Megumin, the loli receptionist, had expected to make a small fortune once Evan arrived in the capital, but she had also forgotten why this lunatic had earned that nickname in the first place.

’Why am I not surprised by this?’ she thought, staring at the stack of papers in front of her.

They were the missions Evan had completed.

He had only picked up a handful of missions related to fire-element monsters, but last night he had gone ahead and hunted down everything else that crossed his path, sparing only the F-ranks, since the ESS they offered was simply too low to be worth his time.

He had kept track of every beast he killed, and thanks to his storage’s functions, he could see their names and ranks, allowing him to determine exactly what he had killed and how many of each.

As such, the first thing he did after arriving early in the morning was search for every mission related to those beasts and submit them for completion.

"You know, I just woke up. Why do you have to make me work this much this early in the morning? At least let me get some coffee first," she said, her tone somewhere between irritated and resigned, though even as she said it, she didn’t waste a second and led him toward the back, into a large room lined with several tables and assessment tools.

The space was typically used when the volume of materials brought in was too large to be handled at the front counter. It gave the staff room to work properly.

When the other employees saw Megumin leading the adventurer to the back room, they exchanged glances and began muttering among themselves.

"Why’d she take him to the back? The guy came in empty-handed. What exactly does she plan on examining?" one of the male staff said, visibly annoyed.

"Who knows, maybe he’s her boyfriend? With a face like that, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had something going on with him. Maybe I should try my luck too," said a nearby female worker, which immediately sent the jealousy among the male staff skyrocketing, especially as several other female clerks chimed in with similar sentiments shortly after.

All of them, except one.

"Hmph. Successful employee my ass, She clearly used some unorthodox methods to get transferred to this branch. Look at her, wasting time first thing in the morning," said a girl with short black hair, round glasses, and an irritated expression.

She had been working there far longer than Megumin, and in all that time had never received any significant promotion.

That alone had always made her unhappy.

So when she saw a newcomer obtain a position similar to hers in practically no time at all, it only made her even more bitter.

It had sparked a quiet rivalry that everyone around them had noticed, and while Megumin’s competence was evident to anyone paying attention, most of the staff found the whole thing more entertaining than anything else.

At that moment, Megumin’s voice suddenly echoed out from the room in the back, and the nearby employees heard it clearly.

"Holly... this thing is huge. Where have you been keeping something like that?"

The moment those words fell, an unsettling silence descended upon the area.

The female clerks turned visibly red.

Meanwhile, the faces of the male employees became purple with rage.

Inside the room, Megumin had walked in fully prepared to process a modest pile of monster carcasses as usual.

Instead, she found herself staring at a small mountain.

The sight alone was enough to freeze her in place, and it wasn’t just the quantity. The creatures stacked before her were far from ordinary beasts.

Dominating the top of the pile was an enormous tortoise, at least five meters tall and nearly twice that in width. The spacious room that had felt almost empty moments ago was now packed with corpses, with a gigantic one occupying the center.

She stood there, processing what she was looking at.

"T-This... it’s a Boulder Tortoise. Where were you keeping this thing? No, wait... where did you even find it?"

"As far as I know, the nearest sighting was several kilometers away from the capital. Don’t tell me you actually went all the way there to hunt?"

She was shocked for two reasons.

First, the sheer size of the creature. Boulder Tortoises were massive even by monster standards, and reasonably so, this one was a commander-class beast, a D-rank beast.

Creatures like this were rarely found anywhere near the capital’s vicinity, which meant tracking one down required a deliberate trip well outside the usual hunting range.

Then there was the storage issue.

The beast was nearly as large as half of an average house, so large that even in this spacious room, it occupied most of the available space.

To store something like this inside a dimensional storage, one would need an extremely large storage space.

And such large storage artifacts were rare.

’This guy... it looks like he’s become even more ridiculous since the last time I saw him.’

She had thought she was already used to Evan’s madness.

After today, however, it was obvious she had underestimated him.

"That one? I ran into it by accident, and since I was already there I figured I’d take it. Hope it’s not a problem, I don’t think there are any missions listed for that specific beast," he said.

He had a few other D-ranks in the storage as well, though he didn’t take all of them out.

He wanted to avoid drawing too much attention for the time being.

Megumin had more to say, but eventually composed herself and went to call for help.

There was no way she was processing all of this alone.

Several hours later, Evan walked out with his payment.

"You brought in a total of thirty Advanced-Stage E-Rank beasts, fifty Mid-Stage E-Rank beasts, sixty-nine Early-Stage E-Rank beasts, and finally one Mid-Stage D-Rank beast," Megumin said with the exhausted expression of someone who had already worked overtime, despite the day having only just begun.

"In total, excluding taxes and the Association’s Fee, you’ll receive 3,269 gold coins." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

As she read out the number, she was already doing the mental math on her own cut. Staff received fifteen percent of whatever the Association earned from a transaction, and the Association’s share on this one came to roughly 300 gold. In other words, she was taking home 45 gold from this single visit, practically her current 6 months salary.

Evan didn’t react much and accepted the amount without comment.

The same could not be said for the staff nearby.

The ones who overheard the figure visibly trembled where they stood. Even the clerk who had been quietly resenting Megumin all morning nearly lost her footing when the number registered.

Over three platinum? In a single morning? That was an absurd sum even for a wealthy merchant, let alone a young adventurer who had walked in looking like he hadn’t slept.

Was this some kind of staged performance?

As Evan collected his money and left, the Association, which had only just returned to normal after the morning rush, immediately descended into chaos over what had just happened.

***

In a secluded part of the kingdom, Luna, who had just finished the awakening process of her bloodline, looked around only to find herself standing inside an enormous crater nearly ten meters in diameter.

Everything around her had been reduced to ruins.

Not a trace of life could be sensed anywhere nearby.

Yet she didn’t seem to care.

Her expression remained cold while a subtle yet dangerous oppressive aura radiated from her body.

Any C-Rank beast or lower within the vicinity would have been crushed by its pressure alone.

"Not bad, little girl. I see you’ve finally assimilated 70% of your bloodline."