Noah had flown for about half a day over the swamp.

He had met with five more groups of Swamp lizards containing rank 3 creatures and he had easily cleared them, storing the corpses of the rank 3 beasts in his space-ring.

'Twenty-five lizards and one Poisonous toad, I'm nearing the required quota for two months.'

He didn't pick up the other bodies of the Poisonous toads because their value was lower than the Swamp lizard ones, the space of his storage devices was limited after all.

He could already go back to Elbas city and obtain the discounts on the materials but, since he was already in a hunting area, he decided to gather more bodies so to not be forced to hunt frequently.

His experiments with the Elemental forging method required a long time so he would rather focus completely on them instead of being interrupted due to his duties as a hunter.

'I should rest now, I'm starting to feel some fatigue.'

He had used Echo's wings, the Shadow steps spell, the Blood drain spell, and the partial Demonic form for the whole time.

Even if he still had a lot of mental energy remaining, he chose to take a break in order to return to his peak form.

The swamp occupied a vast area and there were many small pieces of terrain not covered by the muddy waters.

Noah randomly chose one of those spots and landed on the branch of a tree.

'The situation doesn't seem too out of control. Just with the damage that I've caused today, the advancement of the swamp should have been greatly slowed.'

Noah thought as he ate some of his stash of food.

'I should buy another space-ring, eighty cubic meters are too few for my current needs.'

Noah trained shortly his centers of power before going to sleep.

He woke up as the first light of the day shined over the environment.

Yet, gray clouds immediately covered the sky, it seemed like it was going to rain soon.

'The rain should force more lizards out, today I should be able to find enough of them to return to the city.'

Noah flew again in the air and resumed his search for magical beasts.

It began to rain soon and the number of groups containing rank 3 beasts increased.

Noah vanquished each one of those groups with no hesitation, the number of corpses in his space-ring rapidly increased to thirty-three.

'I'm almost reaching the maximum capacity of what I can carry. I don't think that I can fit much more of them.'

However, at that point, Noah met the first hindrance in his hunt.

It was a green lizard, three and a half meters tall, with a scaled body and a long tail.

Its head was triangular and its four legs were thick and brawny, it seemed a small boulder placed in the middle of the swamp.

'Here is the rank 4.'

The giant lizard had its black forked tongue immersed in the water of the swamp and its dark eyes moved continuously, inspecting everything in the area around it.

'Is it looking for me?'

Noah had unleashed quite a slaughter in the previous day, uncaringly killing a few hundred lizards in the perimetric parts of the swamp.

Those magical beasts used their tongues as an investigative method, capable of extending the surface perceived if they used the water as a channel.

'They must have sensed their numbers decreasing and they sent out this creature to explore, they are quite wary of external dangers.'

He knew that his actions couldn't go unnoticed, the whole swamp could be considered the lair of those beasts after all.

'Should I stop?'

Noah thought.

The lizard hadn't found him and, if he remained outside the water, it would be difficult to be discovered.

'I will just go around it.'

Noah changed the direction he was flying to and went looking for other rank 3 beasts, instead of moving toward the center of the swamp, he was exploring its external area.

He found more rank 3 beasts and the number of corpses stored became forty.

Nevertheless, he was forced to stop his hunt due to an unexpected encounter.

On one of the trees in an area not covered by water, a middle-aged woman stood staring in the distance.

Following her line of sight, Noah saw two rank 4 Swamp lizards in the distance.

'That makes three already.'

Noah thought, moving his gaze back on the woman.

The woman sensed something and turned in his way, she and Noah stared at each other for a while.

Noah then took out the token from the Hunters' guild, making her relax.

She showed a token identical to Noah's one and pointed toward another area away from the rank 4 beasts.

'Does she want to talk?'

Noah nodded and flew where she indicated.

The hunter followed him closely, making big leaps to jump on the sparse trees present in the swamp.

'She doesn't seem to be using spells but that doesn't seem like a rank 4 body.'

Noah analyzed her strength as he flew, he wouldn't trust somebody just because they belonged to the same organization.

"Doris, right?"

He asked to the nearing figure as he landed on the muddy ground.

The woman jumped off a tree and landed right in front of him.

"Yes, you must be new."

She spoke in a friendly manner to Noah.

"Vance."

Noah said, moving his gaze on the big creatures in the distance.

"How many rank 4 lizards did you meet?"

He asked in a plain voice.

"These are the first that I've met in a week that I explore the swamp."

"I've met another one, there has to be more of them."

Doris nodded.

"They were in the center of the pack till now, something must have happened in order to have rank 4 beasts patrolling. Wait, was that your fault?"

She realized that the only thing that changed since she had been there was Noah's presence so there had to be a connection between his arrival and the new behavior of the beasts.

Noah shrugged his shoulders before answering in a plain voice.

"If by fault you mean hunting them, then yes. I thought that the whole point of being a hunter was about collecting beasts' corpses."

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