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Volume 5
Chapter 25: Meeting A Literally Old Friend
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The three bullies closed in faster than the players Siva had fought before. In fact, in his knowledge, these three are stronger than the strength that Karim of the Helium Guild had shown on their fight.
Speed and agility, planning, coordination, reaction to his movements, these elements showed that these three are accustomed to fighting people than monsters… or perhaps they are experts on fighting both and this made Siva only think of the kind of environment the northern continent has.
In a bigger picture, The North is a place meant to test and train players and to give them an idea of just how big this world of Terroa really is.
But even so…
“I will still kill you.”
In Siva’s mind, he could feel the eyes of three like a 3D rendering of his surroundings. He could tell where they are looking, what kind of attack they are going to do, and what they were thinking just based on where they are looking at the parts of his body and to how heavy those eyes were.
On his right, he could feel a heavy weight trying to hold his legs so he wouldn’t move.
On his left, he could tell that the man wanted to remove his left arm and immobilize him.
But at the front side, their leader, Siva could tell that he is some kind of expert as he was aiming to hit him on his neck, shoulder, and torso with both his hands and his right knee.
Because from the front side, the leg he used to step in was his left.
These were all projected into Siva’s mind and he could barely tell what they are going to do just based on these things.
And so, again, he felt so sure enough that something really did changed in him… or at least, in his own words, his instincts has somewhat been awaken in a particular degree.
Two guns in hand, Siva fired off two bullets on the right knee of the one on his right. He didn’t look. He didn’t make any other sudden move. He just pulled out Steve from the holster and didn’t raise it. He just fired it off as soon as it left its sheathe.
“Aaaarghh!”
Following this was a howl of pain. Siva then stepped back and slammed his back on the body of the squirming person on his right and then twisted his body as he delivered a kick on the guy on his left to redirect his hands to embrace the guy in front.
“What the…?!”
“Hey!”
Following the kick, a flash of light came and the guns in his hands vanished to be replaced by a jet black sword. He stabbed the man behind him, twisted it, and then switched weapons again. This time, the full dragon gear appeared on his limbs as he delivered a punch followed by a loud explosion of air towards the man to finish him.
Without activating the Killing Zone, his damages will only be as good as a B-Ranked Hunter. But for a man surprised by that attack, it was enough to render him unconscious due to the shock of receiving a lot of damage to his health.
The man was blown away and he crashed onto the crowd to send some of them tumbling as if watching a bowler knock down pins.
The other two recovered from their surprise as they summoned their weapons. The leader had a large axe while the sub-player had an exquisitely designed pair of knives.
He placed the knives in front of him, his eyes serious as he glared at Siva.
The leader spoke, “We actually planned to let you live but since you are making it hard for us, we’re just going to kill you here and now.”
By now, they had learned the mistake of underestimating Siva. One of them is down and so the plan had turned haywire as the mood became serious.
Siva landed on his feet and turned his head towards the two. He didn’t reply but he [disintegrated] the Dragunov and summoned his sword again.
His hood had been flipped off, revealing his long black hair that fell on his masked face like a criminal. He held his sword down, a relaxed posture, glaring at the two, measuring his movement to their own.
The two was surprised as to how fast the player in front of them interchanges between his gears. In fact even though any player could do that with just a thought on their part, Engineers (players who uses a lot of equipment at the same time) are a rarity.
Also, strong Engineers are in fact even more rare because although «Engineer» is a relatively strong playing style, it is still dependent on the player’s own temperament, equipment set, and ability to adapt so they can use the best equipment in its best moment.
Not everyone can decide on what kind of weapon they will use based only the circumstances they are currently at. Almost all players of Terroa base their playing style on the weapon of their choice and thus affect their decision-making and the limits they can tolerate before deciding whether a particular circumstance deems to be a failure or not.
At this moment, they were sure that Siva was very strong Engineer-styled player.
Siva remained silent as his hair was caressed by the wind and brush off his white mask. By now, the gathered spectators and even the Guard Captain who is waiting for this strife to finish were all silently waiting for the second round.
After the gentle breeze calmed down, someone on the crowd of spectators coughed and triggered the two glaring parties to move on a collision.
“Hah!” The leader yelled out as his Axe brandished a clear black colored arched line in front of him.
