Undead Beast Master: Living Solely for My Desires-Chapter 277: Desperate for Distraction

Zaroth jolted upright with a gasp, his face was drenched in sweat and his hair messy. His heart was beating rapidly, and his hands trembling.

"Zaroth?" Luna, who had been playing with Nightshade, looked up at him with concern. "Are you alright?"

He placed a hand over his forehead and drew a few deep breaths, waiting for his heartbeat to settle.

"Yeah… just a nightmare," he replied.

Seeing that her master was okay and sensing that he didn't want to talk about the nightmare—not that she needed to ask as she had a pretty good guess—she went back to playing with Nightshade.

After sitting down, Zaroth gazed at the two. The output from his mana core was much stronger than before, which meant he could keep them summoned indefinitely as long as they weren't fighting.

"Stronger…" he muttered. He needed to become stronger.

Using the opportunity to think on a fresh mind and trying to forget about the nightmare he had a few moments ago, he got busy thinking.

There were a few ways to get stronger. The first one was his gear, but Torin was already crafting his new odachi so that matter was settled.

The other was acquire more beasts. After killing the Demigod, he sensed that he was able to tame one more beast, but he had yet to do so and he had a pretty good reason as to why.

If he tamed another beast and reached his limit again, then how long would he have to wait until he would be able to tame another one? It may take days, weeks, or maybe months if not years.

So rather than taming a subpar beast, he was only going to settle for something worthy. At least of the Epic tier like Nightshade. He will not complain if he managed to resurrect and tame Legendary or even Mythic beast like Luna, but he doubted that corpses of such creatures could be found easily.

Another way to gain stronger was to connect more sparks to his core, but at the moment, he had reached his limit, as the density of the mana core was still only in the Rare tier. But then an idea struck him.

"Hey Luna," he asked, "Do you think I will be able to learn Nightshade's skill? The one where she becomes a shadow?" The idea had just struck him but if he could, it was going to boost his power tremendously. He would not only be able to move very fast as a shadow, but would also be able to dodge attacks by becoming one.

"I doubt it," Luna shattered his hopes. "She is an Epic beast and your mana core is still of the Rare tier, so that will not be possible at the moment."

Zaroth raised an eyebrow. "But in the future, when I make it Epic tier, would I be able to?" he asked.

"Most likely yes. You did learn my Fireball and Firebreath, did you not? And before you ask why, considering I am of the Mythic tier, it is because these skills are not that of a high tier."

Zaroth rubbed his chin as he thought about her explanation.

"Then does that mean I will be able to learn Silverfang's Howl and Hellweaver Poison's Bite?" he asked.

"Probably, but it will not be as straightforward as you think," Luna warned.

Zaroth didn't care about how hard learning his beasts's skills would be, at least now he had a roadmap—learn Silverfang and Hellweaver's skills, then make his core into an Epic tier, and then learn the shadow ability of Nightshade.

"Now that I think about skills, I could learn more demonic ones, but Midnight is too far away to teach them to me…" he muttered under his breath.

For a moment, he regretted not bringing her with him. If she was here, she would be able to teach him. Yet at the same time, he didn't really want to speak with anyone he knew, as doing so would force him to think about unpleasant things.

"No point dwelling on it now," he spoke as he rose from the bed and got dressed in his robes—not before putting on his newly bought armor.

Exiting the little house, the first thing he did was to go and have a light snack.

Something pulled him to go back to the Bear Tavern. Their food was delicious last time, so if they offered breakfast it was bound to be good as well.

As he entered, the tavern fell quieter than usual. Betty looked up, eyes locking on him."Uh, sir… about the change from yesterday—it's—"

"Keep it," Zaroth cut her off. "I broke the doors—think of it as compensation."

She hesitated for a few seconds, but in the end decided to let the matter go. It was free money after all, so she was not going to refuse.

For breakfast, he got something called banitsa. It was golden in color and was crisp. Inside it there was a salty but delicious cheese. And with it he got some kind of weird mixture of yogurt that paired nicely with the banitsa.

Energized by the breakfast and seeing that he had yet to hear the large bell being rung which would signal if enemy forces were about to attack the city, Zaroth continued his exploration of the city.

"Elysia, when I said that I want to be placed in the most troublesome place in the Empire, I meant it!" he growled.

Had Elysia gone against his wishes and sent him to a rarely attacked place out of concern for him?

While it was cute if she really worried about him, currently Zaroth felt more like he was in the middle of a vacation and not in the middle of raging war between the two empires.

For a moment, he debated if he should go back and be sent to another more dangerous place, but doing so would leave the city defenseless. In the end, he decided he would stay at least a week here to see if there are more attacks. Who knows, maybe the enemy are planning to send a large force against the city?

While this was going to be great if that was the case, at the moment Zaroth didn't have much to do so he was bored, which led him to think—and this was the one thing that he wanted to avoid at the moment.

"I guess that this could help me relax and clear my mind of unnecessary thoughts," he spoke as he gazed at a building with engraved words at the front, "Unforgettable Hot Spring."

Hoping that this was going to help him ease his tension and curious as to what a hot spring looked like, he decided to enter.