Chapter 9 - USHA and a Mansion

"Ten billion dollars? Seriously? You're offering me ten billion to join the association? And you just want me to be on-call if there's an emergency?"

"Yep. I'm also willing to offer you a mansion outside of the city with personal maids, chefs, and a butler as well as a security detail composed of high-level gold-class hunters."

"This sounds too good to be true."

"Having the strongest hunter on our side will make life in America safer for everyone. With our offer, you'll be able to move how you wish, you'll gain a huge amount of money, and your wife and sister will be kept safe. Just in exchange for lending us a hand when we need it."

'Ellie, is there anything suspicious about this to you?'

[ No, all signs point to him telling the truth ]

Edward thinks it over for a couple more seconds before setting the paper on the desk and signing it. Being able to get good protection for those two is more important to him than the money, but if they're offering he'll take it!

The man gives off a big grin and says

"Welcome to the hunters association!"

He then reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and two cups, pouring himself and Edward a glass. Edward takes the glass and drinks it. The man stands up and hands Edward a reddish card.

"Sorry, but we aren't able to gather ornaum yet so we just made this out of platinum and colored it red. Once we can start gathering it you'll have access to an upgrade to your card as well as the blacksmiths that can work with it."

"Do you already have blacksmiths that can work with it?"

"Yeah, a couple of production jobs are based around ornaum. It also comes with the prerequisite knowledge of working with it. We just have yet to find any ornaum miners."

[ Note: this is because you are the only person who is capable of telling them how to mine ornaum ]

'How? I don't know how to mine ornaum?'

[ Knowledge gained: Ornaum mining method ]

"Hah…"

"Yes?"

"Ah, sorry. I know the way to mine ornaum. You've got to get a hunter who can enchant weapons to enchant a pickaxe with efficiency, weight reduction, and point sharpening. Then anyone can mine ornaum. You can also do this to mining dri-."

Edward feels a presence in the corner of the room as this person starts to move. He casts gravity magic on this person, causing them to fall down on their face. The person's invisibility wears off as they're unable to focus. It's a woman who seems to be foreign.

"God dammit, I knew there were spies!"

Edward walks over to the woman and says,

"I take it this means that other countries know about me now."

"Maybe, this room has communication jamming applied to it, so any kind of magic comms devices won't work. So at the very least they still don't have the method to mine ornaum. Sorry lady."

The man walks over to the lady and picks her up, crushing her throat, and killing her.

[ Lesser Mental fortitude evolved into Mental Fortitude ]

'I guess that's why that didn't bother me.'

"Sorry about doing that, but we can't let this get out of this room just yet. Eventually we will tell the world, when we have a decent amount of ornaum in our hands of course."

"That's understandable, so what country do you think she's a spy from?"

"Probably one of our allies to be honest but we can't be sure. Hell, it may even be a guild."

"Really? I thought guilds weren't on the red island?"

"That's a bit naive, guilds are able to have these 'Rogue-type' hunters. They're basically the perfect spy. Some can go invisible, some are experts at picking locks, hell some can see and hear you speak from miles away. They are most definitely on that island. Anyway, you've got your license and we've got our protection, your chauffeur is outside the building to drive you and your family to your new house."

"Oh, I get a chauffeur?"

"Course you do, it'll make travel easier for you, and keeping tabs on you easier for us."

The man is smiling at Edward, which with his giant beard makes him look like a statue of a lumberjack. Edward just gives a slight chuckle before reaching for the door. He stops before leaving and says,

"Oh yeah, I never got your name."

"Ah, I'm James Gardner. We should be meeting quite often, so sorry for not giving my name."

James hands Edward a business card with his phone number, email, and work address on it.

"Call me if you ever need to get into a dungeon."

After getting the card, Edward walks outside and sees a group of people outside the door waiting to come in. They are equipped with a body bag, blue latex gloves, and a medical bag.

'Damn, they're ready huh.'

Edward walks past them and out of the building, meeting the same man that drove him over with the same car. The man gives Edward a smile and opens the door for him.

'This feels a little too fancy for how I used to live. I guess I should get used to being treated like this.'

Edward justifies this in his head while having a childish smile on his face, which surprisingly fits him because of his clothes that are too small.

"Sir, would you like to go shopping for clothes before going to the hotel?"

"No, go to the hotel first. I know absolutely nothing about fashion. If it weren't for my wife I'd be dressing in sweats every day."

"Haha, of course sir. So hotel first and then clothing shop?"

"Yep."

They arrive at the hotel to pick up Ruby and Peppy, and see that the hotel has been overrun. There are multiple kinds of monsters pouring in, including some that Edward has never seen before. Edward jumps out of the car and equips his armor and sword before charging forward, cutting, burning, and piercing his way through the horde of monsters. Edward cuts the head off of an orc while piercing the skull of a purple demonic looking monster, and burning a brown ape creature to death. This kind of dance continues for a few minutes before every creature in his path is dead. He uses bloodlust on the rest of them, which causes them to move away from him. He gets to the floor he and his family were on and sees that it also has monsters on it.

'Ellie, where is Ruby?'

[ Individual Ruby, as well as the remaining hunters are currently on the roof of this building. I suggest the purchase and use of area freeze to freeze the entire interior of this building ]

'Do it.'

