Flying in the Sky over a large snow covered forest, a massive and broad great sword spanning several dozen meters passed cutting the air. Upon this large blade Xero stood in control and riding upon his transport, a merchant caravan moved into a circle and with dozens of stones holding down the wheel so that the carriages of goods does not fall down.

Forming a circle, there was even a fire lit and food being cooked as the merchants were happily riding upon the sword. It had been a few days and Xero returned home and go ready to pick up the merchants while taking up the position of tutor for his family.

Now that the merchants were aboard, he was taking it slow so that they could enjoy the view as they had asked while the guards were on the edge of the sword on the lookout.

The wind was biting cold even if the area of the sword protected against strong winds. It still had a slow wind and under the winter cold, the effect was harsh. So moving slow to enjoy the daylight, they all heated up a warm meal as they would soon, safely, arrive at the village.

“Young man, if I had known that there was such a method to travel, I would have long since lived upon this sword moving my own shop through the air!” The head merchant said laughing as he walked towards Xero and handed a bowl of hot soup which he thanked him greatly for.

“That is true but there is no where to store the shop if I wanted to hide, I can only content myself to transporting others.” Xero said jokingly.

The merchant laughed, “Still, this is the ability of a Familiar, it is a shame that such a thing will vanish if not in your own hands.” he sighed showing a clear desire to own such a transport method. Although the surface was flat, it affected gravity allowing the entire sword to tilt and not affect the passengers, such a good thing did not come about easily.

“You sir, have your own familiar don’t you?” Xero asked.

The merchant laughed and summoned a small Bell. “This is called a soothing bell, it works to pacify beasts, sadly it cannot do the same to humans which is my greatest plague.” he sighed.

The bell rang a gentle and warming ring.

“Does it not have attack spells?” Xero asked.

“I am a merchant, not a mage, young man, I do not know how to affect the spells of this fellow. I do not even know how to evolve him, he has stopped growing at level 10 since my youth.” He said.

Xero blinked, “Well… this is a spirit item, if I am not wrong, feeding mana stones and metal or other material would usually improve them. Mana stones allow them to break and unlock mana channels and the metal remakes the body into a better form if I am not wrong.” Xero said.

“I would rather sell those things instead of waste it on a dead dream of to become a mage. I simply got a familiar as a sign of strength and power but who knew I would get such a thing.” He said.

Xero smiled wryly, “My older sister got a small old clay pot, only after training it a bit, it showed its ability to cook and be used for alchemy.” He said.

“Well I have done what dream I wanted, I am a successful merchant and I have luck on my side with many successful business transactions. I need nothing more, happy family, happy wife and happy children all wait for me.” he said.

Xero smiled and understood that not everyone was open as his own family to change with their resources. Because Xero was still in school, he did not mind using 8 uncommon mana stones because with his potential, he would eventually use them and gain many more as he grew old so using a few and letting his family remain with a few to train was nothing for him especially when Ashley did no training or anything.

Looking in the distance, he saw the clearing, “We are almost there.” Xero announced and the merchant turned and smiled as he was happy to cover 50 km of hilly land in a little less than an hour. The superiority of air travel was apparent at this moment. If done by foot, on good roads, 50 km would require a day or two of travel while the speed of the sword was fast while bypassing the hills and obstructions as well as always being out of reach of arrows.

Only flying monsters could threaten them and the sword transporting them was a weapon on its own. Under the guide of Xero, the Sword Devil aura unconsciously permeates any sword he is in contact with and this includes the flying one. It causes flying creatures to be more wary of this target.

Soon the food was eaten, the fire was out and the people waited as the sword landed, embedding itself into a cleared space at an angle that formed a ramp which allowed the carriages to safely and easily disembark. Forty merchant carriages taken and delivered in such a short time, time, the thing that merchants least had. There were many wished for a flying transport, they got the taste of it today. Two days saved from just this kind of transport, if they could have this all the time, who cares of all the villages were completely isolated, they would still reach them and deliver goods.

