Chapter 31

The Reaping

Aldrin Eclaire’s eyes widened in surprise and tears began to fall on them as he saw the small sealed box that Siva presented him.

His old hands caressed the edges and details of the box while recalling the days of his lively youth when he first saw its contents.

“Open it.” He told Siva and raised the box. “Open it so we can be free of this curse.”

Though in doubts and while Andrea pursed her lips and nodded at Siva’s probing glance, Siva pulled the simple lock and was surprised to its contents.

“What the F….” His eyes were full of anger. Full of disappointment. Full of discontent. Full of what could only be spoken in his mouth as, “I can‘t believe I came all this way just to get a copy of Clemente‘s Demise.”

“Wait,” Volt called out to the old man. “I really can‘t understand this situation…”

But the old man had a smile on his lips, shook his head and said, “Open the book and you‘ll see it.”

Siva did not wait for any more time and opened it. And just as his instincts told him, as he flipped every page, there was no difference from the copy the library had and the one in his hands.

“I don‘t understand…” He said anxiously.

At that, Andrea explained. “Find the Providence.”

“What is the Providence?!” Siva was now irritated.

“The Providence is a weapon.” At those words, Siva was dumbstruck. Watching Andrea’s expression the old man put a hand on her palm on his shoulders and kept on in her explanation. “My family‘s secret, this novel, it had all the answers to the wrong history written in the Book of Legends.”

TING!

At that moment, as soon as her sentence ended, in their visions, a shocking notification popped up. And upon reading it, Siva could only smile as he had in his hands the first step on the river of lava he was in.

[H-Class Information Acquired!]

“The Founding of an Empire”

Long ago, there was the Legendary Hero, Clemente, who had so many achievements, including the founding of The Empire of Tiara.

Rumors of his dark ambitions were scattered and the link on his mysterious death had been shrouded in darkness. But throughout the history, there was one clan who held the secret on these rumors and now, that secret is ready to be revealed in the world.

“Find the Providence.” The old man snapped Siva’s attention back to his feet from his mind. “This message was left to me by my father and was left to him by his father, that was left to him by his father and the father before him…”

“But when grandfather joined the military, and father died before he even held that secret, I feared that the secret will be lost forever so I hid the clues in this box and hoped that some day, people would finally find the keys to unlock this quest.”

“Quest?” Siva’s brows curled in confusion.

Andrea Eclaire looked at him and nodded. “Yes. The Providence is a weapon. That‘s all I know. The secret lies in this book.” And Andrea pushed the old book on Siva’s hands on his chest.

“So the quest to find this secret starts by finding this book?”

On Volt’s question, Siva added, “So is the rumor of the map in this novel true? A map that will lead to vast amounts of treasure? A treasure map?”

“I‘m not sure.” Andrea shook his head.

“But you said that you will tell us the secret…”

That’s where Siva got another hit in the forehead. “I told you that when you bring me the package, I will tell you what you needed to know. I said that clearly or your ears were just there to make you look human?”

Siva pouted as he caressed his forehead. Though the attack did not chipped any HP, it still hurt.

The following conversation after that led to some of the confirmations they had to ask. One of which is that a novel of the old times were treated as treasures of the literary world so showing it in public may lead to huge problems from the government. Though it really felt like a trick in their hearts, Siva and the gang concluded that it was still worth their trouble.

“Farewell, young warrior. And I do hope that you uncover this secret and correct the flow of history.”

Siva nodded and to the old man and held out an open palm. “Live longer, sir.”

And Aldrin Eclaire smiled and shook the hand. “I am looking forward to the future.”

[Mission Accomplished]

+10 Free Stat Points

+20 to Weight Limit

Earned Title: Dragon Hunter

Accept Title?

(Yes?) — (No?)

Exclaims exploded on their group as soon as they saw the notification window that popped up on their visions. The semi-silver holographic panel showed the message in clear metallic grey letters and everyone had their own unified agreement after they exchanged looks with each other.

“Whoa!” Asked Hawkeye with a smile. “So B-rank missions give away free stat points?!”

“Who would have thought?!” Samara was laughing.

“This is really a fulfilling mission.” Agatha seconded and she glanced over at Siva. Seeing his reaction, “Hey what’s wrong?”

At her prompt, Siva pressed (No) at the confirmation prompt. Since the notification window is a party wide report, they all saw it and frowned.

