The subtle sound kept getting closer.

Marvin knew this was the scraping sound of a Hook Horror’s legs when moving on stone walls.

Only with a sufficiently high Listen skill could he notice the Hook Horror before it found him.

Marvin silently listened for a while, quickly concluding, ‘Only one, probably dispatched by the group to hunt.’

‘A common Hook Horror shouldn’t be too hard.’

But Marvin didn’t treat it lightly. This kind of lifeform was a very frightening predator of the Underdark. It had a vulture-like head with bony hooks in place of hands, and their legs were thick and solid with sharp claws. Hook Horrors walked on two legs and could also climb cliffs. The very hard carapace layer on the back made them the natural enemies of rogues!

Ordinary Thieves might not be able to break through a Hook Horror’s defense at all.

They would be blown away by the hooks and might lose their lives.

Though Marvin had experience fighting them, he still wouldn’t treat it lightly.

After thinking through this, he took a tied wild boar out of the Thousand Paper Crane and threw it on the ground.

The wild boar was still alive! This was one of the profound mysteries of Origami.

It could only struggle in vain due to the bindings.

This kind of struggling would be easily detectable and attract the Hook Horror.

After setting everything up, Marvin used Hide and concealed himself on the side.

Hook Horrors had an unusual ability that let them find the location of an enemy using high frequency sound waves.

But Marvin hid behind a huge rock, which would be enough to ward off the sound waves.

Soon, a shadow quickly appeared at the end of the cave.

A lone Hook Horror.

Marvin held his breath. He wouldn’t have a lot of opportunities, because only the head and the heart were weak points of the Hook Horror, but to reach these spots, he would have to face the frightening hooks. Only by grasping the perfect timing could he settle the issue relatively safely.

...

The Hook Horror soon found the struggling wild boar.

Its exceptional intelligence stopped it from immediately rushing forward. Instead, it began to evaluate this prey’s strength.

It had never seen such a strange lifeform before.

This boar was brought in from the surface by Marvin, and the Underdark didn’t have a similar lifeform!

Or if there had been one, it must have already become extinct from being unable to adapt to the terrible environment.

The Hook Horror seemed to hesitate.

Marvin was waiting for this!

He quietly took out a sphere and gently let it roll over.

It was such an unremarkable movement, but it was still noticed by the Hook Horror!

It suddenly spread its sharp hooks and pounced over toward the sphere.

But a burst of light suddenly spread from the sphere!

[Sun Sphere]!

It contained a great amount of Sun magic and was the bane of many underground lifeforms.

The Hook Horror couldn’t escape on time and wailed.

It crazily swung its hooks at the sphere out of fear.

But then, the Sun Sphere exploded!

"Bang!"

The noise echoed through the cave.

The bursting energy wildly filled the cave and the Hook Horror’s forelimbs melted and were paralyzed. It frantically raised its head, trying to avoid being harmed by the Sun magic.

Three seconds later, the energy inside the Sun Sphere ran out, with only sparks remaining in the cave.

The Hook Horror was seriously hurt and tried to flee.

But at that time, Marvin finally made his move.

This was the time!

Night Boundary was quietly activated. Marvin’s silhouette was just like a demon, appearing on the Hook Horror’s escape path!

His daggers cut the Hook Horror’s forelimbs as if he was cutting through tofu!

A simple dodge and he avoided the Hook Horror’s counterattack with its beak. The next second, Marvin’s daggers ruthlessly slashed at the Hook Horror’s neck!

The Hook Horror wasn’t a match for the two daggers after being grievously injured by the Sun Sphere.

After a handful of seconds, it lost its head to Marvin!

But the sound of fighting already spread out.

Marvin soon heard rustling noises.

At least three Hook Horrors were rushing over, and they didn’t bother covering their tracks, instead rushing to provide assistance to their companions.

‘Half a minute at most.’

Marvin sneered, this was exactly what he wanted!

He didn’t take care of the Hook Horror body and went back to hide behind the huge rock.

In his hands were two more Sun Spheres!

This was part of Marvin’s plan, hiding behind the rock to evade the Hook Horrors’ perception, and then crazily throwing money at them!

That’s right, he was basically throwing money at them.

If a Wizard was here, he would be strangling Marvin while cursing him for wasting resources!

Using Sun Spheres like that?!

This was an item used to increase the strength of Sun magic for Priest and Wizards

But in Marvin’s hands, it was merely a consumable.

