Many minutes have passed since the Skeleton Warlord fell to the ground, but the Adventurers still couldn't find its mana core that would fetch a fortune and reward them for their effort.
"Where the fuck is its mana core?!"
"Somebody must have found it and kept it for themself!"
"That must be it! Everybody! Halt! Don't you dare leave!"
A huge commotion started within the Skeleton Graveyard while the raid was still ongoing with everyone that participated in eliminating the Elite Monster blaming the person next to them for hogging the mana core.
After arguing back and forth for many minutes, they eventually decided to do a body search on everyone for the mana core, and this included their spatial ring.
"Whoever leaves from this point forth will receive my wrath! You will all stay here until we find the missing mana core!" A bulky man shouted out loud, his voice echoing in all directions."
"What a pain in the ass…" Khrome sighed out loud.
"Well, this isn't the first time something like this has happened before." Lydia shrugged.
This was one of many flaws when many groups that do not know each other fight the same Elite Monster. Someone could easily take the mana core for themself and not hand it in to the Adventurers' Guild, profiting all of the reward alone.
"Are you responsible for this mayhem?" Lilith asked Leo, who was trying his hardest to not laugh out loud.
"Perhaps." He said with a cunning smile on his face.
A group of people from the Adventurers' Guild showed up at the scene about half an hour after they were called for assistance, and they proceeded to search everyone's belongings.
Before they began their search, one of the staff members from the Adventurers' Guild spoke out loud, "This is your last chance to hand over the Elite Monster's mana core! What you're doing is illegal! If you're caught with the mana core after we begin our search, you'll be stripped of your Adventurer Rank and be sentenced to at least 50 years of confinement! If you hand it over now, we will only give you a fine and a rank reduction! I will give you 10 seconds!"
"Ten!"
"Nine!"
"Eight!"
"..."
"Zero! Alright! We will begin the search now! All females will go to the tent on the left side and the males will go to the tent on the right! Line up and wait for your turn to be searched! Once you are done, stand over here!" A middle-aged man with a serious look on his face spoke to the Adventurers with a speaker.
Thus, the hundreds of Adventurers at the scene began lining up.
"Fuck that bastard who stole the mana core… He's wasting our time…"
"Right?! He'll be caught, anyway!"
The Adventurers kept cursing the culprit while they waited.
"Do I also need to be checked?" Luna asked the Adventurers' Guild.
"Eh? Of course not, Miss Luna. We trust your reputation, and you have been in front of a camera this whole time. If you somehow managed to take the mana core without being noticed, you deserve it." The people from the Adventurers' Guild laughed.
"I understand. Thank you."
After many minutes of waiting in line, Leo entered the tent and began his body search.
"Place all of your spatial rings here," said a bulky man.
Leo followed the instructions and placed his golden spatial ring into the box.
"That's all?" The bulky man raised an eyebrow, finding it a bit weird. Most Adventurers carry at least three to four spatial rings in the Wilderness, especially when they're entering a raid.
One might argue that it isn't reasonable to expect everyone to be able to afford multiple spatial rings since they're quite expensive, but only B-Rank Adventurers and above could participate in this raid, and buying several spatial rings shouldn't be a problem for any B-Rank Adventurers even if they were bad with money.
Naturally, since Leo had the Magic System, he didn't need to waste any money on spatial rings, as his Magic Storage had unlimited room. The only reason he kept the golden spatial ring with him was because it was a present from Camille.
"Hands up." The bulky man said to Leo a moment later.
Leo raised both of his hands into the air, and the bulky man proceeded to scan his body with some kind of magic device.
"Clear." The bulky man said as he turned to look at the person inspecting Leo's spatial ring.
There was a decent amount of potion inside Leo's spatial ring, but what surprised the inspector the most was the sheer amount of A-Rank mana cores inside.
'There's at least a few hundred million worth of mana cores in here… Why is he carrying such a tremendous amount of wealth to a raid? Is he crazy?' The inspector wondered inwardly.
After looking through the mana cores to make sure there wasn't a golden mana core amongst them, the inspector returned the spatial ring to Leo and said, "Cleared."
Two hours later, after searching every Adventurer there, the Adventurers' Guild was baffled by the result.
"What?! You couldn't find the mana core even after searching everyone?! How is that possible?!" The person in charge exclaimed in a shocked voice after learning this information.
"An S-Rank Elite Monster's mana core is worth a fortune! We cannot fuck this up! Go search the Skeleton Warlord's corpse again!"
"Yes!"
The Adventurers' Guild proceeded to comb through every inch of the Skeleton Warlord's corpse with a fine brush until they looked literally everywhere, but alas, the mana core was still nowhere to be found.
"Could the culprit have already fled the scene after stealing the mana core? We didn't force people to stay until many minutes later, after all…" The Adventurers lost all hope at this point, and they all had terrible expressions on their faces, almost as though they'd accidentally eaten a live fly.
In the end, the Adventurers' Guild had no choice but to give up on the mana core for now and investigate at a later date. They also made everyone there record their name down before dismissing them.
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