Born in apocalypse

"Huh!" Dhruv was caught off guard, as he wasn’t expecting to hear anything about them anytime soon.

"Are you sure they are the ones we are looking for?" Dhruv asked, looking at his second guardian.

"I’m not 100% sure, but from the looks of it, they resemble the Crystallce

monsters very much," Azarex continued reporting as he saw the vision of his eagles.

"Is that so... Tell me, what are they doing?" Intrigued by the potential of them being the real deal, Dhruv asked.

"This comes as a surprise, but I think they just sent some sort of letter somewhere with the help of a monster... I think they had sent the letter to the area where the rest of them might be hiding," Azarex replied after understanding the thing he was looking at.

’Huh! Looks like monsters... Bridge! Letters... Use of monsters... they sure show the signs of being knowledgeable at the level of humans. Even if they aren’t the ones we are looking for, meeting them sure is going to be interesting,’

Thinking about their behavior, Dhruv confirmed that this time he really is against a type of monster that is intelligent.

"Azarex, send your eagle to follow their monsters so that we can know the place where the rest of them are gathered," Dhruv muttered after thinking for a while.

"I have done it, master... if their base is within 5 km from our location, then there won’t be any problem, but if it is more than that, then I won’t be able to get proper information from my undeads," Azarex muttered with an apologetic face.

"Don’t be sorry; that should be enough... even if we don’t know the exact location, we will be able to at least know the general direction of their hideout, and I think that would be enough," Dhruv encouraged his undead partner a little.

Nodding his skull, Azarex muttered as he looked in a particular direction, "So, Master, what should we do with those two?"

"Haha! I think you have an idea of what I am going to do with them," Dhruv answered as a creepy smile appeared over his face.

Bowing his head, Azarex agreed with his master earnestly, "Of course, master..."

Nodding his head, Dhruv began to move the metal below their feet at the maximum speed toward the opposite side of the ravine. At their speed, the duo was moving toward the target at an incredible speed, yet it wasn’t enough.

Ten meters before reaching the other side, something attacked them.

"Bone shield..." Whispering these words, Azarex quickly summoned a bone shield and saved themselves from the icicles that were thrown by the enemy. Knowing that someone was on the other side, he was ready to intervene at any second.

’Huh! Mage... not bad..’ Thinking this, Dhruv quickly darted between their attacks and landed on the other side of the ravine.

The moment he looked at the monster in front, he felt a problem with their appearance, ’They don’t look like the Crystallce monsters that we have encountered during the wave.’

Dhruv was right; they weren’t the same monsters. Contrary to how they looked, these two were very different from one another. Comparing this monster to the Crystallce monster from the wave is like comparing a monkey to a human.

Even though they somewhat resemble... they are a totally different thing.

’They even wear clothes and use weapons..’ Dhruv thought as he patiently observed the monsters, while Azarex continued to fight them. He wasn’t worried for his guardian, as both monsters were only at tier 2.

With clear interest, Dhruv began to observe their anatomy... the very first thing he found was their body shape. The monster was humanoid, almost like humans, the only difference being that instead of flesh, their skin was made out of ice? Or Crystal?

The second difference he noticed was that they had horns; both of the monsters in front of him possessed horns... it wasn’t just for show either. From what Dhruv could understand, they were channeling their mana into this organ.

He still didn’t consider the horns a part of their species, as it could just be a byproduct of their evolution or maybe even some sort of extra mutation only these two have chosen.

The third and more interesting thing he found was that these monsters were capable of speech. And how does he know that... he knew because they were using speech before casting their spells, which proved somewhat efficient as well.

Even though he found it intriguing, he got disappointed after finding out that he couldn’t understand their language... which should have been pretty understandable.

Having all sorts of thoughts in his mind, Dhruv began to observe the fight between his guardian and the duo. He was giving the monsters credit by calling it a fight, as it was nothing more than bullying.

Azarex was straight-up bullying those two monsters without any mercy.

"Enough, Azarex, bring them here..." Dhruv voiced, looking at the fight.

"Just a second, Master," Saying these words, Azarex cast a type of binding spell on the monsters and restricted all their movements.