Once the final one was out, the sword shrank to a size that fit perfect for one person, Xero himself, he floated down near the merchant and got off before pocketing the tiny sword. One had the impression that swords was his life was the four swords on his back and waist seemed to imply, all of them being magical in nature.

Guiding them in, Xero lead them all the an open clearing between the worker district and village, which was separated by a distance of around 150 m. Xero explained what the separate ‘villages’ were making the merchants laugh a bit and knew why Xero brought the there.

With a cry from the master of the caravan, they began to set up their goods and wares around there while they sent someone to both areas to shout the news and goods and attract public.

“Here child, this is for you.” the merchant said and tossed a gold coin, “You saved me a lot of gold and time so it is only fair that I pay you properly for it.” He said.

Xero was shocked, “but the request said 50 silver only.” He said.

The merchant laughed, “Don’t worry, take it as thanks.” he said and turned.

Xero looked at the gold coin and thought that his worries for the month were taken care off. Seeing the merchants as they were Xero quickly shouted, “Look for me at the lord’s manor when you decide to leave and I will transport you to the next town!” Xero said and the merchant just waved.

Retiring to the manor, walked into the yard and saw the smoke from the kitchen chimney lit and guessed his mother was making food now. Although they were nobles, they severely lack in servants, not like a house this size could fit so many people anyway. Even if it was bigger, it was still a one story wooden house at best only higher standard among commoners.

Walking inside it took only three seconds for him to hear the characteristic voice of his familiar, “Master~!!!” She cried as she ran out of the kitchen, “Come look! Father-in-law went to hunt the wolves and had a big success killing off one of the pack leaders in the area. Mother-in-law and I are cooking it right now. How do you like your wolf flank? Well done, rare?” She asked while coming in close like a spoiled child.

He had grown used to this so he put his hand on her head and started to pat, “Medium rare, I don’t like it if it is too dry.” He said.

Thump!

Hearing the sound, he looks back and finds Meldie and the large panda behind her. On its back are saddle like straps and two large woven baskets. One had dull half frozen herbs dug out from under the snow were the winter herbs grew and the other was filled, amazingly, with some fish and there were even monster fish that had its neck snapped.

“Wow, you caught a lot of fish!” Xero exclaimed.

“Yeah, Pou is a good swimmer and he isn’t affected by the cold either, that said, there are some tasty looking but dangerous fish in the water.” She said and pulled out the suspect. The was a meter long piranha beast that had its neck snapped, it had spikes on its back and dagger like fangs as well as very strong scales.

“I am not sure what this is though.” She said.

“Can’t tell either but since it was caught then it can’t be anything too dangerous. Good job.” Xero said and patted the little halflings head.

The eye of the halfling drooped as the feeling of pleasure invaded.

“Muuuu~!” Ashley pouted in anger while stomping her feet.

“My my~!” Xero’s mother said from the door to the kitchen. Her hair was in a bun and over her clothes was a simple apron for cooking purposes.

With her voice, the halfling snapped out of it and jumped away blushing violently and looking at the ground.

“Master~! You cheater~!” Ashley shouted.

Xero looked at her, “Cheater?! How am I a cheater when I am not even married!” He said.

“Wow! Little bro, to think you had a thing for little girls!” Nadir said as he looked at the two loli’s.

“I do not!” Xero cried out.

His mother put on hand on her cheek and looked depressed, “Oh my, maybe I should have gotten a bigger bed for him. With how this is going…” She said and shook her head.

The little halfling was almost releasing steam when she heard that but could do nothing as she was here to deliver the fish and herbs. The job had asked her to gather and scout the river for herbs. More than half the herbs in the basket were river side and underwater herbs.

“Could you two stop that already!” Xero cried out.

“My my, don’t be embarrassed, there are many nobles who have many wives, even commoners sometimes get two or three.” She said.

