Vol. 3 Start - Chapter 26: Two S Ranks & a Courageous Weakling

A/N :

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

[ ] : System, Akasha, Minerva,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

{ }: Parallel Wills,

« » : Artificial Intelligence,

| | : ?? System Panels, ?? System Messages.

Hello, everybody. Unfortunately, no one was able to guess the next world, so no shout-outs. Enjoy the chapter and have a nice weekend, Christmas and New Year.

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?? POV

Flabbergasted. That's the only way to describe how I feel right now. It's been literal years since the last S Rank hunter emerged here in Korea. And now, all of a sudden you tell me that two of them who just so happen to be a couple come up on the exact same day. If I hadn't witnessed this myself, I'd call anyone telling me that insane.

What the hell am I thinking? I've got to get my hands on them before anyone else tries, especially that damn wolf Baek Yun-Ho. I dash outside the Hunter Association building hoping to find them and to my relief, I did. "Wait!" I call out to them, and they turn to me.

I look at them and wonder if it's humanly possible to look as attractive as they look. The man is dark skinned and has eyes that are so blue, they seem artificial, along with hair as white as snow. The woman like her spouse, has white hair as well, but has skin that is pale white, but not sickly, and red eyes rather than blue.

Shaking myself from my reverie, I ask them if they plan to join any guild and they tell me that they don't plan to for a while. "If you plan to join any guild later in the future, the Hunters Guild will always welcome you with open arms." I tell them with hopes that they'll actually consider my guild when they see that even as S Ranks, raiding dungeons would be problematic for them.

"We really don't plan on joining a guild. And besides, if we ever join a guild, it won't be any of the ones established now." The woman says, making me wonder exactly why she would say that. "You're wondering why I'd say that, aren't you?" She says with a calm smile, almost as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Our reasoning for such a thing is pretty simple." This time, it's the man who speaks. "None of the guild leaders anywhere in the world is capable of gaining our respect." Hearing that irked me, but I remain patient and listen. "In simpler terms, you're all much too weak." As he says that, I feel as if the atmosphere became heavy, my body subconsciously bowing itself to them.

This goes on for what seems like an eternity, until it abruptly stops. I look up to speak to them, but I see that they are both gone. "If they're that strong, then I guess they've at least got enough reason to feel the way they do." I say, accepting that I wouldn't be able to fight them, let alone subdue them if it ever came to it. I don't think anyone would actually believe me if I told them about this.

?? POV

Killing Hwang Dong-Seok and his lackeys had left me a bit damaged, but it wasn't anything I couldn't tough out. Not to mention, taking their lives had no weight on my conscience, since they very much had it coming.

With every C Rank hunter dead and only one D Rank and one E rank surviving, our case would have been quite suspicious when investigated. But thankfully, the D Rank was no ordinary person, but was rather Yu Jin-Ho, the son of the highly affluent Yu Myung-Han.

"Oh my gosh! Isn't that the longsword 'Kalion' that's been launched recently by the Maya Company? Oh my gosh! Isn't this one of the Royal Series shield crafted by the one and only master craftsman Gredos?" The association investigator asked with a sparkle in her eyes.

"You seem to be well versed in weapons, ma'am." Yu Jin-Ho says with a smile on his face. "Eii, it's nothing to feel proud about, really. No, it's only on the level of browsing the catalogues every now and then. Ohohohoho!" She says with a laugh.

If you knew the prices of the different armaments that Jin-Ho was wearing, you would also be able to guess that they would boost his abilities beyond those of an average C Rank hunter. The prices of the sword and shield were around ₩700,000,000 and ₩500,000,000 respectively.

The hunter gear and its price combined with us saying that Yu Jin-Ho joined the fight a bit later, started to paint a picture in the investigator's mind. One where Yu Jin-Ho killed the boss after the C Rank hunters had tired it and been killed by it, while I, the E Rank hunter, survived by staying away from the monsters. In other words, it was the perfect cover up.

