-The Remnant(1)-

“Wow!!” Kenshin and Joy were just too loss for words seeing her epic usage of skill. Not only her control of it was amazing, but also her surrounding awareness was off the charts.

“She is a true genius in the way of skill usage and hunting,” Kenshin mumbled after seeing her like that. “I couldn’t agree more…” Joy agreed, too, after seeing her talent.

Chiba had already killed one of the golems with what she called [Angel Ring of Death], a pretty ironic name in so many ways. Its as she had shouted earlier. She just kept cutting until she finally shredded its core, which was located at its right elbow. It wasn’t there I the beginning, but this damn thing moved it around every time she cut where she guessed was the core.

After finishing it off, she took her second MP potion bottle as she stared at the second one, calculating her fighting tactics. She learned many things from this one fight. The day before, she only used her javelin to cause one-time damage, which was nothing to these monsters with over 2M Hp. Of course, she didn’t know the actual number. So she came up with this ring tactics, to keep causing the monster damage until it collapses.

It was magic and stamina consuming, though, which she couldn’t afford to waste like this. So she started to think of other plans. Though the thing she learned was this monster could move around its core inside its body and destroying it would kill it instantly. Also, the core had no defense to magic or physical defense, which was contrary to the outer shell. She kept looking at the other one as it paced around the decorated door, thinking of ways to kill it.

In the end, she couldn’t come up with any solid tactics and hence decided to stick with her previous formation. Taking a rest for five minutes, she stood up again and fought with the other one and successfully got rid of it. That’s where she reached her limit, though, and sat down on the floor, with 0 energy to do anything anymore.

“Guys, I have reached my limit…sorry.” She apologized while taking deep breaths. She had downed three MP potion bottles while fighting with the second one, as it proved more tricky than the first golem. It just kept spamming AoE lava skill, not allowing her any chance to retaliate. She had to run around and dodge most of the time to avoid getting burnt.

As she couldn’t get close, she could only rely on her long-range [Javelin] and [Frozen chains], which didn’t do much to the monster honestly. Her javelins were like a pinprick to the huge monster, while ice chains just melted before it could formally wound around its legs. In the end, she had to drain all her MP once and create two of those [Angel Ring of Death] and sent it towards the monster to keep killing it. The fight was a testament to her mental power and magic control.

Just as she was about to say something more, her body stiffened as she entered into a daze.

“It looks like she will reach 50 today, I hope she does,” Kenshin commented looking at her dazed state.

“By the way, Kenshin, is it really alright for her level up this fast? I think she should take this slow and master her each level’s strength gain. If she didn’t master her strength now, it would prove problematic for her future.” Joy asked in worry.

Each level up grant hunter not only benefits regarding their strength or stamina or magic, but it also strengthens their body in a very subtle way. Their skins, muscles, bones, everything gets strengthened, even their brains improved a lot. If one doesn’t take their time to master these gains after each level up, they were just wasting away their potential. Kenshin had experienced this first hand when he was nearly got beaten up by a person with half of his level and stats nowhere near his. That was a very embarrassing moment for him, as well as an insult to his monstrous stats. After that, he had to hit all the low-level dungeons around his town in order tarin each of his stats individually.

Thanks to his system, he was able to achieve it without any hitches, but these guys didn’t have a system, once they lose the opportunity, they would forever lose it. After all, who would waste their time on mastering their individual stats when they couldn’t even see it?

“That’s true…I guess I was too hasty. She needs time to adjust to her strength and other improvements. She needs to stop level up for now, and fight with lower-level monsters than her…” Kenshin muttered, thinking about those boring days where he had to fight with weak-ass monsters just to get used to his humongous stats.

“She needs to stop fighting these monsters altogether and take a breather for a few days. She has increased her magic and its density many times in these few days. It should better for her if she meditates for now to get a ‘feel’ of her increased magic.” Joy sagely muttered. He was a level 100 hunter for a long time, he knew many things that he normally wouldn’t let anyone know.

“Hmm! Alright, no prob. She can take a rest then. Tomorrow, we will come back and challenge this boss and be done with this floor. I am getting sick and tired of these fire monsters and stone golems. I want to meet those Lava Ghosts, Burning Horse, Flame Soldiers, and finally, the Red Knights. Also, I have heard there is a very powerful boss on the second floor. I wonder what it is…no info has appeared on this boss at all.” Kenshin complained as she stood up, dusting his pants as he did so. Pulling out the huge [Blackmoon Beheader] he placed it on his shoulder like a pole as he kept staring at a dark place in the corner of the huge door leading to the boss’s room.

“Why did you pull out your sword? Something happened?” Joy asked, surprised seeing Kenshin getting battle-ready.

“Yeah, a fly has appeared in my hostile sense zone…Joy, take care of Chiba. This guy seems pretty strong.” Kenshin said as he slowly pulled out his sword from his scabbard. Pointing its tip towards the dark space, he gave a stab with his sword. A red energy beam traveled from the sword tip, melting the stone path beneath as it flashed towards the dark space.

Boom!!

An explosion occurred, as the shockwaves from it caused the air inside the dungeon to pick speed. The air rippled in the darkness as a shadow flashed from within and landed a few feet behind Kenshin and Joy. Before the shadow could stand clearly, another crescent wave of purple energy came towards it, forcing it to step back, even more, to avoid getting hit.

“You are?” Kenshin asked emotionlessly as he stared towards the shadow that stood calmly a few meters away from him. Its been a few days since his [Dragon Sense] acted this crazily. The last time it happened, it was during his face-off against that kid from Sylph race.

“You are a very hard person to find, Kenshin Muto. Mm definitely hardest till now, I would reckon. But, you suck at hiding your tracks. If you were any better, I wouldn’t have found you at all.” The shadow unexpectedly belonged to a lady.

“Yeah? I didn’t expect the Kawakuchi family to send their own after me, is it because I beat up their son or something?” Kenshin said calmly, although the stats weren’t visible with his system, he could see her name as clear as day, “what do you think, Trisha Kawakuchi?”

“You, how did you know my name and origin?” as Kenshin called out her name, the lady stiffened, not expecting her target to already knew her, “Did I get exposed and betrayed? But, by whom?” questions raged in her head like tidal waves, with the only way of getting answers was from her target.

Trisha Kawakuchi, the first time in many years, felt a unique sense of danger looming over her head. A danger that she had no idea of. A danger that could fester, and later turn into a fatal problem, unless, she routed the very root of it.