Chapter 4

I frown at the thing in front of me. What in front of me is a monster that should not be in here. The nearest dungeon is fifteen kilometers away from where my location is. There is not a sign of monster break as when that is happening. The alarm will be blaring.

That means this monster successfully sneaks out of its dungeon.

The monster in front of me has the body of a wolf, but unlike your normal wolf, this one has shadow-like energy surrounding its entire body. Its body also can be considered massive when you compare it to the normal wolf. It is almost two-meter tall, with teeth that are ready to rip me apart.

I take a deep breath and choose Sasaki Kojiro. I can feel my body change. My clothes changed into what I thought was a white kimono and in my hand is a sword that represents Sasaki Kojiro. The sword that accompanies him in his journey. The sword that protects its master until the end. The sword that can cut anything his master wishes.

The sword's name is Monohoshi Zao, also known as the Laundry-drying pole.

A normal person will laugh at the name of his sword, but the veteran who survived fighting him will know that once the blade is pointed at you with the intent to kill you, then you will not survive its strike.

"I am eager to test this. Forgive me for not showing mercy."

I take a stance that is rather familiar and also strange at the same time. This is the stance that Kojiro is familiar with but not Michael. Michael cannot do this to perfection just yet.

"O sword! Let the world see once more your brilliance! Show your enemy your might! Six strikes in one swing! The swing that cut infinite! Tsubame Gaeshi!"

After I finished that chant, my body moved on its own. I appear in front of the monster with my sword pointed at it in a blink of an eye. As I swing down my sword, I can see a flicker of myself coming from all directions around the monster. One from the left, one from the right, one from the back, one from above, and another one from the bottom.

A second later, the monster turned into a mist of shadow after being cut by my sword.

This is the authority Sasaki Kojiro has. A sword slash that cannot be dodged. A sword slash breaks the space and time itself. A sword that appears at the same time. A fast swing that appears as if it appears simultaneously is not, in fact, a sword slash that appears at the same time. It was a sword slash that was so fast it looked like it was happening simultaneously.

This authority, however, let me swing my sword at the same time by breaking the space and time to let me appear in six different directions at the same time. There is no gap in the time for anyone to dodge.

After all, to a swordsman, one second can be considered a long time. So, a swordsman cannot waste their precious time even if it was only 0.0001 seconds.

However, while the authority itself is good, Kojiro created this technique that makes me confused if I should cry or laugh.

He created this technique because a bird keeps taking a poop on his front lawn and decides to kill it. Sadly the bird is too fast for him, so he created this technique to capture the bird mid-flight.

What a mad man.

I snap from my thoughts when I see there is another monster coming at me. It looks like the shadowy wolf is also a group monster. Another twelve monsters are coming from the woods.

"Well. Look like you really want to eat me, huh?"

"GROWLLLL"

"Welp. Let dance!"

I charge toward one of the wolves with my sword in hand. After I appear in front of one of the wolves, I swing down my sword. The wolf jumped away from my attack, but it did not successfully dodge all of my attacks. I successfully cut down one of the wolf legs.

As I want to kill the injured wolf, the other one jumps toward me with its teeth bared toward me. I dodge the incoming attack and decide to test other authorities.

"From the earth, I gain strength. From the air, I gain speed. With my sword in my hand, I gain immortality!"

After I finished that chant, I felt my body become stronger than before. This is Sasaki Kojiro's other Authority. This Authority increases my physical strength by ten times. This one is taken from the legend of Sasaki Kojiro, a human that breaks the limitations of humanity by copying both the Earth and Wind.

This authority also gives me a sight that lets Kojiro see other weaknesses. Be it a living being or an object that doesn't have a soul. I can see their physical weakness.

After activating Kojiro's second Authorities, I can see a black line around me. I know that these are the weak lines that I need to cut if I want to defeat my enemy. I dodge the incoming bite attack the wolves try to do, swing my sword to the right, and cut the wolf neck.

I can feel my sword cut through the wolf neck like I cut butter using a hot knife. I decide to ignore the monster that turns into black mist and decide to charge at the other monster with a sword in hand.

~45 minutes later~

Where do these monsters come from? I thought only thirteen monsters were coming my way. However, another thirty monsters are coming from the forest after I kill the first thirteen monsters.

I already killed the monster in ten minutes and decided to wait here for thirty-five minutes to see if another monster came from the forest. After waiting for thirty minutes, nothing is coming from the forest.

I don't know if I need to investigate the dungeon or not. I don't really want to get involved in this mess. I will protect my family from harm, and if I get involved in this mess, my family will also get involved.

I don't want that.

I also need to build a barrier around my house. However, I also don't want my barrier to be noticed by the other magicians that somehow come to our village.

"Haaaaaa…. Troublesome"

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Herman Raja Atmadja is the hunting party leader who decides to explore the dungeon on Sumatra island's northern side. He and his party of five other members decide to take the dungeon here because of the dungeon's grade.

Dungeons have different grades.

The F-class dungeon is a dungeon where five to ten E-class hunters can conquer. This type of dungeon is the one that the government usually tames to harvest the energy crystal from it.

E-class dungeon is the dungeon that twenty E-class hunters can conquer to five D-class hunters. This dungeon is also the one that the government is usually taming for its energy crystal. It depends on which tier the dungeon is. Low-tier dungeons will be tamed. The mid-tier dungeon will be tamed with a few dozen E-rank hunters as a bodyguard. High-tier dungeons need double the amount of bodyguards the mid-tier have.

The D-class dungeon is the dungeon that can be conquered by eleven to fifteen D-class hunters. This dungeon usually cannot be tamed. Usually, this dungeon only is harvested once and then be destroyed.

Ten C-class hunters can conquer the C-class dungeon. This dungeon cannot be tamed and can only be conquered and harvested like the D-class dungeon.

Fifteen B-class hunters can conquer B-class dungeons. This dungeon can only be conquered and not be harvested by the miner that comes with them. The only miner that can come with the B-class party is a group of D-class parties who have a job as miners.

A-class dungeons are on the other level than the rest of the dungeon. This dungeon can only be conquered by fifty to a hundred and fifty A-class dungeons with a resistance skill. The reason why is that the dungeon will have a thick miasma that can poison the hunters. It can also be conquered by a group of three to five S-class hunters.

There will also be many B-class and C-class hunters surrounding the dungeon if a monster successfully sneaks out of the dungeon.

The S-class dungeons need a group of twenty S-class hunters and a few dozen A-class hunters around the dungeon. Like the A-class dungeon, there will be no mining the energy crystal in this dungeon because of the thick miasma that can kill a low-class hunter.

Herman and his party come to North Sumatra to go and explore the E-class dungeon here. He chose this dungeon because the risk is not too high, and the reward is good enough for him and his party.

However, during their run inside the dungeon, he and his party do an oopsie. They fall into the oldest trap—a false loot. Instead of a chest filled with jewels or energy crystals, it was a trap that opened up a hidden room where a hundred shadow wolves were being released.

A shadow wolf is an E-class monster that one E-class hunter can kill. Herman, his party, and the guard around the dungeon successfully prevent wolves from getting out of the dungeon. However, he did not know that there are not a hundred wolves but rather one hundred and fifty shadow wolves.

Fifty of those wolves successfully sneak out the guard and into the forest where they should be terrorizing the nearby village.