Siva’s senses told him the danger and he tried his best to change his posture to meet the dagger-wielder who flanked him on his right.
CRAAAAASSSHHH!!
The place where Siva should have been if he hadn’t stopped his movement shattered as the axe that weighed like a meteor destroyed the ground.
But he didn’t dare relax. SWOOSH! SWOOSH! Siva twisted his head twice into two different succeeding angles as he dodged the knives that went so fast it cut the air around Siva’s ears.
A few strands of his hair were cut but he took a step back and made distance.
In that exchange, he knew just how fast the knives were and how destructive the axe could be if it ever hit him. Just one hit from either these two can finish him off without a doubt.
But it only fueled his hate to burn brighter as his chest heaved up and down trying to control his rising anger.
“You people…” He spoke the words in between gritted teeth and it sounded more intimidating as the muffled sound from the cloth on his mouth sounded like a ghost from underworld.
Siva’s heaving chest was unsightly to behold as it was enough to send fear to some of the people in the witnessing crown in the gate.
With a lowered and inclined angle of his body, Siva’s posture was just like a deranged killer as his long black hair fell off his face to cover some part of his mask. Its wet look gave the impression as if it was bathed in blood as the black luster gave more shadow to the mask’s dark eyes.
“This feeling…”
“W-What is this…?”
The two and even the crowd could feel that with this kind of posture from this new comer, a feeling of intense danger could be felt coming from his body.
It’s that his posture was intimidating. Rather, it was the presence radiating from his shoulders.
“You people kept on messing with me!”
The howl of rage turned into an illusion of a dark aura as something black started to ooze out of the player’s shoulders. Perhaps if there are some of these guys who had seen Siva before the events Dragona, they would be able to recognize this black aura being the mysterious effect of his Dragunov in its disintegrated particle state synching with his Black Smoke Skin curse. Alas, none of them knows it.
What they’re seeing now is that very effect. And paired with his posture, the feeling of a murderer from the underworld hugged everyone’s heart.
The two bullies started to feel regret as soon as they saw this change. They just wanted to have an easy price when they picked up with this lone wanderer.
Stolen novel; please report.
Never would they imagine that not only this guy was dangerous, he was also capable of giving them this kind of feeling as if their very lives are being threatened.
“In this game… even the monsters and snow dragons can’t give me this creepy feeling.”
“This feeling is like I’m being choked by a devil…”
“For a game to be able to give this much fear…”
Even the people around Siva started to feel the kind of dangerous vibe he was giving, what more were the two people that provoked such a dreadful feeling of murderous intent from him?
And as if to add more effect to the kind of fear he was giving, Siva then spoke with a hissing tone. “I will make sure that you are going to suffer.”
With the words escaping from him, he leaned closer and lowered his sword, shoulders shagged down, his hair covering his face, Siva took a step forward and then charged his body with electricity. The lightning effect traveling on his body startled everyone present as they all heard a BOOM coming behind Siva.
It was the Flight Armor!
But with how all of these things happened in just an instant, even the light effects of him changing gears were masked by the electricity and the boom that followed his step.
The effect gave the illusion that that one single step is backed by a magical ability as he was actually propelled five meters in but just an instant.
He swung his sword to the startled dagger-wielder but the leader reacted as fast as he brandished his large axe to meet the sword and protect his comrade.
CLANG! Sparks flew as Siva was knocked back by the weight of that attack.
But just the same, the axe wielder was also sent backing up. And just when he did, he shouted, “Go kill the bastard!”
The dagger-wielder recovered from his surprise as he followed after Siva who then took his third step back to balance himself from the clash. There is no more derision and mockery in his face as he appeared next to Siva, both his dagger aiming to slice of his neck.
Siva was well aware of how fast these lightweight fighters were. He had learned his lesson with Raven and all the more he had fought with the Demon Commander whose speed was backed with a force that could crush a boulder of rock!
In his mind, he had the standards of speed and with this man’s speed almost reaching that limit, Siva’s mind spun into action as his reflexes moved his body on its own.
BUZZ! Lightning cracked around Siva as soon as the dagger touched the fabric of his coat. The electricity traveled through his dagger and into his hands that the man could only make out a muffled “Urgh” as he gave himself free for Siva to hack into.
KACHAK! The sound of flesh being stabbed by his sword echoed in all directions as the sword went through his left flank and even proceeded into the back.