Xero could only sigh and shake his head. He looked back at the little halfling apologetically.

“Nadir, process all the fish with your little pot.” Opal said.

“Okay~!” Nadir exclaimed, “Come out Potty.”

Almost admiring his sister for her horrible naming sense, the two of them watched as the pot appeared, after a few days, it had changed from a burned and broken clay pot to what looked like a below standard one but it looked ‘sellable’.

“Dimensional pot! Store the fishy!” She said.

Blue lines spread through the pot and it shook almost breaking from the strain of the magic but suddenly a suction came from the opening and all the fish began to float out of the basket and lift into the air and spun around before it was sucked into the pot as if a black hole had eaten it.

“Now, ‘Extract’!” She shouted.

Another vibrating and it actually cracked with the spell but it still completed and calmed down.

“It really isn’t that strong yet is it.” Xero said.

“Potty is strong! I used him to extract some herb stuff and although he ate a bit he grew stronger after doing that!” She said.

Walking to the kitchen, the others follow and Meldie and Xero look as she tips the pot over and it expands the mouth allowing the huge fish, clean of scales, fangs and spikes, drops out. The rest follows and forms a neat pile and she gets a trash back to throw it away.

“No! Don’t throw it away, these can be sold or used for alchemy. It's all monster parts that can make money!” Xero explained.

“Really, looks like junk to me.” She said looking at Xero as if he was weird.

He could only laugh dryly under that kind of gaze, Alchemy is a basic academy subject and he learned the basics, of course he was still doing more studies in the second year as well but he still hasn’t done experiments nor does he have a cauldron provided by the school.

“Just don’t throw it away, this is material for alchemy studies I will soon teach everyone, especially you since your pot can do alchemy for you.” Xero said.

“Is that so?” She tilted her head and shrugged. “Potty, store all this stuff.” She said and the pot suddenly sucked up everything making Xero sigh.

Finally making sure his sister would not waste any more hard to acquire expensive material for alchemy, he finally walked outside were Meldie was giggling.

“You seem to have a lot of fun with your family.” She said through her giggles.

“Yeah, they're fun, what about yours? Do you have brothers or sisters?” He asked.

She nodded, “I have 3 married brothers, 4 married sisters, 2 unmarried older brothers, 3 younger sisters and 2 younger brother.” She said openly.

Xero looked at her with doubt but she just smiled and seemed to realize something, “Oh, no my father has only one wife! Its that halflings almost always come in pairs or trios!” She said blushing.

Xero did a small count in his head and looked at her, “So your parents gave birth five times.” He said and seemed to nod considering the fact that he had 6 siblings so the amount of times children are born was equal though Halflings should be more moderate in their breeding. Of course he never said that out loud.

She blushed at the mention of childbirth and to change the topic Xero looked at the panda, “Your Familiar is bigger than it was before isn’t it?” Xero asked as the bear had indeed grown. Were it had been chubby and was about 150 cm tall standing, now it had stretched out and was more like a common bear but with panda colors.

“Yeah, it was like you said, after he ate one of those big fish completely as well as a few herbs, he suddenly began to grow and is no longer a Lesser Yin Yang Panda. It became an Yin Yang Polar Panda Adolescent . He developed ice magic and seems to be a mix of two bears from his native world. He is really good at foraging through snow and fishing now though and his strength is even higher. I think he is level 15 already.” She says excited.

The bear in question just yawns and drops down to sleep, she goes over and removes the baskets and recalls him into his seal before she easily lifts the basket with herbs like it was paper and walks off to put them in a place to dry.

Xero walks through the house, he headed to his father’s office where he was working, “Father, I finished the request, the merchants are all here already.” Xero said.

“Oh fantastic, I had not expected you to take that job and it helped us greatly.” He said.

The Scholar was with him and they were working through the papers.

“With the merchants in town, we can get some much needed materials and some money as well.” The scholar said.

