Chapter 197 196. Reunion.

A few moments earlier.

A blood-dyed, dark maroon-haired man sat atop a massive snake's coiled-up dead body, which was in between a ton of monster corpses. The scene was too gory to describe appropriately; the monster corpses were at least 10 feet tall, and they were forming a huge, bloodied circular wall of monster corpses around the maroon-haired man, who had a leisurely look on his blood-covered ominously handsome face.

DRIP (5x)

"Huuu...." I shook my head to get rid of the monster's blood dripping down on my hair, which had turned dark maroon from all the monster blood, and placed my hand on my face to get rid of the blood dripping down from my face.

PAT-PAT

I patted the scaled body of the largest Naga I have seen in a while. The monster corpses contained Orcs, Orc warriors, Ogres, Nagas, werewolves, goblins, wolves, hogs (pig-type monsters), hobgoblins, and a ton of 'guardians' of each respective type of monster. Guardians among the monsters are ranked the highest, since they the 'strongest' among a type of monster until the other becomes stronger than the strongest.

".....2796 monsters, huh...." I mumbled as I remembered the exact number of monsters I had killed after arriving in Sector One, which had recently become a Rank-SSS gate.

I came here today because I was bored out of my mind. I was staying in Seo Hana's house after that incident, and since Seo Hana was taking care of me (?) for reasons seemingly even she doesn't know, though I wasn't expecting this kind of development, I wouldn't let go of the opportunity that presented itself to me.

I had been sitting in one corner of her house with a dead look on my face ever since she brought me to her house because I or 'Max' to be exact, was supposed to be extremely hurt. I hadn't moved a lot since I was acting depressed; at an extreme level, of course, Hana sometimes made a face that I couldn't understand at times, and since I didn't want to be bothered by it, I simply ignored her and enjoyed being comfortable in the luxurious yet cosy house of Hana. That's that, and...

"Pyre." I mumbled in a soft tone with a smirk.

[...]

A fox-like green spirit with dragonfly-like wings that shone neon green floated mid-air in front me with his face turned away from me, the fur on its back was coloured with all elemental colours that were pulchritudinous.

"Pfft, care to explain what you did?" I held back my laughter and asked him for the tenth time after I summoned him back as soon as I heard that Sector One had turned into a gate.

"So, the reason for the entirety of Sector One turning into a gate is because of my adorable and cute partner, Pyre! Yay!!! Pfft, hahahaha." I laughed out loud as I teased him.

[PI....]

"Hahahaha, hahaha." He asked me to stop, but of course, I continued to laugh.

[....PIPIII PIPI PII]

"Huh?" I instantly stopped laughing as soon as I heard what Pyre said.

"....What do mean that Erebus will come here?" I furrowed my brows and stared at Pyre who had now turned face me with a smug look on his face.

(AN: Erebus is a black furred cat introduced in ch 14 EREBUS.)

[PIPII PIPI PI]

Pyre said that Erebus wanted to follow Pyre and me, and though I don't understand Erebus's reasoning, I simply can't ignore an adorable creature that wants to come with me now, can I?

As soon as Pyre understood what I was thinking, he turned around for a brief moment before glancing back at me, and for a few seconds I heard a strong presence approaching us from afar. It didn't have any hostility towards us, so I sat still while gazing in that direction, though nothing was visible since all I could see was a mountain of corpses in front of me.

RWWOOOAARRRR

I heard a loud roar coming from afar, and it didn't take long until a 6 feet tall, huge tiger-like beast pounced towards us from a ramp of corpses on all fours. Excluding an extremely prideful aura surrounding it, the beast was completely black, had a bright blood red ferocious eye that could instil fear with a single glance, and a pair of fangs protruding out from its lower jaw.

THUMP

"....." I simply stared up at Erebus, who stood atop the Naga's head behind me and looked down at me, as a strange feeling crept up from my heart, like—how should I describe it—a proud kind of feeling? Maybe I was proud of seeing the kid I named grow up so strong and healthy.

'I can't believe he has grown so big in such a short time.' I thought, but wasn't surprised by that much, since Erebus is most likely to be a monster, if that really is the case then, it isn't all that weird for a monster to grow up so quickly.

[....]

"Mrrrw?" Erebus tilted his head, seemingly puzzled by my daze.

"Ack." I dramatically held my heart at Erebus's adorable way of tilting his head in confusion. He was still so adorable even after growing so big!

