Chương 78: Two Years Later

Many things happened in the past two years. Umbrella was officially dissolved with almost all of their researchers and executives detained for developing dangerous and vulnerable Bio-Organic Weapon. The use of B.O.W. for military purposes, especially in wartime, was banned by the UN after they arranged a Worldwide Convention, which took place in Paris, France. It was also to commemorate the tragedy which happened a year before.

During this time, the Private Anti-Biohazard Service, which Chris and Jill co-founded, uncover many things regarding Umbrella and its creation. They found out that Umbrella had set up multiple hangars all over the world to develop their research, even setting up Villages for their researchers to use however they wanted. They would have wasted months, if not years, to completely eradicate them if SHIELD didn't involve themselves in this purge. Two months later, all of the Villages were eradicated, finally ending Umbrella, once and for all.

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Inside a forest full of spider's cobwebs, Edward was sprinting here and there while being chased by more than twenty gigantic spiders. He didn't use anything else except for the two handguns, HK P12, in his hands. The fire he ignited a few minutes ago, started to consume every single part of the dark forest. Burning the homes of these spiders.

Although the hot temperature and the fire would occasionally block his path, he kept moving by using the spiders' thorax as stepping stones to evade the saber-like claws on the tip of their leg and their fang. And whenever he leaped, he didn't hesitate to pull the trigger and drill their heads with a barrage of bullets. As the spider's goo keeps on piling on his clothes and skin, Edward while being annoyed hasten his pace. In less than three minutes, all of the twenty energetic and hungry mega spiders were all dead.

Edward's stamina was almost depleted after the constant and nonstop fighting. He plopped on the ground, resting his head on the warm ground under him. He took out a bottle of water from his inventory and splashed it on his face to clean his now dirty body.

It was then that the blazing forest that was surrounding him suddenly vanished. The landscape warped and changed into a circular dome with a huge projector on the ceilings that occasionally sparked some electricity. The broken mega spiders also changed into mechanical/robotic spiders, though they couldn't be identified as such anymore because they were on the verge of exploding.

All of them were the feature of Danger Room, which was usually used by the students, which Edward thought so silly, or the X-Men members to train. As he got up and changed his clothing, a familiar voice came to greet him.

"Nice record, you were faster by 10 seconds this time. A huge leap from the previous one," said Jean, who was walking into the Danger Room. She then asked, "So, what do you think about the 5th level?"

"It needs some maintenance, after the first hour, the robot's AI performance suddenly dropped," replied Edward, standing up while cleaning his clothes. He didn't use his equipment because it won't be a challenge if he had them.

"That's one of the features. Anyone would have killed themselves if after one hour they still haven't cleared the stage." explained, Jean.

"That made sense," said Edward, nodding at Jean's explanation. While everyone was forced to fight on a group to clear a level, Edward keeps soloing all of the levels even after he failed so many times. However, he could have cleared them all if not for the limitation he put on himself. "But enemies wouldn't suddenly cease to attack just because the fight took so long to end."

"Well, I'll keep that in mind and tell the technician about it then. We might as well make a new feature and call it Edward's difficulty." Seeing that Edward was ignoring her, she glanced at her surroundings. Every single corner of the room was littered with broken mechanical parts including the metal sheets on the wall. She then continued, "It hurts me every time I saw them in this state. It feels like someone was burning our money after we gave him the consent."

With a snap of his hand, Edward cast Mass Reinforce on all of them, returning the mechanical spiders and everything around them into their best state. Although pretty limited, he found that he could customize his Main Ability, Reinforcement, forming a more convenient way to use it.

"Wow, it never ceased to amaze me how useful your ability is." commented, Jean.

Edward asked, "So, what are you doing here?"

"Ohh, I was asked to deliver a mission for you," said Jean while using her telekinetic power to give him a small document.

"I'm busy. I'm not interested to pick up random kids in the countryside either," replied Edward, throwing the document back to her.

"But, Edward, it's important. We need to take them before others find out about their powers," said Jean.

"I'm not interested in becoming a nanny for them. Just go and ask Scott or Storm for this," replied Edward, before vanishing into smokes and left the training area.

During his stay in Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Edward became one of the Star of the school. Because of his ability and excessive stat points, he excelled in almost every subject that they taught him, ranging from normal school subjects like Physical Education, Math or Science, up to Mutant Education such as Mutant Physiology and Combat Training.

However, that was all to it. Socially, Edward was too unapproachable from other student's perspectives. He rarely took part in any study group, always spending his time in the Danger Room to train after class was over. But that was the thing that made him more attractive, though sometimes he would unconsciously offend anyone that tried to approach him. Thankfully, Sherry was always by his side to mend any ill feelings toward him as the most favorite female student.

