ch.9 Attempting B Rank

John crushed the E ranked dungeon and one shotted the Goblin brute boss with ease. After selling the measly crystal he immediately tried to applied for his next solo run.

"I'm sorry Hunter, we are presently delayed because of the amount of solo run applicants. It seems like it'll be difficult to schedule anything for a next few days."

The clerk said apologetically.

It was frustrating, but he couldn't do anything about it, so John decided to look for a different solution.

"Then how about party matching?"

"Hunter, you may apply for party matching for up to B-rank dungeons." the clerk replied.

"Do you think there will be delay in the B-rank matching?" John asked.The clerk went to their tablet and checked momentarily.

"Your rating has gone up quite a bit due to your solo play success. You should be able to find a party without much difficulty," the clerk said as they typed in their keyboard.

If you solo run, then your rating entirely depends upon your success, but if your teaming up it depends on multiple factors.

In team play, if you succeed in hunting your rating goes up, but depending upon how your party members felt about you, your rating may go even further up or go down.

Before, John was an incredibly weak hunter who's healing magic was the lowest in the world, if John went hunting with anybody above F grade, the chance were high that his rating would go down from his teammates complaining.

'I've solo'd one of the harder C ranked Dungeons with moderate difficulty, teaming up for a B ranked part should be fine.....But my luck with dungeon hunting is absolutely terrible, and bad luck in a B rank Dungeon could easily spell my death....'

John couldn't help but remember how every Dungeon he enter after awakening his past life, just so happened to be much more difficult than average. Despite this, John felt like he could solo a hard B ranked dungeon at great danger to his life and having a party should significantly help him.

"I understand, Please contact me when it's done."

"P-Please wait a moment, Hunter! It looks like theirs an party opening!" John had risen from his seat and went to leave but the clerk stopped him.

"When?" John asked.

"A matched party member was a no-show, so there was a request to supplement the party. Therefore, you need to leave immediately; will that be alright?" the clerk asked cautiously.

John had come to the Bureau dressed in full gear, so he was ready to go at a moments notice.

"Please schedule it for me." John had been content with soloing C ranked Dungeons for the rest of his life, but now that he had his mana absorbing technique that can grow his Mana, he wanted more!

He wanted to surpass his past life, perfoming feats that would shock even Roukel and in order to do that, he would need experience hunting higher floors before he tries to solo them.

------------

Standing on the side of a mountain two people, a man and woman, casually laid next to the large tear in reality that seemed to ooze danger just from its presence

"Bryan, are you sure we got a match?" the woman asked impatiently, wearing a robe unsuited for modern times.

"The Dungeon Bureau messaged me that they a replacement Janel, please wait a bit longer," Bryan responded.

Bryan was an adult man who wielded a sword and a shield, wore a thick red leather armour and gave off a relaxed atmosphere that surprising seemed to fit his large 6'3 frame.

"The items I'm wearing are too hot, and i cant take them off or id loose the affects!" Janel complained.

Although Janel was constantly complaining from the moment their teamates bailed, a constant calm and relaxed appearance remained in Bryan's face, unfettered by Janels constant barrage of complaints.

"All those a-holes in Phoenix came up with excuses, now we have to dungeon dive with some random that might want to PK us!" Janel pouted.

Both janel and Bryan were members of the mid-ranked guild, Phoenix, where Janel was an executive member.

At first, they had formed a party with only guild members, however Shaun had to deal with an emergency and couldn't join them. Likewise, the other guild members had their own circumstances and couldn't join.

Thus, the two had asked the Dungeon Bureau to supplement their party through matching.

"Someone's coming," said Bryan as he saw a fast moving target approach them.

"I'm a Mage and you're a Combatant, so it'll be perfect if a Healer comes!" Every Hunter knew that Healers made dungeon runs much easier.

Gradually, they became able to see the Hunter and Janel's eyes filled with anticipation. However, the moment she recognized the face, she was disappointed.

"Isn't that him?" She had seen videos of the self-defense incident on the Hunter website and restrained herself from calling him his nickname, the Legend.

"Should we still continue this run?" Janel asked.

She knew that John had grown stronger from the video she saw online, but they also knew he was highly inexperienced.

