Ed couldn't believe his eyes at what he was seeing. Hope had grown at least 7 times his previous size. Not only that, his presence felt different too. Like he was a different person.

Or in his case, a different dragon.

"When have you became this large?!" Lance asked amusingly. "My dear son is huge. He'll leave momma's nest soon."

"And he refuses to take the mother role," Elliot whispered to Connor that made the latter snort. "Seriously, this guys is a walking contradiction."

"Hey, I heard that," Lance glared. "We have a Guard to kill. Let's– holy crap, it's an entire patrol! Hope, shift back!"

"What?" Hope asked. It was another wonder how they could understand his speech even when he was in his dragon form. It sounded like a growl, but somehow they knew what it meant.

"You'll take the Guards' attention, hope. Shift back!" Lance yelled again.

Without even giving them a second more to spare, several guards had leaped into their direction.

Humanoid beasts with buff bodies and a full set of iron armor, those were how the guards looked like. They had iron helmets that covered their faces, but their slurred growls made it obvious that they weren't human.

"Black Fortress!" Lance casted, surrounding Hope who was still shifting back. He pointed his white sword in front of them and casted another, "White Fortress!"

The guards had clashed with the barriers that Lance put up. Their large swords clanked as it slammed against the magical shields. Ten guards had attacked the barrier and it was slowly breaking down.

"Everyone, get ready," Lance yelled. "The fortresses will go down in 3, 2, 1. Let's go!"

"Supreme Malevolence!" Elliot casted and blasted himself in the air. He brandished his sword and waited for Connor for support.

"Flame Cube!" Connor casted, firing a flaming cube that stopped midair. Elliot used the cube as a stepping stone and bent his knees, his butt was almost reaching his ankles while preparing to blast himself once more.

"Hasty Aspire!"

Elliot raised his sword in front of him and slashed directly through a Guard, cutting its arm off. When he got to the ground, he dashed to a group of Guards and hit them, not intentionally killing them but instead, he was maximizing his skill power.

'Supreme Malevolence Maximum'

With a single slash, Elliot sliced open the chests of the three beasts that surrounded him. When he thought they were already dead, one of them raised its sword and hacked it against him.

"I told you, they can par me in strength," Lance said, blocking the attack with his white sword. "You think I'll go down with just one strike?"

Elliot rolled his eyes and kicked one of the Guards towards an awaiting Ed.

"Chaos Penetrance."

His entire sleeved arm glowed with a dark purple flame. The flames traveled down to the blade of his sword where he raised it beside him, just on his eye level. When the beast got inside his range, Ed thrusted his sword right through the Guard's neck, the flames raging on as it cut its head off.

"Ew," Connor said as he raised his staff. "But I also have a few new skills to show off. Flaming Ruins of Abbaroth!"

There was a short pause, a moment of silence and nothing had happened. Connor tilted his head and waited, but it seems like nothing is happening. "Wait. I'm sure I casted– oh, woop. There we go."

The ground shook and several red circular symbols appeared below three of the Guards. The earth inside the circle collapsed and a surge of red flames burst through, engulfing beasts. It looked like it was a vicious volcanic eruption, burning intensely as the guards could only fall into the pits after the flames.

"That's sick!" Ed praised.

"Yep, and now my mana has depleted," Connor gave him an awkward grin. "Just wanted to show it off."

Hope was gripping his sword. He was worried that he wasn't bringing enough manpower for the group. Like he was useless.

"I'm just a weak fighter," Hope sighed in hopelessness. "But I will become stronger."

"Put that in mind always," Lance whispered beside him. "But before that, put your mind in this battle first."

Hope put on a determined smile. "Okay, dad."

Lance ruffled the younger boy's hair and smiled. "Good boy."

"But you need to stop lurking," Hope added.

"Right."

Connor suddenly floated in the air and flames circle around his staff. "Flame Shot!"

A burst of red flames fired into one of the Guards who was trying to crawl out of the collapsed ground. It was blown right back into the soil, which made Connor snort as he slowly descended.

"Where did he get the mana for that?" Ed was raising his brow as to what's happening and he saw a flask disappear right from Connor's grasp.

"Elliot, gimme some too!" Ed screamed. "Pretty please?"

