Chương 4: Ch. 4 Partners
The surrounding mood changed once he drew his sword. John had controlled his killing intent before, but now his killing intent spread and dominated the surrounding area.
It felt like shards of ice were piercing their bodies as the spectators unconsciously took a few steps back.
"W-we need to call someone! Quickly!" A young looking mage said to her party leader.
"There no point Jacky, the police won't show up." The female leader looked on at the fight with cold indifference, as this was a common occurrence.
"B-but why?!"
"It's the Unofficial Hunters law. In the beginning days when Hunter's first started appearing, whenever two hunters fought each other, the Dungeon Bureau would send out employed hunters to stop it, only for them to die a majority of the time." With a gasp from the young mage, the party leader continued.
"If two A rank hunters fight each other, who's going stop it? Another A ranked warriors aren't strong enough to safely neutralize the target without killing them, so there'd be no point to dispatch them and S ranks and above are almost never available. The additional danger of more hunters joining into a fight would not only endanger themselves but the damage to the surround area would only increase. Why intervene when the problem will take care of itself, and be much safer to do so."
"That's such a cold hearted way of doing it..." Looking at the two men fight, the young mage felt her heart hurt a little.
"This unofficial rule spread throughout the world and is what's created the hunters dueling culture, no matter which country you enter you'll see hunters dueling. Of course their is consequences if your the one initiating the duel, your rank goes down making it much harder to find parties and the association will deduct more from whenever you turn in crystals. If you initiate too many duels, a rather large bounty will be place upon your head and you'll be officially treated as Dunegon monster."
The young mage started shaking her head begrudgingly at her leader, understanding how this rule came to be but still disliked it.
On the other side of the circle, a tall man with buck teeth was talking to a very short man. "This level of killing intent, was he always this scary?"
"I don't know, but the dude better calm down, he's making me feel cold." The tiny man said as he wrapped his arms around himself.
"If you want him to stop, why don't you make him Leader" a weaselly looking man said.
Looking at the young man releasing such a powerful killing intent, the tiny man remained uneffected. "Nah, I just polished my blade a few hours ago, I'd hate to have to clean it again so soon."
Turning around, the man started walking away as the tiny man absolutely hated the cold.
As the more experienced veteran hunters began to join the crowd that was gathering, they noticed John's unique stance.
"Ive never seen sword positioning like that before, It seems like he's favored in both offense and defense."
"More often then not, balanced stances like that are often mediocre at both, but this might be different" although the old veterans saw this new stance as a rather mediocre, the Killing intent radiating off of John made him question his opinion.
"D-Die!"Joey struck first, but John saw him coming in nearly slow motion.
A single Living Armour could've easily killed ten C rank combat hunters all fight at once, and John killed 17 Living Armours by himself.
Seeing the rapier slowly inching forward, John parried the blade and it glided right past him, stepped forward into Joey's guard range and stabbed Roel forward.
The sword's blunt tip punched a hole in his stomach and caused Joey to collapse to the floor, forcing him to hold his intestines to prevent them from spilling out.
"Aaaaahhhhhh!" As Joey screamed out, John regained rational as his killing intent died down.
'Holy Shit! These memories are making me ruthless, I should probably do something about it.... I guess it doesn't really matter. All consciousness is, is a collective of experiences and memories put together to make up ones ego. I just so happen to have my past lifes memories along with my own, so naturally a change in my conscious mind will occur and I very much doubt their is much i can do to prevent that.'
Despite realizing he was changing, John subconsciously knew that the fundamentals of what made him 'John' remained unchanged, and didn't worry about small side affects like being more ruthless.
"S-Save me," Joey begged, awakening John up from his philosophical thoughts.
"Dude I'm a D ranked healer, and you just tried to kill me!" Looking down at the bleed man, John could see the desperation and fear in the man's dying eyes.
"Fine, I can atleast try to help you" With his Morals getting the better of him, John reached down, removed Joey's hand from the wound and placed his over it.
Despite the memories from his past life, which made killing seem as normal as breathing, John was still averse to Killing other if he could help it.
Manipulating his mana, he sent a large amount of the energy into his healing technique only for a a bright White light to shine from his hands and invaded the abdominal wound, miraculously the blood stopped flowing and the wound started closing somewhat.
Immediately stopping the healing, John had a very shocked expression.
'Did my healing get better?! Holy shit man!!'
