Dragon's Wrath: The Cursed Returnee

That looked nice. Truth to be told, even though Ethan could get some of those in his shop, he focused solely on getting magic weapons. He didn't waste a single moment of his time in Hedo trying to get comfortable; instead, he used it to complete his job as fast as possible.

"Anyway, this is a problem you caused, so you have to solve it," Anna declared.

Ethan was pretty sure that that wasn't the case. Still, he decided to solve the problem, not because he was in a good mood, but because he wanted to profit from it. The fact that a summoned hero failed in saving a world because he wanted to make Ethan more aware of some problems, so he decided to take things a bit more seriously.

"Do you guys want their weapons?" Ethan asked after walking toward the mercenaries. "They gave me their magic weapons in exchange for those crossbows. What can you guys give me for them?"

The mercenaries looked at each other, trying to understand if Ethan was messing with them or not. He had no reason to help them, after all. Still, even though he was an insufferable powerful brat, Ivan wouldn't let him go unpunished if Ethan messed with the mercenaries.

"If you give us crossbows equally powerful as theirs, we can give a good part of the magic stones that we will obtain," Zeke stepped forward and spoke.

"I want twenty magic stones every day from each one of you," Ethan said. "If you give me them now, each one of you will receive an exact copy of that crossbow. If you give me more, I can even loan to you an improved version of it."

"Twenty!" Zeke raised his voice.

pαndα`noνɐ1--сoМ "Twenty magic stones every single day until the end of this mission," Ethan said. "Don't try to bargain because, as far as I can tell, your numbers have decreased a little bit since the first day. Only fools try to bargain when their lives depend on it. Are you a fool?"

As much mad as he was, Zeke couldn't refute the irrefutable truth. Although none of them were from his group, fifteen mercenaries died in the last seven days. Even though they didn't try to save ammo or anything, they suffered many losses. For the good or the worse, the mercenaries saw in Zeke, a leader since Ivan was a man who wanted to accomplish his goal and nothing else. So, his opinion had that much weight. If he messes up now, they probably will be wiped out when they face the army in the south.

"You didn't look to me like the cautious type," Ethan frowned since Zeke was thinking too much. "Well, I guess that means you are not a lost cause. Let's see if you don't think this performance is worthy of every penny."

Ethan bought one rapid-fire crossbow, and then he began to fire at a certain rock down the mountain. Although the rock was one hundred meters away, Ethan didn't miss a single shot and kept firing as if the crossbow was a machine gun. After fifty or so shots, the rock cracked.

"… We will want thirty-five of them," Zeke said, a bit annoyed.

"Thank you for your business," Ethan said while he was rubbing his hands.

If anyone knew the price of those crossbows, ten out of ten people would conclude that Ethan was a scammer. Still, only he knew the price, so no one would ever discover that he hit the jackpot. Still, he didn't do that only for the magic stones…

"I didn't think you were that forgiving," Emily handled the magic stones she received from the mercenaries.

"I am not," Ethan said, and then he put his hand inside the bag. "Everything I do, I do for a reason. You will learn why I did this after that incident in a few days."

You obtained 10.000 points of experience.

You obtained 10.000 points of experience.

You obtained 10.000 points of experience.

…

Congratulations! You leveled up!

Your health, mana, and stamina have been completely recovered as well increased by one point.

You received five status points.

You received two skill points.

"Well, you are going to explain that to Maerys and her people," Emily said after looking in their direction and noticing that they were quite unsatisfied. "You aren't that friendly, but they liked you, but after this…"

"I don't owe explanations to anyone," Ethan said. "And I don't really care what others think of me. As long as they work properly, everything else is completely meaningless."

"So cold," Ian shrugged. "No wonder you like Ice Arrows so much."

Time was of the essence, so Ethan and the others departed after finishing their business. Before, Ethan made sure to walk with the others since he apparently was the only tank of the group. Still, now, he was dashing ahead at the first sign of enemies.

"Did something happen?" Ian asked while he was frowning. "It looks like Ethan ate something weird, or maybe he is in a bad mood. He isn't even leaving the magic stones behind."

"I don't know," Emily shrugged. "Maybe your behavior finally got on his nerves."

The truth is: nothing happened. Ethan just decided to be more proactive in his actions instead of walking at the same speed as everyone else. Besides, he was only killing the enemies in front of him, and there were plenty of others on the sides. No… maybe something changed. Even though he only lived the first days of his summoning, it was more than enough to put Ethan in a bad mood, and since he wasn't the type of lashing out at the others, the only thing he could do to vent his anger was to fight. Letting his feelings control his actions weren't his style either. Hence, Ethan decided to capitalize on the momentum in order to speed up the mission.

His Omni Hero powers worked better in living creatures. Still, since he essentially was draining mana in the form of memories, he also could absorb magic stones since they were. Basically, mana crystalized. He didn't know if using his power, that mana would feed his cursed power and make it stronger, but there was only one way to know.