Elliot nodded and dashed towards him, giving him a flask of mana revitalizing potion. "What's in this?"

"Err, you really wanna know?" Elliot smirked.

"Nevermind," Ed grimaced and saved the potion for later use. He still had plenty of mana so he wasn't worried about it running out yet.

"Chaos Shock!" Ed pierced his sword to the ground and made it shake.

The ground stopped shaking that made Connor snort, "That's it? Kind of ineffective isn't it?"

"Why do they seem so slow?" Hope narrowed his eyes and realized it's from Ed's spell. "Mr. Ed, did you do it?"

"Of course," Ed grinned. "Now, let's kill these beasts."

There were 9 Crimson Guards that had attacked them as a patrol. The group had managed to kill 5 but the others had escaped.

"Why did they retreated?" Connor asked. "Do they feel fear too?"

"Something like that," Lance replied. "When you eliminate half of the patrol, it is with their instincts that they would retreat and form another patrol with other Guards."

"I think they'll be back with some more guards," Ed said.

"How do they reproduce though?" Elliot wondered. "I mean, if they had been around for a long time and Adventuring had been farming them, how do they reproduce? And the armor too. Do they have a blacksmith?"

Lance snorted, "Silly you. Each castle has a few special beasts inside, somewhere deep into the castle. It is called the Castle Nest where beast casters summon more beasts to add into their arms. When the Five Palaces had just appeared, no one dare to go inside them. The Nest produced more beasts than most Adventurers could handle until there were beasts from the Five Palaces around each city."

"That would be especially hard considering the kingdom is surrounded with these castles," Ed said. "I remember someone talk about that from a quest. They said their village couldn't be rebuilt by how damaged it was until Pentos came."

"Pentos were really amazing," Elliot smiled. "Can we be like them? I mean, we can't have our own guild since we have already have one but we can start calling our party Pentos."

"No, man," Lance said. "Calling a group or a guild, or anything Pentos would make it crumble. Like literally."

"There was once a guild who had somehow registered their name as Pentoss, with double S, yes. They didn't last a month," Ed said. "And I was there to witness how bad the Pentos Curse got them."

"H-How bad was it?" Elliot gulped. "Wait, Pentos Curse?"

"At first people flocked over their guild, assuming they were as powerful as the original Pentos, right?" Ed started. "So, naturally, the quests were extremely hard. I had seen members die one by one after every quest. They literally didn't last long. After three members died among 13 of them, they disbanded. They couldn't deliver what the original Pentos served."

"Not only that. Villagers, even Adventurers, also bullied those guys," Lance added. "I mean, everyday they had to endure being called 'copycats' or 'ripoffs'. It's so sad."

"And that's why we should never call our group Pentos," Ed concluded. "I have other evidences too but that's for another time."

"Okay, okay," Elliot raised his arms. "The Creator's Sloth."

The four carcasses of the Crimson Guards were put inside Elliot's Inventory. He checked Florencia's quest again just to double check and it said they only needed 1 corpse.

I don't think I have a recipe for the Guard though. Elliot thought.

'New recipe unlocked.'

A smirk found its way into his lips. "Gotcha."

[ Terran Royalty Series Recipe Set ]

Elliot nodded in satisfaction and closed the Console. "Let's go."

They returned to their wagon and journeyed to the city where the frogs were.

The city they were going to was a beach city called Nefantine. Located in the West where the sea was shallow, the city was often visited with Adventurers and tourists who wanted to relax and go on vacations.

"Let's explore after we finish the quest," Lance suggested. "It'll be a waste if we just go home right after, right?"

"True," Elliot agreed. "After you guys wrestle the frogs."

After reading the description, Elliot had decided to not participate on the quest. It says that large working frogs had stomachaches after eating mysterious fruits given to them by an unknown woman.

He also commented that the owner of the frogs should make his pets puke himself since he was the stupid one who trusted a stranger.

"But we need your burst power," Lance said. "You know, launch yourself directly into the frog's stomach and make them puke."

"You make it sound so easy," Elliot deadpanned.

"Remember, you're doing this for Viper," Connor said. He looked serious, but not one moment later, he couldn't hold his laugh.

Elliot sighed in defeat. "For Viper."