"I understand what happened now." The investigator closed the case with a satisfied face. "The investigation will conclude with this, so you may go home now. It's been a difficult day, so thank you for being cooperative with the investigation." "Thank you for your hard work." Jin-Ho says, thanking her and bidding her farewell as she leaves.

"You also worked hard, hyung-nim." He says as he bends his waist 90 degrees, showing that he was still scared, causing me to inwardly click my tongue. "Yeah, you too." He then handed over the bag of magic crystals to me while saying that he didn't do much. I look at the bag and wonder just how much I could get when I'd sell these. But before I could even smile about it, I felt raindrops start falling on me. 'It's a good thing that I sent her off with an umbrella.'

Evening quickly came and I had gotten to the apartment building I lived in with Jin-Ah and I saw two strangers. A white haired dark skinned man and a white haired pale skinned woman. And they were looking at me with their eyes, the man's eyes were blue while the woman's red.

"So he's the one who passed the Architect's test. He doesn't seem like much." For some reason, the woman's words kicked off some sort of alarm in me, as I stated preparing to attack them. "Don't think of doing anything foolish. You still have your family to take care of." The man's words caused me to stop and consider the situation.

I was in front of my own home, faced with two possibly powerful strangers who at least know about me and also possibly know about what happened in the double dungeon. I could only conclude that they weren't enemies since they seem like they want to talk, and the system hasn't given an emergency quest like when I had to kill Hwang Dong-Seok and his lackeys.

"You think a bit too much." I hear the man's voice behind me. "We're only here to talk, so don't worry." He says then sits on a chair that he got from somewhere. I also just notice that despite the downpour around us, no rain is falling on any of the three of us.

"Tell me, do you want to actually grow stronger?" He asks. I furrow my brows upon hearing this, as I had assumed that he knew about the system. So why did it seem that he didn't know of it? "Of course, I mean stronger than the system would provide." Scratch that, he knows.

"Why? Why would you want to help me grow stronger?" I ask him, confused. I didn't know them from anywhere, yet they knew me. They also seem to be a lot more powerful than I am, so what would they want from me? As I think this, I hear a female voice, different from that of my system, ring in my head, and see a system panel different from mine pop up in front of me.

[You have received a party invitation. Do you want to join party 'My New Family'?[Y/N]]

As that message popped up, I expected my own system panel to start going haywire, but nothing happened. He looked at me, awaiting my response. "You still haven't properly answered my question. Why?" He sighs before he begins talking. "Because no person who is given a system, especially the only one in their world, is given that system for no reason. So I thought, why not see if I could make them even stronger. Long story short, I want you to become stronger because of a whim."

I had no words to react to what I just heard. These people came from God knows where and claim that they could very well make me stronger, just because they wanted to. Sure, they said I had received this system for some compelling reason, but I couldn't shake this suspicion that they had something else in mind.

Not to mention, it doesn't seem like they're even from Earth, since they referred to this as a world, as if they had been to others with life on them. At least, I can tell that we humans aren't alone in this universe. "I'm human." I look at him, wondering if he's somehow reading my mind. "It's actually harder not to since like I said earlier, you think a bit too much." His words would have shocked me even more if I hadn't already received multiple greater shocks back-to-back.

I look over to the woman and she says that she isn't human, despite clearly looking like one. But that wasn't all. She said that she was a spider monster that had gone through enough evolutions that she eventually gained a human form. I honestly wish I could have made this up, but I couldn't.

"Okay. It's clear that we've dropped quite a bit of heavy news on you all at once, so we'll give you some time to think about it." The man says as he brings out a smartphone from his pocket. "You can use this to contact us. By the way, I'm Dante." He says, finally introducing himself. "And I'm Shiraori." They look at me, waiting for me to reciprocate. "I'm Sung Jin-Woo." I tell them my name and they nod in acknowledgement and leave, and wouldn't you know it, it had stopped raining.