It was used as a grenade!

The crafting process of each Sun Sphere was very complicated, requiring the cooperation of a high level Alchemist and a high level Wizard.

It was to the point that in the entire South, no more than a hundred Sun Spheres came out of the Three Ring Towers and other Wizard organizations each year.

Marvin used his relations with Hathaway to buy six Sun Spheres from the Ashes Tower and Craftsman Tower.

Each Sun Sphere cost 1000 Wizard golds!

And this was a discount to give face to Hathaway.

The six Sun Spheres cost six thousand! Marvin bought it on credit.

Each Sun Sphere was worth two [Dragon Tooth] Artillery Shells.

But Marvin didn’t regret it.

He would normally avoid Hook Horrors, but he had to eradicate this particular family of them.

Spending a lot of money for that hot spring was worth it.

Not only would it raise his Constitution, but he would also get fragment of Earth Crystal!

In any case, Marvin was already deep in debt, so he didn’t mind adding a few more expenses.

Money, and fighting strength.

In a way, one was linked to the other.

Especially with Wizards, Alchemists, and other such professions.

In the past, he was a loner. A loner could be wealthy, but it couldn’t compare with that of the Overlord of a territory. Marvin, with his territory as a foundation and a gold mine as a guarantee, could borrow money very easily.

...

The Hook Horrors’ footsteps could be heard approaching and the monsters soon appeared, one in front, two in the back.

One of them was clearly taller than the others.

This was the female Hook Horror, which the leader of the entire Hook Horror family.

These lifeform lived in a matriarchal community and usually a female Hook Horror would lead a few male Hook Horrors.

Marvin clearly remembered that this nest of Hook Horrors had four members, the female and the three males. He just gotten rid of one of the males, leaving the other three members.

Thus, he unhesitantly used those two priceless Sun Spheres and then drew back!

The next second, just as Marvin anticipated, the Hook Horrors subconsciously used their hooks to break the spheres!

The Sun Spheres weren’t able to handle their hooks and were punctured.

The Sun Sphere in itself was a very unstable Alchemy item, so if a hole appeared, the Sun energy inside would burst out!

Light filled the cave.

Marvin mentally counted and when he felt it was a good time, he took advantage of the dissipating Sun energy to dash out like lighting, under the wailing of the three Hook Horrors!

He would naturally reap the harvest after spending so much money!

...

The four Hook Horrors gave Marvin close to 10000 exp. This experience was really easy to get due to those Sun Spheres.

In the past, Marvin had an annoyingly long fight with that female Hook Horror. After dying once, he managed to find a flaw and kill her.

That time was when Marvin was at his lowest.

Remembering about it, he really suffered from working alone back then...

Now that he had started anew, the rich and overbearing Marvin would immediately reverse the situation and simply sent the whole Hook Horror family on their way.

Hook Horrors’ bodies had nothing valuable, so Marvin casually chopped down some scales and then used Night Tracking.

With this skill, he could follow the Hook Horrors’ trail to their nest.

And the hot spring was in their nest.

...

Some clean white eggs were arranged in the dark nest.

These were Hook Horror eggs. But they had no value besides being edible...

Marvin collected the eggs because he wouldn’t pass on something that could be used.

After fumbling around the edge of the nest, he finally found that hidden spring.

It was called a hot spring, but in fact it was more of a small deep pool of water whose temperature was quite high. At the bottom was the fragment of Earth Crystal, but he needed to go down very deep to be able to get it.

Naturally, he had made proper preparations.

He had an expensive underwater breathing potion, along with two spares.

He changed to lighter clothing and drank down the potion before jumping in the hot spring.

He had to grab that fragment of Earth Crystal first.

...

A small scouting team walked down a small dark path.

"There is a nest of Hook Horrors in front, we will take a detour," said a sweet-sounding female voice.

The other men nodded in succession.

This was a group of Dark Elves!

They were simply called Drows.

The Drows lived in a matriarchal society, so the captain of the team was a woman.

But at that time, a drow reported, startled, "I saw Hook Horror corpses!"

"Hook Horror corpses!?"

The captain was shocked. "Which power could actually kill off this Hook Horror nest?"

"Wait… According to the traces the attacker was alone!" the male draw observed.

The woman was silent for a moment before decisively ordering, "Greg, Amir, follow me. The others, search in the surroundings."

"Check for traces of any suspicious lifeform!"