Ch. 3 Self Defense Situation

John picked up his phone. The Dungeon Bureau informed him that the investigation results were out and he needed to stop by to write a statement.

'Oh, right. I forgot to sell my magic stones.'

The thought of selling over a dozen B ranked magic stones were enough motivation alone so he decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Taking a shower, John left his apartment and jogged towards the Dungeon Bureau

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"So you're saying that as a healer, you practice self defense martial arts, and that's how you killed 17 B ranked monster?" Sitting infront of John was a tall man in button up suit, wearing glasses with a briefcase by his side. On his his nearly emotionless face wore suspicion and doubt.

John nodded. "Well investigator Leon, I'm an unofficial black belt in krav maga, and I'm extremely proficienct at judo, but I excel the most at swordsmanship".

"Are you sure you hadn't just gone through your second awakening? It's much more lik-" "I assure you, it was merely self defense skills."

The Investigator just blankly nodded along with John's statement, he knew that this was a blatant lie but didn't care as the truth would be revealed in a couple of months.

It had only been 10 years since mana and the Dungeon gates first appeared on earth and there was still much to learn, so the Dungeon Bureau had a mandatory retest every year to help further their mana research and John's next one was in just two months.

It was through testing nearly a hundred thousands Hunter's that the international bureau realized that humans couldn't grow their mana over time, and were stuck at the mana level they awakened but they could still gain affinities!

While still very rare, it wasn't entirely uncommon to find a hunters that could previously only use water magic to suddenly begin using ice magic, or a fire mage would go from shooting small firebolts to large fireballs.

These mandatory tests are what's helped the world get a better understanding of mana and how it affects humans, so while retesting now John for a second wakening is preferable, John will have to retest anyways in a few more months so the man wasn't too bothered. The investigator heard from the other surviver, Sarah, that John moved faster than her eye could perceive.

'A D rank party entered a D ranked dungeon, only to be forced to fight Living Armour, which are B ranked monsters known for their extreme durability even amongst B ranks. They all die except for two, both of which are supports, and they both claim the D ranked healer solo'd 17 B ranked monsters. This is complete bullshit!'

Despite the Investigators emotionless face, his mind was in a whirlwind as to what happened and realized that John couldn't be detained off of his suspicion alone.

"Well that'll be all John, feel free to exchange you magic stones while your here." Investigator said, not wanting to gather the ire from someone who could potentially soloe 17 strong B rank monsters.

After the investigation, John headed to the Appraisal Center and spilled his bag with magic stones onto the counter

The man behind the counter placed the crystal inside of a white box, as a digital reading was displayed.

"The mana calculation is complete, the total comes out to $27,000. The money has already been deposited in into your Bank Account"

John quickly checked his bank balance and tears welled up in his eyes, with this much money his brother could actually like a decent life!

'Just one B ranked dungeon and I've nearly made more money that I did in these past 2 years!'

John left the Appraisal Center and transferred $20,000 into the account he used solely to pay for his brother's medical expenses, so that he can be given better treatment.

With moistened eyes, John called a taxi that took him to the place he was extremely curious, a Training ground.

With kansas being located at the center of America, it is where the HQ of the American Dungeon Bureau was located in order for quick response time. This turned the state into a Hub for Hunters and around 40% of the American Hunters moved there. while simaltaniusly drawing in hunters from smaller countries for better profits.

The appearance of superhumans that can use magic and kill with a flick of the finger caused a lot of the normal people to move to other states, making Kansas 80% hunters and 20% normal humans.

With the high hunter rate, the government made "Training grounds" which was basically free outdoor gym that could cater to superhuman strength alongside sparing rings to gain experience.

Walking onto the training ground, John saw over a hundred hunters all doing some kind of training. He saw skinny men benching tens of thousands of pounds, and humongous men benching a few hundred.

'I guess how strong you can become strength really depend on how much mana Is in your body.'

While physical training wouldn't increase their strength much further than their mana allowed, Hunters could still gain a small increase in strength through constantly working out.