“Findley!” Screamed the leader. “You’ll pay for this!”
Seeing his companion die like that was infuriating. A single day of what should have been an easy bullying was traded into the defeat of one of his friends.
He was so angry that he was exploding as he raised his axe in the air and hacked towards Siva who was a couple of few meters away.
The axe’s trajectory made a crisp sound of shattering wind and fragments of illusory glass actually went straight towards Siva. One should know that every player was given an «Initial Ability» and although it’s not like any direct magical ability, it still an «ability» that depends on the user on how it will become beneficial to him during his career.
In this regard, the ability of this axe-guy was to solidify air in front of him and turn it into a tangible existence akin to glass. When he hacked his axe to Siva’s direction, he shattered that shield-glass and used his sharp fragments to deal some minor damage to Siva that will serve as distraction so he could hack into him using his axe.
And just as planned, the fragments of sharp glasses went straight at Siva but contrary to his expectations, Siva didn’t even try to dodge of defend.
Instead, he formed a punching motion with his right arm where a black fist-weapon-armor materialized.
When the fragments were half a meter away from him, Siva unleashed the punch that was followed by a loud booming explosion along with a ring of wind expanding to where his fist seemed to hit the barrier of air.
With that, the flying fragments flew straight back at the axe-man coupled with an increase in speed and penetrating power that stabbed through his clothes and into his flesh and at which actually served as the distraction as he reflexively protected his eyes.
Realizing his mistake, he quickly shook off his arms that he used as guards only to see Siva’s face less than a mater away from him.
“Ah!” The man could only utter a gasp as his eyes went wide from shock.
The pitch black sword let out a droning sound as its tiny chainsaw blades shredded his skin. What more, Siva controlled his will as to not let it spread, the Killing Zone was solely focused to the only the man.
“Y-You are…?!”
“Die!”
Much to his regret, the sword went straight to his flank and easily pierced into half his body as blood and gore splattered and his body was hacked into two.
“I’m not done yet!” Siva’s voice rung.
Even as the upper part of his body was about to land on the ground, Siva didn’t stop his momentum as he bounced off in midair with the leg part of the Flight Armor, delivering a kick to the upper body of the man towards their unconscious first member.
“All of you will die!” Siva hissed and FLASH!
With two guns in his hands, he unleashed his hate towards the bodies as holes upon holes were made on each bullet that pierced their skins.
He did that for the next thirty seconds. Only when he had practically used up almost 98% of his stacks of nano cubes did Siva stopped and panted.
But he wasn’t finished yet as he turned around and picked up the remains of the dagger-man and then threw it on the two’s corpses that he followed with a tossing of frag grenade.
BOOM! Body parts, flesh, and blood flew in different directions as the brutality of their ends was witnessed by everyone present.
No sound came up from them as even the Guard Captain on the city gates had alerted his men just in case the show went beyond their control.
Just when the silence of the crowd extended into the next ten seconds did Siva finally chased his breathing and turned around to walk towards the Captain of the Guards.
Right now, he was back to his Gunner mode and his strides were as relaxed as they should be before the three bullies even came to provoke him.
When Siva came to stand before him, he narrowed his eyes as he looked back at the cargo he carried.
“Monster Office?” he asked. He didn’t mention about the three people that came for him. He only wanted to ask about the destination and purpose of this man’s visit to their gates.
Siva looked up and saw the number “7” above the large gates of the city, recalling that all in all, there are 64 gates that went around the entire circle of the Battle City. Of course with that many gates and with that many Hunters coming in and going, there was no need to actually know who’s who among them.
The Guard Captain continued, “This gate belongs to the control of the Vulcan Guild… a certain price must be paid before one is to enter.”
Siva nodded and paid the price in Zentra. It wasn’t a cheap price because of his truck but considering that he will be had just gained a profit when he killed those three and got some equipment, he obliged to pay the price and saved time.
Even as he boarded his Spyder Truck and went on his way as if he didn’t even encounter those three earlier, the betting crowd still went on to get their winnings form the losers.
Siva knew that he will be the talk of the crowd again but he ignored its implications to his future as he just went on towards the monster office to deliver and sell his goods.
When the NPC service crew saw the five freight containers, he immediately received first class treatment and skipped the long line of other players that only had one or two monsters tied up in them.
