-A Few Months Later-
A luxurious car can be seen on the streets of L.A, going at high speed towards a building, 10 stories high. The car stopped at the entrance of the building and from the car came out a gorgeous woman who looked to be around 20, had blonde hair, red eyes, she was about 5 '8 in height, with a skin that looked delicate, wearing high quality brand clothes that screamed, rich lady. She threw her car keys at the person standing guard at the building’s entrance.
-The Lady’s POV-
As soon as I enter the building, I am welcomed by my secretary, a B Ranked Adventurer, John.
“Miss Scarlet, Good Morning” it's been a few months since I started this Merchant Guild and everything is going well. My secretary John has been a big help in managing it in my absence.
“Let’s go to my office first. Also tell me my schedule for today”. We both moved to the private elevator and ascended up to my office on the 10th floor and entered the office, which is a normal type of office, you’ll find the company’s head working, like the desk at the back of the office with a large window behind the desk. The typical office for CEO’s. We both take a seat at the desk and John starts telling me about my schedule and also tell me about a contract.
“Miss please read this contract, it is about the Guild that you had told me to establish a business contract with, they have accepted the terms and conditions but they demand to meet you in person. Specifically, the Guild Master wants to meet you.” He handed me the contract that I had told him to work on.
“Why does the Guild Master want to meet me?” I ask John. I had read the contract, it was perfect, beneficial to both Guilds but there were a few loopholes that I could take advantage of.
“It’s because every business conducted by their Guild has to go through the Guild Master in person and not to be handled solely by the employees”
“Fine, arrange this meeting with them” This type of micromanagement puts a lot of stress on the employees but why should I care about the employees of other Guilds when I have to manage my own Guild. John leaves the office to make arrangements for this meeting.
I sit in my chair looking at the handful of documents that I have on my desk and I begin skimming through them.
-Somewhere in the outskirts of L.V.-
"Hey, the boss said that we just have to kill one man right?" Said a lanky looking man who was wearing black clothes and a hood covering his head with a mask on his face.
"Yeah, it will be an easy job, it's just some random guy with no reputation, trying to steal our boss's clients." Said another figure clad in a dark outfit, the voice was of a woman this time.
"Stay focused, and don't slip up or the boss will have our heads." A huge man emerged behind them also clad in a dark outfit. He was the leader of this group of assassins.
These three were the members of an underground organization, all of them were A Rankers. Their target was an old looking man who has been snooping around their boss's network, stealing his clients. The three of them were doing this job, not because they wanted to. It was because the previous assassins who were B Rankers were killed and sent over to their organization in a gift wrapped box. The way the previous assassins were killed was brutal, all bones in the bodies broken, their tongues cut off, their limbs crushed and sent in a different gift wrapped box in the form of meat paste. Their heads separated from their bodies with their eyes gouged out of the sockets. All in all it was a brutal gift, so the leader of the organizations decided to put a bounty on this old man's head and also sent his own men to end that old man's life.
Moving through the forests at high speed, after a while the trio find themselves at the entrance to a dungeon in the middle of a clearing. They had been informed that the old man was out, doing dungeons in the forest surrounding the L.V. The trio had hired spies of their own to keep an eye on the old man. The spies had been following the old man for a week now and this is where he was last spotted, entering the dungeon all alone.
“Are you sure that this is where he was last spotted?” asks the lanky one to the huge man standing beside him, observing the surroundings, likely for spies.
“Yes, he has been inside this dungeon for hours now. The spies are also here but they won’t be showing themselves. We better get going.” The trio enters the dungeon through the portal and finds themselves in an open space, there were no trees, no grass, nor the screams of monsters. It was deathly silent until an old man teleported right in front of the trio making them back away instantly.
“I have been waiting for you all, for a long time now. Hiring assassins, spying on me, trying to retake your clients but where did all this get you in the end" said the old looking man wearing a black suit.
“Stop trying to intimidate us, we are not your common assassins” said the huge man while glaring at the old man
“Intimidating? No, I’m just speaking about your failed attempts. ”The old man says while looking at them like they were just ants in his eyes, trying to get under his skin but he had his own ways to deal with these ants.
-Huge Man’s POV-
I observe the movements of the old man’s body, because having worked in this kind of field, a man’s posture is like a key to his weakness. But the old man in front of me doesn’t even show any kind of emotions in his eyes, except for looking at us apathetically, like we’re just specks of dust to him. I ordered my two teammates through the mental link, the woman had established between us, to attack the old man, interrupting whatever he was about to say.
