Three days later.
"Seriously, I don't understand why captain is even allowing this…" Edward grumbled to himself
Currently, Alan, Lucian and Edward were standing at the exit of the knight's order.
Where were they going? To the nearby forest infested with mana beasts.
Gavin granted Alan's request to go beast hunting, and sent Edward to escort them, as Edward had previously been to the forest.
"You've been here before to hunt beasts, haven't you?" Alan looked at Edward.
"Well, yes, it was very hard, and I struggled a lot."
"And I beat you in two seconds, so what's the issue?"
Edward sharply turned his head to Alan with narrowed eyes.
Even after three months, remembering that incident filled him with immense embarrassment.
"Bastard."
"Thanks!"
"It's not a fucking compliment, you moron!"
As they were in the middle of their bickering, footsteps approached them from behind.
The group turned to see who it was, but they could have never expected it'd be Alden and Alessia.
"What are you doing here?" Alan tilted his head.
"I heard you're going beast hunting?" Alden gave his signature crooked smirk. "I hope you come back dead, you filth."
"What the hell?"
Even after a full week of being beaten up, Alden's arrogant behaviour hasn't changed at all.
Though it's strange, his words didn't have the hostility it had when they first met.
Must be some kind of weird characteristic of his.
"Nooooo!" Meanwhile, Alessia was making a scene. "You don't have to go! You could get hurt!"
Lucian couldn't say anything, instead he just intensely stared at Alan for help.
Even Alan was heavily confused by this behaviour of Alessia, and turned a questioning look to Alden.
Even his haughty expression faltered momentarily when looking at his sister causing a scene.
"Can you… uh…"
"Yes…" He even granted Alan's request.
Approaching the panicking Alessia, Alden grabbed her by the back of her collar before dragging her back the way they came from.
"Noooooooooo!" Although her scream continued to echo even as they were going.
"Young master." Lucian's eyes were trembling. "Please do something about her."
"What can I even do though…"
"…Well, are we ready to go?" Edward asked
Alan thought for a moment, usually his mother might have come, tearfully seeing him off, but recently, she's been quite different from before.
Probably watching her son single-handedly beating up soldiers boosted her trust in him.
"Yeah, let's go."
***
The grand duchy of Zevril had ownership of one of the largest city in the continent.
Duskendale, the closet city to the capital of the Northern continent.
And so it was also the responsibility of the Zevril clan to protect the city.
There were numerous forests on the outskirts of the city where mana beasts dwelt.
But it wasn't considered to be dangerous unless you ventured deep into the forest.
As such, it made it a perfect hunting ground for Alan for him to rank up.
…
"Are we there yet?"
"Just a bit more."
"Are we there yet?"
"…a bit more."
"Are we ther-"
"Shut up!" Edward yelled then pointed forward. "You see those stupid trees over there! That's the place!"
"Yay!"
After a few hours of travelling, they finally arrived at the place.
"Hmm, this really just looked like a normal forest." Alan muttered to himself.
In his past life he had many experience in the forests, as such the surrounding trees seemed quite normal to him.
Edward looked at Alan weird. "You do know almost every forest in the northern continent is infested, right? And forests don't really change just because it is infested with mana beasts."
"Oh, is that so." Alan then nodded. "Alright then! Let's go hunting!"
Alan started bravely walking into the woods with a smile, despite Edward yelling something behind him, but why did that matter.
Alan was truthfully excited, just judging by the name of mana beasts, he was imagining tigers the size of buildings or something like that.
After walking for a while, Edward suddenly called out in a low voice.
"Mana beasts ahead."
"Where!" Alan's face lit up, then turned to where Edward pointed.
He saw something very familiar to him in his past life.
A group of three dwarf creatures that resembled a human.
Except for the dark green skin and the horribly ugly face paired with long ears.
"Goblins…?"
"Eh? How'd you know." Edward looked shocked.
After all, this should be his first time hunting, just how did he recognise the creature so easily?
But Alan's face crumbled, in real time, into obvious disappointment.
"I thought a mana beast would be like a tiger… isn't this better classified as a monster?" Alan whispered more to himself.
"You crazy?!" Again, Edward looked shocked. "Why in god's name would you want a rank 5 beast to appear?!"
"Ah?" It seemed his fantasy did exist, just at a level he couldn't currently deal with.
Well, that lifted his mood quite a bit.
Now with a fresh smile, Alan looked at the three goblins in front of him.
The three of them carried a spear of poor quality.
"Let me do this." Alan stepped up, but nobody stopped him.
…
The goblins were following their natural course of action, hunting beasts to bring back to their base.
As they were walking.
Rustle
The silence was broken by a sudden noise.
"Grrr…" The goblin in the centre ordered the two to halt.
Because it saw a figure standing in front of them, it was Alan.
The three goblins assumed a defensive stance, drawing their spears forward.
"Grr—" The centre goblin didn't get to finish talking.