In the early months, Edward would occasionally do some missions for the X-Men to increase his level through the Mercenary Mission System. However, the reward was far too low and most of it was just to pick up or help a stranded Mutant kid. And it was not only that, the long travel time was wasting too much of his time, limiting his choice of activity even more. He could only raise his level twice, and that was after taking countless missions from every possible source.

From the morning until noon, he spends his time attending Class. He couldn't skip any of it because he already made a contract with Professor X. He would never enforce anything to Edward and allow him to use the facility he owned however he wanted as long as he attended the Class without skipping even once unless it was inevitable. Because he had a hard time leveling up, training in Danger Room was the best choice he had, so he was forced to comply.

When night came, Edward would sneak out and go to the Continental Hotel, New York City branch, in Manhattan. He would then accept any high-grade mission as Killswitch. It didn't matter who employed him, or how dirty the job was. As long as he could gather mercenary points and EXP, he would accept it.

When the hour hand on his watch almost reached 3 AM, he then went back to the mansion. It was at this time that Sherry would occasionally have a nightmare as her Genma cells started flaring up. He would hold the Oni Gauntlet close to her to calm her down. And very often they would sleep together because of it. That was why they had their own room in a separate wing in the Staff dormitory, not at the students' dormitory.

"How long do we have to live like this?" asked Edward, while holding Sherry's cold hand. However, no one answered his question as the drowsiness consumed him. He fell asleep while leaning on Sherry's bed.

Morning soon came as the sunlight shone on Edward's sleepy face. He was laying on the bed, with a blanket covering him. He couldn't remember when he fell asleep, but the last thing he recalled was that he was sitting beside Sherry's bed to calm her down.

'Did she brought me to my bed?' thought Edward.

He looked at her bed on the opposite side of the room. Sherry was already left after neatly tidying her bed as always. Edward twisted his body left and right to stretch. After feeling satisfied enough, he went to the bathroom to wash his face. Today was Sunday, so no class waited for him.

He took out two items from his inventory and laid them on his bed. One was ????'s Egg, A silver egg embroidered with gold carvings that covered the top and bottom parts of the egg, while the other one was Scribbled Map of Paleville. Both of these items were still a mystery to Edward. No matter what he did to the egg, it won't break nor hatch. And it was also very hard to find the exact location of the Paleville town. Even if he did find it, the item was just a normal map without anything written on it.

'Then why it was named Scribbled Map of Paleville?' thought Edward.

As he got even more frustrated, a delicious smell of food greeted his sensitive nose. The door slowly opened and Sherry came in while bringing a tray with their breakfast on it. Edward stood and help her to place it on the small round table in the middle of the room.

"You shouldn't have wait for me and just go have breakfast with the others," said Edward. He knew that Sherry had a lot of friends here, even some boys had a crush on her.

While Edward was still a 10 years old boy, which didn't invite a lot of female attention. Sherry was almost a full-grown lady. Even if she was still 14 years, those two round parts of her were already developed. 'Is it because of the Genma Cells or maybe the G-Virus?' thought Edward.

Tak!

Sherry hit Edward's forehead with the spoon in her hand. Edward complained while rubbing his forehead, "Ow! That hurts!"

Sherry rolled her eyes. If that could hurt him, then that would've made her the strongest human in the world. "What are you thinking about, spacing out like that?"

"Nothing... I just thought that it would be nice to have two watermelons for lunch," said Edward, evening Sherry's doubtful eyes.

"Hmmm... really? Then I'll get you some in the cafeteria later," replied Sherry while squinting her eyes. "Anyway, are you free today?"

After thinking for a while, he replied, "Not really, why?"

"Don't you remember? We're going to buy a new suit and dress, the school's anniversary is approaching." reminded, Sherry.

"There's still two weeks before it, how about tomorrow? Besides, I could just go and buy it by myself," replied Edward.

Suddenly, Sherry stood and went toward my wardrobe. She opened it and pointed at my colorful clothing. There was all kind of colors and pattern inside. A yellow shirt with red polka dots, green T-shirts with a logo of some famous shop name written on it, jeans with red green blue lines going straight down.

"Hey, it's called fashion. Okay?" responded Edward, feeling offended.

"I'm not taking a Candy Factory into the dance hall. Whether you coming or not, I will be the one to pick your suits," said Sherry. "Also, stop going into the Danger Room and spent some time with your classmates. I'm starting to think that my little brother will be a cast out sooner or later."

'I already did though,' thought Edward. He then said, "Okay, fine. You can choose whichever you see fit. But for that last one, I don't think I could."

