After testing out if it worked, Marcus went back to make some regeneration pills as he was pretty sure Adventures could potentially need it. Unlike healing spells, according to Alfia, they need to chant, and their mana runs out.
When Mana runs out, people experience mind zero. According to his new maid, it's a fail-safe made by the Falna so as not to damage one's mind after getting low on mana.
While they do have potions and other stuff, it's not like his rapid regen pills. Which, according to her, are quite impressive.
Honestly, he could make something even more impressive, like limb restoration, but that can wait.
"So this Monster Rex is something akin to a boss?"
"Yes. There are floors in the dungeon which are solely made for floor bosses. Like the one on floor 17, which spawns Goliath, or the one on 37, which spawns Monster Rex by the name Udaeus." Alfia explained to him about the dungeon.
"Oh. Then I assume the dungeon is alive in some sort of shape or form?"
"Precisely. Dungeon hates Gods. It can spawn strong monsters when it senses even a tiny bit of their Arcanium. So something like sacrifice inside Dungeon's depths triggered the dungeon quite a bit." The silver-haired girl explained to him as they continued to walk towards Central Park.
"Ha… So, it feels like someone or something was sealed in the dungeon by the gods long ago. That means it has sentience." Marcus pondered out loudly.
"Are you planning to find out if it's true?" She asked him curiously.
"Nah… not really. If so, the dungeon will cease to work. I might do it in a couple of hundred years after exploring it fully and figuring out all of the quirks." He casually explained to her. His mentioning hundreds of years is like ten to twenty for a regular mortal. She needed a double take just to realise that he was serious.
"I am serious. You assume that we will be around for 50 to 70 years?" He replied to her as he saw the look she was showing to him.
"I haven't learned all of the secrets of the universe. I haven't seen enough worlds or built enough things to die from something as mundane as old age." Marcus explained to her his reasons.
"That is why you will be with me for a long, long time."
Alfia's lips twitched as she realised that she had messed with someone she shouldn't have, as now her life was pretty much forfeited, and it was no longer hers to make choices.
~~~
Soon enough, the pair arrived at Central Park. They could see rag-tag groups of people in all sorts of states. With semi-broken weapons and bandages, others were in not bad shape.
Most importantly, he could see banners of their Familia. One thing is for sure. Marcus loves his banners.
"Look, that kid is back!" People started to murmur the moment they saw Marcus and his maid.
"Yeah, and that crazy strong girl is with him!" The guys started to whisper how their situation would become much greater if these two were with them.
"You!"
A blonde elf girl dressed in green pointed her wooden sword at Marcus.
"Me?" The alchemist pointed his finger at himself as if wondering if she was talking to him. As he never interacted with a beautiful elf before.
One thing he can forgive for living in a caveman world is that it is full of beautiful girls and elves.
'I do wonder if beautiful cat girls are a thing.' He pondered about that as the blonde elf walked over to him. She was followed by a Japanese girl dressed in a kimono and a red-haired girl with her hair done into a ponytail.
"You are the one who indiscriminately killed all of those people!"
"Hah? I don't remember killing people." Marcus was for a second confused. When did he kill a person? All he remembers is wiping out garbage that followed Evilus.
"Don't lie! You killed all those people of Evilus!"
"Duh… When you have trash, you take it out. I offered them to leave. But they didn't, so I removed them." Marcus explained with a careless shrug.
"You can't simply kill them. They need to be punished by the city. Proper justice has to be served."
Snort
Marcus snorted before laughing when he heard that.
"You look too old for childish delusions. But I guess you elves grow slower." Marcus joked. His joke made the blonde elf clench her fist in anger.
"You shouldn't talk to a girl like that." The Japanese girl spoke from the side of the blonde elf.
"True. I should just lie through my teeth to make sure she feels fine." The alchemist replied in a sarcastic tone.
"I assume you girls are from some Justice-obsessed Familia, I am right?"
As he said that, he looked at the one who gathered around the redhead and the blonde. He can only see girls. So, most likely, a girl-only Familia or some male god is collecting his female harem.
"We are from Astraea Familia." The redhead replied as she looked at Marcus with a curious gaze.
"Are you really just a kid? You are far too strong to be a kid." She asked him before introducing herself.
"I am Alise Lovell. The captain of Astraea Familia. The blonde next to me is Lion, and the other girl is Kaguya." The redhead was introduced with a loud tone.
By this point, Marcus had already understood their characters. The blonde was an idealist, the redhead was a braggart with a 'great heart', and the Japanese girl was most likely elegant, but it was all an act.
He knew enough anime to understand these basic things.
"Yes. it's nice to meet you all." Marcus nodded at them, but then the redhead decided to ask something random, which slightly confused him.
"Say. What do you think is justice?"
"Hmm?"
"Yes. I would like to know that too. Since you casually killed all those people." The Lion elf girl looked at him with an annoyed look. It appears Marcus has stroked her reverse scale and touched her ideology.