Walking past them, John arrived at the Dumbbell section only to realize something weird as he looked at the rack or weights.

'This dumbbell say 100Lb and this one say 5,000Lb but they look exactly the same? Could it be..... Did someone really enchant all of these weights to be heavy!?! That must've been expensive as hell!'

looking at the hundreds of weight lining the rack, John was just glad his taxes went into something useful.

Walking over to the 100lb dumbbell, John expected himself to struggle moving it like he would've in the past, only for him to not feel the weight in his hand as he picked it up. Moving onto the 1,000lb weights, it felt the exact same as the 100lb weight.

'Did someone think it would be funny to add an extra zero to the 100lb weight? Damn idiots.'

Trying a different 1,000lb weight and it felt the same as the other, after testing every 1,000lb weight, John felt annoyed at the asshole who tampered with the weights.

With nothing else to do, John moved onto the 5,000Lb weight. Grabbing the handle of the weight, John gave it a light tug, only for it come up with relative ease

"....."

If John closed his eye, he'd swear that he was holding something akin to a gallon of milk as he could he could now feeling it's weight, but it was rather minuscule.

'Holy shit.... Just how strong have I become!?'

Placing the weight down, he moved on to the 10,000lb weight and finally felt some resistance as he had to put some effort into lifting it up, but ultimately he didnt feel like it was his limit.

Deciding to skip past the other weights, John moved all the way up to 20,000lb dumbbell.

Grabbing ahold of the metal handle, John half expected to lift it with ease only to be sorely mistaken as he immediately realized this was the perfect weight. Clenching his teeth, John lifted the weights up as he felt his veins bulging from the pressure.

"One....two..... three...fo-" after three curls of the dumbbell, John had to use his free hand to grab the side of it to prevent it from falling.

'Holy fuck! I'm strong as hell! Maybe I'm the strongest man in the worl-' looking to his right, John saw a frail and skinny looking man grab two 50,000lb dumbbell, one in each hand, and began to curl them with ease.

'Isnt that Tom Adams? The A ranked warrior that got kicked out his party and replaced?' John's ego immediately got humbled at the sight and started testing his other physical abilities

He didn't finish his tests until late at night and he wrote down his results on a Memo app.

John knew that his body had gotten much stronger but he couldn't help but be surprised at the steep increase in his physical abilities.

'I could solo a dungeon!' After killing 17 B ranked monsters, John was confident that he could atleast solo a C ranked dungeon, atleast!

'I should also check in on Walter, I know he says he doesn't like when I visit him, but that's only because he doesn't want to be a burden on me.'

Getting home, John went into his kitchen and scarfed down nearly half of everything in the fridge, before throwing himself onto his bed.

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As Johns consciousness began to rouse when he was waking up, he immediately felt a familiar sensation in his hand only to abruptly open his eyes and look at his hand.

The old rusty sword that had rotten wood handles and large specks of rust was somehow in his hand, surprising John as he actually felt more comfortable with the old sword in his hand.

'Did I bring this with me to bed? No, I definitely didn't....''

laying in bed, John lifted the rusty sword up to his face and saw that the word 'ROEL' was inscribed in the other worlds language.

'Strange, these memories seemed to fill in the gaps of the other worlds language....'

When the Dungeon Gates first started to arrive, Humanity thought of it as a natural phenomenon. It was only when items that were clearly of an intelligent species started appearing, that humanity realized they were under attack by a foreign invader.

"I should clean you up." Saying that, John felt a warm soothing feeling course through him from the blade.

'I'll take the sword with me from now on, Hunters can carry cold weapons in public, so there is no need to do anything special.'

Getting up, John placed 'Roel' into a garbage bag and put it in his backpack as he still didn't have a sheath for it, and ran towards the Dungeon Bureau to apply for matching.

The usually 20 run to the bureau had only taken John a ten minutes mild jog as he wasn't use to the increased strength to confidently run at full speed.

Arriving infront of the Dungeon doors, John was a half step away from entering, when...

"Hey legendary Healer!' Hearing his old nickname, John immediately knew who it might be.

