Ch. 2 Awakening

"AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" Collapsing to he floor, John tried to let go of the sword only for his hand to remain in a vice grip around the handle.

The worn out blade emitted tremendous amounts of mana that poured into John, burning his veins as a blue light shine through his skin.

When the mana reached his brain, memories of another life started to pour into him, causing his already shrieking screams to intense in pitch and volume.

The memories proved too much for his brain to hand as blood continuously spilled from his nostrils like a faucet.

In these foreign memories, an unfamiliar man fought a Gigantic red and black Dragon.

'Didn't I see this in my dream?' The stranger in his new memories looked similar to the man that constantly appeared in his dream.

The memories weren't complete and the background changed frequently from one memory to the next as he fought all manner of creature from humanoids to colossal beings that towered over sky scrapers. Despite the many different backgrounds and opponents, there was only one constant.

'They all died.'

The enormous Dragon that had slaughtered tens of thousands of soldiers, yet after a ten day fight was laying decapitated under the strangers feet.

Even an arrogant vampire noble and his army of over a million thralls couldn't withstand a single attack and his head flew from his body.

Whether it be Elf, Ogre, or demon, they all met the same conclude when meeting the stranger. DEATH...

After seeing thousands of memories, they all came to a stop, and the stranger turned around and looked directly at John

'Find your true self,' the man said. Then it all became black as John was forced back to reality.

John was engulfed by a brilliant white light as the mana in his body settled down, filling his whole body with an overwhelming feeling of strength

The sword that once was encased entirely in a layer of red rust, now only had speckles of it layered throughout as a somewhat dull looking blade shown through.

He wanted to get used to these changes and figure out what happened, but he realized that a living Armors was just a few feet from him as Sarah hid behind him.

"D-Don't…" John was seized with fear.

His pleads fell in dead ears as, the unfeeling armour continued to step forward with its halberd raise and slashed forward at an ungodly speed. John, unbeknownst to himself, raised his sword and gently deflected the halberd without even thinking about it.

'This feeling....' A memory of a very young man parrying a training halberd popped into his mind, and that memory overlaid his reality.

With the halberd parried, the living amour was off balance and was unable to assume a defensive position, John swords glowed a faint white light as he followed his memories and seized that opportunity.

The glowing sword penetrated the thick armor and landed where a humans heart would be, destroying the core inside of the armour.

It only took three seconds to topple a single Living Armor.

'Aura?' John questioned as he saw the glowing blade for the first time.

Aura was a rare ability only a few Combat Hunters had. It strengthens and sharpens the weapon in the hunters hands multiple times what it should be able to withstand.

If he hadn't used aura, the swords dull and blunt edge would never have been able to penetrate the thick armor.

"I've changed." Saying this aloud, only then did John realize his voice sounded a notch deeper and almost robot like.

'I couldn't see it,' Sarah thought.

She couldn't even follow the afterimages of John because of her low combat ability.

'A D-rank Healer beat a Living Armor? I can't believe it!'

Living Armors appeared within dungeons of B-rank or higher and were considered a high level monster for their rank. Yet, she wasn't thinking about that right now, as only one though appeared in her head. 'Can he defeat them?'

She cried and felt relieved now that she had hope. She looked at John "P-Please save me!"

John looked back at the woman who's constantly belittled and bullied, the sword in his hands tightened as his eye turned ice cold.

'Shes saw what happened to me after I grabbed that sword, she'll tell the Dungeon Bureau and I'll have a problem on my hands. Not only that she dared to constantly belittle and humiliate me! That alone deserves death, and for that I'l-' the tightened sword in John's hand loosened slightly.

'What the fuck am I thinking? Killing someone for humiliating me? I'm not the main character of a Chinese cultivation novel, I don't give a fuck about these pathetic people's opinions of me' unbeknownst to John, even when he came to a moment of clarity, a slight amount of arrogance and pride still found a way into his thoughts.

'Besides, even if she does tell the Bureau what happened to me, it doesn't change much. This sword is still gonna be mine, their still gonna heavily investigate me since this is a hidden dungeon, so they'll know I'll have killed all of these weak amours, and if they truly do still come after me, then they'll have to face the consequences of their actions.' despite having killed just one of the Living Armours, to John it was a foregone conclusion they'll he kill the rest of them and get out of there.

Looking downt from the top of the pyramid, John saw atleast a dozen armour Stand's slowly and clumsly lumbering their way up the pyramid steps, just as another memory flashed through his head and once again overlapped with reality.

It was the same man from his dreams, now in his late teens defending a castle that was under seige by a rivaling kingdom. Atleast a dozen human had surrounded the man and attacked him at blinding speed, but the man was even faster.