Looking down at his hands, the once expressionless face was now replaced with a look of glee.
It was one thing to be given someone else's power, it was another thing entire for your own power to get stronger!
Looking down at Joey, he still had a big hole in his stomach but the bleeding was stopped and it was healed partially, indicating a strong possibility that he would survive.
Realizing that the man that tried to kill him would survive John crouched down next to Joey's ear and whispered.
"I didn't kill you brother and if I wanted to, I'd be allowed to kill you right now. Your alive because I'm generous, SO STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME...."
Taking his head away from his ear, John looked directly into Joey's eye and expertly unleashed all of his killing intent intent only at Joey.
Looking into John's abyss like eyes, a pool of urine seeped out from his pants as a foul smell filled the air, only for Joey to fall unconscious and land into the puddle of his own urine.
Grabbing his nose in disgust, John quickly stood up. 'I didn't know my killing intent was so strong that he'd literally shit his pants. I could probably kill someone with a heart condition, I need to be more careful!'
Walking away, John felt pain in his lower legs, and places his hand over his chest "Heal" the pain immediately went away.
'Just one attack and my body immediately feels sore? I need to remember that this body isn't my past life's and adjust my techniques to this weaker level of strength'
When a Hunter awakens their mana, they also awaken an ability and have a fraction of their mana absorbed into their body, strengthening it.
If the ability had a high mana expenditure, then less mana was absorbed into the body. If the ability had a low mana expenditure then more mana was absorbed into the body.
This is why mage hunters had weaker bodies then melee Hunters, but made up for the lower physical strength by having powerful spells/abilities.
John's mana, despite having increased drastically when he drew Roel, was a minute fraction of his past life. This meant he couldn't use the decades of experience he obtained as a 1:1 for fighting and had to adapt them.
"Are you all right?" Turning around John was met with a team of weary security officers.
John nodded.
"You'll have to come with me for a bit. As long as you didn't initiate the duel, you just need to write a statement and you'll be done."
"I hope it won't take long."
"I apologize for the inconveniences sir, when we're done, We'll put you at the top of the queue, you have my word." The main security officer said without hesitation.
If the message the security officer got was to be believed, this man had nearly killed a C-rank Hunter in a single blow and then healing him back to a stable condition.
"This way."
John traveled to the investigation room with the security officer, only to meet the exact same investigator from the day prior, as he was examined the CCTV screens.
The investigator immediately stood up and greeted him. "It's a surprise to meet you again so soon, bad new seems to stick to you like glue."
John forced a smiled at the statement.
"Please sit down," Leon suggested.
Sitting down in the same seat as yesterday, John was internally surprised at how casual he felt. He was surprise attacked and had almost killed a human, yet he didn't think much about it as he had memories of his past life going through hundreds of assassination attempts by enemies much stronger than Joey.
"We just saw the incident that happened outside via the CCTVs. We just need a simple statement from you." The investigator said as light blue mana suddenly shone from his eyes.
'The CCTV footage showed John taking down a C-rank hunter in one move, removing any doubt that he couldn't take on 17 Living arnours, but that begs the question, why did he hide his strength?....Wait a second! That girl Sarah said that after pulling out the rusty sword, he screamed in pain for a few seconds before defeating the Living Armour with ease. Maybe he wasn't hiding his strength, but that sword somehow made him stronger....' The Investigator thought as he eyeballed the rotting handle of the sword that sticked out of John's backpack
Like he said, the investigation finished quickly.
"We're done here. It's been officially confirmed as a case of self-defense." The Investigators said after John signed a few paper.
"Thank you for wrapping it up so quickly."
"Haha, no problem, I'll have some escort you to the counter, so you can skip the queue."
John smiled at that. The Dungeon Bureau recognized skilled Hunters and treated them better than others, allowing the more skilled hunters to get even stronger and advance to higher ranks.
The system was biased and unfair, but it also increase the rate at which stronger hunters are made, making the world a safer place just incase a dungeon break was to occured, so nobody coukd complained.
"Hello, Hunter. How may I help you?"
Despite having witnessed the tussle in the lobby, the clerk greeted John and smiled brightly.
Ever since Hunters awakened into this world, Hunter on Hunter violence happened so often, that it was unofficial named PKing.
Though it was uncommon to see PKing on the everyday streets, Dungeon Bureau employees were used to it, being the hubs of tens of thousands of Hunter's.
