"Thump~ Thump~!"
The lightning-fast charge skill came at Liszt again.
Although it was hard to fully discern with the naked eye, the Cerberus Knight in front was enormous.
Whenever it started using its charge skill, the sound and vibrations would instantly be felt throughout this small area.
Liszt relied on the surrounding information to once again evade the charge.
While observing the surrounding terrain, he slowly moved his feet backward.
The elite Cerberus Knight in front of him seemed to have inexhaustible stamina, and its third charge was already upon him.
Liszt held his breath, judging the timing, and then leaped high into the air.
"Boom~!"
The Cerberus Knight's heads, along with its entire body, crashed directly into the small slope behind Liszt.
After the three dusty heads came to their senses, their eyes immediately glowed green, wanting to find that damned human.
But by the time it reacted, Liszt was already standing on its back.
Without hesitation, he seized the opportunity and fiercely slashed at the weak spot on the back of its neck.
"Critical Hit: Dealt 2667 damage."
"Roar~~~!"
A sharp howl erupted from all three heads at once.
While in pain, the Cerberus also discovered that the damned human was on its back.
It endured the pain and started bucking wildly, trying to throw Lister off.
At the same time, the two side heads were very flexible, twisting around to bite at Lister on its back.
But Liszt's response was a clean and decisive sword-drawing slash.
"Attack: Dealt 607 damage."
As expected, against this Cerberus with a health pool of fifteen thousand, even with his high base strength bonus of 25 points, he couldn't do much damage to any part other than its weak spot.
He still had to focus his attacks on the critical weak points.
"Warning: You have been Weakened, Agility attribute temporarily -2."
As expected of an elite-grade Cerberus, it even had a weakening control skill.
Liszt felt a sense of sluggishness in his movements.
Fortunately, this Cerberus's aura ability wasn't strong, only deducting two points of agility, and while it took a moment to get used to, it didn't have a major impact.
On the contrary, the Cerberus in front of him now had blood streaming from the back of its neck, looking rather miserable.
"Roar~~~!"
Another angry roar, clearly a dog, but its howl was like a wolf's.
The next moment, the charge skill was activated again.
Even with reduced agility, Liszt's past combat experience still allowed him to dodge.
After two consecutive charges, the Cerberus was finally showing some strain.
But its gaze grew even fiercer, three pairs of eerie green eyes staring intently at Lister, as if determined to tear him to shreds.
Unfortunately, it was, after all, a monster that players farmed for levels during the second act of the game, with a generally low intelligence level, mostly beast-like.
Their packs wouldn't have a true leader-level or higher BOSS.
Only in the third and fourth acts, when individual humanoid monsters began to appear, did leveling up and combat in this game truly become tricky.
Liszt quietly waited for the opponent to initiate its charge skill again, patience was key when dealing with such low-intelligence beasts.
Sure enough, before long, the Cerberus Knight in front couldn't hold back and charged again like a madman.
Liszt focused his mind, not rushing to attack, just relying on his years of in-game combat experience and reflexes.
After the fourth full-powered charge, the elite Cerberus Knight was clearly exhausted, and the speed of its charge had slowed down completely.
Liszt immediately tightened his grip on his sword, seized the opportunity, and delivered a heavy slash from the side.
Another critical hit, landing squarely on the back of the Cerberus's neck.
"Boom~!"
The ground shook, and although the Cerberus still had half its health, its stamina was depleted.
Especially after taking two critical hits to its weak spot, it was now half-lying on the ground.
Liszt no longer hesitated, immediately rushing forward and landing several more forceful slashes on the weak spot, and the system's notification finally sounded.
"Congratulations, you have killed the Cerberus Knight."
"Gained 75641 experience points."
Although this elite monster was tough to deal with, thankfully the experience points were plentiful, so it wasn't a loss.
...
Two days later, the rumors about the Kayas region in the outer city gradually died down.
Although news about a high-level professional clearing out the Cerberus had spread quite fast in the first two days.
The outer city was mostly populated by commoners and weak merchant caravans, who neither had the ability nor could afford to hire professionals to venture deep and investigate.
Everyone maintained a wait-and-see attitude, unsure of the news's authenticity.
As soon as new, more discussion-worthy news appeared, this kind of unsubstantiated information naturally dissipated even faster.
Liszt was currently sipping tea in the Merrick family's castle.
Standing before him was a pot-bellied, bearded middle-aged man, dressed in magnificent purple silk.
As the president of the Pauli merchant caravan, his clothes were quite luxurious, but Liszt really couldn't comment on his aesthetic sense.
