Wolf had never even heard of Beastmen, let alone seen one. Were they one of the ten races of man? Were they a kind of Monster Beast? Fear still gripped him to some degree. So the boy didn’t dare allow his curiosity, nor imagination run too rampant.

Even though he wanted to ask some questions, Wolf didn’t dare to appear disrespectful.

He simply nodded his head with such vigor that he looked like a chick pecking. He didn’t know what he was agreeing to, but considering that this creature had just saved his and his father’s lives, returning the favor in the future was the natural thing to do.

“I killed the little slithery ones. In exchange I want to see those three corpses under my feet one day. I’ll be content to know that you have made an effort to do it, even if you ultimately fail. Meaning, if your soul is extinguished in the attempt, I’ll consider it as if you were doing your best and won’t hold a grudge.”

Just as Wolf thought that the first part sounded reasonable this Beastman Ancestor followed up with a very strange definition of making an effort.

The giant creature suddenly plopped its rear end to the ground and started scratching its chin with its rear leg. After several moments the movement stopped and it crossed its legs like a human sitting cross-legged. Then the bizarre creature looked at Wolf. Seeing a quadruped sitting like this was very odd. It should probably be impossible, but there it was.

“This deal is somewhat unfair towards you.” The white giant said after musing a bit.

“I’ll give you a piece of advice to go along with my favor. Until you punch a hole through the heavens you shouldn’t trust anyone here. Especially when they teach you things. It’s not that all of them want to lie to you. It’s just that they are incompetent and limited. Due to this, anything they teach you is at best worth very little out there, in the larger world. Well, almost everything. Relationships between people are more or less the same everywhere. Also, will and perseverance are no less important here than they are out there.”

With this final bit of advice the monster turned around to leave.

“Sir, please wait. What do you mean I was born with all my teeth?”

Prime stopped and turned around. He gave Wolf a skeptical look as it raised an eyebrow, which again looked odd with those lupine features.

“If you can’t figure out that much, then you’re dumber than you look. And just so you know, you already look like an idiot to me.”

Just like that the monstrosity was gone. There was no movement, no sound and no magical aura. He simply vanished into thin air, as if he had never even been there in the first place. Reality continued and gushed in to fill the void which that giant wolf represented. His little namesake was stunned for a good long while. Finally, Wolf turned around and made sure his father was still safe and comfortable.

Several hours passed.

Archibald woke up with a splitting headache. The big man looked left and right, startling when he noticed the mangled corpses of Prismatic Pythons. Archibald had no idea what those multicolored snakes were.

However, he could feel the lingering aura on their corpses. At a glance the man knew that these creatures were not something he could handle the way he was right now. Even back when he was at his peak, battling such a large number of high Order Monster Beasts without flying would’ve been a risky affair.

“Son, what happened here?” Archibald tried to sound serious and dignified, but his face ruined the effect.

The man looked like he was having a hangover of his life. The stench of those corpses that spent half a day baking in the sun was making him gag, further adding to the whole green-faced wino feel.

Wolf completely failed to make the connection.

To him, his father looked groggy and sickened. The boy grit his teeth in worry, but then heaved a sigh of relief. Upon closer examination, with the full range of his perception, Wolf determined that there was nothing wrong with Archibald. After taking another moment to make sure his father was safe and sound he told him about how he had made a covenant with the devil.

Well, a giant six-eyed wolf, but as far as Archibald was concerned there was hardly any difference.

The big man listened and from time to time asked a question. Once Wolf’s story was done Archibald more or less understood what had happened.

“Son, if you don’t mind, go and try to see if there are any Monster Cores left in the heads of those serpent Monster Beasts. Their Order seems to be rather high, meaning their Monster Cores should be worth quite a bit.”

“Sure! Um, what’s a Monster Core?” Wolf wanted to help, but he didn’t understand what his father wanted him to do. He had no memory of the term Monster Core.

This question immediately moved Archibald into the lecturer state, partially suppressing the headache and nausea the man suffered from.

“Monster Cores are special organs all Monster Beasts of Third Order and above have. Well, the lower Order ones have them too, but they are basically useless to us, so we don’t refer to them as Monster Cores.”

“Monster Cores look like a spherical shaped bone, lodged into the Monster Beast’s skull or in some odd cases a part of the sternum. I don’t know if it can appear anywhere else.”

“We believe that the Monster Core functions as a Monster Beast’s Internal Energy backup reservoir. It has a vast amount of power, but it’s difficult to replenish, so unless faced with a prolonged battle Monster Beasts would never use it. The higher the Monster Beast’s Order the larger the Monster Core, as well as the amount of Internal Energy stored. Naturally the energy stored inside is also purer.” The man spoke matter of factly. He appeared oblivious of the corpses drenched in pools of blood. Right now, Archibald was a man on a mission. A mission of enlightenment! No amount of stench or dizziness could jeopardize it…

“An average Monster Core of a Third Order Monster is the size of an apple seed. As for these colorful pythons their Monster Cores should be the size of a strawberry. If I remember correctly, serpents don’t even have sternums, so you should find their Monster Cores somewhere in... the mashed up bits… of their heads...” At this moment Archibald faltered.