"You know that there are harsh penalties for leaving after the matching is complete," Bryan said before whispering into her ear.

"Please watch your words around him, don't call him by that stupid nickname because it might irritate him."

"When did you become so considerate of others?"

"He's a healer and a decent fighter, we wouldn't need to waste a warrior to guard him in a dungeon as he can't protect himself. Our guild sent out a guild email to try and rope him, and a few others into the guild, you remember that right?"

Hearing this, Janel casually nodding her head in false understand.

'I should start checking my email.'

----

"It's a pleasure. My name is John Jackson."

"I'm Janel Singer."

"I'm Bryan charles."

After establishing their roles, they quickly got to work and opened entered the Dungeon gate.

"I'll take out my Light Drone." John said as he reached into his back

"You don't need to do that. I'm a Mage," Janel said.

Before John could take out the drone, Janel shook her staff and created a bright ball of light. This light source was more beneficial to a drone as a drone could easily be hit out of the sky in stronger dungeons, but a magical ball of light couldn't be touched by anything except by mana.

"I'll take the lead, John could you please guard Ms. Janel if a monster slips through?" asked Bryan

"I'll try my best, but please remember that I'm just the healer." John answered.

He only wanted to witnessed how a B ranked dungeon was performed before he actively participated in one, John didn't want to die to an unknown variable he wasnt privy to so he was taking a more passive approach this dungeon run.

John learned many thing from his past lifes memories, but the most important thing was to always know what your walking in to, which is why he always researched the dungeons rigorously.

Roukels memories remind John of the quote "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles"

"No problem, I'll try not to let a single one slip past me" Bryan said with a voice overflowed with confidence.

They looked towards the deeper parts of the dungeon and moved forward. The monsters didn't appear even after ten minutes of cautious walker, but John's acute senses were picked up several presence.

"They're coming, seventeen of them."

"My Detection Magic hasn't found anything strange, though?" said a puzzled Janel.

*Ding*

The moment Janel finished talking, the detection magic rang out, warning them of the monsters' approach.

There were seventeen hairy humanoid dogmen running towards, they all had crude swords and shields. "Kolbolds!"

John expected to have to fight, but was surprised by the duo. Janel quickly casted a fireball that annihilated ten of them and injured a few more, and Bryan wiped out the rest easily.

"That was impressive John! How did you know how many there were?" Bryan looked as John curiously.

"After awaking as a hunter, I realized my senses were better than others, I just heard their footsteps approaching" John gave a suitable excuse.

Walking over to the Kolbolds, John took out a knife and pretending to harvest a crystal, but instead raised his hand over the corpse.

'As I thought, I have to personally kill them myself in order to absorb their mana. I guess I can't leech off of others to expand my Mana capacity.'

Getting the crystal out, John filled up his necklace, 'Bloody Prayer' and moved on.

The deeper they went in, the more monsters appeared. There were intelligent monsters that laid ambushes and attempted to surprise the party, but John warned the party in advance.

'It appears that the higher the dungeon, the smarter the creatures inside.' looking down at the dead fairy's that Janel had blasted out of the sky, John believed that he had a 50% chance of dying in a B ranked dungeon if he currently tried to solo it.

"I think it would be best if we rest here," Bryan said as he sheathed his sword and dropped his shield.

Opening his back pack, Bryan started muching on a super condensed food block. *CRUNCH!*

John doubted a normal human would have been able to bite through that super condensed food. Taking out a snicker bar and a water bottle, John also rested even though all he did was walk and sense the enemies.

The need to rest mid dungeon starts at B-rank and above dungeins, as they only got bigger and had a lot more variety of monsters and monster variants.

John, Byram and janel put the light in the center of them and sat in a circle around it, sharing food and water.

"I can't believe your senses alone surpasses my Detection Magic. I've been able to save my mana and use more attack spells because of you."

"Thank you..." replied John awkwardly, he wasn't really used to compliments so he just akwardly smiled at them.

"I didn't do anything, it was you guys who clea-" suddenly John felt several presences incoming rapidly

'Too many!'

John unsheathed Roel and yelled out "Monsters! There're a lot of monsters incoming!"

Bryan and Janel moved swiftly and readied their weapons in wait. Within a few second they were greeted with the piercing green eyes of the rotting Ghouls!