After a few minutes, the NPC manager went back to Siva and gave him the list of things and options he can receive on his haul.
Browsing the list, Siva noticed that there were two unfamiliar options available on the two Lapis Lazulis he had managed to capture.
He then raised the question to the NPC.
“Ah, that?” The NPC looked back at the large freight container that contained the two said monsters and gave Siva a smile as he stroked his chin. “Those two are really rare breeds of Lapis. They have what we like to call a monster Core. Apparently, those two are offsprings of a Wind Dragon and a normal Lapis. The results are that those two are more sentient than the rest of their kin and have a tendency of becoming a True Dragon in the future.”
An enlightened look could felt as Siva gave the man a pair of nods. He looked at the options available for him and then chose to go with the just the first.
“I want to tame the older one.”
“Oh?” The NPC seemed to be intrigued. “Just so you know, sir, Monster Cores are really, really rare… like, for every one million S-Ranked Monster, there’s only likely one that will develop a monster core.” Just as he finished at this part, he looked at Siva and wore an encouraging smile. “And also, sir, these two’s monster cores are imbued with Dragon Blood on them… much rarer than finding an Arkenstone on a gold mine. You can model a really good Warship around these cores. And with two at that, it’ll give your cruiser a very unique punch in the battlefield.”
Siva thought for a moment before recalling that one particular [capsule] he got from Dragona.
He gave the NPC Manager a smile before saying, “It’s alright, I just want a good mount.”
The NPC sighed and then gave Siva a helpless smile.
“Your call.” He said and then took the list. “Hmm, with this kind of Monster Core, are you planning on making equipment instead?”
“Yes.”
“Then if you wouldn’t mind, could I ask what kind?”
With this question, Siva recalled the report he gave AG back then. In that report, he said that certain special quests and missions, information, and even people will turn by increasing the number of high-rank mobs one is able to successfully hunt in his name.
That said, Siva and the other two had just hunted a very large number of monsters and aliens by themselves and so they are deemed to have at least a special treatment along with the lines of [special circumstances] to be expected on certain contacts with some NPCs.
Right now, it might that system that is at work as for normal circumstances, the NPCs of the Monster Office usually don’t conduct these kinds of talk with their customers.
But as it was already here, and with Siva noticing it, he smiled under his mask as he obliged to show him the Black Ball he obtained from that forest.
Seeing this, five full nods of agreement and a beaming smile of satisfaction actually appeared on the NPC.
“I see. I see. With this, sir, you could actually build a full Demon Armor Set! And with the Monster Core of a Wind Element and a Black Ball… hah! Sir, I can assure you, you can even build their wings!”
Hearing this, Siva couldn’t help but feeling surprised but happy at the same time.
Who wouldn’t be?
When it comes to flight ability, Demon Commanders are actually best at it. Their Speed is a match to the Flight Armor, their Acceleration Rate better, and their Control is worlds greater than the Flight Wings!
Not only that, while Flight Armors consume Firestone and Stamina to be used, the supreme functionality of the Black Wings only needed STAMINA to be used.
“The Black Wings are part of the Black Technology so aside from having all the abilities of the Black Tech, you can also get the very rare Black Wings. Black Wings, sir, needed a Monster Core to be made and you just so happen to have one with a high quality. I am sure that the finished product will be even better than the norm.”
The enthusiastic NPC was very open about this topic and his energy was actually seeping through Siva’s heart as he was too was becoming excited at the prospect of obtaining a great power up.
So without holding anything back, Siva looked at the NPC and asked in a serious manner, “Where is the greatest Technician in this city?”
“Oh! You are in good timing!” The NPC yelled happily and pulled out a card from his inventory that he gave to Siva. “He just came back after a long time! I am sure he will also be excited at the prospect of this very grand project of yours!”
Siva received the calling card with a beaming smile behind his mask but as soon as he read the card’s contents, that smile froze in his face and he let out a dry cough.
“Ah, sir, are you alright?”
“N-No I’m fine… It’s just that… I didn’t expect this.”
“What is?”
“This… greatest Technician…”
“Who, Janus? Yeah. He’s really a weird old guy but beyond that, his skills are really the best.”
“I know.” Siva admitted with a wry chuckle. “He was the one who made all my equipment.”
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Of all places to meet…!!
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