Same as last weekend, Soma and Marina went hunting for Horned Rabbits and Red Sheep through a request from the Mercenary Guild, and are selling them at the Open Market right now, but they are not the only ones doing that. The Mercenaries from Elk are doing the same thing, but instead of hunting in the hunting grounds they went hunting for the monsters outside the protection of the five mountains and are selling what the caravans don’t need through the Mercenary Guild in the Open Market.

For the past two days, no one from the town of Akud had done any form of business with anyone related to the nobles, and that’s not because all of them hated the nobles, but it was because everything the shops related to the nobles sell is way too overpriced and at the moment there is a lack of products at those shops because the number of the hunters hunting for them has decreased by more than two thirds, and that caused the shop owners to increase their prices foolishly even more.

There were a lot of attempts to sabotage the business of the Open Market and Elk’s caravans. One of those attempts was someone that came in the middle of the night and attempted burning down the Open Market. But he was stopped by Soma who appeared out of nowhere and broke his arms and legs before taking him to the town guards. Another similar attempt happened to the caravans only for Soma to deal with it the same way. Other attempts were in the form of “unhappy” customers who appeared to be complaining about this and that and there were even people who came claiming that the caravans had stolen things from them and were selling those stolen things. And once those claims and complaints were proven wrong by Soma and the Master of Elk’s Merchant Guild, those people were interrogated there in the open by the town guards and once they confessed that they were employed by the nobles of the town to do what they did, the people of the town swarmed those men and beat the crap out of them. The town’s guards did their best to stop the people from killing those guys.

The townspeople became more aware of what’s happening around them. Weeks ago all they were thinking about is how to prevent their families from starving to death, and they were desperate to do just that. But now that food is sold at fair and affordable prices in the Open Market and by the caravans, they started paying attention to everything that is happening around them, they didn’t know that the price they were buying food at is overpriced, but they now can see that very clearly, they didn’t know that the knowledge commonly known to them about the hunting grounds running out of monsters was nothing but a hoax.

For nearly 20 years now, it was known that the number of monsters in the hunting grounds is decreasing because the people kept hunting them for so long. This information was discovered by the previous Lord who was known once as one of the best researchers to ever exist in Akud. Young researchers who wished to look more into the matter went to the Library Soma opened in hopes to find some answers, and sure enough, they did find clear answers about the whole issue, but there were no answers they could have ever expected. The answers were (There is an energy other than Mana that exists in the world and that said energy is the exact opposite of Mana, and it’s known as Miasma); (Miasma causes people to go mad and that’s why the Goddess of Creation used her power to add the principle of ‘Miasma turning into Monsters’ to the world’s being to prevent Miasma from hurting the people); (The Goddess of Creation choose to turn the Miasma into Monsters of all things because she believed that the people could use the monsters for their meat and other materials); (Miasma is endless and will keep creating more and more monsters forever, which in turn means that monsters are ever-increasing and never decreasing and that could only be balanced by the people hunting those monsters, and even then the monsters will never decrease). But what about the discovery of the previous Lord?.... but then after looking at the situation of the town since that discovery(the drastic increase in the prices of everything monster related) led to a certain theory. What if the discovery was a lie used by the previous Lord to fill his pockets? To check whatever that theory was right or wrong, the young researchers had to announce the theory and to ask the current Lord for permission to check the financial records of the previous Lord. As expected, many of the researchers in Akud were angry at the young researchers for their claim against the great previous Lord, and some old researchers demanded that those young researchers are to be executed for their claim, but there were people who went over the theory and what led to it, and they even made an effort to go and check the records of the Mercenary Guild, and they even asked the people from Elk about the whole matter and the answer they got was(It’s impossible for the number of monsters to decrease). Which led them to support the young researchers, and that only enraged the old researchers even more, and when Leona the current Lord approved of checking the financial records of the previous Lord, the old researchers opposed that very strongly as it was disrespectful towards the previous Lord they respected greatly. Leona had to order the guards to restrain the old researchers, so she could stop them from standing in her way, and after reading and analyzing the records in front the whole town, the theory of the young researchers came to be what really happened and even more than that. It was uncovered that the old researchers were in fact accomplices to this whole matter along with some noble families from the capital city Valen, and half of said noble families came to Akud five years ago to become the noble families of Akud.

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At night in the Hoggs Household, the acting head of the family Mara Hoggs is in her room waiting for her daughter.

“…Mother! I was told that you called for me”(Mira)

“Oh! Mira! My Queen! I did call for you, I wanted to ask you about how is your life in the dorms of that filthy Academy?”(Mara)

“It’s going fairly well for now”(Mira)

“My poor Queen, I heard that the Law Enforcer or whatever is harassing you, do you want me to get rid of him for you?”(Mara)

“Nah, he is a mere small fry! He doesn’t deserve to be dealt with by the great Mara Hoggs! And besides, I have just the right plan to deal with him just leave it to me!”(Mira)

“Got it, if you say so! But don’t forget about the other task, now that the foolish king sent his worthless daughter to us here, we must deal with her, the previous attempt was a failure, and now it falls on us to make things succeed, and we must avenge the death of the daughter of our allies”(Mara)

“That alone is something I’ll do no matter what is the cost, Salama was my dear friend, and she dared to kill her! I’ll slowly break her down, and then I’ll be sure to teach her what it means to stand in our way ‘Chosen Nobles’!”(Mira)

“That’s My Queen for you!”(Mara)

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In the royal castle of the Vitos kingdom, the King, Ladorus Nor Vitos is talking to his daughter the first princess Sacre Nor Vitos about how the heroes are coming.

“…Everyone other than those two. Everyone is doing very good! Hayato had broken through to Level 50 just yesterday and everyone else is right behind him!”(Sacre)

“I see, but are you able to control him properly?”(Ladorus)

“Easily! Hayato is the ideal type of man! Just by sharing the bed with him, he became nothing but a puppet for me to play with! And everyone other than those two are nothing but puppets to Hayato himself!... but how are things on your end?”(Sacre)

“Just a while ago, I received a report from our guys in the Valc Kingdom about some minor troubles that appeared out of nowhere, and they said that they will be taking care of it themselves, but for some reason, I have a feeling that there might be something happening in that country…”(Ladorus)

“Have you felt something like this before?”(Sacre)

“…Only once, when that foolish hero Sai was disposed of”(Ladorus)

“But even then nothing happened, right? I think that it might be some kind of side effect to the Eternal Blood”(Sacre)

“…You might be right”(Ladorus)