-Vol 6: Dusk Of An Era-

-Outbreak(6)-

“Before you came along, we were busting our ass off and fought with that creature from tooth to nail. You, who just delivered the final blow, have no right to hog all the loots of it. That’s why spill out whatever you find from it so that we can distribute among us.” The man with ax named Taka came along with a frown, followed by two other, and gave Kenshin a glare.

“Taka, all you did was hide behind Hack’s back and deflect a tentacle now and then, and you call that fighting tooth to nail, if anything, its Hack who did all the work. If he isn’t saying anything, what right you have to voice your opinion?” Satoru asked angrily, showing disgust on his face.

“E, even so… we are here fighting this monster for this long, and yet this man just waltzed in kill-steal out prey, how can we tolerate it? Did our hard work meant nothing?” Taka faltered at the accusation, but soon found his voice when he remembered the hardships he faced for those 15 minutes by the hands of these two devilish monsters.

“That’s right, we all spend so much time by making it wounded, and this man just came in suddenly and kill it. Since it's like that, he must give out the drops from it, as it was us who engaged the monster in the first place.”

“You guys!!” not to mention Satoru, even Hack and the few who understood their situation made a face as if they couldn’t believe this was happening. As for Kenshin, he had an expression of someone looking at monkeys in the zoo.

“Hack, Satoru, let’s go to the east wing of the island. I heard there was a signal center there, we must notify this to the main office. The appearance of such red-clothed drops wasn’t exactly normal, we should warn them of this.” Kenshin said, before walking away towards the east side of the island.

“That’s right. If it appeared here, there might be a chance that it had also appeared at other places, we must warn them of the things.” Satoru followed behind Kenshin, feeling worried about the future and the red-clothed drops.

“Guys, its just my theory, but what if these things had already appeared on other dungeons too?” Hack asked as he followed behind, leaving behind the bunch of complaining individuals as if they don't exist at all.

“I already knew that, and I am half sure that these things already appearing on these level 10+ dungeons. We can only hope that those powerful hunters won’t be greedy and first observe it before touching those red packets, sigh.” Kenshin hoped so, but he was sure things would definitely go south, hunters may be strong and intelligent, but their greed also doesn’t have any limits. If they couldn’t control themselves and carelessly touched one of those, well, unless there was another person who can stop them, that whole place would be slaughtered by them.

It would be the repeat of the Yonezawa incident all over again.

In another place, inside a glass-walled room, lay a chair where the kid from Sylph race was sitting. His hands were tied by a glowing cuff. The same was for his legs. The cuffs of his hands were bound to a belt attached to his waist. His eyes were closed, seemingly unconscious.

Beyond the glass, two people were standing while observing him. One of them was the old man who rescued Kenshin and took the kid while the other was a young woman with a red-eye tattoo on her forehead. She wore a long mage-like robe and a pointy hat. Her lips were covered in black lipstick, and her eyes were shadowed in red eyeliner, she held a book on her hands which have a small skull that seemed to be screaming, looking extremely lifelike.

“Hmph! Who would have thought, this pretentious guy would be the so-called prince of Galera, the Mysterious City of Sylphs? It makes me wonder, who had the balls to throw him into jail? And also how did they get away with it till now, sigh, a mystery indeed.” The woman softly said, throwing a glance at the now unconscious kid.

“Maybe someone of Sylph Royalty. No matter which race it is, competition for the throne would always be filled with treachery and brutality. I guess it’s either his cousins or maybe one of his wives, who knows? And besides, I don’t care.”

“Haha, you old coot, you didn’t change at all.” The woman laughed gently.

“Please, you are the last person I want to hear that from, and you are way older than me, why are you keep calling me old… ouch!!!” before he could complete his sentence, a sharp pain was inflicted upon his stomach, making him douse over while holding his sides. After dry heaving for some time, the old man glared angrily at the lady who looked like nothing happened, “what was that for, you old hag? Do you think your nudges are like a delicate woman’s? Get real hag, not to mention nudges, your caresses might even scrape diamonds… ouch!! I am sorry, I am sorry!!”

After giving the old man an ‘iron-claw’ to his face, the lady turned around and gradually proceeded to leave the place. Her parting words, though, rang in the room, “Taisho, you better be prepared for what’s coming. The first phase had already started, sooner or later, the barrier will be thinned, and they will enter to retrieve their prince. Once that happens, your world might fall into the danger of annihilation… do what you must. Either way, you only have one month to prepare.”

“…” the old man sat silently, processing the woman’s words. In fact, he knew this was coming the day he retrieved the kid. He had seen that glowing pentagram rune-isque drawing, which glowed brightly that day. But never had the thought it will be this soon… the sylphs really work fast. Then he threw a glance at the unconscious kid before signing once more, “I wonder if blackmailing would work against them…”

…

“Chiba, go to our home and take your mom and Miss Yui to the safe underground shelter. I am going to Ellie’s school to retrieve her and Axel. Then we will meet up at the underground shelter behind the DCM main office. Tell Miss Yui to not worry about Ellie, I will be with her, got it?” Joy shouted as they both running at full speeds towards their homes. After encountering that weird black thing, and killing it after a lot of hardships, they realized that those things were appearing worldwide. As such, they took the closest bullet train and returned Mito immediately.

After coming to Mito, they found it was relatively unharmed. But still, before these creatures were all eradicated, the government had called for a mass evacuation to the safe shelters. And that’s what Joy and Chiba planning.

“Do you think Mito is safe because it doesn’t have a Level 9+ dungeon? If that’s so, I think we don’t need to evacuate, do we?” Chiba asked curiously.

“If its really as you said, then Mito is safe. But what if it isn’t? The government as well as DCB, they don’t want to take that risk of the unknown, especially with the lives of hundreds of thousands of people at stake. One Yonezawa incident is more than enough to last a few centuries to come…” Joy said as they took a sharp turn to the left and jumped over a few buildings like ninjas. Not to mention Joy, even Chiba, somewhat enjoyed doing it.

“That’s true. A shame I couldn’t level up to 100, or else I would have helped with fighting in front lines more efficiently.” Chiba sighed, shaking her head.

‘Miss Chiba, what you said now, please don’t ever say that loud to anyone. You will be cursed to death and drown in spit of thousands of hunters who are struggling for many years to even reach level 50.’