"Hunter John here is allowed to skip the queue, following the incident that just happened" the man that investigator Leon sent to escort John said shortly, before promptly leaving.
"Ah I see, what is it that you'd like?" Giving a beautiful smile, the desk lady had a cheery aura about her.
"I would like to apply D-rank dungeon solo run."
"Did you just say solo run?" she asked, astonished. She asked once more and John nodded his head.
"I'm a D-rank hunter, so Im qualified to enter." Behind John, the clerk saw an ambulance quickly driving away as a janitor in the background was mopping up the pool of blood in the lobby, and held her tongue 'But aren't you a Healer?'.
"While solo runs helps increase your ranking, the Dungeon Bureau does not suggest it due to the inherent danger. Are you sure you'll be all right?" The corner receptionist said
"Please don't worry. I'll be fine, you've seen my combat prowess first hand" John said, giving a reassuring smiling.
"I'll go bring up the dungeon inventory. Could you please wait a moment?"
After tapping on a tablet for a few second the clerk turned it around and showed John the dungeons he could enter.
Although there was a new E-rank dungeon formed a week ago, John decided to go with a D-rank dungeon.
"Once again, are you sure you want to pick the D-rank dungeon?" the clerk asked.
A D-rank dungeon was a huge spike in difficulty from an E-rank dungeon. It was recommended that a party of at least three people go into a D-rank dungeon.
However, a Healer soloing a D-rank dungeon? She had seen his swordplay earlier, but fighting a horde of monsters was different then fighting one man.
"Yes, please give me the earliest time." John said with a confident smile
The receptionist want to refuse but didn't, at the end of the day the Dungeon Bureau we're just peace keepers and gate guards, they had no right to tell a hunter how to hunt.
"Your appointment is for tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m." the woman said quietly, feeling sad that a young man was throwing his life away..
"That's perfect, thank you" Turning away fro the clerk, the charming smile that was on John's face faded away, as he went to the store.
------
Exiting the Home Depot, John had multiple bags of items, and a sheath for his sword.
Entering his shitty apartment, John plugged up his small bathtub/shower, and filled it up with cleaning vinegar.
After watching a few YouTube videos, John managed to take off the rotting wood handle and placed the sword into the vinegar.
later that night John took Roel out of the tub, and started sanding it down.
The vinegar, along side an hour of sand papering made quick work of the rust as the sword was rid of all of its brownish red discoloring, leaving behind an incredibly dull looking black blade.
"Hello beautiful!" John said aloud and as if sentient, the sword sent over a happy feeling of content.
Taking out a beautiful dark walnut oak handle, John inched it closer to the tang of the blade only to come to an abrupt stop as his hands begun shaking violently.....
An evil and hateful aura washed over him as his hands dropped the oak handle in fear, which caused the Aura to disappear.
Gasping for air, John looked at the sword in a slight amount of fear but found an overwhelming amount of pride spring forth inside of himself.
'Only a sword of this caliber has the right to be used by me!'
"All you had to do is ask me not to change your handle partner, no need to be so angry about replacing it" Touching his sword once again, he didn't here a voice but somehow understood what his sword wanted.
"Ahhh I see. You don't mind it being replace, but not by such an inferior wood. I'll make sure keep my out for some wood up to your standard Partner." A feeling of love was conveyed, causing John to hug his beautiful sword. "Aww, I love you too partner!"
Putting the old and rotten looking handle back on, John took out a bunch of whetstone. "The only thing left to do, is to sharpen you up partner...What do you mean 'good luck'?.....Really? Well I bought them anyways, so I might as well try them out."
Taking out the courses whetstone, John started sharpening ROEL. After 30 minutes of doing so, there was absolutely no progress, just as expected.
"Well I guess you were right partner, I'll also need to find something that can sharpen your blade...No of course I wasn't doubting your durability, I just wanted to double check. Hey Roel, why are you only speaking to me now instead of when I first awakened you?.....That makes sense, I too wouldn't want to team up with a pathetic loser with no potential, which is why I chose you as my partner...Hahah sure buddy, you chose me....." Laying in bed, John looked like a crazed man as he was talking to a sword, and fell asleep with Roel in his hand.
laying in his bed John quickly fell asleep like normal but the moment he enter REM sleep, the same man from his memories reappeared in his dreams.
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