Within a second, numerous black ropes emerged from nothing and wrapped both of them together. The monsters tried to freeze the ropes but were surprised to find that the spell wasn’t working on them.

While the monsters still struggled to get themselves free, Azarex dragged them toward his master.

Looking at the poor monsters, Dhruv muttered, "Release the bind above their mouths."

After meeting the monster who could truly speak, Dhruv was really excited to find out if he could have a conversation with them or not.

Seeing that the ropes above their mouths had been released, Dhruv moved closer to the monsters’ faces and whispered, "Hello, hello, mic testing.. mic testing... Can you understand me?"

He began to speak all sorts of nonsense to get a response from the duo in front of him. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"𝀷𝀶𝀵 ⟴₭૱ ૱௹§ 𝀶𝀵𝀹𝀦" With a bizarre expression, the monster opened its mouth.

While Dhruv was paying attention to the monster’s gibberish words, it did something unexpected. The monster in front of him blew a mouthful of chilled breath toward his face.

"Ugh..." Quickly understanding what it was, he ignited flames all over his face.

Drip.. Drip.

Drops of water began to drop from his face as they melted the ice formed from the monster’s chilling breath. While speaking, the monster had found the perfect opportunity to attack as well.

"How dare you do that.." In a fit of rage, Azarex attacked the monster with a bone spear directed at its head.

Booom!

The moment the spear made contact with the head, it exploded into tiny fragments, blasting the monster’s head as well.

Splatter!

In just a matter of seconds, Dhruv and the monster beside him got covered in the blue blood of the monster. Wiping the blood off his face, Dhruv looked at the other monster and whispered,

"Well, that didn’t age well, did it.." Learning from his mistake, he distanced himself from the monster while speaking.

"𝀷𝀶𝀵 ⟴₭૱ ૱௹§" Once again, the monster replied in the same manner, the only difference being that it wasn’t attacking. The monster was just sitting there obediently.

"... huh! Can you repeat that again?" Dhruv muttered as he expected an answer from the monster.

"....."

"Huh! Nothing..."

"..."

"Why so silent all of a sudden."

"...."

"Still nothing... well then, you are of no use to me," Dhruv muttered as he found that the monster wasn’t in the mood to talk with them anymore.

Looking toward it, he lifted his hand and began to manipulate his mana. While he was readying the spell, he noticed something changing in the monster... the monster’s eyes.

"Huh! So you can feel that it is the end... how do you find that? Ohh! From the mana manipulation. You know I want to talk with you as well... but unfortunately, the language barrier between us is just too long.." Dhruv muttered as he fired his spell.

A lone bullet got out of his hand at an incredible speed and quickly penetrated the head of the monster... killing it in a matter of seconds. As the monster breathed its final breath, a notification appeared in front of Dhruv.

[You have killed a monster, Lesser Mage (Crystallce Sapients)]

[You have earned 6000 CC]

[You have earned exp..]

’Huh! Crystallce sapients... so are they just the naturally evolved version of crystalline monsters...’ A new idea originated in his head as he looked at the name of the monster in front of him.

Nodding his head, Dhruv looked at Azarex and asked, "What was the name of the monster you killed?"

Pausing to look at his notification, Azarex replied, "It is Lesser Mage, then in brackets, there are Crystallce Sapients."

"Ohh! Same as me..." Pausing to look at both corpses, Dhruv muttered, "Which one of them will be best to sort out memories."

Hearing the question, Azarex embarrassedly looked at the monster whose head he had just blown up.

"Master, the one you killed..." Azarex embarrassingly admitted.

Azarex hadn’t chosen the corpse Dhruv had killed because he couldn’t extract memory from his own. That couldn’t be the case, as all the information a monster holds is always stored in their core and nowhere else. This is true even for its memory.

The only reason he said he wanted the other corpse was that Dhruv had killed it.

"Sure, go ahead..." Muttering these words, Dhruv moved toward the other corpse and extracted the monster’s core. Looking at the core in his hand, he brought out his trusty inspector glasses and muttered,

"Inspect...