Several days had passed since Evan's clone had first come into the city with Luna.
Given his situation, he could only hunt at night, because during the day he had his duties at the manor to attend to, and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't avoid them if he wanted to stay out of further trouble.
Fortunately, Tom hadn't made any moves against him during this period, so Evan was able to live in relative peace at the manor.
And so, during the day, his clone and its summons hunted and farmed ESS for him, while at night he would personally join in.
Despite only a few days having passed since he had started hunting personally, he had to admit the progress he had made was nothing short of massive, something his ever climbing stats made very clear:
---
[Name: Evan]
[Age: 14]
[Rank: E]
[ESS: 6.0%]
[Bloodline: None]
[Divine Clone]
> Clones: 1
[Skills]: 1
[Storage]
---
During this time he had faced a wide variety of awakened beasts across different stages of F and E-Rank.
He had fought many F-rank beasts at the Advanced Stage, but he tried to avoid them since they didn't grant much ESS and were too weak to be useful even from a training perspective.
He hunted several Early-stage E-rank beasts, which had been somewhat troublesome at first, but as his strength kept increasing, he gradually got the hang of dealing with them.
So much so that he eventually took on two E-Rank Mid-Stage beasts on his own, and even one at the Advanced Stage.
That last one had given him quite a hard time, but with the help of his clone's summons and his Death Mark, he managed to weaken it enough to kill it without too much trouble.
It wouldn't be wrong to say that the amount of progress he had made during this period was far from small. Even so, his own progress had only gone from 1% to 6%, while his clone, having had more time to hunt than him, had reached 8.1%.
Even though the clone was ahead of him, Evan didn't mind.
That said, his relentless, nonstop hunting, day and night, hadn't gone unnoticed. It didn't take long before he earned himself the title of the Crazy Adventurer around town.
People had spotted him hunting both at night and in the early morning, which baffled many, and inevitably everyone started wondering whether this guy lived solely to hunt or something.
Even the receptionist who had processed Evan's cores found herself repeatedly caught off guard, because in the span of just a few days the other party had brought in dozens of Advanced-Stage F-Rank beast corpses and even several E-Rank ones, along with a handful of Early-Stage E-Rank mana cores.
At first she had been shocked by his hunting speed, but she soon set that aside and began treating him as her lucky charm, since the commission she received from all those transactions was equivalent to at least three months of her regular salary, all in just a few days.
This made her colleagues jealous, and several of them tried to poach her client. She didn't let them. Not to mention the female receptionists among them who, despite doing their best to play up their charm, were promptly ignored by Evan.
In their eyes, the Crazy Adventurer thought of nothing but hunting day and night, so he clearly wasn't interested in anything else. Little did they know the only reason he wasn't paying them any attention was that his actual body was somewhere far from there, something he wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about.
'Don't worry, my friend, your time will come,' he said to himself as he walked out of the Association.
He usually stopped by every two or three days, just enough time to accumulate a decent amount of mana cores and beast corpses.
And today was one of those days. As usual, he was targeted by the other receptionists again, and as usual, he had to ignore them. Who would have thought that one day beauties would be the ones chasing after him, yet he wouldn't even be able to properly talk to them?
Life was truly too cruel, he told himself, as he made his way toward the commercial district.
In preparation for his eventual escape, he had been setting money aside, more than enough to sustain himself for a while. But beyond that, he had also started buying basic necessities: flour, oil, various foods already preprared, and everyday items like plates, cutlery, and even a small camping bed to pull out when he'd be on the road.
Small quantities of various things that would come in useful down the line. And today it was clothing, he didn't have a great sense of fashion, not that he cared about getting anything refined. Just something decent to wear.
He had entered a small shop he had spotted a few days ago, still open despite it already being past ten in the evening. He could tell they were about to close, and if it hadn't been for his coin pouch jingling with every step, the owner would very likely have shut the door in his face without a second glance.
'Alright, that's done too. I guess it's time to head back to the forest and-'
He had just stepped outside and was preparing to leave when his expression shifted without warning, suddenly alert, as his senses picked up on something.
His clone's [Death Sense] had caught something.
A death aura, to be precise. Strong and close.
He didn't know why, but he felt drawn to it. Curious, he decided to move toward it.
His senses detected no powerful presences in that direction, so he wasn't worried, though that didn't mean he was careless. He activated Stealth and slipped into a narrow alley, taking a couple of turns before finally arriving at what appeared to be a small house, very average, if not slightly below. The poor condition of the place made that much clear.
But that wasn't what caught his attention.
The space around the house was distorted and strangely dark, the night seeming to grow heavier in this particular area. A strange stench hung in the air, thick and nauseating. But perhaps more striking than any of that was the sight in front of him.
Dozens of corpses were scattered everywhere, not a trace of life left in any of them, brutally mutilated. And at the center of it all stood what appeared to be the one responsible.
Taking in the scene, Evan felt a certain surprise, but strangely, none of it unsettled him. No discomfort, no unease. If anything, he seemed oddly at ease with it. He didn't dwell on that, though. He had no time to examine his own reactions, because his gaze was fixed entirely on the figure in front of him.
He knew her. And how could he not?
That long black hair, now stained with blood. That slightly pale face that did nothing to hide the delicate, refined features beneath. And those eyes, once a warm almond color, now dark as the abyss, rimmed with a faint violet glow, with a faint crimson gleam burning at their center, fixed entirely on him.
It was Luna.