With Aura on his blade, the dream man sliced through the weapons that tried to attack him, bisecting the front men in half and continuing onto the next without stop. John stopped thinking and immersed himself in the joys of killing, as his body sped up even, slicing through enemy after enemy.

it was only after the last man was killed that John awoke from his memory and regained consciousness, only to see the Living Armors had become scraps of metal that rolled around on the stone floor.

-Verifying Ambient mana, measurement complete. B-rank dungeon, clear.

The measuring tool that was in John's small backpack confirmed the dungeons clear. While the portable Hunter's measuring tool carried several functions, it was mostly used to check the quality of magic stones, to identify items or confirm a Dungeon clear, giving a final grade to the Dungeon based on the quality of mana in the air.

"The boss room doors must've been echanted to not let mana leak out, or else the Dungeon Bureau's evaluation wouldn't have been wrong." Despite having just witnessed a close colleague die infront of him, John looked relatively perturbed by his death.

As long as the measuring tool confirmed his clear, there would be nothing to worry about In this dungeon anymore. Although he felt relieved, his entire body started shaking in pain and stress.

He had just performed advanced swordsmanship with a subpar body, and he was paying the price for it as he crumpled to the ground silently.

He felt extreme pain in his torn muscles and curled into a ball, not screaming or shouting as he refused to be seen doing such a pathetic act.

*Crick Crack*

The sound of John's teeth clenching together from the pain was audible as he wasn't just afflicted with physical pain, but was plagued by an intense migraine and dizziness from the thousands of unfamiliar memories. As he was trying to understand what was happening, he remembered something.

'Right, Im a healer. When I get out of here I need to sit down and sort out these memories' Because of the thousands of new memories revolving around using a sword, he had temporarily forgot about his actual powers, and while his healing power might be low, it's still better than nothing.

"Heal!"

A bright White light wrapped around body and all of his pain quickly subsided as the magic invaded his body and healed him, In just over a few minutes he could move once again even though he was still quite sore.

"I'm already healed? I must've just over exaggerated my wounds."His whole body was covered in bruises from dozens of torn muscle, was only slightly sore, just incredibly sweaty.

'I just wanna get home and rest.'

Healing magic didn't affect mental stress and fatigue, only rest and relaxation could do that.

Looking back, he saw Sarah still collapsed on the floor as looking at him in awe.

'I hope you don't make me regret this.'

"You can have all of the magic crystals that we got from the goblin, I'll take my crystals that I got from killing the Living Armour...unless you have an objection?"

Despite saying it as a question, Sarah took it as a threat as she quickly shook her head.

"N-No Objections!"

Walking down each level of the pyramid, John picked up the B ranked crystal and placed them inside of his tiny backpack, amounting to 17 crystals.

As he reached the final stair, he saw Thomas, or atleast what was left of Thomas. His corpse looked like more like ground beef wearing a suit of armour, as his entire body was crushed and smashed by the Living Armours.

'If the bosses doorframe is to be believed, then I've just awakened memories from my past life. If I have a past life, that must mean reincarnation Is possible..... I sincerely hope you reincarnate into a beautiful new life Thomas, and thank you.'

Leaving Sarah behind, John walked out of the dungeon and was stopped by a Dungeon Bureau worker on standby waited outside.

"Where are the others?"

John shook his head. "Just one other one, she is still inside but it's been cleared already."

"So there's only one other survivor…" the employee said. He recorded something on a chart and spoke with a clear voice..

The employee forced a neutral expression. "Listen, you must be shocked, but you still have to undergo an investigation."

The employee absolutely hated his job when a team nearly wipes, as that either means he's telling someone who just witness their friends and party member die in front of them that their a suspect, or he's just talking to an actual murderer. Either way, it just sucks.

John nodded along, more worried about getting home before he collapsed to the floor from exhaustion.

"When the investigation results are out, you must attend and make a final statement. We will contact you separately."

"Thank you," john roughly replied.

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Walking into his dingy little apartment, John walked past his brother's empty bedroom and into his before stripping down to hisboxerss.

Just as he was about to jump into bed, he decided to sleep on the floor as he didn't feel like having to change the bed sheets in the morning, as they would undoubtedly smell absolutely horrendous from John's sweat and body odor at the moment.

The moment John laid he head on the hard floor, a flood of nostalgic memories of his past life doing the exact same position came into mind, of course they were all in different locations but he didn't care as he immediately fell asleep.

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*Ring Ring Ring*

Waking up to the sound of his phone, he realize it was the late afternoon, meaning he slept close to 24 hours.

After what he went through yesterday, John was surprised that he still felt strength overflowing from his body as he didn't feel sore at all. However, his surprise was short-lived as he remembered to pick up his phone, and checked the display. [Dungeon Bureau]