Ryan forgot to ask Haruna a few things about Yomotsu Shikome, but in the end, he decided that he already knew plenty about her abilities. She was a necromancer that could use illusion magic. That was all that he needed to know. In any case, now Ryan had to attack the weakened black tortoises. However, he decided to rest for the night, but he just used some spells on himself to level up his resistance after a while.

"Self-harm, huh," Femradiel said. "You are crossing a dangerous road."

"It is not like I have any other choice," Ryan said. "I can't let myself get wounded in the middle of real fights."

"It looks like you have a hard time against that undead creature, you could have easily solved the problem by using Draconic Transformation," Femradiel said.

"I solved the situation without relying on it and that is all that matters," Ryan said.

That had been a pretty unpleasant night, considering that Ryan had decided to just rest. Regardless, while it was only natural that Ryan would be good at dodging, even that has its demerits. It doesn't happen often, but it happens. Even weak attacks cause a lot of damage since Ryan, pretty much on a daily basis, faced monsters much more powerful than him.

"I have to take a few hours every day to train my resistances," Ryan got up when the sun began to rise. "Otherwise, it will come a day where just the blast of wind caused by the movements of some monsters will make me fly dozens of meters."

After resuming his journey, Ryan found a few dungeons here and there, and much to his surprise, they weren't being guarded. However, he found that those places have spawned thousands of monsters.

"It looks like the humans working with the black tortoises caused some dungeon breaks before they left this area," Ryan said, slightly annoyed. "They don't want to make things easier for us."

"This is a good opportunity for me," Femradiel said. "Let Furball, the eagle and me fight against some of those to gain some mana. We are not the only ones fighting here, so we don't have to rush ahead without making some preparations, right?"

Ryan considered the proposal. The monsters were only some salamanders, so Femradiel had the elemental advantage, and Furball was strong enough to sweep the ground with those monsters. Ryan also needed more essences to make the special potions, so that really was an excellent opportunity for everyone.

"Go on," Ryan said after using some potions on Femradiel, Furball, and the Steel Eagle.

While his pets were playing with the salamanders, Ryan used that chance to sell some of the crossbows he lent to Haruna and the others. He also used Mana-Eater on others to give a hand to Femradiel. Even though she was weaker than before, she still had been pivotal in the last fight.

"I guess I need more of them," Ryan said while looking at his three pets. "The Steal Eagle eventually won't be able to keep up with Furball and Femradiel, so it looks like that I reached a point where some summoned creatures and tamed monsters aren't that useful in small numbers."

Relying too much on monsters wasn't something Ryan wanted to do since his best skills could only shine against hordes of them, but in the end, he couldn't deny how useful Furball and Femradiel were… he needed more creatures like them. Still, finding those that had a lot of potential would be difficult. After all, Ryan only found a single creature that decided to make a pact with him in six months.

While Ryan was thinking about that, his Awareness alerted him of a presence behind him. Ryan summoned his shield and turned around, only to see three men wearing traditional Japanese red armor and carrying two katanas on their waist. He immediately recognized those… that was what Femradiel mentioned as appearing out of nowhere.

"What do you want?" Ryan asked.

"… Haruna and the others already reached the capital," One of the guard-looking men said. "Our master wants to know why you didn't come with them."

"I am not interested in working with you guys," Ryan said.

"We will pass the message to our master," The guard said. "If you don't want to work with us, that is fine. However, our master would like to ask you not to kill any more survivors."

"That will depend if they will point their weapons at me or not," Ryan said.

The guards' gaze on Ryan grew more severe, but they didn't do anything. After a few moments, they just vanished in the air, and Ryan couldn't feel their presence with Awareness anymore.

"Are you fine with that?" Femradiel asked. "Maybe you should take a look at the guy."

"I am not interested," Ryan said.

"That is fine, but you should at least try to play nice with your friends in their backyard," Femradiel said. "As far as I can see, you already became enemies of too many monsters, you don't need to become enemies of humans as well."

"You sure seem like a pacifist, even though you tried to devour me the first time we met," Ryan said.

Despite saying that, Ryan considered Femradiel's advice. While he claimed that he put his anger on check, it looked like it wasn't that simple. He was naturally predisposed to distrust and be rude toward others that he couldn't understand.

"While fighting with my group alone, things will probably proceed well," Ryan nodded to himself. "Unless the so-called guardian of Tokyo isn't an idiot, he will probably attack the monsters' base at the same moment I decide to attack. However, I need to prepare some countermeasures in case Seiryu and Suzaku decide to join the fight."

That would be hard since Ryan didn't take a proper look at those monsters yet, but based on what he heard from Haruna, Seiryu was a dragon that used wind and water, and Suzaku is essentially a firebird. It wasn't a lot of intel, but it was a start…