Chapter 15: Ch. 15 Deal
"What, what's with this killing intent!?" sputtered Kevin as he could finally breath..
John wasn't being cocky by taking off his armour, he felt like it was restricted him slightly, and John didn't want anything to distract him from what he was about to do.
After fighting Velonin, absorbing his mana and using the flash step, not only did his body get a lot stronger but he also felt like he had gotten much better at control the movement technique after using it in battle.
"Kevin, I'm going to slice your spear in half before decapitating you. I want you to try and stop me." The abyss like darkness in John's eye seemed to grow even darker as his face was emotionless
"The fuck you mean, ass-"
*Crick*
*Thud*
"....."
Joseph was dumbfound by what he had just witnessed. In one second John was standing Infront if him, the next he turned into a blur and decapitated Kevin.
Seeing John just kill his comrade in an instant, Jim collapsed to the floor in shock as his weapon left his hand.
Standing next to the hyperventilating Jim, John stood on wobbly feet. 'Hmmm, my bones didn't break but my Achilles did snap. If I tone it down by a notch, then I wouldn't break anything using this technique'
After remembering his fight with Velonin, John remember him saying Roukel could flash step instantaneously, so John tried to recreate that. Trying to put as much mana as he could in an instant, which wasn't a lot, John stepped slightly faster and further than average but felt zero repercussions. This was the first time John created something that Roukel hadn't!
Roukel, who had a nearly indestructible physique, could could easily break the sound barrier with the flash step technique and be perfectly fine. Roukel had no reason to learn how to slow down to prevent injuries.
"Absorb" a few seconds later, John hurriely yelled out "Heal!".
When John aborbed Kevin's mana, he felt an overwhelming amount of energy pour into him, so much energy that he felt his Mana capacity increasing yet at the same time threatening to explode! After a few seconds, the man calmed down as John was breathing heavily.
'I see! When I absorb a monster mana, it is heavily incompatible, making it so that a fraction of mana is Absorbed, but human mana is a perfect match!' after coming to this realization, John looked at Jim
"My Achilles is snapped at the moment, this is you chance to attack Jim, pick up your aword" Standing a foot away from Jim, John still didn't attack even though he was in range
After obtaining Roukels memories, John felt the importance of human life had plummeted greatyly, so he made himself only two rules to follow in order to not become like the cruel king Roukel.
-DO NOT KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE
-DO NOT KILL SURRENDERED PEOPLE
John had hundreds of memories of Roukel attacking other nations, species and religions first, as he thought they were plotting evil deeds against him and his millions of people.
A lot of time Roukel was right, but he also didnt care when he was wrong and had murdered large groups of innocent people because he thought they could potentially harm his nation.
John wouldn't Kill an innocent just on a hunch or a feeling, he wanted hard concrete evidence that someone deserved to die.
John felt even stronger about not killing opponents who had surroundered to him, as he'd feel an immense shame to kill an opponent who had given up.
"C'mon, pick it up Jim." inches from each other's face, John's eye pierced directly into Jim's, "PICK. IT. UP."
Laying collapsed on the floor in a puddle of his comrades blood, Jim's head started shaking even harder, refusing to pick it up.
Looking at the man who tried to kill him sniveling on the floor, John felt disgust. If you plan on Killing others, always plan on eventually being killed in the process.
'This man is pathetic, I should just leave him here and let the Bureau deal with this shit, it's just another Pk- wait a second, aren't the PKers becoming extremely active? Surely they ain't randomly acting but somehow communicate with one another... '
"Tell me all the information you have on the PKers, and I'll let you live"
"I-I can't! If I do, they kill me!" Burrying his head into his knees, Jim refused to look up until he felt pain.
Looking up, Jim saw John holding his harvesting knife in hand.
"That's fine, I know just how to loosen up those lips" Taking the blade, John poked four tiny cuts into Jim, one on each limb.
John watched as his enchantment 'Bloody Prayer' took affect, as just those tiny holes made blood start gushing out .
"You have around five minutes before you die, so I'll ask you once again. Tell me what you know..."
-------
Healing Jim's shaking body back up to full health, John looted Kevin and gave Jim a look of longing before shaking his head. After figuring out human mana was incredibly compatible with his technique, John desperately wanted to absorb Jim but decided against it.
Killing Jim might increase his mana, but it wouldn't be a revolutionary increase and it would break his rules. John could only silently swear to be quicker next time, not allowing his opponents the chance to surrender.
Walking passed the frightful and quivering Joseph, John exited the dungeon alone carrying the bag filled with magic stones and the PKers loot, causing the Dungeon Bureau worker to dash over towards him.
"Are the others dead?" the worker asked in worry.
