Chương 14: Team Four Star

Dante POV-

"That was probably the most exhausting thing I've ever done in my life." I sighed as I left the building and entered a dark alleyway.

Seeing that no one was here, I opened the palm of my hand, sparks of purple-ish sparks surrounded my arm as Griffon appeared showing its full wingspan. "Phew! Finally free of that crappy place, so where are we going now?"

I answered. "Gates. And thanks to the digital age, we can now easily find the gates that lead to high ranked monsters. The one I did would be ranked about B-grade dungeon. Frankly, it's not bad at all to be able to clear it by myself. If I'd rank myself in human terms, I'd say I'm S-rank."

"Yeah we get it. Stop bragging or we're gonna get tired of it." You're the only one who'll get tired of it. Shadow is too cute to be mean. "Now let's go to a dungeon, I want to see if Nightmare is the same as us and remembers everything."

"I do too." Taking out the phone that Soohyun let me borrow which means that its mine now. I scrolled through the app that let's me see dungeons. It gave a bit of information what dungeon it was. Like its location, grade and what its recommended to go with inside.

Well I didn't care because I wasn't going to register. I was going to steal a dungeon. Very illegal stuff. Wonder if it's a worse crime then doing drugs...

After a minute or two, I finally found one that suited me. It was a B-rank Gate that was near me. I couldn't see any A-rank here so they were either rare or all taken. Most likely a combination of both.

"Got the location. Let's go." I said as I jumped from building to building. With my speed and my mask hiding my presence, no one could see me.

After being daredevil for a minute, I arrived at the site where I could see people in suits and sunglasses. They were from the Hunter Association. It seems that they were here as a precaution.

"So are you gonna kill them?" Griffon said as he floated next to me.

"Weren't you the one who said I should avoid killing?"

"Yeah I know. I was just asking to see if you were gonna do it." Griffon disappeared as he said that.

Looking at Shadow who came out of... well my shadow, I patted its head. "See Shadow, don't be like your brother. You're a great guy."

Hearing this, he growled at me. "A great panther?" I said uncertain. With this, he became docile once more and jumped inside my shadow. Guess he didn't like being identified in a human term. Noted.

While the Hunter Association were busy with their things, I dashed to the portal as I knew no one could see me.

When entering the portal, what greeted me was a rocky cave. There was nothing within sight except these blue crystals that were stuck on the walls.

These crystals was known as mana crystals because they... contained mana in them... duh. Anyways, they are condensed mana and are pretty valuable. Most Gates have those so they aren't too special for me. Nor are they valuable enough for me to care.

If only my inventory actually stored things other than the stuff I gain by achievements. If only...

"Wake up sunshine." Shadow and Griffon appeared before me but then a new being formed in front of me. This being was the last of V's three familiars, Nightmare.

Nightmare is a gargantuan pitch-black golem, roughly humanoid in shape and bulbous spiked hands resembling tree roots. Its body is comprised of a fluid with some solid metallic plating. Nightmare has a glowing purple core, located at the base of where its neck would be.

"Hello beautiful." He gazed down and looked at me. At least I think he did, he unfortunately doesn't have eyes. But still, I was curious. Nightmare doesn't really have a conscience of its own. A mindless beast that follow orders.

But as a hardcore DMC fan, I know that Nightmare chose to submit to V and at first didn't recognize him as its master. So it definitely had a degree of intelligence. The question was, would it submit to me?

Thankfully, it seemed like it did as it showed no sign of hostile behavior as it stood there. Still staring at me... weird.

"He does that a lot. Don't mind him." Griffon told me as he landed on Nightmare's shoulder. "He's a good guy when you get to know him better."

"I bet." I sensed new presences coming at this location and smirked. "I want you guys to show me what you're made of. Don't let me down."

"Aye aye captain." They were soon faced with a group of green orcs.

They were large and muscular with glowing red eyes and had dark red tattoos. Each wielded different weapons and wore black loincloth for clothes.

The familiars didn't waste any time as Griffon made the first move. Lightning surrounded his wings as he launched them at the orcs. The attack managed to slow them down as Shadow appeared in the middle of them and launched spikes at them. With them disorganized, Nightmare came in and smash them into pieces.

"Damn, I'd say they're A-rank. Not bad at all." They were pretty good as their synergy was the best. Each covered their role perfectly and worked together to defeat the orcs. I could see that some of them were still alive as they slashed their weapons at Nightmare only for scratches to be the only thing they could do.

It was easy for them to beat a group like this.

Still though I did say they were A-rank, their power was all proportional. Griffon could be said to be barely A-rank while Shadow was about the average one. Nightmare on the other hand, he was most definitely high A-rank.

He was the most powerful of them all.

"How did we do?" Griffon flew over and although I couldn't see his expression because he's a bird. I could just feel that he had a smug face at this moment.

"You did great." I smiled and walked towards the corpses. There I dug in and pulled out a stone. If he remembered correctly, this was an essence stone. When he was in the Red Gate, he was too preoccupied surviving and hunting the magic beasts that he didn't bother searching in their corpses.

But now that he knew of their existence, he could now take all of them. Holding one in his hand, he could tell that it held mana inside them. A larger amount then the mana crystals that were on the walls.

