Kyrion’s group made their way through swaths of weak foes. Gaining both treasure and experience facing gremlins, Kyrion noticed that he learned less from fights when his teacher did most of the work. Gamodren only stepped in when things were taking too long to finish, they were having trouble, or when he got bored. Gamodren seemed to have a short attention span because he got bored a bit too often.

The group made it to a large building with an abundance of gremlins.

These fuzzy humanoids had nice clothes on, suits with matching shoes. Most had daggers, while some had oddly shaped crossbows. On their heads were little black fedoras.

“Can I keep them?” Kyrion asked his teacher.

“While I’m sure the inner child inside you would like to stuff all of them into your backpack space and summon them out to fight for you, I’m thirty percent sure that you can’t fit them all in that space and even you could, then you’d have to feed and take care of them for an extended period of time. You would also be putting your spirits in danger, which is something I don’t recommend doing.” Gamoden explained.

“We could have them run the hotspring.” Kyrion brought up.

“Isn’t that slavery?” Tiffany brought up an important point.

“What’s that?” Kyrion asked as Limguard did not practice slavery.

“Its when…”

“They’re intelligent monsters, yes, but it’s limited. I’d explain more but I literally can’t without breaking rules. Think of them as humanoid spirits. They would be working for you like that dragon girl. Only they’d have a higher position in the hierarchy and receive payment.”

“Do you have a problem with me, human?” Ceres sneered.

“Aside from attracting dragon slayers, no.” Gamodren said flippantly.

“Can you not argue right now? We have enemies to take care of.” Tiffany ordered the two.

“Good job Tiffany.” Kyrion patted her on the shoulder. “I don’t know why they go at each other like that.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m the oldest one here, which is concerning.” Tiffany crowned behind a boulder and waited for a gremlin to turn around.

.”

Kyrion fed mana to a vine in his hands and gave it the command. “Capture.”

It extended under the gremlin’s feet before shooting up. Then, wrapping itself around the gremlin’s neck and strangling it instantly.

“I was not trying to kill that.” Kyrion dropped the vine.

“Sure. It was the vine’s fault.” Tiffany pointed her sword at the dead gremlin tied up in vines.

Gamodren coughed into his hand. “You did capture it, the vine just didn’t know if you wanted it dead or alive so it gave it to you dead.”

Kyrion sighed as they continued to the next lurking gremlin. It found itself looking down at a shaft from a rapier. The one after that was squeezed to death by Ceres after she chased it down.

The one Gamodren captured was foaming at the mouth but mostly alive, so Kyrion threw it in the bag.

“What did you do to it?” Kyrion asked.

“I gave it that walnut thing that you gave me earlier. I wouldn’t eat that if I were you. Not yet at least.” Gamodren told the boy casually.

Kyrion warned the spirits in his space and continued forward. As they continued on, there was no trouble until one of the gremlins that Ceres was chasing down blew on a horn, and more gremlins began to converge on the area.

“Be a bit more subtle next time.” Gamodren told the girl.

“Subtle is not the dragon way.” Ceres told him.

“What do you know about the dragon way whelp?” Gamodren tapped his staff on the ground, and like a scene out of many nightmares, snakes began to appear in waves surrounding the group and intercepting the approaching gremlins. Ripping them to shreds with ease, blood and garlic were everywhere. Yet, when the smoke cleared, not even the corpses remained. The area had been cleaned out in an instant.

“What was that?” Tiffany asked.

“A show off. Why didn’t you do that sooner?” Ceres asked.

“That was a good waste of mana, is what it was.” Gamodren continued forward unhindered by his show of force.

Kyrion lingered, looking for loot only to find none in the immediate area.

“We should be getting close to the boss now?” Gamodren was brought up.

“Why do you say that?” Ceres asked.

“Kyrion, explain. She doesn’t question you.” Gamodren sighed.

“You don’t just….” Ceres started.

“There is a strong source of mana below us, surrounded by a force almost as strong and a few slightly weaker ones.”

“Under us, so we need to find some stairs then.”

“Hah. Stairs… No no, we get the drop on them. Tiffany and Ceres get back.” Kyrion raised his foot high into the air.

Tiffany and Ceres watched as the boy brought his foot down and the building shook. Glass shattered, furniture moved, and best of all, the floor went down along with the boy,

Upon landing, Kyrion jumped to the side, drawing the enemy’s attention as Tiffany and the other fell in and flanked their enemy.

Under the debris, uninjured by the assault, was a humanoid with long ears and albino white skin. Its eyes had a half maddened look in them. One was red like fire while the other glowed silver. Kyrion noticed as he looked at the creature longer. It wasn’t that the face was weird. Instead, the face was a mask made from diamond hiding its true nature.

“Hello, hello, take a seat. You must be here for the interview, yes?” It asked, pointing to where a seat was before waving its hand and causing four of them to reform from the destruction. The ceiling also seemed to fix itself.

Ceres jumped as objects began to float around and move without physical interaction.

“Do you know what a tomato is?” Was the first question it asked.

“It’s a red fruit or vegetable, depending on who you ask. We had an area for them at my family farm.” Kyrion answered.

“Can any of you cook?” It asked.

Kyrion looked to his group mates, who seemed to find the ceiling fascinating. He then raised an eyebrow and waited for someone to respond.

“I’ll take that as a no. Can you work well in a group?” It asked.

