"I… I did it, Master…"

Stella said as she gasped for air.

​​

The battle with the Evil Beast was unplanned but she managed to win due to the many kendo techniques she used during the fight.

Before Reiji could say something, Stella exclaimed as she was reminded of something…

"I need to use another potion!"

She's alone on her hunt so she had to be extra careful. She quickly took out a half-filled Null Flower Potion to spray towards the corpse…

She can finally relax a bit as she can now be sure that the scent of blood wouldn't just spread around the area…

She then took out her knife to take the core on the wolf's body…

Snap!

As soon as she took out the core, she heard the snapping sound of twigs behind her… She quickly kept her knife and the core to her bag as she assumed her battle stance.

"Eh? Hunters?" Stella muttered after seeing six familiar Hunters approaching her. She doesn't know their names but she sees them around the village from time to time.

"Hello! Sorry to interrupt you Miss Swordsmaster… I'm Marak, leader of the Red Storm Rangers… These are my members, Jared, Polo, Haran, Garehn, and Elran…"

"Mhmm…"

Stella was still wary of these people especially after her experience with that greedy Frank.

She observed the leader, Marak, and noticed that he probably possess several Magic Weapons and Equipment.

Aside from his large stature, he has commonly seen shaggy hair that reveals his craggy, friendly face. His subordinates were similar as they tried to show their friendly faces…

"Don't tell me that you'll say that you found this Phantom Wolf first?"

Stella asked sarcastically after noticing that they would glance at the dead Phantom Wolf from time to time….

"Eh? No, no… It's not like that…We were just amazed by your skills. We're not here to contest that to you… As a matter of fact, we can help you dismantle the wolf free of charge…"

"Oh… That's right… Boss is right… Even though the wolf's meat is not edible, you can still sell its fur, fangs, and eyes…"

The one who was introduced as Jared said hastily to back his leader.

"It's impossible for it to be free…" Stella replied as this was indeed the case.

"Well, we want to befriend you…"

"…"

"Alright… Elran, Jared… What are you waiting for? Dismantle the wolf and give it to Miss Swordsmaster…"

"Y-yes, Leader!"

"Alright, Boss…"

The subordinates answered as they quickly came to work.

Stella saw them act like this as she gave in to their request. She can't properly dismantle the corpse anyway…

In truth, she was even planning to just leave the corpse behind since the core was already in her hands.

"So… Why would you like to befriend me?" Stella asked Marak after seeing his two subordinates work on the corpse.

"Well, you see… We have these really tough missions… One of them is a C-Rank mission and the reward is quite good. We're planning to complete it with the other Hunters … However, the other teams were not in a good shape after what happened last month…"

"Mhmm…" Stella let out a sound and waited for him to continue his story.

'I knew it… There's nothing free nowadays… Anyway, I can just decline since they said that they just want to befriend me.'

The young girl mused as she listened to Marak...

"The C-Rank Mission is to visit one of the unexplored regions in this forest… The only information that we have about this is that we might fight against human-size arachnoid beasts and others…"

"Arachnoid? What's the name of the beast?"

"Well, we call them Crypt Crawlers… They are part of the Spiderfolk race…"

"Spiderfolk… Then, they have high-intelligence? Communication should be possible."

Stella replied after remembering that just like Orcs, Spiderfolks should be an intelligent race and not just any hunters should mess with them.

"That's what it should be… However, the Spiderfolks living in the caves underground seems to have mutated and only acts with their instincts as a wild beast… So we refer to them as human-size arachnoid beasts instead."

"I see… However, I still don't get it. Why do we need to explore their lair?"