Dante POV

Seeing the famous Sung Drip-Woo act so skittish in front of me was something I wouldn't have even thought of back in my former life, but it just happened. And this is before we even tell him about the other monarchs. But at least he's making progress.

Right now, there are two reasons why I came to this universe, apart from just having fun. First, I want to analyze and improve on the authority held by the Shadow Monarch, then I'll get my own soldiers as well. I won't steal his soldiers, but I'll make more powerful clones of a few, especially Beru and Igris.

"Do you think we came on too strong?" Shiro asks me and I tell her we didn't, as I had muted the effects of my CHA stat, otherwise he'd have believed us instantly without any bit of deliberation, similarly to what I had done with Choi Jong-In earlier.

"So, where to now?" Shiro asks and I think about it for a few seconds and decidethat we'll go ahead and raid a few dungeons for the remaining hours of the evening.

Sung Jin-Woo POV

Morning has come and I've already distributed the stats I had gotten as a reward from the emergency quest, putting 7 in Agility and 3 in Perception, making my stats look like this.

|Stats|

|Strength: 53

Stamina: 30

Agility: 45

Intelligence: 30

Perception: 35

(Available points to distribute:0)|

I thought about what those two said last night and I still wonder if they were being truthful. The man was quite convincing, but I needed some proof before I'd actually believe them. Meaning that I would definitely need to contact them.

Immediately the thought comes to my mind, the phone seemingly materializes in my hand with the man, Dante's, contact showing on the screen. Throwing the thought away as he'll probably explain it, I tap on his contact and call him. "Hey, Dante. It's Jin-Woo. I'm ready to meet up. Tell me where."

Shortly after I say this, a portal opens up, showing what seems to be a grassy plain on the other side. Gulping down a glob of saliva, I walk to the other side while holding the Kasaka's Poison Fang, keeping my wits about me.

As I enter the environs on the other side of the portal, I come across what looks like an androgynous statue that is wholly black, standing on a small, blank pedestal. As I step toward it, lines of light shine softly on its body and the eyes of what I thought was a statue turn on with the same red light that outlined its body and look at me.

«You're Sung Jin-Woo, right? The Boss has been expecting you. Follow me.» The robot says in a female voice and begins guiding me to Dante. We reach a small platform and step on it, and it covers us in a sphere before shuttling us down a rail at a speed so high that the environment around us passed as a long blur.

During the journey, I observed that the robot moved quite fluidly, like a highly flexible hunter, despite its mechanical nature. The thought that something like this could exist freely here, wherever here is, caused slight unease in my mind, since I'd expected Dante to try testing my combat capabilities or something of the like.

After a few minutes, the platform stops in front of a duplex that is surrounded by trees. «He's waiting inside for you.» The robot says as I disembark from the platform, then it speeds off. I take a deep breath and exhale, tightening my grip on Kasaka's Poison Fang, then head to the door that opens automatically upon sensing me.

As I enter, the door shuts behind me and holograms of directional arrows pop up, seemingly to guide me to Dante's current location. I follow the arrows for a while, and as I do, I notice that the space within the house is multiple times larger than what one would expect upon looking at its exterior.

Eventually the arrows stop at a room with a plain silver door sealing it. I move to knock on the door, but like before it opens up automatically. I step in and like before, it also shuts automatically.

As I walk in, I see multiple weights and robotic training dummies in the room, as well as what look to be weighted clothes, if the holograms showing their description are correct.

Moving further into the room, I see the woman, Shiraori, fighting what seems to be translucent fighting dummies, but Dante is nowhere in sight. Seeing one of the dummies look my way, I tense up, ready to defend or counter any attacks sent my way. "Chill out and come over here." I look around to find Dante and eventually see his hand waving at me from behind a wall.

I walk forward, trying to find some opening for me to slip through, only for me to clear the distance instantly, while hearing a small popping sound. And I see Dante seated on a couch, watching TV. He looks at me for a few seconds then nods. "Please, sit down. We've got a lot to talk about."

OMAKE: Ninjas are overrated, but damn are they good multitaskers.

