Supreme Monarch

Standing in the center of the dark alleyway, Tyler watched as the band of thieves scurried away despite the brave and threatening words that left their mouths as they did. The shadow under his feet rippled slightly but soon returned back to its original shape.

He sighed internally, naturally he accounted for greedy folks like those to try something sooner of later but it was still a pain to deal with. Not to mention, he now had five slightly stronger ones to deal with. Well, an ant being slightly stronger does not stop it from being an ant. Although their were probably some scary ass ants in this world so maybe that analogy was dead already.

The figure that had fell down from the sky and restrained the first gold rank Hunter that had tried to launch an attack at Tyler release him and she stood up. If Tyler's hood wasn't covering most of his face, he was sure she would've noticed his change in expression.

There was only one word he could use to describe the person in front of him and going by what he knew, he was right. Succubus, the lady in front of him was like the epitome of seduction. Any ordinary human male that saw this demon would definitely lose their souls in her audacious curves and lewd outfit.

She had long blonde hair that went all the way to her waist, her crimson eyes had a predatory gleam to them. Her pale pink skin tone seemed to glisten in the light and a pair of demon looking horns protruded from the side of her head as bat like wings were twitching just a few inches above her waist.

Her short brown cloak did very little to hide her leather outfit which Tyler would consider a seductive swimsuit. It was made of a full Silvery metal that was stitched on a thing layer of brown leather fabric. Her cold resistance must've been off the charts since the armor only covered her more private areas.

A yellowish golden metal plated bracelet was strapped on her left wrist meaning she was an Orichalcum ranked Hunter. The strongest in their group.

Tyler silently cast placate on himself to calm down. He turned his head to get a better look at the four behind him which drew a 'tsk' from her but he chose to ignore it. There were two men and two girls behind him, all with demonic features like tails and horns in their bodies.

Tyler saw Nadine's serious expression that wasn't there when they had faced the band of thieves earlier, she must consider this group to be far more dangerous than those guys. He was about to say something when the guy in front spoke.

This person looked like the team's leader although he wasn't the strongest member. It was something Tyler hadn't expect to find in the demon continent were strength was quite important. The young man wore some sort of banded armor — strips of pale grayish-white metal were woven together with the same metal threads over a leather or chain backing — and carried himself like a warrior.

The man had a thin or wiry frame, but was also muscular and was light on his feet. He had short red hair and brown eyes with an attractive facial feature. He also had ram like horn protruding from the side of his head.

"Sorry about that, those guys are always causing trouble for our guild, they don't represent the majority of us Hunters so please didn't think too badly of the guild."

He took a step forward to get closer to Tyler and Nadine quickly tried to step in front of him and cut him off in case of an attack but Tyler slightly raised his arm to stop her. The lesser demon stopped upon seeing that and scratched the back of his head a little confused.

"Hey, why don't we talk in the restaurant up ahead, I'm still a little hungry."

Tyler turned his head to look at the one who spoke. It was the succubus girl who was still flashing her lewd body at him probably trying to get a reaction. Tyler ignored her and silently walked away in the direction she was talking about with Nadine in tow.

The group of five followed behind silently until they got to a two storey building. Tyler couldn't read the name of the restaurant but he recognized the drawing of food and drinks. His learning of the written language had only gone as far as recognizing the numbers on the Hunter's bracelet.

They pick an empty table at the end of the room an sat randomly around the table. Or so they wanted Tyler to believe as they were all still relatively close together and able to make a move should anything happen.

Once they were randomly seated, the leader of the party spoke to Tyler again:

"Sorry about that again, and for taking your time. Before we begin though, let's start by introducing ourselves."

He had a charming smile on his face and winked at Nadine, however he did not get the reaction he was hoping for as her expression turned scornful. He quickly adjusted his gaze back to the hooded Tyler and continued.

"I'm called Dohel Mahlat, the leader of this party. We call ourselves 'Unrivaled', neat right?"

"Shut up man, you're embarrassing us, we don't really call ourselves that."

"He's right."

"Seconded."

"What! why are you all turning on me here..."

"Let's order already, I'm hungry."

Tyler saw the group bantering off each other and couldn't help but remember his former adventurers party members. Of course he was always the odd man out but that was beside the point. He quickly used placate on himself again before things went out of hand and the group finally got back in topic.

The group were forced to place an order by the Orichalcum ranked Hunter and offered to pay for whatever Tyler and Nadine wanted but he declined. Nadine got a glass of cold and freshly squeezed juice and the others received their orders as Dohel continued his introduction.