But weirdly, he could feel something else inside them. Like a spell being constantly used. The mana inside them was way too organized for something naturally in magic beasts. And he had never heard of monsters having essence stones inside them from Baran's memories.

"I guess I was right. Rulers were making the denizens of the Chaos world their slaves." I smiled as one of the mysteries was finally solved. These things held more mana because they were used to enslave the magic beasts.

Griffon flew over and held an essence stone in its claws. "So your hunch was correct. Do you still want these stones after knowing that?" Shadow and Nightmare were taking out the stones from the dead bodies. Though Shadow was more efficient as his shadow could easily take them out whilst Nightmare didn't even have fingers so it struggled in frustration.

"It's not like I can bring them all. And where can I even hide them." Just then a new idea popped in my head as I grinned. "You know what. Bring them, this will make things easier."

"Sure."

Looking at the dark, I could hear screams and roars echoing through the dungeon. "Now then, let's go kill that boss. I've got other work to do."

["^_(9^ 1§{€2£¥7$}8%->4@*#'6~'...\!?04@*#'6~'...\!?0]

It was fairly easy killing the monsters of this dungeon. I didn't even have to move as the familiars killed everything. Even the Boss was no match for Nightmare as he crushed and blasted it with his laser.

"Take all the essence stone you can and give them to me." I said as Shadow brought the essence stone from the boss monster in its mouth. "All of you go back. I'll leave this place since its crumbling down and I don't want you guys to get spotted."

They did as told and disappeared. I sneakily left the dungeon and didn't alarm anyone from the association. The crumbling of the dungeon won't happen immediately so for now they're in the dark.

"Time to get an identity now." Thank goodness I had a lead, it was the man he saw in the news. A guy who was in cahoots with some corrupt police offers to sell drugs. But not the normal ones, apparently they were 'enhanced' made by mana crystals and affect hunters like real drugs do to normal people.

Though that does sound cool, being born in an Asian country will most likely teach you to never take drugs. None of my friends ever took drugs and I never liked things that could affect my rationality. So in the end, I never took any kind of drug nor alcohol.

I know he's in the city but with my speed it will be pretty easy to find him. But first, I looked towards my system and saw the notification.

[Achievement Unlocked: Beat a B-rank Gate.]

[Random Reward Processing...]

[You've gained 'Devil Sword Sparda'.]

What?! The Devil Sword Sparda! This was one of the three sword that the Legendary Dark Knight possessed. I didn't think I'd get one this early on. I excitedly looked at the description.

[Item: Devil Sword Sparda

Description: This sword is a fusion between the sword Force Edge and the two separated parts of the Perfect Amulet. A weapon wielded by the Legendary Dark Knight, Sparda. It is a powerful weapon imbued with his power and is coveted by everyone who knows about it. When acquiring this weapon, it will awaken the demon blood inside you. One cannot wield this blade with half-assed strength.]

"Oh yeah. It's all coming together."

["^_(9^ 1§{€2£¥7$}8%->4@*#'6~'...\!?04@*#'6~'...\!?0]

At an abandoned warehouse, there were guards outside of it. Each were guarding things seriously and looked professional. They were highly trained individuals as each was a hunter that reached C-rank.

But inside the building, the building didn't look abandoned as everything was clean. In the middle of the room was a table and a group of men were each seated at it.

Though they didn't look in their best moods as they had angry and frustrated expressions on them.

One of the man stood up and brought up a screen displaying a map of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. A red dot then appeared on the map as he pointed there.

"We should focus on this area of the city. Authorities won't even be needed to bribe since they'll try to turn a blind eye to it. They are way too lazy and afraid to do anything to us."

Another disagreed and pointed at another area. "I think this part is much safer. Right now, our entire organization is on the spotlight. Laying low for now is the best option. Even if we lose a bit of profit."

"No! We shouldn't hide like cowards! We can just hire mercenary hunters to help us!"

"We've already done that idiot! Most mercenaries aren't dumb enough to challenge the Hunter Association when we're getting looked for. So stop being a dumb*ss and shut up!"

The conversations went back and forth as no progression was made. Some were realistic and reasonable and some thought of profit and didn't look at the risk.

Either way, their hope to have their plans fulfilled would never come true as they caught the attention of someone else.

The group then heard rumbling as everything shook. The chandeliers that lighted everything fell causing more panic. They heard shouting outside and magic spells being used.

The men felt nervous as they heard the sound of explosions being heard.

"What's going on?!" One of them asked.

A guard protecting them answered. "An intruder has trespassed this location and started killing our men! Stay here and we shall-"

Before he could even finish, something burst through the windows on the ceiling. But soon everyone realized that it wasn't 'something'. But someone. It was a man with white hair wearing a red coat and on his hands were a pair of guns.

Dante was here and for the first act, he began firing at the guards. They couldn't even protect themselves before being exploded in a burst of blood by his guns.

Finally, he landed on the table in front of the shocked men with a rain of blood covering him. Their guards all over were C-rank hunters or even B-ranks. To be here, then he'd had to wipe out all of them.

Sitting on the table and taking a piece of pizza that lied there, Dante started munching on it. "Hello drug dealers. Pleasure to meet you all. Yeah yeah, I know I'm handsome so you don't need to stare at me like that."

He grinned seeing their frightened face. "How about we get down to business now?"