ch 21 Revelation!

'Why was I betrayed?' John had a terrifying look of anger on his face.

'No, being betrayed doesn't matter. What's important is that I died because I was betrayed.' John didn't like Roukel, but all of the vile and evil thing that Roukel had done was for humanity.

Whether it was culling a potential enemy from rising up, or turning one of his own towns to cinder because a new plague had cropped up, Roukel did whatever was necessary to help humanity grow and even then he was betrayed!

John had seen and felt just how evil Roukel was, but he also felt how each action Roukel took was a burden that heavily weighed down on the Sword King.

For the sake of humans, Roukel forsakes his humanity and soldiered on despite the unbearable weight that nearly broke his consciousness.

John wanted to desperately know why humanity would betray the man that sacrificed everything to save them, unfortunately his memories of them were so vague that he wasn't even able to grab a clue.

'For now, I should concentrate on dungeon runs and get stronger, the memories will naturally come with it.' John resolved himself.

As long as he trained his swordsmanship or absorbed the mana from dead monsters, his memories would return Slightly, it was only a matter of time.

'This will be my goal for now, I'm going to regain the memories of my past life and learn of my betrayal.' loosening his fist, Johns face returned to his regular neutral appearance.

Whether it be his income or goal of recovering his memories, John resigned himself to running dungeons.

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Stepping out of his car, John walked into the KFG and went to the weapon section of the store.

He moved past the Spears, swords and battle axes and when directly to the dagger selection, he saw dozens of daggers ranging from long shiny colorful ones to small dark gray ones with inscriptions on them.

After looking through the variety of Daggers that the store held, John was hesitating as he held two daggers in his hand. He wondered if he should pick the dagger with a Homing effect or the dagger with a Returning effect.

After a minute of deliberating about it, he eventually decided on the C-rank dagger called 'Returning Hatred' that had the returning affect. It was an 11 inch silver dagger that had an inscription etched into the bottom of the blade.

Under the scrutinizing gaze of multiple security guards, John walked to the front desk and saw the same old man as last time.

"This'll be all" John absent mindedly said, placing the dagger and the debit card on the table.

"I see that your still alive even with that accursed thing around your neck" The old man said as he looked at 'Bloody Cross' that was around Johns neck.

As he rang up John's dagger and took his card, the old man stopped before staring intently into Johns eyes. While John didn't know what the old man saw, he could see rhe old mans eyes go wide and a small smile bloomed on his face.

The old man then wordlessly went into the backroom, and came out with a dark grey dagger sheath and put it Infront of john

"Ill throw this in for free, its a C ranked stealth that slowly fixes small chips and cracks in your dagger. Unless even your side arms sheath has to be expensive like you sword sheath?" The old man said bluntly.

"No, not at all. My sword just demands that it's sheath be of high quality, this dagger doesn't deserve the same respect. But why are you doing this old man? You don't seem to be the charitable type to me?..." John's black eyes stared into the old man's blue eyes, trying to discern his hidden intentions.

"I can see it in you, like mythral ore before it's forged... I merely want to hitch myself to you before you take of." The old man said as a glimmer of hope was seen in his eye.

'I remembered that in my past life, the greatest honor for a blacksmith is to forge the weapons that are in the hands of the strong. For someone of supreme strength and skill to use your blade over anyone else's, was a sign that your skills have achieved greatness.'

"I understand your proposition old man but I'll saying ahead of time, Roel is the only sword I'll ever use" saying this, John offered his hand for a handshake.

The old man hesitated after what John had just said, but he still reached out his hand and shook Johns.

"The names Richard Singer" after shaking, the old man took out a contract that they had both signed.

Richard would sponsor John with equipment and give him discounts, in exchange John would exclusively buy equipment from him and spread the word on who made his equipment if/when asked about it.

'Since I just bought this, I have to try it out!'

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Entering the red portal, John was once again transported underground.

Ths drone illuminated the darkness ahead while John's armour illuminated his close surroundings.

Walking through the underground dirt corridors, John felt the weak killing intent that constantly radiated off of the mindless monsters up ahead.

John turned the corner and saw a pair of trolls just mindlessly rough housing together, too caught up with playing that they didn't realize John was there.

'Let's try this out.'

John drew his dagger from it's sheath, took aim, and threw the dagger as the troll nearest him. The blade rocketed through the air with impressive accuracy, piercing through the eye of the troll and into the braining.

As the troll fell down face first, it pushed the dagger further into its head until the blade popped out the back of its head!

"Return!"

Just like the old man Kenny had taught him, he ordered the dagger to return just by uttering a word.

An unseen force pulled the guardless dagger from the trolls head and returned to his hand at a speed much faster than he had expected.