“We don’t have much to sell besides the furs and goods coming from the hunted beasts, we don’t have many of those and since they are high leveled, I had wanted to make hunter gear from it.” Nil sighed, “I guess we can sell it anyway, we still have the bears and mountain lions and there are more wolves to hunt, those bastards are more slippery then I expected.” he cursed the wolves that got away.

The wolves were a pain to find in the snow because they blend so well and really, it is only because of Silver’s superiority in the same area that he found the first bunch as quickly as he did.

“What about herbs?” Xero asked.

Nil shook his head, “For now no, we shall focus on hunted goods, wood and later mineral goods. If I am not wrong, your brother already went to the merchants to purchase stone, coal and ore so that he can start building a smithy. The boy can’t sit still.” Nil said.

“Did brother train his familiar a lot?” Xero asked.

“Aye, but not how you expected, that boy put that imp through a new form of hell as he tried to get it to stand upright, then made it carry a hell of a bunch of logs to help out. That imp turned strange though two days ago after it ate some fish scales and the fish the halfling girly brought back. Got covered in dark scales.” he said.

“Oh it evolved into a scaled Imp then, it’s a variant that mostly leads to lizard type demons.” Xero replied.

“Yeah that's, the thing has also been getting beefy, your brothers training had it stand upright and it is already at his shoulder standing only slightly hunched, its muscles are developing a lot already. Not sure if it is a good thing or not but that thing is burning through any food it can get its grubby hands on. Same as that blasted cat Void has.” Nil cursed.

“Did brother do something?” Xero asked.

The scholar laughed a bit, “Not that he didn’t do anything, it's more that he tried to do something but the feline is quite strong willed. He was hunting one of the hibernating bears and the feline jumped out and woke the bear instead of killing it by growling. He came running back and had to have your father kill the bear before it reached the village.” The scholar chuckled.

Xero shook his head as he thought, “All demons are disobedient.”

“Dear, dinner's ready, come eat!” Opal’s voice came.

“Oh good, let's go men, we can’t work on an empty stomach, especially when it is made by the hands of those three women in the kitchen who make that godly roasted meat.” Nil said completely ignoring the duty of lord to fill his stomach.

That said, none of them waited and left as well to eat as well to fight against the cold of winter that had invaded their bones.

***

WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

The slow beating of large bat like wings on the back of three 30 meter long dragons accompanied their passengers as they flew through the air. The red and orange scales on the three dragons showed they were of the Fire dragon breed.

These were true dragons and not Drake. Specifically, they were Lesser Fire Dragon Adolescent. Although below true dragons, they were far more powerful than drakes and lesser dragon breeds. Their intelligence was also quite high and they could openly speak the human language.

As for who the passengers were, standing on the front dragon was a tall majestic young man and behind him a little girl with curled hair in twin tails that formed drills out of her long blonde hair.

“This place is quite cold, even colder than the academy.” the tall youth said.

This was Univa and her bigger brother, Rufus Belacqua Crost, the boy was clearly in his teens, 16 years old, and was an Everlight Academy 6th year student. He had the same blonde hair as his little sister and sky blue eyes that were part of his strong family line. As a 16 year old, he had a robust body and pronounced chest that stuck out naturally forming a charismatic aura.

“Big Bro, aren’t you cold!?” Univa said shivering as bundled herself more with the fur coats they brought. Even so it did not help much as the wind flowing over the dragons on them was quite fierce.

Rufus chuckled, “You’ve still a long way if you are affected by a bit of cold as one of the Crost family’s children, Univa.” he chuckled.

“Forget about that! I didn’t expect the Lurian empire to be so far south!” She exclaimed shivering as she hid her numb hands in her sleeve and put it in front of her face to huff warm breaths to heat her face and hands at the same time.

“We have already checked the location of the Trolls through the pillar, you may not have noticed but we passed the village a few minutes ago. In about five minutes we will arrive at the mountain so don’t worry about the cold.” He said.

