Dain had just finished telling the two students about his journey so far.
When he spawned in the Demon Realm, he appeared near the building they were in now, finding it within the first hour—but not before encountering a small group of Fire Hounds.
He relished in sharing the brutal details of the fight. With a grin, he described how he had to bite through the throat of one creature and tear another open with his bare hands, its insides spilling onto the scorched earth and sizzling under the immense heat.
Klein paled at the imagery.
Vale, on the other hand, was deep in thought.
"He was able to fight multiple Fire Hounds without any preparation?
The thought lingered in his mind.
Now, after gaining strength and learning their attack patterns, Vale could handle a small pack, but fighting them fresh upon entering the Demon Realm? That would have been a death sentence.
Vale barely had time to process just how strong Dain truly was before the next part of his story caught his attention.
Dain told them about a ruined city he had discovered. Not the small ruins they were near now—no. What he had found was a city of countless buildings, taller and larger than anything in their current surroundings.
"That's where I met that monstrosity," Dain said, a dark expression crossing his face.
"I had just finished fighting a lone Fire Hound when I saw it… that four-armed monster."
Dain fell silent. His jaw tightened, and his eyes flickered shut, as if the memory had gripped him in its claws.
"If those enormous birds hadn't attacked it," he said, his voice low, "I'd be dead."
Vale and Klein exchanged glances, their expressions hardening.
After a brief moment, Vale's voice pierced through the silence.
"We need to kill that thing. It's for the quest," he said.
Dain's eyes shifted up, meeting Vale's.
Then, as if the weight of his past encounter had vanished in an instant, his lips curled into his usual grin.
"Very well, my friend. I could never forgive myself if I walked away from that fight," he said.
Klein looked perplexed.
Unlike Vale, who had spoken with Dain a couple of times and had grown accustomed to the massive student's erratic nature, to Klein, he was nothing but a madman.
The three men spent the next hour talking and eating some of the meat Dain had harvested from the dead Fire Hounds. It didn't taste great, but the massive student took his time grilling it over one of the larger cracks in the ground, where heat radiated from the magma below.
Each of them was already used to eating monster meat, so there were no complaints. They all understood that eating wasn't about taste—it was about survival.
After finishing their portions, they decided on their next goal.
They would head to the ruined city and search for clues about the whereabouts of the four-armed devil.
They had no intention of engaging in a hopeless battle. Instead, they wanted to observe, gather information, and find an opportunity. Given what Dain had told them, the monster had recently been in a battle. Hope flickered in their hearts as they considered the possibility that the creature had been injured while fighting the flying monsters.
But they would not bet on that possibility, unwilling to gamble their lives, they decided to set out as if the devil was at full strength—lingering behind every corner, waiting for them to make a mistake, and so they would travel ready for anything.
Their journey toward the ruined city had started fairly slowly. No monsters were near Dain's camp, as the massive student had hunted most of them.
It wasn't until they travelled peacefully for about an hour that they encountered their first opponents.
A pack of five Fire Hounds jumped from behind a smaller boulder. The creatures appeared somewhat hesitant to attack upon seeing the three students, unlike them, who had already summoned their weapons.
With the debuff casted by Klein, Vale struck first, cutting one of them down in almost an instant.
Dain lunged forward, silver gauntlets gleaming under the dim light. Unlike Vale, he needed no debuff. He met a Fire Hound head-on, his fists crashing down in a relentless flurry. Flesh and bone crunched under his strikes, yet he didn't stop immediately. He hammered it into the ground, delivering an extra blow even after it was long dead.
The whole battle ended in less than a minute. Three hounds lay lifeless beneath Dain, while Vale had slain two.
Dain stared at the bodies, then turned to Vale with a grin creeping onto his face. It was the grin of a man who thought he'd won something.
"What is he staring at me for?" Vale wondered.
Shaking off the thought, he crouched down and began harvesting the mana crystals. He left one for Klein, then extended his arm over another. A dark spark flickered at his palm, wrapping itself around the crystal.
Dain's eyes widened as the spark devoured the crystal, then vanished without a trace.
"Do it again!" he demanded, holding out another crystal.
Vale barely glanced at him before lifting his arm. The spark materialised once more, swallowing the crystal in an instant.
Dain gawked, completely stunned.
"This idiot risks his life with his own unique ability… and he's shocked that mine can eat?" Vale pondered, shaking his head at the sheer absurdity.
After he refused to feed the spark again, Dain let out a huff before consuming the last two mana crystals himself, replenishing his mana core.
Soon enough, they were on their way, continuing their journey toward the ruined city.