With the throwing dagger once again in his hand, John launched it at the now running troll. The blade was once again aimed at its eye, only for the troll to block it it with an arm and continue angrily running after John.

"I guess it's best for sneak attacks and in situations where I can catch my opponent off guard, but atleast I have it and now I even know that my bleed enchantment doesnt affect long ranged weapons."

Unbothered by the furious troll just a few feet away, Johns poured a tiny bit of mana into his flash step and casually stepped forward, bisecting the mob from groin to skull.

"Absorb." raising his hand, John felt the mana flow into him and replenish his missing energy and raise it a tiny amount.

Taking out his old harvesting dagger, John got to work taking the crystal out of the downed monsters corpses. Packing up, John continued walking through the Dungeon corridors.

'The dagger definitely be good against flying opponents and even large bosses, maybe i should have a bunch of throwing knives' as he thought this, the sword in hand vibrated angrily.

"....C'mon Roel, don't pout.....Yes you are!...Listen partner, eventually I'll outgrow this dagger and cloth armour and I'll replace them because they mean nothing to me. But you? I'd never give you up even if it meant going to war!.....I do mean it....." John had cleared out dozens of trolls and orcs while talking to Roel, until he eventually reached the boss room.

John stopped and he looked at the door in suspicion, unlike normal C ranked Boss doorsthat looked rough and primitive, this door looked more akin to a B ranked dungeon and he had a thought that he couldn't believe.

Opening the door without hesitation, the drones brightened up the Boss Room's interior and he could faintly see the silhouette of the Boss which immediately confirmed his suspicion.

The ground beneath John began to shake as the mass of stone began to awaken, pebbles rained off it as its stone legs began to find its footing.

'A Stone Golem? Is this Hidden Dungeon?!? Why am I always attracting these weird and rare bosses!' John was genuinely beginning to get frustrated at how common these supposedly rare occurrences were, and was even beginning to worry.

John is constantly entering dungeons that were out of the norm like the one that has a Living Armour that knew of his past life, the multiple variant bosses and now a hidden dungeon!

John didn't mind this so much on the lower floors, but what if a B ranked dungeon or even an A ranked dungeon had a Variant Boss, Hidden dungeon or god for bid the Gate turns into a Red Gate!

John was starting to wonder if something was going on that that made him attack these dangerous encounters but he could only think about that later as the Golem stared directly at him.

A Stone Golem was a monster that would appear in B-rank dungeon as a Boss monster but they most often appeared in the A-rank dungeons as a regular Mob. There was no way it would appear in a C-rank dungeon, except by a very Rare Hidden Dungeon!

For an A ranked mob to appear in a dungeon meant this hidden dungeon was very danger for the average hunter but the more dangerous a hidden dungeon was, the better the reward!

'If it's a Stone Golem, then I have to target the core.' John quickly examined the golem's body and estimated it's weak spot.

The golem was about ten feet tall and its body looked like it was made of solid rock. The only thing that wasn't made of rock was the golem's 'core' atop its head, which was infact just it's Crystal being exposed to the outside world.

'Stone Golems are actually the best monster for me to hunt.' Though it would be difficult for a team of c ranks to defeat this, John was overflowing with confidence thanks to his powerful Aura ability that could cut through steel let alone rock.

Not to mention with his current speed, he could run laps around the Boss while attacking it and he didn't even see any Minions like in the B dungeon bosses, John had supreme confidence in beating this person.

John ran towards the slowly approaching golem, he threw his dagger at the golem's core but the golem blocked it with its stoney arm.

Though it had protected its core from the attack, it had also blocked its own sight and so John was able to slip behind the golem whilst it temporary blinded itself.

'its only ten feet tall, it's not a problem!' Johns eyes gleamed.

Crouching down slightly, the muscle in John's legs bulged slightly as he jumped up ten feet into the air.

This jumping feat was less about how strong he was, and more about how much control John had in his muscle, as John could've easily overshot the jump and crash head first into the ceiling.

Realizing what was going on, the Stone Golem tried using his hand to defend its core fruitlessly as John coated Roel with Aura and in a single blow, sliced through the bosses arm and core, causing the golem to collapsed weakly to the floor.

"I'll need to focus on stone golems in the future Dungeon, Aura is their exact weakness!" John thought aloud, knowing full well how dangerous this fight could've been if he didn't have Aura.

-Verifying dungeon assault, measurement complete. B-rank dungeon, clear.

Absorbing the Golems mana, John went over to scoop out the 'core', only to see that a ring was stuck in the bottom half of the crystal, like a fly in amber.

Covering his old harvesting dagger in Aura, John was able to careful get the ring out of the crystal with skillful and accurate cuts.

