[Normal POV]

Soon enough my food came and I devoured it with gusto. The special was a stew made with the battle boar meat I brought back a while ago alongside various dungeon grown vegetables. No one other than the ladies at the hostess, my familia and Hephaestus knew about the meat to begin with so the dish was extremely popular if only because no one could identify what the meat was. The flavor was also extremely good so there was that too. The stew was only made once a week though as the stock of meat wasn’t nearly enough for daily expenditure.-

Mama Mia had offered quite the sum for regular shipments of meat but I had declined. I didn’t mind grabbing some when I had an opportunity but didn’t want to have an obligation to do so. She was good natured about it though and simply said she’d buy any of it I brought up with me. Freezing enchantments were a thing after all so while the meat wouldn’t constantly stay fresh it still stored easily enough. Once I was done with my meal I said my farewells to Hroldar and the others before taking a stroll through the active streets of the city.-

Adventurers moved about chatting or with clear purpose while merchants hawked their wares loudly. There were normal citizens too who were just living their lives like normal. I knew that most of these people were either born here or came in hopes of becoming a successful merchant or adventurer. The latter two of those weren’t all that delusional as this place did allow for such dreams to be achieved far easier than in most other places in the world. The catch was that competition was fierce in the merchant side of things and being an adventurer was just flat out dangerous to begin with.-

Even worse was that without sufficient capital or visible strength getting started was quite difficult. Orario was the beating heart of power in this world and that meant you couldn’t run get rich quick schemes here without getting tossed out or straight up disappearing if you chose the wrong target. As for being an adventurer that was just as tough without any visible strength or recommendations. Most small familias were either new or like that for a good reason. Either way not typically the best start to ones journey as an adventurer.-

Forget trying to get into the larger famous familias too as those either weren’t recruiting or flat out didn’t bother with random applicants unless they were special somehow. I shook my head at this and made my way to the market to grab some supplies for my journey and check for last minute goodies. The market was bustling as people went about their mid to late day shopping of produce or simply browsed the goods laid out from those trying their luck at mercantile. These people were the few that managed to make a connection to some familia or even an adventurer of some skill to get goods straight from the dungeon.-

Most of the stuff was worth very little in truth, scraps at best. Still it was these things that gave newcomers a small chance to get stable footing so it was an unspoken agreement that no one was to chase these little fellows off. I myself purchased various fruits and vegetables to be dried into fruit leather or vegetable powder. I also bought a good amount of jerky for the road as well. –

While I was idly walking through the market looking at the things set out for sale I froze in my tracks at the small dirty blanket stall of someone clearly new to the city. I ignored all the other small bits that weren’t worth my attention and focused my gaze on the ivory broken claw sitting on it in the center.

“That claw there, how much?” I asked seriously.

The young man sitting there looked at me in surprise.

“Er.. a thousand? No! Two thousand!” he said said hurriedly though clearly unsure.

I took off my coin bag from my waist and tossed it to him “That’s a more fair amount, i’ll be taking this now.” I said as I grabbed the claw piece before leaving in a hurry.

My bag had well over half a million valis in it but I wasn’t wrong when I said that it was a more fair payment for this claw fragment. Why you may ask? Because this thing was radiating an intense amount of cursed energy. Whatever this came from was powerful and extremely feared or a mere fragment of one of it’s claws wouldn’t have such an effect. As I attempted to use my technique on it my eyes bulged in shock as there was no reaction at all. –

To be more precise the innate resistance of this mere fragment was so high my technique rolled right off of it harmlessly. I could only think of a single creature that was ever known to hold that sort of power and my heartbeat grew rapid at the idea, The one eyed black dragon. A beast of such calamitous power that even the full force of both the Zeus and Hera familias which consisted of dozens of level sevens, eights and even a single nine failed to strike down but were instead wiped out themselves.-

No one knew for sure but many agreed that the beast had to have been at least a level nine monster rex, perhaps even on the verge of godhood. It was no wonder a mere fragment of one of it’s claws likely broken off during the battle would have such power and cursed energy. Finding this fragment was a stroke of grand luck even if to the average person it appeared to be a rather hard piece of junk. To me this was not just a supreme crafting material but also a taste of how powerful that dragon really was.-

‘I can’t wait to kill that dragon.’ I thought with an eager grin as I headed home.

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