"Err… It's because they seem to have disappeared… The balance in the forest is slowly becoming unstable… The numbers of poison frogs, gale bats, terror slugs, one-eyed vipers, forest rats, and other harmful pests that were supposedly their food had increased a lot… It is now slowly destroying the forest's ecosystem…"

Stella nodded as she waited for the man to continue his long story…

"We have discovered their existence years ago but since they only live underground and would only come out to hunt for food, the Association didn't mind them. However, there seem to be a lot of things going on in this forest, and the Association wants to know what's truly happening…"

"That's true…"

"There was also that incident with the Knights encountering the Guardian of the Forest…"

"I heard about that… So you want to explore their lair… Then what?"

"We need to find their survivors, eggs, or perhaps hatchlings… The Hunter Association will handle the rest. If we encounter an adult arachnoid beast, we have to bring one in the association as well. It seems that they want to study whether their mutation was the result of their death or disappearance... Aside from that, we have to find the source of their mutation…"

"Urgh… Isn't this a bit too tough? What if they were just all eaten by another race and that other race is the one living in their caves? Shouldn't they just send scouts specializing in this?"

"Unfortunately, two scouts specializing in Stealth have already died inside…"

"What? Then I won't go…"

"Wait… Wait… This mission involves another request from the Viscount… 10,000 gold coins is the reward! It seems that the noble wanted to farm their silver silk so we need to capture at least one arachnoid alive for him…"

"Ten thousand gold coins?!"

"That's right… One mission is for the Hunter Association to keep the balance in the forest, while the other mission is for the viscount's request!"

"What's the reward for the Association's request?"

"Err… The Association doesn't give a lot of monetary rewards from C-Rank missions below… Aside from the one thousand gold coins, my subordinates would be promoted to two-star if we completed this big mission…"

"One thousand… They're that generous?"

"That's right… After all, we are trying to save the arachnoid's species, and capturing them alive is also harder than killing them. If the mission was perhaps to kill all creatures in that cave, the mission might just give us 10 gold coins or so… The same price we could use to buy a poison fog in the apothecary…" Marak said as he chuckled a bit…

If the mission is to just massacre the beasts, they could just use some poison fog and cover the cave and they would have the right for the bodies left behind and will be paid accordingly. However, this mission was different as they have to turn over the live bodies of the Arachnoids that they would find.

"Aside from that, my subordinates will also have access to top-grade Magic Weapons… Did you know that you can get one Magic Weapon or Equipment for free if you got promoted each time?"

Marak said as he showed his arm bracers to Stella. It seems that it is the Magic Equipment that he got from the Association for free...

"Really? I never heard about that!"

"That's normal. I only learned about it after I became a two-star Hunter. It was not being promoted to avoid being exploited by some large non-hunter organizations."

Even Reiji was surprised to hear this but he felt that it does make sense. After all, the monetary rewards being provided by the Association was indeed pretty low and the Hunters can only earn more by selling their looted materials.

Anyway… Stella asked her master about his opinion…

'Master… What should I do?'

'Test their strength first…' Reiji said after thinking for a moment.

'Eh?'

'If they are too weak, they might just be a burden… You might as well find another Hunter group to team up with…'

'I see…'

Stella nodded her head in understanding.

"Alright, Marak… I may consider helping you guys… However, you have to fight me first…"

Stella said as she moved away to create some space between them.

***

At this time, Orga has already obtained all the information he needed about the creature that the knights have encountered before…

"Where are you going now, Sir Orga?" Kayla said after seeing that Orga was about to leave.

He had just arrived and checked the mission board. After looking at it for a couple of minutes, Kayla saw him stepping out without taking any mission.

"Oh… I'm about to enter the forest…"

"You're returning?"

"No, I'll be staying here for a while… I just want to confirm something…" Orga said as he smiled before going out…

Once he was at the outskirts of the forest, he whistled softly before a deafening cry of an eagle was heard!

It caught the attention of many villagers and hunters but they didn't think too much about it since the guards didn't ring the bell to alarm them...

Orga, on the other hand, looked at the Crimson Eagle with a smiling face… The eagle landed beside him as he patted its head...

"Let's go find that Arcane Stone…"