I had already spread a poisonous mist around us, which is invisible to the naked eye. It affects the people who inhale it by spreading a corruption inside their lungs which takes away their ability to breathe and eventually bursting the lungs and collapsing the whole internal system due to insufficient oxygen. Some might call it suffocation, but it's a poison in the end. Affecting their blood flow and doing a shit ton of other things and eventually the body swells like a balloon and blows up in a brutal shower of guts and intestines.
I take out my pocket knives and charge at the old man with my teammates following right behind me. In the midst of attacking the old man, I use a skill that makes me appear near the old man instantly. A skill named blink, which takes me to the location that I can see clearly, and also the distance depends on the level of the skill. Mine being already at level 20, which is the highest for A Rankers.
But just as I appear near the old man and attack him using my knives, they phase through his body, not even leaving so much as a scratch on him at all. My fellow assassins find themselves in the same situation having their attacks phased through the old man.
The woman had used a lightning spear to attack him and the lanky man used his shadow knives, but in the end the result was the same. We immediately retreat a few steps and carefully observe the body of the old man, which now appears to be solid and not that ghost-like body which we saw during our attacks.
"It is futile of you all to try and even injure me. As I said earlier it's futile, you are not gonna be the first or the last one to come in my way and about that boss of yours he might as well be dead by now." Says the old man while sighing, so calmly, I feel shivers run down my body that I had never felt in my entire life. We were still in denial of how this old man can survive our attacks and the most fatal poison skill I have used on every last one of my targets, who are all dead. But this old man stands there, as if even speaking to us is a hassle.
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"Just stop and I'll let you live but in return you'll have to work for me"
‘Don't listen to him, we have to find his real body, what he did just now must be an illusion to distract us from finding his injured body because no one would leave a dungeon without having so much as a scratch on them. He’s just an Old Man’ My teammates nodded at the thought I sent them and we immediately spread out to find the real body of this old man.
“What you’re trying to do is just gonna waste my time” The old man suddenly flexed his fingers and we could see some kind of threads around us and then, he pulled.
-The Old Man’s POV-
I looked at the three people as their bodies fell apart, cut by the mana threads, their heads rolling on the ground and look of shock on their faces.
‘Sigh..,These people, they never learn’ I looked up at the sky, the world inside the dungeons was very peculiar. I have been doing a lot of dungeon runs lately but still haven’t found where these places were originally located.
As soon as I left the dungeon, the entrance of the dungeon was filled with an army of people, kneeling right in front of me, about 50 people and there's also a pyre right behind them, probably the spies.
“Is it done?” I asked the woman kneeling in front of me.
“Yes Boss, it’s done, the leader has forsaken his organization and we have taken control of it.” she answers while radiating pure killing intent from her body, constantly, because if she didn’t do this, she would be cowering in fear, in front of the only person who she had respected and also made her feel true despair.
“Good, get everything to our base, and transfer every one of their assets to our accounts. Let James take control of the organization for now.” I order the woman, Elana and look at the people kneeling right behind her. “Rise, you’ll be following Elana’s commands for the time being, as I’ll be going for a while. I don’t want any infightings on our side, if I do find it, you’ll be executed.” I leave a last order to them before using a teleportation spell.
-The Lady’s POV-
It was night time, sitting in a luxurious car was The Lady, Scarlet. Currently going to the meeting place, selected by the Guild Master, whom she was about to meet.
The car stopped at the famous Italian Restaurant in L.A.
I stepped out of the car with John following right behind me. He had told me that he'd arrange the meeting with the Guild Master as soon as possible but I didn’t think that it would be today only. We entered the restaurant only to find it empty, except for a few people of the Guild Master waiting at the entrance of the restaurant, probably her bodyguards.
I saw a guy standing in the middle of the restaurant, who quickly walked up to us and led us to the second floor of the restaurant, which was a private place for VIP’s. He ushered us to enter the room at the end of the floor, where his boss was.
Entering the room, I saw a beautiful lady, who looked to be in her twenties, had an hourglass figure with brown eyes and black hair, in a short wolf cut. It was the famous Guild Master of The Cuties Guild, although famous only in some cities and not the Leaderboard a few months ago, but that has changed now. The Cuties Guild was at the #14 Rank on the Guilds Leaderboard only a few months ago. But because of a new A Ranker that had joined them, they were now in the Top 10, sitting at #8 of the Guild Leaderboard. This new A Ranker had cleared almost all of the dungeons surrounding L.A and that too solo and without the help of any other adventurers.