Hawkeye approached and asked, “Why no?”

“I don‘t like it.” He said and walked on towards the Trading Center. “I only want one title for myself and until I get that title, I won‘t be entertaining any other title to my name.”

After Siva’s explanation, Volt and the others looked at each other and shrugged.

“Well, that‘s our star player.” Volt teased as Agatha chuckled that made Siva blush.

“Star player.” She repeated and Samara did the same.

Hawkeye ran over to Siva and slapped his shoulder with a heavy hand. For an archer, adding more points to strength can make you pull the string further than those normal stat archers. And at that, also, it adds something to normal actions such as these.

“Ouch! Are you even a woman?!”

“Haha…star player.”

Siva pouted and narrowed his eyes. When they got to where his Portable Expendable Truck is, it was already surrounded by people. Most of them were fussing about the reason why one of the two was moving.

“Trouble.” Hawkeye said.

Siva looked at his group and manipulated his gears to the masked settings. Since it doesn’t belong to his three defaults, he had to manually operate his gears.

Because of the bonus points in weight limits, he can now wear the mask, the cloak, and Cassius Clay at the same time. That was a good bonus. Even for the very famous adventurers like Volt and his group, it was also a first for them to learn that B-rank missions can give rewards.

But then again, the hurdle they had to pass wasn’t an easy one. More like, it was just tough luck that they were able to finish it and still live on.

Siva and them approached their legged truck and Siva went to the one that was shaking from inside.

He opened the trunk entrance and the NPC Trading Manager approached him.

“So you are the owner eh?”

“Yes.” Siva answered since his upper face from nose to his eyes were covered by a white mask.

“A live specimen.” The trader, a middle aged man in knight uniform with a large scar on his forehead that went down to his left eye to his cheek nodded with a smile to him. “Not many hunters are skilled enough to be able to trap one. Well then, open it up.”

As soon as he opened the cargo doors, jaws started dropped and eyes widened in surprise.

Then the trader, a human, spoke in shock, “For the love of God, how did you…”

“It‘s a long story.” Siva said and smiled. “How much will I get with a live dragon?”

***

Loni was chatting with her friends, those that has the same interests in writing novels as her, when Thorn’s name popped up on her screen.

[42:05 You won‘t believe your eyes.]

Thorn’s message piqued her interest and when she opened the email, there was an attached net link. So she clicked the link and her browser went to utube.com and a video started to play.

“42 minutes?”

She could have ignored it but as the minutes and the seconds approached the time allotted by Thorn to watch out for, she saw the reason why she would be shocked and also surprised.

She knew that face, Volt, the most famous explorer.

His name was famous not because he was one of the premier adventurers in Central Continent but because he was the very first engineer to actually accomplish the task that their engineers had been trying to do.

Volt “The Slayer” was the first engineer to defeat an S-ranked monster on his own using the equipments he invented himself. But then, 42:05 is yet to come.

Why 42 minutes…?

As she asked herself this question, 42 minutes and 5 seconds of the video came and she gasped.

It was a familiar face of a long haired man talking to Volt’s group and was laughing with them. But then, when the long haired man saw the person taking the video, a notification window popped up on his vision.

It was in 42:05 time allocated.

[You are inside the Killing Zone. Your defenses are reduced by 70%]

As she read the notification, one party member shot the nanobot recording the video and the video was cut.

She knew that long haired guy.

The Destroyer.

“But…Volt and…and him?!”

In her shock, she paused the video and played it over and over again. She held her breath to steady herself as she counted from the very beginning until the end of the video just how many monsters did they actually kill.

But what actually caught her attention was the one big black lump of moving flesh behind The Destroyer.

Though it was just caught slightly on the camera, the clear silhouette of a huge monster was clearly seen.

“What is that?”

As her count reached 205 in total numbers of dead monsters, all of which are B-ranked monsters, she went on her account and told her friends she‘s going in.

The video spanned for four hours, edited, and even thought the faces of those five people weren’t clear, for those who recognized them from their silhouette and their equipments, there was no doubt that this spelled a sort of premonition that would affect them in the future.

Especially for the still yet to be launched Guild, the Tower of Sol.

Without any further ado, she logged in on the game and was immediately greeted by the offline emails.