Edward feels the knowledge of this spell creep into his brain, as well as how much area he can freeze with this. He sends magic out of his body into every corner of the building. The building slowly starts to feel slightly colder. A group of monsters can be seen trying to break through the door onto the rooftop, with a group of hunters creating a wall between this door and the civilians. Suddenly the monsters seem to stop for a bit before seemingly trying to run away from something. They start using skills on this door, and in a couple seconds they break through. The hunters flinch in fear a little, but notice the monsters look extremely frightened by something. Then, they hear a slightly crackling noise and spears of ice start to explode from the monsters bodies. One of those brown apes is still alive, and seems to be celebrating having survived. But then it looks toward the door and sees a set of glowing white eyes walking toward it. This set of eyes is revealed to be a human in a set of black armor. The ape tries to run from the human, even willing to jump from the top of this hotel to escape him, but it quickly learns that no matter how far it ran, he would kill it. Edward casts gravity magic on this creature and walks over to it slowly. He grabs the creature by its neck and lifts it up while gravity is weighing its body down by 10 times what earth would. He brings the creature closer to his face and says

"You're lucky I got here before you hurt them, or I wouldn't be nearly as merciful."

[ Lesser Imp slain x17, Goblin slain x32, Orc slain x14, Great Ape slain x19, Minotaur slain x5, Greater Orc slain x2 ]

[ Level up x 12 ]

Edward drops the creature, which cracks the roof underneath it, before stomping its head in to finish it off. The hunters look at each other with wide expressions before collapsing to the ground in relief. Edward removes his helmet, and stores it before running toward the group of hunters.

He sees Ruby's red hair huddled down, hiding Peppy's face. He walks over to her and puts a hand on their shoulders and says,

"Don't worry. You're safe now. You won't ever be in danger like this ever again."

Edward, Ruby, and Penelope make their way down. Ruby is shocked by how many creatures Edward killed with a single spell. She knew that stuff like this was possible, but only ever imagined high leveled gold-rank hunters doing this. She then remembers what exactly Edward is. Her thoughts shifted from it being unbelievable to this being not even a fraction of what he's capable of.

'Ellie, why was the hotel the only place that was attacked?'

[ Answer, because this place had the highest concentration of hunters of anywhere nearby ]

'So, monsters attack places with a lot of hunter over others?'

[ Yes, they want to kill hunters so they can gain experience and grow into more powerful monsters ]

'Just like hunters huh.'

Edward, Ruby and Peppy get into the car, and sit in the back seat with Peppy being in the middle.

"Change of plans, we're going to the house now."

"Right away sir."

"Edward, where are we going?"

"I just got a new job, with some major benefits. We're going to see one of them right now."

Edward smirks at her. Peppy lifts up her head for the first time since they left the hotel.

"WOW BUBBY YOU LOOK SO COOL!"

She sees Edward in his new armor and reaches out to touch it. Edward realizes that he forgot to store the armor after leaving the hotel now. He says to her

"If you think that's cool, watch this."

He brings out his helmet again and hands it to her.

"WHOAAAAAA! CAN YOU MAKE ME A SUIT OF ARMOR TOO???"

'Ellie?'

[ You could buy the skill ornaum smith for 100 points and make her a set. Or you could use 300 points for a kids set of ornaum plate armor ]

"Tell you what, I'll make you a set when we get to our new house!"

'Purchase the skill.'

[ Skill gained: Ornaum smith ]

After about an hour of driving, they come to the front of a very modern looking mansion with a beautiful front garden that's currently being worked on by a man and woman. They walk in through the front door and are greeted by a white interior with a crystal chandelier glistening in the light. A glass wall in front of them has an indoor waterfall in it, with several small fish at the bottom.

"Edward, is this the benefit you were talking about?"

Edward is smiling like a kid in a candy store and says

"Yep. It's one of them, the car, driver, and the people here come with it."

After a few more minutes of convincing her that he didn't do anything illegal, they start to move into this new house. Peppy starts running around the garden saying hi to all the new people in around her, introducing herself as the next platinum ranked hunter… PEPPY!

And life calmed down for a while. Edward went hunting and practiced all of his skills in the meantime, evolving most of them. Peppy got her set of black ornaum armor, and he went ahead and made a red set for Ruby too.

Life continues like this for two months. Edward evolved almost all of his skills to their greater counterparts, and gained an additional 14 levels. Then he suddenly gets a message appearing in front of him.

[ Edward, it's time to hunt ]

'Is something wrong?'

[ In a year, the dungeons will start to become more plentiful, and the monsters inside will become more powerful. This will signify the start of the second stage of the calamity ]

'Go ahead and distribute the unused status points half and half between agility and vitality'

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[ STATUS]

Name: Edward Knight

Race: Greater Human [ 8 / 10 ]

Title: Ornaum Hunter

Level: 87

HP: 13150

MP: 224000

Strength: 890

Agility: 840 - 1255

Dexterity: 840

Vitality: 900 - 1315

Perception: 840

Wisdom: 2240

Unused Stats: 830 - 0

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Active Abilities: Slash, Stab, Sprint, Lesser Shield Attack, Greater Mana Manipulation, Fire magic, Water magic, Earth Magic, Spatial magic, Analyze, Creation Magic, Jab, Bloodlust, Area Freeze, Tracking, Mapping, Marking

Passive Abilities: Ornaum Privilege, Greater Pain Tolerance, Mana Sense, Greater Battle Concentration, Greater Mental Fortitude, Greater Sword Mastery, Greater Shield Mastery, Ornaum Blacksmithing

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Items [ Merged with Spatial Magic] : Ornaum shortsword, Ornaum kite-shield, 45 Ornaum ingots, 3 low-grade h-potions, Broken brigandine, Ornaum plate armor

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Mana Pathways Open – 4 / 20