Hearing those words coming from his mouth, Sherry felt sad for him. She genuinely wanted him to forget about the past, but it seemed things wouldn't be that easy.

"But I still need to get your measurement," said Sherry while taking out a measuring tape, pencil, and paper.

"You sure do come prepared..." commented, Edward.

As the sun started to move to the highest point, Edward equipped his old armors and coat. He didn't change them yet because he was waiting to gather more points to get the items in the Mercenary Shop System.

He already did, more or less, 700 missions up until now. He already opened the D-Class Shop, but Edward was still hesitating on what to buy. To open the next Class, he needs around 6.3 million accumulative points. If only he had around 100.000 points more, he could get the best set equipment in the D-Class Shop.

<Gabriel's First Wing Pack - D-Class>

<Item Included:

1. Gabriel's First Helmet

2. Gabriel's First Breastplate

3. Gabriel's First Cuisses

4. Gabriel's First Gauntlet

5. Gabriel's First Pauldron

6. Gabriel's Wing>

Not only they were much better than human-invented armors in regards to performance and durability. Each part already had its own Item Ability even without casting Reinforcements on them.

Edward started running at his full speed. Although he could run as fast as a car, it was still a little bit tiring if he had to run for too long. 30 minutes later, after hopping in some buses and cars on his way, he arrived in New York's Continental Hotel Branch. Some guests and mercenaries that were hanging out in the lobby or was walking in and out, noticed Edward's appearance. They glanced at him for a moment before continuing their own business. Everyone already knew about him and of his prestige for completing every kind of mission without failing even once.

Edward went straight to the counter and put a black card in front of Charon, the Hotel's concierge. It was an item confirming that the mission has been completed.

The Hotel's staff immediately wrote down the records and gave Edward the card back with a note for his rewards. "Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Killswitch."

After putting the card and note into his inventory, he asked the dark-skinned concierge, "Is John here?"

Recalling a certain figure he saw earlier, Charon then answered, "Mr. John Wick? I think he's upstairs, at the bar."

"Thanks," said Edward, tossing a gold coin to him. He walked with a steady step toward the stairways. Once he was in the bar, he closed his eyes and immediately saw John Wick drinking on a table in the corner, away from other's sight. The other guest and mercenaries in the bar might look like they were ignoring him, but he knew that they were secretly observing him.

"Staying in a snake den sure is exciting. Don't you agree, John?" said Edward, standing in front of John.

"Said the baby snake," replied John, continuing Edward's words.

Edward tossed him the black card he used to report for his mission earlier, before saying, "I did as you told. Now it's your turn to follow your end of the agreement."

John just glanced at the card and said, "You failed."

"What!? Are you kidding me?" muttered Edward in disbelief. After moving to New York, John always refused to spar with him, let alone training him. Although he was much stronger now, Edward believed that John hadn't shown his true limit either. If he could win against him, Edward believed he would be confident enough to face the lurking adversaries in this world.

"Killing, stealing, infiltrating, even revenge, I did every single mission you offer me to do! And you dare to say that everything that I did was a failure?" snapped Edward.

"Yet you fail to see what I want you to do. You stoop so low that you couldn't see the surface anymore," muttered John while getting up to leave the bar.

Anger and rage erupted inside Edward's heart. He said, "Stop being arrogant, you old fool! What made you think that you're better than me!"

Hearing Edward's words, John stopped walking and turned around to face him. He asked, softly, "Do you have your honor?"

"What?" muttered Edward. He wasn't expecting that kind of response from him.

"Raise your glass if you still have your honor, your own code of honor," shouted John.

Everyone inside the bar raised their glass high, even if it was empty. Not a single one of them had their glass on the table.

"Everyone had their own code of honor. What differentiates us from a serial killer or a lowly criminal was this thing called the code of honor. Yet you never had one. You accept everything given to you without asking. It was admirable, but you are a mercenary, you don't jump into a flaming fire if they ask you to. You don't slit your own wrist when they want you to." said John.

"Now let me ask you one more time. Where is your honor?"

Edward was silenced by his words. He couldn't understand what John was saying. He still believed that to get stronger and stronger he had to accept more and more missions to level up. He couldn't see through John's intention.

Edward then replied, "You spoke too high of yourself. Honor? In this kind of world, Honor won't put your food on the table. Honor won't save you from dying. Honor won't bring back those you loved so much!"

"I know, but it was the only thing that would bring us salvation," said John, turning his back and left the bar. Everyone who was staring at the commotion caused by the two's arguments returned to their business. It was only Edward who was left alone without knowing what to do next.