"This guy here is, Larut Jawl. He's a ranger and you can also call him our party's scout."

The guy Dohel was talking about was most likely an ogre, he had pale orange skin like the one Tyler had found in the forest. Larut carried a large crossbow on his back and a small dagger on his waist. He was equiped similar to Gail and Tyler found that fascinating.

"...And the one stuffing her face in food is Kylyra Agrat and I'm sure you can already guess, she's a succubi and our ace."

As expected, she was indeed a succubi. Dohel was also a lesser demon yet he hadn't mentioned his species but for some reason he made it a point to inform Tyler of hers. Perhaps it was a kind of warning for him to keep his distance and be careful around her.

According to what he knew, Succubus usually gained essence from pleasurable activities which generally implies having sexual intercourse with men and women alike. Although they could also temporarily substitute sex for activities like eating or something that gives them a sense of pleasure.

Thinking of it now he understood why she was stuffing her face in food right in front of him. The laws generally tends to be harsher on Hunters so she probably couldn't go around sucking men dry, or engaging in other implicit activities.

"These two are Aine and Anne Syel. They're both mages so don't let their size fool you, they're quite strong."

The two girls with similar facial features, one with black hair and sky blue eyes, the other with white hair and Black eyes. They made a peace sign to Tyler and went back to sipping on their drinks.

Tyler wondered where they had learnt that sign from before returning his focus back on Dohel.

"I supposed it would be rude of us not to introduce ourselves after coming this far. I am Lix and she is Lilith, pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you."

Nadine echoed his last words with a straight face.

"Wonderful, I hope we can all get along. Then, Mr. Lix, you can just address me by my first name. Right, while it feels a little wrong to get to business so abruptly, we don't want to waste anymore of your time when it looks like you have a lot to do."

"I'll get straight to the point, since you're probably aware that we have been monitoring you since you left the inn this morning and I apologize for our rudeness. As for why, it's simple, we need a reliable merchant for a job Ang going directly through the merchant guild was not an option."

"Meaning?"

"Well..." Dohel sighed deeply being a little hesitant to continue but steeled himself and spoke again. "To be honest we had gotten ourselves into a bit of a troublesome situation and the only way out is by doing a very dangerous job and we need a merchant for it. Of course, we are not here to involve you in our mess, we just need your up in transportation."

Dohel took a sip of the tea that had just been placed in front of him and continued. "There are several reasons why we decided to ask you directly instead of going through the merchant guild. First of all, we needed a merchant that wasn't too weak that we had to constantly protect as the journey would be long and tedious."

"Second, we spent most of our funds preparing for this and we cannot afford to pay an hiring fee upfront. Although, there were probably a lot of rookie merchants we could probably convince. The first reason prevents us from doing that and although you're a VIP merchant, you're still only a rank 1 so we thought you would be more affordable than other more established merchants."

"Is there a third reason?"

"Your carriage."

"Is that so."

"Yes. It wasn't obvious but we were still able to tell that it was an enchanted carriage. With a normal mount and carriage the trip would take longer bit with yours our travel time would be cut in half."

"I see "

""We also couldn't go directly through the merchant guild as this job is not an official job request from the Hunter guild so the fee would be several time higher."

"This all sounds like a lot of hassle, but I'll get to the point. What can you offer us for our help?"

"I can show you a good time, it will surely be a night you'll never forget."

Those words came from the succubi that had been stuffing her face only a few minutes ago. She had already cleaned up her plate and was now giving Tyler a seductive smile.

Tyler looked at her for only a split second before turning back to face Dohel. If he foolishly wanted a succubus to drain his life away he was sure he could find one in the several brothels in the city.

Kylyra almost slammed her head on the table after being ignored yet again. It wasn't her idea to seduce him to begin with and yet her confidence was suffering because of it. Dohel chuckled awkwardly, perhaps he had hope that Tyler would be swayed by a succubus to lessen their financial burden.

...Sigh... "Our potential gain in this is around 30,000 DC, that's a lot right. We would also like for you to sell the materials to the merchant guild, using your VIP merchant license would reduce the guilds commission so we're willing to offer you 20 percent of our total income."

"50."

"—What?"

"50 percent."

"Umm, well, there are still five of us and we would be the ones doing most of the fighting so don't you think taking 50 percent is a bit..."

"No, I'm afraid the job sounds troublesome and there's no guarantee you can get that amount of money, I also don't need to bother with this so no, I'll only accept 50%"

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