I took the seat in front of Luna after greeting her with a handshake. “It’s nice to meet the famous Guild Master of The Cuties, who has recently entered the Top 10.” I say to her while giving her a business smile.
“Same here, it's nice to meet the Guild Master of the new and rising Hermes Trading Guild. You must be having a lot of confidence in your Guild to name it after a Greek God of Commerce” Luna said while laughing a bit.
“Well I have a lot of confidence in myself and my employees who are working hard to make the name a brand of its own”
“We should eat first before going on to the contract, I had selected quite a few of the famous dishes here, so please enjoy the food.” says Luna while ordering the bodyguard behind her to bring the dishes.
-Half an Hour later-
The food was as good as the fame of this restaurant. It was splendid even. I wanted to have some more dishes but alas, it was time that the contract was finalized, I had plenty of time to eat here after that.
“So why did you want to meet me in person?” I ask Luna who was looking at me with a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
“Nothing much… It's just that before finalizing the deal with someone, I meet them first, face to face and determine their character because I only believe in what I see and not what others see. So I just wanted to meet you and see what type of person you are.”
“I see….So what type of person do you think I am?”
“Well, you are the type of person who knows what you’re doing, has capable people at her side and does not back down from a decision. Even now you are thinking about how you’ll buy this restaurant and have the dishes made by the chefs.” And yes, as the rumors say, Luna is a lot more observant than she lets people know.
“That is true, nice observation Miss Luna, but let’s get to the contract now, enough dilly-dallying, right?”
“Yes, let’s do that” She takes the contract from John and she starts reading it, just to make sure that there are no loopholes. Although she won’t be able to find them in the contract, I do know about a few loopholes that I can take advantage of. After reading for a few minutes she puts down the contract and looks at me.
“So what do you think?” I ask her with a smile on my face.
“It’s good, even better for both of us.” saying that, she takes the pen from her bodyguard's pocket and signs off the contract and hands it back to John. She stands up and sticks out her hand.
“It was a pleasure doing business with you Miss Scarlet. I hope we can continue doing more productive things to help humanity.” she says while shaking hands with me, sealing the deal. Just as we were about to sit back and eat the desserts served, right after signing the contracts, a bodyguard enters the room.
“Miss Luna !!! , it’s an emergency, the whole city is under evacuation right now. There is a dungeon break and the monster will be approaching the city any minute now.” the bodyguard says while panicking.
“What the hell? How did that even happen?” Luna asks him with anger visible on her face.
He goes on to telling, how it all started. There was an A Rank dungeon, about 10 miles away from L.A, which had mutated just an hour ago. The mutation had led to a sudden spike in the mana inside the dungeon. The dungeon being an A Rank dungeon with a highest threat level changed and became an S Rank dungeon with a Calamity level threat and now the dungeon break happened, 10 minutes ago.
“Why the hell did you not tell me before?”
“Miss, we just got to know about it and I immediately came to tell you”
“Fine, let’s go,contact Lily. Miss Scarlet, we'll discuss the things later, if the city is still standing” Luna says to me while leaving in a hurry.
I look at John who nods at me and we also leave the restaurant and head to our Guild building.
-Luna’s POV-
‘Shit shit shit, an S Rank mutated dungeon, this city won’t survive something like that’ I look at the guard, who’s name I don’t know, is calling Lily, although she might be an A Ranker, she is one of the few people who can face the S Rank dungeon break.
Any dungeon break below A Rank is easy to handle but if there is a mutated A Rank dungeon, that will create city level disaster. But if an S Ranked mutated dungeon breaks. The disaster it will create can sink even the whole continent.
“Give me the phone” I told the bodyguard as Lily had just picked up the phone.
“Lily, where are you right now?”
“I’m busy, killing a few monsters in an A Ranked Dungeon to the north of the city, why are you asking me where I am?”
“Just leave that dungeon right now, we have a bigger problem than that.”
“Why, what happened?”
“It’s a mutated S Rank dungeon that has just broken, to the east of the city about 10 miles away, I need you back in 30 minutes. I will require your help in defending the city, meet me at the guild.”
“Sure, I’m coming back now” listening to her speaking so calmly even after I mentioned that a mutated S Rank dungeon had just broken, makes me wonder, where is all this confidence coming from.
After telling her to meet me at the guild, I too headed in the direction of the guild not caring for rules and running at full speed on the rooftops. I am an S Rank Adventurer but I too fear the mutated dungeons, as I have first hand seen the disasters it can cause.