Chapter 9: Black Panther (1)

One day after the incident, in the evening

Watching the air trains leaving the station, Cale sat on an iron bench sipping coffee from a cardboard cup.

His skin was pale and he looked rather thin, with dark circles under his eyes. With a black hat on his head and a mask under his chin, he hoped no one would recognize him.

His head ached when he thought about what had happened in the morning. When he woke up in the hospital and no one was in his room, the first thing he did was check his phone.

The video of him fighting the monster had been seen by many people and he had been praised. At first Cale was uncomfortable with this, but then he had the ridiculous idea that he could be useful.

It was only five minutes later, when the news broke and he was left alone with people cursing and mocking him, that he realized he had been foolish.

Cale himself had already found it suspicious that a level D monster could be so easily defeated. So he was not so surprised by the news that they were actually weak. An hour ago, another piece of news revealed the reason why.

According to the researchers, since the mana was unbalanced during the dungeon explosion, it was learned that the monsters were actually poisoned by mana overload.

Cale had actually killed monsters that were already dying.

Cale sighed and took a sip of his coffee, then bit his cardboard cup. At least his face was not clearly visible in the video.

The video was shot from a distance, so all that was visible was his red hair. Also, the news channels did not show his face during the incident.

Either the reporters couldn't find information about him or the elite families had prevented it. Cale wished with all his heart that it was the former.

If the elite families were involved, he would be in trouble later. In this world, the elite families were treated like medieval nobles, and it would be unacceptable for someone with no background to have the same power as their children.

So Cale chose to leave the city he had just arrived in until things calmed down. He planned to head west to Guista, a city at the foot of the Myrindir Mountains.

There were dungeons in the Myrindir Mountains that he could easily access. That way he could increase his stats and grow stronger.

Cale pulled up his mask. He stood up from the bench, taking his backpack with him. After throwing his cardboard cup in the trash, he boarded the train, found the seat number on his ticket and sat down.

Shortly afterwards, the train left the station and traveled quickly towards Guista. Cale left the station with the train, which, despite its fast speed, arrived in the city three hours later.

Guista was a beautiful city, though not as beautiful as Armageddon. If the city of Armageddon was a noble city with the elite and their subordinate families, Guista and the other cities were where the commoners stayed, controlled by them.

Cale hadn't eaten in hours, so he wandered the streets looking for food and a place to stay. The first thing he did when he entered a small guesthouse was to order food.

As he sat down to eat in the lower floor of the hostel, he saw people sitting at other tables, drinking and chatting. Cale thought it looked more like an inn.

Cale's hand holding a spoon to his mouth stopped when he heard a man's voice say, "I hear there are a lot of dungeons on Mount Myrindir these days."

"Indeed, there are a lot of dungeons in the cities these days, too," someone else sighed. Cale looked over and saw three people, two men and a woman, sitting at a table.

"Will the dungeons on Mount Myrindir be taken over by the elite families?" the woman asked.

"I heard that the Black Panther beat them to it. Months before the dungeons came out, he made a deal with the elite families to take care of the monsters on Mount Myrindir," said the man who spoke first.

"I thought they had taken care of the monsters there."

"It's not easy to destroy animals mutated by mana poisoning."

"Ah!" the man shouted, noisily putting his beer glass down on the table. "I need money. Why do I need permission to enter the damn dungeons? Just let me in and I'll sell you the monsters I catch and it's a win-win!"

"Calm down, man! You can go to the Black Panther and get permission to enter the dungeons."

"I still have to pay to enter the dungeons," the man said tearfully, looking at his friend.

The woman, who was not involved in their conversation, rolled her eyes. "At least they don't monopolize it like the elite families."

Cale got the information he needed effortlessly and went up to his room to rest.

Tomorrow he would call the Black Panther.

After a few days of research, Cale had learned that the Black Panther was not a person but an organization. They were the owners of the black market.

Late Tuesday night

As almost everyone knows, the black market operated differently from the outside world, where there were laws and morals.

This is the only place where heroes and villains can live together.

Cale had to work hard to find this place. The black market wasn't a place you could just walk into.

It's dark under the lamp.

That saying fit the location of the black market to a tee. He would never have guessed that he would be in a nondescript antique shop in the center of Guista City.

Cale had been standing on the sidewalk across the street, watching the antique shop for ten minutes. He was waiting for something. A different feeling or a sign that the black market was there, but nothing happened.

'Maybe I got the wrong information'

When the doubts stopped gnawing at him, he fixed the mask on his face and wanted to go inside without wasting any more time. When he opened the door, a heavy odor filled his nostrils along with the ringing of the bell.

A middle-aged man with black hair left the shelf he was cleaning and walked towards Cale. Cale felt his back sweat as the man came towards him.

'His individual limit was C or above'

"How can I help you?" he said and smiled benevolently.

"I came to feed the black cat," the black-haired man's eyes sharpened.

"Do you believe you are worthy to feed the black cat?"

"Of course, the black cat will be pleased with the service I will render him."

"May I suggest what kind of service you mean?"

"I can help him catch pests," Cale said, and the black-haired man smiled again.

"Then please follow me," he said as he walked towards the back of the shop.

Cale followed him and they came to a wall. When the black-haired man put his hand on the wall, a pink light formed under his hand.

When the wall disintegrated as if it were a piece of paper, the elevator behind the wall appeared. The man held out his hand for Cale to pass and Cale got into the elevator.

"The elevator will take you where you need to go. Have fun," he said, and the wall, which had disintegrated like dust, reformed and coalesced.

The elevator began to descend. There were two ways for an individual to enter the black market. Either you got a letter of recommendation from someone high up in the black market or you knew the secret code.

In Cale's case, when the former was not possible, he had to find the latter. And after much effort, he managed to find it.

The secret code was the black cat. In every conversation Cale had with the man, he had stated his purpose for coming and that he wanted to earn money. By 'cleaning the vermin' he meant being a laborer to clean the monsters in the dungeons because there were so many of them.

When the elevator went down and the door opened, Cale didn't know what to expect, but what he saw was more like a night market.

Vendors selling their wares from their stalls were neatly lined up in rows that he couldn't see the end of.

Cale had expected it to be a closed space, but the moonlit market was peaceful and pleasant to the eye.

The light from the lamps gave a clearer view of the goods in the market. As he walked along the road and passed many stalls, he could see a wide variety of goods for sale.

With his limited budget, Cale bought himself nothing but a spatial warehouse. The spatial pocket was a black and red braided bracelet. It wasn't very eye-catching, but the price was quite cheap for the size of the storage space.

He needed it to store the monsters he killed after entering the dungeons. That way he could sell the monsters he killed.

Cale was relieved when he finally found the place he was looking for. [Scouts]. This was the best place for people who wanted to make money from dungeons, to become powerful or not part of a guild, except for the elite families who monopolized the dungeons, whether you were a hero or a villain.