He had just realized that he was asking a not even seven-year-old child to rummage through the gory remains of a Monster Beast.

“On second thought… Let’s just rest a bit here. I’ll do it myself later when...” He was embarrassed for not thinking straight, but Wolf didn’t let him finish his sentence.

“It’s all right father. I’ll do it. I just have to find strawberry sized bone marbles, right?” Wolf wanted to prove to his father that he was a grownup. That in the future he should be the one to take the risk whenever they encountered danger.

“No, no, really! There’s no need. I’ll do it.” Archibald shook his head and got up on his wobbly legs.

After standing shakily for a moment the man lost his balance and plopped his bottom back to the rocky ground with an uncomfortable sounding thud. It was too soon for Archibald to get up after experiencing the kind of shock he did.

“Father, let me. You should stay there and rest. How about you lie down for a while?” Wolf was worried. Archibald was trying to get up again, but Wolf gently pushed his old man back to the ground. Archibald wanted to protest and fight back, then realized that the situation was already embarrassing as it was. Him flailing about like a spoiled child would only hurt his dignity more.

Wolf went from one Monster Beast corpse to another. Much to Archibald’s horror Wolf actually rummaged through the gore with his bare hands. He didn’t even think of using a stick to do it. And it was too late to make the suggestion now…

However, no matter how hard the boy tried, it was no good. The mushy remains of the serpent heads were pulverized and turned to mush. Not even a hint of bone was left. Not even a Monster Core. Which was a shame. Monster Core was technically the toughest bone in a Monster Beast’s body.

How powerful was that Monster Beast Wolf had seen?

Archibald was amazed. What kind of enemies were the creatures that this mysterious Monster Beast wanted Wolf to kill? Fortieth Order? Fiftieth?

After checking the last corpse without finding anything, Wolf frowned with dissatisfaction. He looked around and there wasn’t even anything he could use to clean his arms, which were bloodied all the way to the elbows. With a sigh he used a First Order spell to clean up before returning back to his father.

Archibald watched as Wolf went from corpse to corpse and after not finding anything on the second one he wanted to call the boy back. But that also made him feel awkward. If he were to call Wolf back now, the boy could misinterpret it as him saying he wasn’t doing a good job or something. Archibald could tell that his son wanted to prove himself. To prove that he was a grownup, which wasn’t such a bad thing, given their circumstances.

Sadly, grownups often wasted a lot of effort, only to ultimately fail at what they were doing. There was no way for Archibald to shield his son from that reality. In fact, facing it early on might be useful for the boy. The real issue was that Wolf felt forced to act like a grownup. And this was Archibald’s failing…

“I didn’t find any signs of Monster Cores.” Wolf shook his head as he walked back towards his father. He tried his best and ended up with nothing. The feeling sucked.

“That’s fine. The creature that killed them must have been overwhelmingly stronger than them. It was probably at least a fortieth Order Monster Beast.” Archibald didn’t know anything about such high Order Monster Beasts. As far as he remembered there were no verified records describing Monster Beast whose Order was twenty-five or above. The only thing to be found on the subject were legends and individual Monster Beasts, like the Red Wyrm Lonely Eagle had slain, which couldn’t be used as a reference for an entire species.

“Father, why are those Monster Cores so important?” This bugged Wolf while he rummaged through the minced remains of those Prismatic Pythons. What he was doing sounded like taking a finger bone from a dead person. Who would ever want one of those?

“Monster Cores of various Orders are used for quite a number of different things. Their main uses are to power Spell Formations and for Artificing. In Artificing they are used both to power the forging process, as well as to power some magical items. Monster Cores are sometimes used as Alchemy materials, as well as material components for spells and they have loads of other applications.”

“That’s why they are in such high demand. Large merchant groups that deal in monster parts have Monster Cores of up to ninth Order. Finding anything beyond that is up to luck and will certainly cost a fortune. Sometimes people stumble across intact remains of a high Order Monster Beast. Sometimes large groups of powerful experts are formed to hunt down a high Order one. Such things are rare in our empire, but they do happen from time to time.”

“Most of the time rare high Order Monster Cores are auctioned off and purchased by a Grandmaster Artificer or a Grandmaster Spell Formation Scribe for a large amount of platinum pieces...” Archibald went on to explain about various specifics regarding Monster Cores while taking the opportunity to bask in the sunlight for the first time in what seemed like ages. Once he was better the hunter harvested some meat, albeit with some difficulty.

Fortunately the Monster Beasts were bled dry, so it hadn’t gone completely rancid. Archibald would’ve loved to take some of those rainbow hides back with them, but couldn’t cut the scaly skin even when he used Wolf’s sword, which was the best weapon the two of them had.

After barely cutting several dozen slabs of meat, Archibald and Wolf continued their journey.

It was a bad idea to sleep near bloody Monster Beast corpses. Something else would come to eat them eventually and the giant white wolf had disappeared. Father and son spent the night in a clearing, enjoying the night sky and eating snake stew Archibald had fixed up. From that day on Wolf spent the rest of the journey with Detect Magic always active, so that they wouldn’t end up caught in such a trap.

Archibald's lessons:

I have never heard of Beastmen. Is that how Monster Beasts refer to themselves?