And upon reading them one by one, the messages are all the same. They wanted her to come to the HQ as soon as she logged in. And so she did.

Upon entering their HQ…

“Thorn!” Loni yelled and the ten people in there all looked at her with anxiety. “What‘s going on?!”

“It‘s as you‘ve seen, and also, we were just in the middle of discussing it over. Please join us.” Thorn’s expression wasn’t any better than her. More like, as the Guild’s leader, he was the one who’s more anxious than anyone else.

“Just who is that other guy?” Asked the Atlas Sword Mage in the room, Hubert.

“Volt added another monster on his group.” Said an archer, Cramer. “That guy‘s crazy!”

“I agree!” Said Fuma who was sitting cross-armed on Thorn‘s left side. “When I saw that fight for the first time, I felt goosebumps creep all over my body.”

“But who is he?” Asked Hubert and as if being an Atlas Race Sword Mage affected his character, his gaze seemed to add to the mysteriousness of his dark robe and semi armor appearance. “You seem to know him well Thorn, please explain. Is he going to be some block on our plans in the future?”

“I‘m not sure.” Answered Thorn. “But the one thing I can tell is that no one can force that guy to join any group. Though he may give out some motives, we can be sure that he is not part of the Masked Organization.”

“But then why should we be aware of this guy?”

On Cramer’s question, another Archer from the Gonn Race added, “More importantly, why are you very watchful with this man?” that made the rest of the people in the room look at Thorn then to Loni who was standing on his right back side.

At that, Fuma looked at Thorn, and Thorn let go of a long held breath as he started to explain.

“Actually, from our very short meeting, I knew then that that person is going to be a strong player. There is no doubt about that, especially now that you saw how he fights. But what I‘m actually worried about is his goal. If I interpret correctly, his goal and the Masked Organization’s goal doesn‘t differ much.”

“Actually,” Fuma immediately added. “Their only probable difference is that he supposedly works alone.”

“Supposedly?” Cramer raised a brow.

“Yeah. It‘s because when we invited him over to our side, he refused with all possible reasons and had this sort of conviction that no one can actually cop up with him…probably because of his ability.”

Hubert then interrupted, “Speaking of ability…”

“Yes.” Thorn nodded cross-armed. “Killing Zone. I have never heard of such ability before. It‘s probably a Unique Ability.”

“And it‘s a dangerous ability at that.” Fuma added with a finger of conviction. Then Thorn continued.

“But his skills are real combat skills. That‘s why I foresaw that he‘s going to be a problem in the future.”

Upon hearing Thorn’s comments, the room became silent and they all cross-armed nodded. And it was then that Loni took the initiative and discuss what their main problem is.

“But we can‘t leave the fact that The Destroyer had joined Volt‘s party. This could lead to a tumor in our future plans.”

Again, the people fell into silence.

The next moment, Thorn spoke up. “I think it‘s now time for us to move.”

“But the war in the west…” Fuma tried to object but was stopped by Thorn’s hand.

“Espada is a large continent. TGG and the Sylph’s war is not going to affect much our plans. Though what I’m actually afraid of is placed on what would happen during and after the war.”

“I feel that the enemies are planning something.”

“How can you say that?”

Loni who got the attention from Hubert‘s question gave an open palm as she explained slowly. “The Black Group had also been keeping their silence for a while now. I believe that they are planning to stir up another problem that would endanger the balance.”

Thorn’s hands clenched in the table. “That‘s why I feel that we have to move quickly.”

“Hmmm…” Hubert was closed eyed with a face that told them of his serious thoughts. “If we officially launch now, the Masked Organization and the Black Group will simply not stand by. They knew our threat but I‘m afraid a war would lead from our decision.”

“Now I understand how you‘re feeling Thorn.”

Thorn kept his silence after Cramer’s comment. He then looked at the frozen image on his vision which showed the familiar silhouette of The Destroyer and he sighed before he spoke up.

“We have no choice. Can we contact him?”

The question was directed to Fuma. “I’ve tracked the location of the video to Hagonoy. We have people we can order there to keep an eye on the target.”

“Alright. Remind them to keep it stealthy. We never know, they might provoke him. Tell them to wait until we arrive.”

Hubert stared at Thorn wearing a discontented kind of expression. And those eyes lasted for a few more moments until he averted them to the table’s edge.

Just why is he so wary of this Destroyer?