-Verifying the existence of a new item.

The measuring tool responded as John put away the rest of the Core before placing the ring next to the measuring device.

B-rank.

Verifying Summoning effect.

"Summoning!?!" John freaked out at this revelation.

Summoning was an incredibly rare ability that every hunter desperately wanted, even S ranked hunters were on the look out for this ability!

The strength of the creature summoned is related to the amount of mana that the users has, while the type of creatures summoned is related to the affinity the hunter has.

An example would be when they tested the summoning ability of a necklace, a B ranked hunter who had four pet cats summoned a Winter Lion, a C ranked creature. When the S ranked founder of the guild, "Dragons Breath", summoned a creature, what appeared was an A+ ranked Wyvern!

Depending on the strength of the user and what they have an affinity, a creature will be summoned base on it.

Slipping the ring on his finger, John though about what he could summon and his affinity.

"If I don't like the creature I'll just sell the ring, that being said, I hope I summon a creature intelligent enough to follow order. That way I dont have to manually harvest the crystals from each and every single kill, I could just leave it to the summon."

Generally, these kinds of items would activate once the correct activation words were spoken. If John wasn't mistaken, the activation word for summoning was simply…

"Summon."

John felt 1/5 of his mana escape his body as his ring which had absorbed his mana, spat out a blue light that landed in the ground.

The light quickly shifted and grew until it took on a human shape. A little bit later, the blue mana had completely taken on the shape of an long-haired knight, as the smell of rot had overtaken the room.

Despite the heavy rot, John saw that the armour of this decaying knight looked eeriely familiar and it's rotten face conjured vague recognition.

"Greetings, my lord." The long-haired knight greeted him by getting on one knee, and gave John a genuine smile. Multiple of the undead knights front teeth were missing as John saw tiny insect squirming inside of it's mouth.

Looking at the Decaying knight of his past life, John unconsciously grabbed the handle of Roel as memories of his betrayal ran through his head.

Seeing this, the knights face shifted to a bitter smile.

"As I thought, it seems you don't remember me Roukel. I also do not have my complete memory." The knight said in understanding.

"Who are you." John answered gruffly, murderous intent pouring off of him as the hand on Roel tightened even more.

"I apologize for my late greeting, I am Rishubalt. I am your personal knight that pledged my eternal loyalty to you, my lord" Rishubalt said with insane levels of devotion pouring off of him.

Hearing this, John felt a little sick seeing a rotting corpse being so fanatic about him, but he also couldn't help but feel a little warmth knowing that someone cared so much about himself in his past life.

He also felt like Rishubalt's name had come up in his hazy past memories.

"Fine. Rishubalt, what is it that you want so much that you appear before me even after death?" John casually asked, his hand still on his sword but not as tightly.

"...." There was a heavy air it silence from the rotting knight, before it finally spoke.

"My only want... Is to help you synchronize with your past and recover you memories, then wetll kill off the bastard who betrayed us and colluded with the Vile monsters!" the room of the dungeon started shaking slightly as Rishubalt let out an enormous killing intent that rivaled Johns!

It took John a few seconds to realize that the intent wasn't aim at him, and he quickly calmed down "Synchronize with my past? Colluding Monsters? What are you talking about?"

Despite saying this, John felt like he had a rought idea about what Rishubalt meant and only wanted him to explain.

Rishubalt raised his head.

"My lord, you told me to find you after death and help you remember! I've been trying to find you for nearly two decades ceaselessly, only to hear your faint call in this world!" As the rotting knight said this, a looking understanding washed in Johns face.

"You wanted me to help synchronize with your previous life, helping you regain your memories and lost strength!" Rishubalt said as a slight bit of insanity crept into his voice

'The way this knight speak, he seems to think I am in essence still Roukel and that i simply lost my memories. I might have been Roukel in my past life but I am now John Jackson now, I guess I shouldn't bring it up.'

"Rishubalt, you said you want to help me synchronize with my past life, is there a way to check my synchronization rate right now?" John said adopting an air of authority, acting like how Roukel would treat a knight .

The undead knight eyes turned dark red as symbol and ruins could be seeing flashing into his retinas.

"Based upon your mana density and quantity, right now your synchronization rate is at 10%." Rishubalt said with a grimace.

'Holy shit, I still have a lot of growth in me!' John felt the enormous strength inside of himself, at just ten percent he was at B rank and greatly wondered how he would feel when he's at 100%.

"And about those Monsters you previously mentioned" John said as he stared intently at the Decaying knight.

"You don't even remember that? My lord... This new world you reincarnated in to is under attack by the united forces of Gaia. Everything from goblins and ghouls to beings like humans, dwarves, elf, etc. have come together as a united front to conquer this world..."