"Wait!" Suddenly, I realised that I couldn't take him out even if he wanted to follow us; he was just too big, and he would definitely attract a ton of attention if he came out of this gate. I simply stared at Pyre, smiling bitterly, and before I shook my head....

[PI PIPIPII] Pyre abruptly called out Erebus and said "transform!"

"Mrrow." Erebus nodded his head adorably and then...

POOF

A thick cloud of white smoke covered Erebus completely, and with a 'poof,' an adorable black furred creature pounced out of the smoke cloud onto my head.

FHUMP

Erebus turned into a normal black cat, but he still had a small, adorable pair of fangs protruding from his lower jaw. He landed on my head with a poof, occupying Pyre's spot so slyly that Pyre didn't even realise that his spot was stolen. I raised my hand and carefully scratched the back of Erebus's head.

"Purrrr...." Erebus's eyes arched as he enjoyed the soft strokes on his head as he purred, and since I heard him purring satisfactorily, I slowly moved my hand towards his neck and continued to stroke his neck.

"Purrrr~"

"Hahaha." I chuckled and left him like that.

[PI? PIIII] Pyre seemed to have realised that his spot was stolen as he zoomed towards Erebus and started to butt his head against Erebus's.

"Hahaha." I laughed at their bickering and called out my status window.

'Status.'

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STATUS:

MAX [ESHWAR FROST]

Level: 9 (early access) [96,762/192,000 exp.] [95, 238 exp required for the next level up.] (NEW)

CLASS: MAGE

RANK: S

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STRENGTH: 6/10--> 9/10 (+19) [RANK- S] (NEW)

CONSTITUTION: 4/10--> 8/10 (+19) [RANK- S] (NEW)

AGILITY: 8/10--> 5/10 (+19) [RANK- S] -> [RANK-SS] (NEW)

PERCEPTION: 6/10--> 10/10 (+19) [RANK- ???] (NEW)

ENDURANCE: 5/10--> 6/10 (+19) [RANK- AA] -> [RANK-S] (NEW)

INTELLIGENCE: 6/10--> 10/10 (+19) [RANK- ???] (NEW)

WORLD ENERGY: 10/10 (+19) [RANK- ???]

WILL POWER: 5/10--> 10/10 (+19) [RANK- ???] (NEW)

DEXTERITY: 7/10--> 6/10 (+19) [RANK- AA] -> [RANK-S] (NEW)

==

PERSONALIZED TRAIT:

->Frost Fire [RANK- ???]: User can control Frost and Black fire [Mastered] [Skill: Mana temperature control]

==

SPECIALIZED TRAITS:

->Creator's Domain [RANK- SSS]: User's Domain can be altered [Mastered] [Skill: Space manipulation]

->White Parasite: [RANK: ???] [Type: Item (Bound)] [Skills: <Alter> <Stealth> <Link> <Modify>]

-> ??? [RANK- ???] (Curs...) [Skill: Party, can locate party members (added party member can not be removed.)]

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TRAITS:

->Good with hands [RANK- D] (NEW) : User's skills which uses hands is enhanced [Mastered] [Dexterity increases by 12 percent]

->Hand to Hand combat [RANK- C]: increases combat sense [Mastered] [Good with hands has enhanced this trait by 10 percent]

->Human Hunter [RANK- ???] (NEW) : increases all stats by 10 percent when fighting humans or humanoid monsters [Mastered] [Increases all stats by one when condition is met (condition: 198/200--> 246/300 to next stat increase)(NEW)]

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SKILLS:

->Taboo (?)

->Pause (D)

->Release (B)

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Private Skills:

->Control (?) (Level 2)

->Author?? (?)

->Break (2 uses) [user can break anything user wishes to.] (AN: This is not a new skill!! It is mentioned in chapter 48 Artificial Dungeon (5) but I had forgotten to include it before. I have added it in all the previous chapters where I remember to have written Eshwar's system window.)

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MISCELLANEOUS:

Free stat points: 23.

Achievement Points: 11700.

Monster hunted in the past week: 2878.

Humans hunted in the past week: 0.

Number of living the user has hunted is: 99,304.

Current System influence on Earth is: 72/100.

[Time Limit: 3Y: 33D: 012H: 44M: 42S.]

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INVENTORY:

[Trishul [BOUND ITEM] [Rank: ???] [Type: TRIDENT]: Skills: Crescent moon, Third eye.]

[Devil's Shotgun [BOUND ITEM] [Rank: ???] [Type: GUN]: Skills: Quick reload, Burst.]

[ITEM: SKILL LEVEL INCREASE SCROLL.] (5x)

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