Dante POV

We'd spent about a month total in the Domina doing lots of different things. For me, I'd gone ahead and recreated some martial arts that I felt were interesting, especially from worlds that didn't have actual superpowers, such as the Niko style martial arts.

As for Shiro, she'd been spending much of her time reading up on much of the library I had created. Mainly learning how to work with technology and electromagnetism. To speed this up, she used her clones, which made me think about the entire concept of temporary clones.

I knew that I could make myself pathogenic, causing my cells to be capable of creating multiple perfect replicas of myself, and with my regenerative capabilities, I could do this nigh infinitely. But that wasn't exactly what I wanted. With that I'd still have to fully connect with all of the bodies to gain all their memories without reading their minds.

Which brought me to a universe that I had no real desire to go to, the universe of Naruto. I knew of the Multi Shadow Clone Technique and its capabilities, so I decided to use it as a reference for creating a better cloning technique.

I went to the point in time when Naruto had just recently stolen the Forbidden Scroll and copied the few techniques that interested me, such as the aforementioned Multi Shadow Clone Technique, the Impure World Reincarnation which was subsumed and improved by my own knowledge of necromancy and the Eight Inner Gates technique.

There were a plethora of notifications that I had received upon acquiring and improving upon them.

[Notice. Skill 'Multi Shadow Clone Technique' has been learned.]

[Notice. Multi Shadow Clone Technique has evolved into Infinite Cloning.]

[Notice. Skill 'Impure World Reincarnation' has been learned.]

[Notice. Impure World Reincarnation has been subsumed into Necromancy.]

[Notice. Skill 'Eight Inner Gates' has been learned.]

[Notice. Eight Inner Gates has evolved into Ten Heavenly Gates.]

[Infinite Cloning (Active) LV MAX]:

[Use your energy to create as many clones as you please.

All clones are mentally interconnected with themselves and user, making it so that any skill learned by the user or a single clone is also learned by user and all other clones, even while active.

All clones are absolutely loyal to user.

At MAX level, all clones possess the same level of power as the user and require complete destruction to be dispersed by external factors.

EP Cost: Variable.]

[Necromancy (Active) LV MAX]:

[The ability to control the dead, undead and death energy via the use of magic.

All death based spells are enhanced by 1000%.

All undead summons have their abilities enhanced by 1000%.

All undead summons have infinite HP and EP.

All raised undeads are absolutely loyal to user.

Spells Learned:

Death Bolt,

Death Ray,

Touch of Undeath,

Corpse Explosion,

True Death,

Raise Undead,

Undead Creation (25),

Undeath Army.

EP Cost: Variable.]

[Ten Heavenly Gates (Active) LV MAX]:

[The Ten Gates exist to limit the flow of and interaction between an individual and the energy of existence itself. This technique exists to remove those limits.

Gates:

The Gate of Opening,(Left hemisphere of the brain)

The Gate of Healing,(Right hemisphere of the brain)

The Gate of Life,(Spinal cord)

The Gate of Pain,(Spinal cord)

The Gate of Limit,(Abdomen)

The Gate of View,(Stomach)

The Gate of Wonder,(Below Stomach)

The Gate of Death,(Heart)

The Gate of Escape,(Lungs)

The Gate of Heaven(Full interconnected circuit off all prior gates).]

After I finished testing the skills out, I looked at Naruto, the poor boy, and decided that I'll at least help him out. I used Biokinesis to make his body undergo atavistic evolution, giving him a sage body, as well as the full benefits of being an Uzumaki, which caused some parts of his hair to turn red.

I also planted some knowledge packages in his mind that would activate upon the use of some techniques, making him fully understand the technique. Those techniques being the Multi Shadow Clone Technique, the Rasengan and Rasenshuriken. Once I was done, I returned to the Domina, satisfied with my loot.

Chapter End.

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By the way, I am serious when I say that you should let me know what I may be doing wrong, so I can work on it. Thank you.