The First King of Beasts

This time, Aria was strong enough to make the entire trip up and down the mountain without needing any help, which just showed how much she had grown. Dustin was going to offer a hand when she got tired, but since she pulled through, he just went with the flow.

After getting to the other side of the mountain and entering the forest, Dustin went first to the Beast Cattle area to see if they would resapwn or something after he practically cleared the entire area the previous day.

Getting there, the first creature he saw were a beast herd that resembled the beast cattle, but with smaller build as they were not as muscular, and their horns were folded to the back of their skulls almost like a crown.

'System, what is that? What are those creatures?' Dustin asked mentally.

..'Those are also beast cattle, but a different breed. Beast Cattles are of two breeds, the one you faced yesterday was the stronger breed, while this one is the faster one. While the other stays and fight their opponents, this breed is more adept at escaping.'

'No shit. Being pussies for so long got them on the other side of evolution, huh?'

Dustin's speed was greater than his strength and it was also his highest stat, as he actually has a conspiracy theory that the system is trying to make him a speedster, so he was quite curious just how fast these beasts were compared to himself.

"Aria, come here." Dustin said, as he beckoned to Aria who he had told to stand back for a bit.

When she came, he explained to her that the beasts were the fast type, and if both of them were to go out, they would probably just run away. His plan was to try and catch them, just to compare both their speeds. He left Aria behind the bush they were hiding behind and jumped out.

Truly, as any prey would behave, the herd was thrown into a frenzied state as each of the cattle tried to run their separate way. Normally, these type of creatures when being targeted would just run in the same direction, but it seemed like these masters of escape had mastered the art, and instead of following the norm, they each ran their separate direction.

Dustin noticed this quickly, and set his eyes on the biggest one among them. The moment they all scattered, he locked on to that one and followed it. The beast gave him quite the head start, but he was able to catch up soon enough, and to his surprise, the beast wasn't as fast as he expected after the introduction given by the system.

This was the fastest beast he had faced till now, not even the tigers could run faster as far as he was concerned. Even then, he still caught up with out any stress.

"Alright Aria! Come out now!." Dustin said as he called out to her.

Neither Dustin nor Aria knew how to extract the beast's core, so they would have to experiment first. Dustin had suspected that the sisters had some information about this world that every other person wasn't open to, and the more he conversed with them, the more it seemed so. It could be accurate to say that this was part of the reason why he was so close to them.

When he made the offer that Aria would only be harvesting the monster core, they didn't seem interested in the information like any other person should, instead they even mention vaguely where it could be found in the monster's body.

From what they said, it seemed like the core was located in the chest area of the monster or beast. Maybe beside the heart or around that area probably.

Dustin brought out a knife from his inventory and stabbed it right into the beast's chest tearing it open seconds later. Since he was trying to find the core in a way that Aria would also find it easy o do, he didn't want to go the route of breaking the ribs to get to it, so he stuck his hand just below the rib cage, but after his hand parted some flesh, it came to a hard substance that felt spherical. Dustin knew for a fact that this was the core he was looking for.

He grabbed the spherical mass and pulled it out, and lo and behold, a beast core. Unlike the one they received as reward, this one wasn't at all clean, but it still had that gleam to it that confirmed it was a beast core.

"Alright, I guess that's how you do it." Dustin said, as he turned to Arai and handed the core to her, which she then put in her pouch, the one everyone got on arrival to Na'ash.

From that point on, Dustin took Aria around the Beast Cattle area and hunted many of the beast cattle, and after each kill Aria would rush to the corpse and extract their core. She had repeated the action so much that at this point one would think her an expert of this art. Of course, the corpses were many at times, so Dustin would lend her a hand to speed up the process, but she was still so fast that it almost didn't matter.

When they were done with that area and once again almost cleared the entire place, Dustin and Aria headed to a different area. From the map, Dustin noticed that another monster area was close by to this one, so they headed there this time. This one had the name Forest Calmeria Lynx on it. Dustin knew Lynxes were some kind of wild cat, but he didn't know what they were exactly.

"Well, let's go find some oversized cats." He said while picking up Aria.

Though Aria was stronger than before now, and after absorbing the cores provided to her by Raven, she grew even stronger. She couldn't keep up with Dustin. They literally just cleared the entire area in less than an hour.

Though Aria didn't say anything, Dustin could see that she was tired, and if he just left her be, she might actually burnout.

"Before we leave, let's eat first." Dustin said, and Aria couldn't agree more.

Since they were going to come together, Dustin made sure not to forget his storage bag which he got from Elva when he initially arrived in the town and received his reward. His was not like the pouch every other person wore around their waist, but like a wait bag. Aria was wondering what it was, but after he pulled multiple snacks from it, she was convinced it was a storage pouch, or at least similar.

Dustin brought out some plate of meat and snacks. He remembered Aria saying that she liked cake when they were together before, so he bought some. He wasn't so big on cakes, so he got other snacks too.

When they finished eating, he took her to the next area while carrying her.

When they got there, Dustin put her down, and just like when someone enters a new area, they walked around carefully while observing the area. It would be too difficult to start acting like he didn't know where the monsters were if he used his skill, so he simply didn't for the time being.

They roamed the place looking for the Lynxes he expected to be there, but even after going around, he found nothing. They were starting to think that the area had no monsters or beasts, and Dustin was starting to feel like the information on the map was a little out of date. Maybe it was due to the things he did yesterday? He thought.

From what he knew of how the wild worked, when such a strong monster like the orc he killed yesterday was around an area where they were the dominant monsters and the apex predators, it helped keep other monsters in check and maintained the natural ecosystem. The fact that he killed the orc might have changed this forest's ecosystem and caused the Lynxes in this area to leave.

'Such a small act like that can cause such a big change? I have to think things through in future maybe.'

Seeing as the area was void of beasts or monsters, Dustin activated his skill to find beasts in other places, but shockingly for him, the moment he activated the skill, he picked up presence of beasts close to them. It was so close that he was sure the beast was just behind them. In order not to cause Aria to panic, he only turned his head casually behind and looked at the direction where he felt the beast's presence.

'What a sneaky creature.' Dustin said in his mind.

He hadn't noticed it immediately, and he didn't notice it throughout the whole time they were walking around, maybe it was because he wasn't paying attention. The beasts have been the there the entire time, but had just been hiding and creeping around. Now that he was focused, he immediately caught sight of a spot near some bushes moving.

It was simple, these beasts were just creatures with insane camouflage, and Dustin just hadn't been paying much attention.

'Seems using my skill was the answer all along.'