"President Porter, I believe Butler Anke has already explained the specific reason for inviting you here very clearly."
"Since you were willing to come to our Merrick family today, I trust you will give me a satisfactory answer, won't you?"
Holding his teacup, Liszt casually looked at President Porter before him.
Despite his luxurious attire and his title as the president of a so-called chamber of commerce, he was extremely cautious in front of Liszt, his eyes filled with anticipation as he looked at him.
"Lord Baron Merrick, I am willing to cooperate with the Merrick family."
"I am willing to jointly open a new trade route to Viscount Gabriel's territory, but where exactly does this new trade route go?"
…
"Please sit, have some tea first."
Seeing that President Porter was sensible, Liszt invited him to sit down.
After all, their statuses were different, the Porter Chamber of Commerce had no subordinate relationship with any other nobles in Will City.
The chamber itself was not large, which was also why they hadn't been absorbed by other nobles.
Logically, the Merrick family was a hereditary barony in Will City, so they naturally had their own chamber of commerce or merchant caravan in the past.
However, only a few people were left in this caravan under old Baron Mel's tenure.
After the old baron's death, the three professionals who followed him left, and the entire chamber of commerce naturally fell apart without a sound.
This was one of the reasons why the Merrick family couldn't support other professionals, the family's finances were already in complete ruin, propped up by the old foundations passed down through the years.
Besides a small cuprite mine, the family had no other source of income.
Of course, the decline of the Merrick family's business was also the reason why President Porter had the opportunity to catch Liszt's eye today.
Although the Merrick family ranked last among the seven great professional-heritage families of the Will Duchy and was more or less in decline.
In the eyes of other nobles and major powers in the city, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse, and there were many who were willing to attach themselves to them.
"I'll tell you the route first, starting from the outer city, it passes through the Kayas region on the east side to reach Viscount Gabriel's territory."
"Cough cough~! Ka... Kayas region?"
President Porter had just picked up his teacup, joyfully savoring the tea from a baronial family with a long heritage in the city.
He felt the taste was indeed different and was even trying to identify it so he could try to purchase some himself.
Upon hearing Liszt's words, his eyes immediately widened, and he choked on the tea in his mouth, almost unable to swallow.
"Cough~! Lord Baron, you must be joking with me."
"The Kayas region is a gathering place for Cerberus, no chamber of commerce in the city has dared to pass through there for years!"
…
"Rest assured, since I dare to say so, there is naturally a reason."
"The Cerberus in the Kayas region have been cleared out by our Merrick family."
Hearing this, President Porter was simply amazed by the Merrick family's power.
It was just as he had expected, a professional family with a long heritage, even in decline, was still powerful and different from other nobles.
However, the old butler Anke at the side instantly turned pale, completely losing his composure.
Although he had followed orders, found the Pauli Chamber of Commerce with a clean background for Liszt, and mentioned the new trade route.
He had no idea from beginning to end that the Cerberus in the Kayas region had been cleared out.
The Merrick family currently only had Baron Liszt as a professional, how could they have such capability.
His face was now full of anxiety and worry, convinced that Liszt was deceiving President Porter.
"Not many outsiders know about this trade route yet, and I have already made an agreement with Viscount Gabriel."
"As long as you are willing to attach yourself to our Merrick family, we will split the profits from the trade with Viscount Gabriel's territory seven to three."
Although Viscount Gabriel was subordinate to the Will Duchy, his geographical location was actually not ideal.
With the Cerberus gathering there, one had to take a long detour to get there, making it a remote part of the duchy.
Now that the Cerberus had been wiped out by Liszt, its geographical location naturally became much more advantageous.
Viscount Gabriel's territory was also rich in low-level magic plants, which were the main raw materials for low-level magic potions.
Liszt had already visited Viscount Gabriel's territory after clearing out the entire Cerberus population.
He had reached an agreement with the viscount that this trade route would be jointly controlled by their two families.
Liszt just didn't have a suitable chamber of commerce on hand, which was why he approached President Porter of the Pauli Chamber of Commerce.
The lion's share of the profits would naturally go to the Merrick family, with the remaining thirty percent going to the Pauli Chamber of Commerce.
After all, it was currently an exclusive trade route, and even thirty percent was more than enough for the Pauli Chamber of Commerce to feast on.
As for whether other families would interfere in the future.
One could only say that the chambers of commerce or caravans of the other six great professional families wouldn't even look at this small amount of trade with a mere viscount's territory.
And the remaining nobles and families were still intimidated by the Merrick family for the time being and wouldn't dare to snatch food from the Merrick family's plate.