Into The Portal: Monster Invasion

Miles and others waited for the monkeys to clear out of the battlefield. After the demise of the Boss, it wasn’t that hard to shoo away the rest of the hyenas. With their boss dead, most wanted nothing more than to run away from that cursed area anyway.

The Monkey King, after cutting open the chest of the boss, walked towards them. It held the icy core in its giant hand as it glided slowly with its magnificent two pairs of wings. When it was just in front of them, with a loud thump it fell to the ground gracefully. It placed the core in front of four of them and nodded as if to convey its gratefulness.

“Let’s discuss,” Miles said in monster language and surprised the three next to him. Alex, Maya, and Val at first looked at each other then at Miles then each other again. Maya looked at Alex. Her gaze carried the question; “Did you know about this?”

But Alex was directing a very similar gaze at Val at the moment as she was Miles's oldest friend. Miles ignored their unvocal questions and kept his unwavering gaze on the King. At the table of negotiations, weakness had no place. His look was strong, and his posture was confident.

“What do you want?” The King asked. Although it was surprising to see that a human can speak their language, it didn’t ponder it.

“Everything,” Miles said without any hesitation. The King was taken aback for a second then smirked. When it shouted for them to help, it used Mind Branch to convey the meaning. It knew humans couldn’t understand what it was talking about but by using Mind Branch power, Empathy, to transmit its meaning. The reason why it shouted what it did was to let humans know how serious it was. After all, energy would react to emotions. At the time it really wanted humans to help its children and it was willing to give everything for it, but there was also another reason. Unlike humans, the Hyena Boss could also understand the language, thus would know humans would help the King. That might have deterred the hyenas from attacking, although it didn’t work. But it never imagined a human could understand it.

“Define everything.” the King asked back. It was Miles’s turn to be taken aback. This monkey was really smart. It could even use wordplays. But that was to be expected. After all, the King gathered its underlings and built a bridge to rob- charge a fee from everyone passing the ravine. It was obvious they were smart, but Miles was still surprised.

“Anything you had taken and stashed until this point,” Miles answered without waiting. It was just a probe. After all, the King could give him tens of cores and tell him that this was everything they had stashed and everything else had been consumed. But Miles knew the other party wouldn’t stoop to trick them if not forced, but it also couldn’t give them everything. Miles was just probing to see the King’s limit.

“I can’t do that. My children and I need to consume a large number of cores to recover our strength. Let alone the loss we suffered.” The King shook its head and offered, “How about something else?”

“What do you have in mind?” Miles asked and leaned slightly forward. He was rich now thanks to the forge. What he needed at this point wasn’t the cores but other things that could help him. For example artifacts, or mines where they could mine large amounts of ores.

“I will give you cursed things we have found on humans over the years, also a free pass to the bridge whenever you want.” The King presented his last offer. Miles had to think for a while. He turned to look at Alex and others. Val was just smiling. She had no objection over what Miles would decide as she had full trust in his wits. Alex was almost the same but Maya had one eyebrow in the air as she was looking at the two of them with questioning gazes.

“When we first arrived, the King offered us a deal in exchange for helping its children,” Miles explained and talked about the King’s offer.

“Free pass is not enough. We will hardly use this bridge in the future. And we don’t know the level of the orbs.” Maya said with her arms around her chest.

“Yeah, that is why I will offer something good,” Miles smirked and turned to the King.

“I want 40 tokens from you every month. Anyone holding your token can pass the bridge freely. I will use them to gather wealth in my school. We will also take all the orbs you have.”

“40 is too much. How many of you humans pass this land every month? It is around a hundred. Do you want me to give away half of my income?” The King objected but calmed down when it remembered what it promised.

“We will not be here for long. You may have noticed but most humans only stay in the academy for two years. For the duration we are here, four of us have a free pass from the bridge whenever we need it, and we will have 10 tokens each. After we graduate, a worker from the academy will come and claim 20. How does that sound?” Miles gave his final offer. As the King said, they would hardly use the bridge. Miles was planning to give this opportunity to school for two reasons, first to thank Milosh for his help, and second to pay his debt. “Oh and add some wine please.”

“Sounds acceptable.” The King pondered as it scratched its chin. Miles looked at it in amusement and turned to explain what they had agreed on.

“It is not a bad deal,” Alex commented. “We can sell our tokens to have a constant income in the academy. I bet most of the students would love to get their hands on the tokens.

“Alright, I can accept these terms.” Maya nodded as well in content.

“I trust you, Mil.” Val smiled only.

“Alright then, let’s shake hands on it.” Miles took the King’s hand and they agreed on the terms. “Let’s check the orbs.”