“Yay!” She exclaimed jumping up but quickly crouched once more to hide from the wind.

The wings kept beating as the dragons descended and soon they saw a large barren snow covered mountain and upon it were several large caverns and many hidden ones.

“Seems we have a troll nest, I hope there is at least one ice troll, that would make the travel even for me worth it.” Rufus said.

Although troll blood is good for making advanced elixirs, most people would use it to try and enhance the recovering ability of their familiars. Ice trolls were even stronger than common trolls so one can only guess the effect of their blood.

“Vulcan, draw them out. Univa, fly off so that you will not be caught in the crossfire.” He said.

“Alright!” She said and turned before jumping off the dragon and her familiar seal flashed and her drake appeared under her flying away. The drake looked like a hatchling compared to the true dragons.

RAHHHH!

Vulcan, the fire dragon and Rufus’s familiar, bellowed before his mouth lit up and a massive fireball burst out flying right at the mountain smashing into the side causing it to shake.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The three dragons land shaking the ground and from the caves there were sounds of desperate retreat and soon trolls began to appear in twos and threes.

“Brothers, we have truly scored a big one this time!” The second youth on one of the dragons laughed.

He was one of the Crost branch family members and had bright red hair instead of the head families blonde hair.

“Indeed, a troll colony is not easy to come by. I believe a rough estimate is between 60 to 100 trolls.” The other dragon owner said. With long blue hair, this woman was another branch family member of the same year as Rufus.

“Alright kiddies, get off and stay out of trouble.” The redhead said.

On the back of the two dragons, several children jumped off and their familiars, either lizard beasts or dragons all appeared and they ran or flew off to get away from the battle. They were here to enhance their healing capabilities but they knew that they couldn’t easily get in the middle of the matches.

All the people were also servants, branch or main family members of the Crost family. The fact that the family helped improve the servants potentials was one of the reasons they were such a strong family.

“Attack!” Rufus commanded and Vulcan roared before pouncing at the escaping trolls.

With one swing it slammed its paw into the ground. The level 48 fire dragon’s strength can’t be compared by the same standard of the other creatures. Only celestials, demons and combat type spirits can be evaluated on the same scale as dragons.

The paw smashed and the shockwave sent the trolls near flying. With a turn Vulcan spun and hit those flying with his tail killing them.

He let out a roar before fire began to burn in his mouth and suddenly a flaming torrent burst out of his mouth over 10 escaping trolls.

None of them had plans to fight, even so their bodies were very robust and even burned, they stood and kept running while limping as their body regenerated.

“As expected of trolls.” Rufus said. “Cain, Yasmine, deal with the ones running north and west, I will deal with those to the east.” Rufus said.

“Yes sir.” they said and their dragons took to the air to circle around the trolls while Vulcan jumped and cornered the escaping trolls. To keep the body intact, they resorted to smashing tactics and with the large strength of dragons.

The entire region shook and were filled with the miserable screams of trolls, every time they finished they would fly and find another group or single troll and smash them while handing it over to their master to store it to preserve as much troll blood as possible.

Trolls were 3 meter tall brutes that used clubs and were quite primitive. With robust bodies and ugly gorilla like figure, they were hard to kill without overwhelming strength.

Soon there was none left and the caves were left empty of trolls. To make certain of this, the dragons each took a different large entrance and together, they breathed a burst of fire into the three entrances. After a moment, all the caves burst with fire and any hiding trolls were either killed and pushed out in pain.

“Good, we have completed our objective, we should search for someone with extraction skills to remove the pure blood of the trolls.” Rufus said after everyone gathered up.

“Brother, why don’t we look at the village, even if there isn’t someone, there might be herbs since this region is quite remote so it wouldn’t cost us any trouble.” Univa said.

Rufus though a moment and nodded, “Let us try then. We need to report the extermination anyway and collect the reward money anyway so there shouldn’t be any problem.” He said.

Climbing on the dragons they all headed to the Null family to report the mission.