"Well, that is pretty simple." He said with raised eyebrows. The alchemist is pretty sure such a concept is a simple thing.
"..."
"..."
"..."
They waited for his reply.
"Fine. I suppose I will share some knowledge." He sighed while looking at them.
"Justice comes in two forms. Individual and collective." He showed two fingers to them.
"Individual is when one person decides how his or her nation or kingdom perceives justice. That is what is called 'King's Justice'. When you are king or Queen, you can decide what is right and what is wrong.
The second is collective. This is where your bunch comes into play. As I assume, you girls love playing heroes around the city. You gather in groups and play the good girls who save cats from trees and help old ladies with their groceries, maybe capture a thief or two."
When Marcus used a sarcastic tone like this, they realised that he was making fun of them in the most strange way possible. It even made them embarrassed to some extent!
"Y-You think it's wrong to help people?" Alise, with a stuttering voice, replied. She never imagined a boy like this one would make fun of her!
"Not at all. However, you have to be ready for the time when you will be too weak to help. As if you want to help people you first need to help yourself."
After saying that, he proceeded to walk past them as he noticed Loki's Familia at the back.
"H-Hey, what does that even mean!?" Alise tried to grab him with his hand, but Alfia grabbed her hand quicker, making her stop.
"What he meant is that you need to train yourself to be the strongest before you can push your ideals on others." She explained with a plain tone as she understood what Marcus meant.
"Indeed, exactly what my maid just said. When you are strong, you can even tell that the sky is red and not blue. Eventually, people will believe that.
Until then, train and train some more. Maybe then you can tell me what I should do with trash, Miss Redhead and Miss Elf-girl." Marcus waived his hand as he passed the familia of Goddess of Justice and went to see Finn.
Alise looked at her hand in disbelief as she realised that she couldn't even move it when that black-clad girl grabbed her!
'And she was his maid?'
While Alise was affected, the blonde elf girl was impacted the most. This was the first time someone explained what Justice is, as she had been searching for it ever since joining Astraea Familia.
~~~
"Sorry for making you wait. Some Girl Scouts have taken a moment of my time." Marcus walked over to the Loki camp.
"It's fine. Don't think too much about Astraea Familia; those girls just like helping people. They have been quite a help since Evilus rose to power." Finn explained to Marcus as he motioned for the Alchemist to follow him.
"I assume that the thing you are carrying is your weapon?" The Pallum noticed that Marcus was carrying an extra.
"Indeed. It's a rough one. But it should be enough to blow pretty much anything into bits." Marcus patted his new toy.
"Though It's a quick creation, it will only work once. After that, all the runes on it should lose functionality as the metal would deform." He explained with a strained smile. The creator inside Marcus is throwing a fit at this moment, but it's a desperate situation.
"It should be fine. We didn't even think we would get something like a powerful magic item."
"The precise qualification would be Artefact. But yes, it's a magic item as well. Since it's only useful once." Marcus didn't want to agree, but yes. He can't call it Artefact if it breaks that easily.
"I see. Well, let me call other captains so that we can discuss how to deal with the Nightmare coming our way."
"Nightmare?"
"It's the name the Guild gave for that Monster Rex spawned in the dungeon."
Finn left after showing Marcus and Alfia where to sit at a table in a seat of honour. His silver-haired maid stood quietly with closed eyes as if enjoying the silence.
But then a golden hair poked into the tent.
Golden eyes looked at him with endless curiosity.
"If you want to say something, do say so," Alfia said with a small frown, annoyed that this short silence had been interrupted.
"Ummm…"
The girl walked in as her index fingers poked each other. She looked like a small fan girl who could finally ask for an autograph of her favourite star.
"I wanted to know how can you be this strong?"
"Hmm…Strong? You do know that I am not a fighter or adventurer."
Her eyes bulged out when she heard that.
"B-But…"
"My strength comes from my need to have a strong enough body and magic to wield my creations." He explained to her as he leaned into his chair.
"If you want to be strong, you need to have a strong body and mind and be knowledgeable enough," Marcus explained to her, wanting her to branch out. If she got obsessed with power, she would end up like he was for the first 70 years.
"...How should I start?"
"To gather knowledge, you should listen to more experienced adventurers. Honestly, it's the most important part, as they already walked through the steps you are walking at this moment."
"But reading is boring…" She pouted while saying that as she realised, she would need to read some books about adventurers and not heroes! As she already read all the books about them!
Marcus laughed upon hearing that.
"There is no counterproductivity from having too much knowledge," Alfia said without even looking at her.
"It's one of the most important things for a powerful mage." The silver-haired girl clarified.
"Indeed. It's like fuel for fire. If you want bigger fire, you need more material to make it burn."
The girl's eyes perked up as she somewhat understood what he meant by that. Before she could ask for more, she could hear Finn walking over with more people.
The girl swiftly bowed before dashing away.