Turning over, John saw the man he wanted most to avoid after the incident in the dungeon.

"What's up Joey?" John said slightly shyly

"We have something to talk about." The man said in a gruf and angry voice.

'Shit'

looking the angry face of the man John already knew this wasn't just gonna be much talking.

Joey was a C-rank Hunter, and the brother of Alex who had been killed in the dungeon. Joey was no doubt suspicious of Alex's death but would half to wait until the bureau officially publishes the story, so he came to find John.

"Joey, You have my utter condolences about what happened to your brother, but I've already reported to the Bureau about everything I know and have been told not to speak of it until they officially publish their report."

John knew this was going to get violent, as Joey had a bit of a negative reputation.

"Yeah I know, that's why I'm here" plasing his hands on John's shoulders, Joey looked him in the eye, "I want to here it from you first." Joey's hand clenched as John felt his shoulders radiating pain.

"Stop..." placing his hand on Joey's, John looked down at the floor.

"Did you just tell me to stop? Who do you think you a-." Grabbing John by the chin, Joey lifted his face up, only to freeze in his tracks.....

Looking into John's eye, Joey saw a pair of insane and malevolent eyes looking back, telling a story of untold carnage and destruction as an oppressive feeling of death washed over him.

'T-This killing intent, from a healer? Just how many people has he killed?!' The killing intent only lasted for a second, before it vanished.

Joey felt his legs go weak as he wanted to back away in fear, but this answered Joey's question.

'This man...With this amount of killing intent..... Is without a doubt responsible for my brothers death! It's no wonder he has the shittiest healing ability in the world, he must be a warrior that hides and uses an item to heal!'

Though he was scared from the killing intent, he couldn't retreat here, not to the man who he thought murdered his brother.

As Johns powerful killing intent leaked out, a crowd of Hunter's circled around to watch.

Increase his Grip on Joey's arm, John's voice rang out once again "I said. STOP."

"What's this? Isn't he the Legend healer? How did such a pathetic hunter gain such an intense Killing intent."

John was famously known as the Legendary Healer, not just locally but on Hunter.com, which is an international website for hunters.

John remembered being bored one day and translated the Korean Hunter message board, only to find out they used him as an insult.

Whether they be from America, Mexico, China or Russia, Hunters knew of John and they were just glad they arent him.

"Holy shit man, a Combat Hunter is picking on one of, if not the weakest Hunter in the world."

"Let's take a picture and upload it to Hunter.com."

The crowd murmured at the public display as Joey grit his teeth and emitted a lesser, but still terrifying, killing intent.

'This man murdered my brother! I don't care if it kills me, this man must pay for what he did!' anger had completely eroded Joey's rationale as he forced a fake smile on his face

"What if I don't want t-?" *Crack*

"AAAHHHH!" Collapsing to the ground, Joey held onto his now broken wrist in pain.

After inheriting the memories of his past life, Johns physique closer resembled it as well and as a swordsman, grip strength was where he excelled.

"I'm sorry about your wrist and your loss man, but you just wouldn't let go." Looking down at Joey, John turned around and entered the Dungeon Bureau.

'I really need to increase my reputation and rank, I'm tired of these pathetic mouth breathers disrespecting and threatening me! Whatever, I need to stop by Home Depot and buy some thing to remove the rust.'

John didn't think much about Joey as hks thoughts were more preoccupied by his swords restoration.

'I think soaking it vinegar for a day and sand papering will do the trick for most of the rust but I shou-' Suddenly collapsing to the floor, an extremely sharp and slightly bluish blade just barely missed John's head.

Rolling away, John turned around and saw Joey standing there, left arm dangled as he held his sword in his right

"I-I'm call the security!" A female clerk raised her radio to her mouth once she realized the severity of the situation. John looked at the clerk and calmly spoke.

"That's fine."

He coldly stared at Joey and when their eyes met, Joey felt the suffocating killing intent that he previously though that was an illusion.

"This is considered self-defense."

He drew the battered blade 'Roel' from his waist and enter a sword stance.