Time always seemed to fly by. In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.
Colliver had someone sell the magic staff for him and received seventy-four gold coins. It was an astronomical sum; in his more than fifty years of life, he had never seen so much money.
But Colliver was an honest, kindly man after all. He might have been unreliable in some respects, but he didn't care much about money. He handed it all to Renard. "You killed the Demon Worshipper, and you saved my life. This is what you deserve."
Renard felt terribly ashamed. After all, he had secretly kept the Demon Worshipper's Magic Crystal Card. Compared to Colliver, he felt he could never quite measure up.
After a great deal of insisting, he finally persuaded Colliver to keep two gold coins as payment for fencing the staff. At least, that was how the merchant who bought it saw the item.
At dawn, golden sunlight bathed the earth. The two of them, as if by unspoken agreement, got up, dressed, washed, and ate.
At the table, Renard asked distractedly, "What's today's job?"
Colliver was busy wrestling with a smoked sausage. "Hunting a Shadow Tiger!" he mumbled.
"A Shadow Tiger?" Renard's hand froze in midair as he cut his steak. In disbelief, he asked, "You're not joking, are you?"
The Shadow Tiger was a pitch-black, tiger-shaped monster, two or three times larger than an ordinary tiger. Its strength far surpassed that of a High-level Warrior.
What's more, the Shadow Tiger excelled at hiding and ambushing. It could appear less than two meters behind you without you noticing.
Hunting such a monster required considerable skill, equipment specifically designed to counter Shadow Tigers, and plenty of people. At least six or seven High-level Warriors were needed.
Seeing