Instantly, Alan grabbed his face before he could even react.
Then poured mana to his hand, igniting a blast of violet flames in his palm.
Splattt
The point-blank ignition erased the goblins' skull, left with nothing more than a blackened neck.
Without pause, Alan grabbed the falling spear, then hurled it towards the goblin on the left.
"Kurk!" The goblin howled in pain.
"Tch." Alan clicked his tongue, he was aiming for the head, instead struck its shoulder.
The goblin on the right thrusted his spear at Alan's chest.
Alan quickly shifted his hips, then launched a back-kick infused with violet flames.
Splatt
It met the same fate as the first goblin, its head was turned to nothing more than gory pieces of blood and burnt brain matter.
Then he picked up the goblin's spear, then hurled it once again towards the same goblin as before.
"Kuuukk!"
"Tch." the poor goblin this time took the throw straight to the neck, Alan missed the head once more.
Granting it mercy, Alan whipped his hand, decapitating the goblin's neck.
Thump
Then in true Alan fashion the body collapsed.
"The spear really isn't cut out for me..."
Even to this day, Alan hadn't found a suitable weapon for him to use, thus he still stuck to using his fist in most cases.
The only weapons he could comfortably utilise were daggers or short blades.
Because, during his time as a special agent, his secondary weapon was a common military knife.
But his combat style was brutal, which frightened even his comrades.
When it came to a prolonged battle, he impaled the joints of his opponents, then continued his assault while they were practically disabled.
But now as Alan, he was contemplating on his weapon choice, if he didn't have an idea, how would he even gain a soul weapon.
"…Your style is really… efficient." As he was drifting into his thoughts, Edward and Lucian reached the area.
"Mhm." Alan dismissed it with a nod, then asked. "So, how do we use their core?"
"Hah." Edward sighed. "I really don't like doing this."
As Alan tilted his head in confusion, Edward approached one of the bodies of the goblins.
Spurt
Then dug his hand into the goblins' chest.
"What...?" Alan murmured, and even Lucian's expressionless face cracked slightly.
Edward pulled his arm back, and in his hand was a black heart, dripping with crimson blood.
As he held the heart in his hands, Edward's face scrunched in disgust, then tossed the heart to Alan.
As Alan grabbed the heart with confusion, Edward spoke.
"You know where the core is located, right?"
"Ah."
Suddenly, it made sense to him, the mana core of every creature was located deep within the heart, and acted as a secondary heart.
In another way, the heart carried all the mana of the core, as well as the essence of a creature.
So to absorb the mana from the cores of another creature and refined into your own, you ultimately need their heart.
This was also why the heart was so incredibly valuable in the markets.
"Is there... Like some sort of way to do this without having to rip their heart out?" Alan still asked with hope, not because it was disgusting, but it looked like it would waste too much time.
"Well." Edward pondered for a moment. "I'm pretty sure the captain has some sort of manual that lets you absorb the mana right after you kill them?"
"Great, that's the first thing I am learning when we get back." Alan nodded, then again looked confused. "So, how do I do this?"
"Crush it, once you do, you'll see."
Without hesitation, Alan immediately crushed the heart in his hand with a grotesque sound.
But the moment he did, a massive surge of mana suddenly pushed into his palm, then into his blood vessels.
Without waiting for his command, the mana traversed his blood systems, into his heart, then absorbed into his mana core.
'Wow.' That was his first thought, immediately he could feel a difference, the amount his core refined instantly, would be equal to how much it would take him in a week.
"Yeah, I could work with this." Alan smirked to himself.
Meanwhile, Edward already ripped out another heart and tossed it to Lucian, and he went through the same experience Alan did just moments ago.
"Hey, what are you doing." Alan asked, watching Edward ripping out the last heart.
"Think of it as a travel fee." Edward smirked, then crushed the heart in his hand.
"Bastard." Alan pouted and turned his head, then picked up on something.
It was footsteps, to be more precise, the footsteps of the goblins before they ran into Alan.
"Edward, where do these footprints lead?"
"Uh, to their base, I assume?"
Alan smirked. "Let's go then."
"Huh, why would we..."
But Alan was already gone, along with Lucian, who followed behind him.
"What is wrong with these two..."
Edwards complains went unheard and unanswered.
...
Alan was perched atop a thick branch, gazing down below him with a grin.
It was a crudely made village with lined up wooden poles acting as walls and tent as their houses.
But within the village were goblins, many of them running around, others dragging corpses of their victims, Alan could even see some human bodies mixed along the beasts.
"I don't think you should do this..." Edward tried dissuading Alan once more, but he himself knew how useless it was.
Without turning his head, Alan spoke. "Edward, buddy, think about all the benefits here."
Then without even waiting for an answer he jumped down yelling.
"Take the ones only you kill!"
Lucian already joined Alan down below, Edward again sighed before reluctantly joining them.