choose not to honor the trade and disappear," Avankor asked, shaking his head in disapproval.
"That's why credit is only reserved for those who you trust. If you were to disappear without paying me, the loss of our trade relationship would be worse than whatever goods you could've stolen," Lucius explained.
"Hmm... I see," Avankor whispered in understanding, though he clearly still had his doubts.
"Look, if I don't give these to you they will rot. And I'll be at a loss anyway," Lucius insisted.
Avankor fell into thoughtful silence at this.
"Why don't you give one to Shavak's den?" he asked finally.
Of course, that was an option, however, Lucius had his reasons for not bringing it up. As evil as it sounded, he had to ensure that Shavak's den stayed in a constant state of depression. If he could continuously put them on the brink of starvation, feeding them only enough for them to survive, then the internal turmoil would reach an all-time high.
The people needed to realize that under their current leadership, things would not change. And if they needed to visit death's door to see that, then so be it.
"I already have plans regarding that," he said after some thought. "So? Will you take them?" he added after.
Avankor reluctantly nodded his head, and the two shook on it. He then ordered some guards to come to remove the two containers from Lucius's room.
"If you need anything, anything at all, please ask one of my warriors to come seek me out. Even though this 'credit' thing of yours sounds reasonable, I don't like the feeling of being in debt," he said before leaving Lucius's room.
Once Avankor was finally gone, Lucius looked to one of the bigger containers in the room, before quickly losing interest.
"You can come out now," he said before moving to inspect the other containers.
With that, something began fumbling behind the big container he had been looking at but a moment ago, before Zhayen appeared from behind it.
"Why were you hiding?" Lucius asked as he opened each container to note down their contents.
"How did you know I was there?" Zhayen asked instead.
"I've been in a lot of fights, if I couldn't sense a kid hiding behind a container I'd be dead by now," Lucius replied, before using Elmando to label each container.
"We will be staying with these people for a while, and I'll be leaving the den quite often. It'd be in your best interest to get accustomed to them," he continued.
Zhayen gave an odd expression at this, before mumbling something. It was so soft that the child obviously hadn't wanted Lucius to hear him. Unfortunately for him, Lucius had hyper hearing.
"I'll just sneak out and follow you," was what he had mumbled. Prompting Lucius to sigh in exasperation.
"Come with me. I'll introduce you to one of my children," Lucius said, before leading the child towards Alpha's room.
*
Once they reached the room, they found a thin layer of mist wafting through the air, and Alpha in the center doing one-armed push-ups. His entire body was glowing, indicating that he was using radiant cowl, and from the moisture drenching his entire body it was clear he had been doing this for quite some time.
Zhayen was immediately interested, taking a seat near Alpha's 'healing bath' before Lucius could even say a word.
Though Lucius had to admit, even he was a little impressed. For there to be literal mist in the air meant that the heat Alpha was producing was nothing to scoff at, at the very least he had been doing this for a few hours.
~Now that I think about it, I wonder if the loss of his arm has reduced his stats,~ Lucius thought to himself before opening Alpha's status screen.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Creature Details ☽⋅─────•
[Alpha Elwood ]
[Level 16: 0/1600]
[Leaf Being [Armored-Variation] [81%]
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────
[Agility: 400]-Maxed
[Strength: 200->400]-Maxed
[Stamina: 400]-Maxed
─────⋅☾ Titles ☽⋅─────
『First to the event』-Inactive
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
~So his stats really had been reduced,~ Lucius thought to himself, the arrow indicating that Alpha's strength stat had just recently increased -no doubt due to the extremely strenuous workout he was currently doing.
Though as Lucius looked at all the other details, he found himself suprised at a few things. For one, he hadn't realized that Alpha was at a higher level than he was.
┏━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┓
─────⋅☾ Creature Details ☽⋅─────•
[Lucius Elwood ]
[Level 10: 160/1000]
[Laendryte Rojo [Guardian] [66%]
─────⋅☾ Stats ☽⋅─────
[Agility: 790 ]
[Strength: 790]
[Stamina: 790]
┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛
And despite everything Lucius had done thus far, he hadn't gained any titles either. Though if this revealed anything, it was that subsidiaries of the system were treated more leniently than the actual user.
For instance, he noticed back when the commune was still together that Pagan's level increased through trivial things, like training. Whereas Lucius had to complete very specific quests.
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