Tales of The Mighty Dragonair

Arthur felt her desire to stand beside Omar, for fear of his retaliation. He just inwardly sighed, questioning himself how they were seeing him, he wasn't a monster after all.

"No problem, they were just lured by the guarding monster of this garden, tricked to flip sides and attack us," Arthur said, explaining to everyone what happened.

Omar nodded in appreciation to Amelia, as he thought, wrongly, he was spared from Arthur's wrath this time because she stood beside him. He was sure if Arthur went serious, he would end in no better state as these mages. After all, they all had a similar level of strength.

"Let's rest for an hour, then we will head back towards the camp," Arthur said, as he moved out of his place. everyone just glanced at him in doubt, and then they watched him taking all the living monsters into his ring. As for the dead, they didn't need to take any instruction from him, as they were planning to get their revenge by grilling their meat, and eat them to get stronger.

Arthur took roughly two hours to get all the monsters in his ring. Despite emptying it from before, the ring was getting crowded again, making him plan to replace it with a better one later on.

"I left all the living pythons to you to kill and cook. Make sure to store their oil, and if any other kind of monster produces another type of oil, just store them separately, and make sure to remember these monsters," Arthur gave his final instructions, before heading back with ten mages only, Amelia, Omar, and Clovert. The daylight was just getting brighter when they reached the mountain, to find the monster tide there was still active, with many three and four horned monsters than before.

Arthur was content with what he had so far, so he decided to end the battle here. Once he reached the peak of the mountain, he took the carcass back inside his ring, and then he waited until all the monsters dispersed or were killed or wounded by his team's attacks.

When the battle finished, and under the daylight, the mountain, which once was mighty and huge, was now tattered in many deep and big pits. A lot of its ores were lying along the body of it.

Arthur then took his rhinoceros back, and then summoned Don, and ordered it to go to each pit and try to smash it as hard as it could. Don was grateful for Arthur to give it this task, and it started to work with great devotion, making these pits deeper and deeper.

Arthur then started to move and collect everything, dead monsters, wounded monsters, ores scattered everywhere, and even the burnt down trees.

When he was collecting monster's bodies at the garden entrance, he noticed the charcoal formed from the burnt trees. It wasn't just any type of charcoal, but a special material that could be used in forging and making any fire ignite hotter and longer.

So, he started to pay attention to this new material, collecting as much as he could find. That made him take longer, as when the six hour passed, he had finally ended from wrapping everything, and his ring was really full.

"It's time to go back," he said, as he wanted to focus on strengthening everyone just before the decisive battle with that ancient demon.

He wasn't that worried from that demon, as if his team's strength was lower than it, it wouldn't tend to use these dirty tricks, and waited calmly and patiently until they attacked it.

But its urgency and nervousness were evidence of its weakness. Arthur just didn't want to take any more risks, as he had losses in the last fight, the first time to lose someone since he came to this world.

This was an indication of the low strength of the team especially those newly recruited one. He knew they didn't enjoy the same treatment as his team, but that wasn't an excuse at all.

Arthur started to contemplate all the way back, as he was now diving deeply inside his ring, searching for any suitable monster for each and every single one of his friends.

There were two issues here, first the compatibility of the monster with their abilities and talents. As for the issue of choosing one horned or two horned or more from his reserve inside his ring was the second matter he had to think through.

The first monster his three friends coupled with was no horned at all. This seemed logical at first, but he knew his friends' strength had grown massively since last time, and thus using no horned monster wasn't an option.

He decided to go with one horned monster first, and see if they could handle it. he wasn't worried about them, he was worried he might have underestimated their growth and potential.

For once he regretted not doing that in the academy, where he could use the academy resources to better test his theories, but again he couldn't unveil such huge secrets to anyone there. so, even if he was there, he couldn't get a greater advantage than now.

They reached the camp at the garden after noon. Arthur instructed them to go and help his friends in cooking meat, as he started to unpack his already full ring, dumping all the killed monsters' bodies on the ground.

He was also lucky to collect many pythons kind monsters, as he highly valued these monsters, so he even took the wounded and left them to his party to deal with.

He, finally, had a moment of peace, as he needed to rest his exhausted body, but not mind, as he still had to rethink again about the coupling process he was going to make.

The only nuisance that disturbed him all the time was that guardian voice, as it didn't stop asking him to accept his allegiance, and even promised to accept any binding contract.

Arthur wasn't stupid to listen to its faked pleading voice, as he clearly knew how scary this ancient demon could be if it regained part of its former powers. No contract could be able to bind it, no matter how harsh or strong that contract was.

So, amidst all this noisy voice that he couldn't control, he started to rethink his plans, trying to find any possible means to upgrade them.

At the same time, the whole stretch of burnt forest went on fire again, this time it was cooking pits, as Ouly took charge of this process, while every single member of the group followed his instructions to the letter, trying to learn the godly gift of cooking such awesome meat.