"Two are alive. There was a PKing incident, I had to kill one but the other survived" John told the worker
"That means you left a PKer next to a support hunter!" The worked yelled out as he began running to the dungeon before John stopped him.
"Don't worry, he won't fighting for a very long time..." John was confident in that.
Hearing this, the worker took out his charts and recorded something before he looked up at John "You'll have to visit the Dungeon Bureau to record a statement in the near future."
'I feel like I write a report every damn day!' John though to himself.
When a PKing took place in a dungeon, the Bureau wanted the surviver to write a formal statement regarding the events.
This process was to see the flaws within someone statement of events and attempted to ascertain whether unlawful conduct had occurred in the dungeon by comparing statements, if there was only one survivor it was a rather pointless procedure.
"Yeah yeah, i'll make the statement when I sell my crystals." John said as he struggled to Balance his huge bag of loot on his bicycle before eventually leaving.
-------
"It comes out to $350,000. I've deposited the sum into your registered bank account," the clerk said.
"Actually can you deposit $87,500 into Joseph Watanabe's account." After selling his crystal and giving his teamate their share, John walked to the front desk as he had a thought.
'Human mana is absolutely perfect for me to grow much stronger, and now Jim told me about how they operate... Should I truly go out of my way to kill others for my growth?'
John killed Kevin because he was a professional killer who sneak attacked him in order to profit. The reason he spared Joey, the c ranked hunter, was because he was incredibly emotional about his dead brother and wanted to blame someone, so he attacked John.
John had never gone out of his way to kill anybody for personal gain before, but he saw this as a public service that benefitted him.
'Going out of my way to end the lives of PKers is heroic stuff, maybe I should put on a skin tight suit and become a vigilante?' Nick thought jokingly.
The act of ending another's life could never be considered heroic, not to mention he would be doing it soley for selfish reason, but John couldn't think of any other situation more ideal than this
He could get stronger by absorbing the mana of murderers who routinely PKed, and if he made a deal with the Hunter Bureau, he might be able to get additional information about the PK group!
"I came to write my statement. How long will I have to wait?" asked John
"Ah, you're Hunter, John Jackson correct?" Nodded his head, The clerk continued "Right now the investigator is busy with another issue, so you'll have to wait about twenty minutes."
"I understand" sitting on a couch in the lounging areas, John took out his phone and started reading the Hunter website
[Underwater Gates could spell the doom for humanity!]
[Possible S+ Ranked Gate located via telescope on the Dark side of the moon!]
John scrolled past such scary sounding Articles, as it wasn't his first time reading such clickbait articles.
[PKing incidents increased by 189% over the past week, and here is how you can protect yourself!]
People were panicking due to the latest series of PKing occurrences, they suggested that the Bureau should only send parties into dungeons with the maximum number of people. He even saw a bulletin board message that suggested not entering the dungeons at the moment.
There were even posts calling for the bounties to be put on the alleged PKers that got thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.
Doom scrolling for 15 minutes, a worker finally walked towards him.
"Hunter John Jackson, please go to office number 1 on the 2nd floor."John simply nodded and went to the aforementioned office.
He opened the door and saw the very familiar, Investigator Leon.
"Come on in", the Investigator said with a smile but John could feel them staring intensely at Roel.
"I just got confirmation on the phone from the dungeon worker, that a Mr. Joseph Watanabe can corroborate your story. Please just write down your telling of what happened in there, and you can be on your way" saying this, Investigator Leon pushed over a pen and paper to him.
Wordlessly picking the pen up, John spent ten minutes writing down everything he can remember.
"Alright Mr Jackson, your free to g-" "I have a proposal that will interest the Bureau." John said, cutting of the Investigator.
".....What is it that your proposing" The investigator asked curiously, his eyes shining faintly.
"All you have to do is manipulate the matching system and match me with the suspected PKers. Up until a month ago I was considered pathetically weakling, not to mention I am a healer, they won't suspect me of being strong enough to fight off multiple attackers. You just have to pay me for every PKer killed, I won't charge if there in't a PKer in the party."
Hearing John say this, Leon was slightly shocked as he had a similar thought.
"If I follow through with your request, it will have to be completely off the record. I submitted a similar idea as yours only to be turn down, apparently the Bureau need to keep a 'passive approach' lest we become 'power-hungry tyrants' that abuse our power. I'll be able to pay $75,000 per head is that satisfactory?"
Without even think, John extended his hand for a handshake. He would've been fine if they matched him up with PKers for free, but he wasn't going to turn down additional money.
As John and Investigator shook hand, he couldn't help but ask.
"What your doing is incredibly risky for your career, why?
Wearing a genuine smile, John said "I simply want to make the world a better place"
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