“Yes,” Kyrion answered before adding. “What are these questions for.”

“Gotta find a slot for you new gremlins.”

“We aren’t gremlins.” Kyrion said as his group mates seemed out to lunch.

“Thats silly, only gremlins are down here in gremlin town.” It laughed.

Kyrion eyed the creature with suspension. “What else do you do?”

“I make sure the Gremlins fall in line and meet their quota for the father.”

“Father? Where can we find this father?” Kyrion opened his senses to the area and felt that the creature in front of him held more than anything else here. The second strongest was a domineering presence in the adjacent room.

“The father is in the next room, he is quite a glutton and has a habit of eating other gremlins, most dread being assigned the position in the first place. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure your father won’t need any new staff after we start working under him. We will stay with him until he dies.” Kyrion promised, choosing his words carefully as he felt a chain wrap around his core. He was starting to hate that feeling.

Gamodren nodded, keeping his mouth shut. A smirk could be seen on his face.

“Great news. Go on in!” The door flew open, and Kyrion and co entered the room.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Kyrion asked his group mates.

“Didn’t want to mess up my master’s plan.” Ceres said.

“You looked like you had it under control.” Replied Tiffany.

“You did well, though you could have worded your oath differently, while it works here since we’re going to do a dreadful deed. It means we can’t leave until it’s done. Keep this in mind words become law as a spirit master. As you grow stronger your words will carry more wait. A speech by a mortal can move hearts while a speech from a spirit master can move mountains.” Gamodren led the way this time, shrouding the group in fog.

Kyrion sighed. “What was that guy outside anyway? He was stronger than the thing I felt in here.”

“That was the dungeon. It seems that its core has been damaged, which is probably why gremlin town is ruined. This place used to be a training hotspot, I can see why fewer people have been coming here now.”

“Why take us here then?” Tiffany asked.

“It’s close to the town and another place I need to take Kyrion for his training.” Gamodren said before stopping as Tiffany eyed him.

“Things are starting to add up now Master Gan.” Tiffany looked him dead in his eyes.

“Really now you call me out on it now, right before we fight the boss.” Gamodren didn’t try to hide it, closing his eyes and smiling ear to ear.

“He looks more like a fox than Jala does sometimes.” Kyrion muttered to himself.

“And Kyrion clearly isn’t surprised, why didn’t you just come out and say that you were an expert spirit master?”

“Well your captain figured it out when I told him about the traitors in his midst. He realized that my strength didn’t match what I was showing him. I told your father about a week ago about are circumstances, he seemed quite surprised. So I was going to tell you one day preferably not before you three have to go kill a mid-practitioner rank monster on your own.” Gamodren disappeared.

“Is he always like that?” Tiffany asked.

“Yes actually, I’m just now learning to discern truth from lies. Though that may be something else entirely.” Kyrion stopped walking forward.

A sixteen-foot tall obese gremlin sitting on a cushioned chair that seemed to be made for it. At its side was a spiked club that could easily crush and tenderize them if they just stood there and took hit after hit on purpose.

Ceres took vanguard while Tiffany and her rapier were right behind. Kyrion summoned Jala and had her rest on Tiffany’s shoulder for this fight, while Issac seemed to be on strike after getting crushed.

The father sat in the chair staring into space as Ceres conjured a hammer made from earth and hammered it into the creature’s big toe.

“That's a low blow.” Kyrion muttered.

“Would you prefer I fought it head on master?”

“If you still looked like that dragon I saw earlier, then yes, now I think it has a size advantage.” Kyrion grabbed the creature’s injured foot with a water whip and drilled a fire pepper seed into the open wound, causing it to grow from the wound. Glowing red energy spreads through the creature’s veins, slowly encroaching on its core.

The monster got up, stomping its foot on the ground, partly in agony and partly trying to crush Ceres.

Tiffany stabbed into the creature’s large Achilles tendon. Piercing deep into the monster’s flesh but not causing the injury she expected. As it was only inconvenienced and had a minor limp.

The gremlin barked a command, and ten small gremlins ran into the room only to be swept up and consumed in an act of cannibalism. The wounds on the creature’s foot began to heal, along with the many stabs. The fiery veins, however, continued to spread.

Ceres began climbing the creature’s leg using a series of earthing pitons stabbing into the creature as she made her way up.

With none of that, the father fell forward, crushing the dragon with ease before rolling over with a nimbleness that belied its size.

It felt a piercing sensation on the third swing as a dart passed through its left eye and severed something.

Next, a mighty gust of wind came and knocked it out of its socket. The remains fell to the ground, the wound unable to heal fully now that the limb was missing.

Enraged, the creature wildly swung at the slowly falling duo.

Strikes that should have hit found themselves missing as the two disappeared in a pink mist.

Kyrion gripped his head and channeled the plant mana lingering in the creature’s body, causing the fire to spread through the monster’s veins.

The creature began hitting itself in confusion and even fell to the ground rolling in an attempt to put out the fire.

Ceres’s plate armor had been bent in many places but mainly remained intact. Her body was bruised after the series of attacks. But, thanks to her bond with Kyrion, even those were healing as the fight went on. She would never tell her master that she got the better end of the deal.

Ceres caused the earth to wrap around the rolling creature stopping it in place. It slowed significantly and even tried to fight it. But in the end, it died wrapped in a blanket of earth.