Chapter 66: Bounty(2)
Leo went outside to harvest the monsters’ mana cores once after spending an hour calming down.
“What should I do with their bodies?” Leo asked Lilith as he pointed at the burnt corpses and the dead drivers.
“Just leave them here. The monsters will make sure there will be nothing left of them,” she calmly said.
“Alright.”
Once all of the mana cores were harvested, Leo went to take a quick shower before chugging down a low-grade healing potion, immediately healing the grazed wound on his cheek.
He went to the front of the vehicle and sat in the driver’s seat.
“I have never driven a car before, and I don’t even know where I am going. I hope they have a navigator…”
Fortunately for him, the keys were still in the ignition, and he wasn’t completely clueless about cars.
After giving it a good twist, the engine started back up.
“There should be a navigator in the vehicle’s dashboard. I watched the other drivers for a bit and I saw them looking at it.” Lilith pointed at the screen right in the middle of the vehicle.
Leo fiddled with the screen until he found the navigator.
“Alright, let’s hope this is the direction back to Stellar City. We should be 2 days away from the city, but since I am driving this by myself, it’ll probably take an extra day or two.”
Leo placed his hands on the large steering wheel and slowly stepped on the accelerator.
The vehicle responded to his actions by slowly moving forward.
Once he was used to the speed, Leo increased the pressure on the accelerator a little more, increasing the speed of the vehicle.
He started out at 10 miles per hour but quickly ramped it up to 25 miles per hour, then 35, eventually hitting 60 miles per hour.
“Haha! This is actually pretty fun!” He exclaimed as he got close to 100 miles per hour.
Of course, he only dared to go this fast because he was in the Wilderness without any obstructions in his path.
“Lilith, can you be on the lookout for me?” Leo asked her while he kept his focus in the front.
“I am already on it.” Lilith said as half of her body was sticking out of the roof of the vehicle.
A few hours later, Leo slowed the car when he noticed a group of figures up ahead, eventually coming to a full halt.
“A group of monsters, huh.”
He went outside and proceeded to throw Void Spears at the monsters. Without needing to worry about hitting his teammates by accident, Leo was able to unleash his most powerful attack at will.
Every Void Spear would create a big explosion, killing many monsters at once and even causing the ground to tremble slightly.
A few Void Spears and several Black Bullets later, Leo went to harvest the mana cores.
“I swear, this is getting tedious. It was fine at first because I was new to it, but harvesting mana cores is getting annoying really quickly. Isn’t there a way for me to harvest them quickly?”
“You can hire someone to do the work for you. It’s a real profession in this world. They’re called Harvesters.”
“You want me to work with someone after what happened with my first team? I prefer working alone if I have a choice,” he said.
“If you don’t trust them, you can make it so that they won’t ever be able to betray you. Soul Enslavement works on living beings too, you know.”
Leo looked at her with wide eyes, “You want me to enslave the soul of living beings? That sounds like something only a villain would do!”
“Then you have no choice but to hope your future partners won’t betray you, unless you plan on being alone for the rest of your life. Also, it’s not like everyone in this world is untrustworthy. You’ll just have to choose who you trust wisely. Of course, the easy way is to use Soul Enslavement.”
“I’ll think about these kinds of things once I return to the city… alive.” Leo said as he returned to the driver’s seat.
After driving for an entire day and half without resting, Leo felt like sleeping on the steering wheels.
“I’m freaking exhausted, but I cannot sleep. What if monsters attack during my sleep? That would be disastrous…” He sighed out loud.
“You can go ahead and sleep. I will wake you up if anything happens.” Lilith suddenly said to him.
“You will? I’m a pretty heavy sleeper when I am exhausted, so I probably won’t wake up to your voice, and it’s not like you can shake me awake with your untouchable body,” he said with raised eyebrows.
“Who said anything about waking you up with my voice? Now that I am bound to you, I can do things like this. Close your eyes for a second.”
Leo didn’t ask any questions and closed his eyes.
“WAKE UP!”
Lilith’s voice suddenly boomed inside his head, sounding as though she had a speaker right beside both of his ears, startling him to the point where he physically jumped.
“Fuck! That’s terrifying! I forbid you to do that unless it’s an emergency!” Leo cried out loud afterward.
“I know. Anyways, unless you’re in a coma or something, my voice should be able to wake you up during emergencies.”
“Alright, then I’ll go to sleep now.”
Leo went to the bedroom and was immediately knocked out by his exhaustion.
Fortunately for Leo, he had 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
“I’m surprised there were no monsters for this long,” he said after waking up.
“Actually, there were plenty of monsters. Even now, there are some monsters camping outside the vehicle.”
“What?! Why didn’t you wake me up then?!” He exclaimed.
“This is a pretty durable vehicle, and none of them tried to break inside, so I left you alone. Otherwise, I would have woken you up at least once every hour. Of course, if you want me to wake you up every time a monster approaches the vehicle, I don’t mind doing that.”
“No… Don’t do that. And thank you for being considerate…” Leo said. “Anyways, how many monsters are outside right now? I’ll kill them quickly before we continue moving.”
“There’s two monsters resting right in front of the door and one resting on the cargo,” said Lilith.
“Alright.”
Leo retrieved his sword and quietly made his way to the door.
He rushed outside after opening the door, quickly killing the two monsters before they could react.
He then turned to point his finger at the monster on the cargo, shooting it down with Black Bullet.
After harvesting their mana cores, Leo sat in the driver’s seat and continued his journey back to the city.
“How many more miles?” Lilith asked him some time later.
“According to the navigator, we’re 1,500 miles away from our destination. We should arrive tomorrow if everything goes smoothly,” he said.
“I see…”
An hour later, Lilith suddenly said, “Watch out Leo, we have company.”
“Monsters? Where? I don’t see anything.”
“Because it’s approaching you from behind, and they’re not monsters. There’s another vehicle behind you, and they seem to be chasing us.”
“What?! Are they enemies?!”
“Most likely. I’ll go scout them once they get close enough, so slow down a little, and prepare for battle.” Lilith said.
Sometime later.
“I’m going to scout them now. I will be right back.”
Once the unknown vehicle was close enough, Lilith flew into it to spy on the situation inside.
There were five people inside the vehicle including the driver, and they appeared to be Adventurers judging by their appearance and aura.
However, these Adventurers were fully armed and seemed to be ready for battle.
“This bastard isn’t stopping even though I have been signaling for him to stop!” The driver inside the vehicle suddenly cursed.
“I don’t blame him. He’s got a bounty on his head, after all.” One of the Adventurers spoke.
“Should we just shoot him down with magic? We’re close enough to do that,” said another as he smiled.
“The cargo belongs to Mister Tami, right? I wouldn’t want to risk damaging his cargo and offending him. We’ll just keep chasing him for now. If he truly has no intention of stopping, we’ll shoot him down before he can reach Stellar City.”
Once she had all of the information she needed, Lilith returned to Leo’s side and told him everything.
“These bastards! How did they even find me?! Does this vehicle have a tracker or something?! Is Tami also behind this?!” Leo exclaimed as he sped up the vehicle.
“I don’t think Tami is aware of your bounty. There was nothing suspicious about the way he acted. As for how these people know your location… I’m not sure. Maybe you can spare one of them for questioning.”
“Spare one? Hmph! That’ll depend on their luck!” Leo sneered in disdain.
“What do you have planned?” Lilith asked with a curious expression.
“I’m going to attack them before they can attack me.”
After mentally preparing himself, Leo took a deep breath before hitting the brakes.
The driver for the other vehicle was surprised when Leo’s vehicle came to a sudden halt, subconsciously hitting the brakes as well.
“What the fuck?! Give us a warning before you hit the brakes!” The Adventurers in the back cursed out loud.
Meanwhile, Leo was already out of his vehicle with a Void Spear in his grasp.
When the driver saw this, his eyes widened with shock, and he screamed, “Brace yourselves! He’s going to—”
BOOM!
The Void Spear Leo tossed at them had reached their vehicle and detonated before the driver could even finish his sentence.