4 Chapter 4 Commissioned by Joe

[ Jake Barriss. Level 15]

[Mana - 50]

[Skills- Gamer's Body, Gamer's Mind,]

[Gamer's Body, User's Body reflects a game character's with the body being almost perfectly adaptive to stimuli and growth in all directions.]

[Gamer's Mind, Protects the User's Mind from mental attacks and alterations to the mental state from adverse effects while also making the user's mind more adaptive to certain magical practices that would strain normal minds.]

[Path of the Homeless Emperor level 3, Restricts all magical growth and skill acquisition and increases the cost of using magic by 100%. The user must acquire his own territory and property with the expansion of the user's territory and property lowering the debuff accordingly until the debuff is removed.']

[Weapon Master] - 1 Job Token, [Skills] [Martial Intent, enhances weaponry with intent to do harm.- Flash step, flood body and senses with mana to greatly increase power for a split second.- Giants Blade, Uses mana to extend the length of blades.]

Arianna's Grimoire from the Golden Dawn was a very potent gift. Still, in the end, it very much focused on the use of magic and with my pitiful mana pool and sheer inability to use magic itself I was still locked out from using the spontaneous magics within the Grimoire.

Like I was most assuredly not going to be throwing a fireball anytime soon... But nothing said I couldn't perform a ritual to animate a golem with several runes engraved into it that would allow the golem to shoot a fireball from its own arm or something.

"More than anything I need to get rid of this damned Homeless Emperor debuff bullshit." I cursed as I mentally glanced at the skill and although my efforts in taking over parts of the abandoned subway had paid dividends and its debuff had gone down by twenty percent it still didn't change how magic was all but inaccessible to me.

While I was sitting in a nice leather chair in one of the rooms I commandered in the abandoned subway I heard a ping from my map as that demi-god finder Arianna gave me pinged the location of a trio of monsters wandering in the tunnels nearby.

For a moment I considered ignoring them and letting them go about their business but then looking at my Weapon Master Job I groaned as I knew I needed to throw myself into problems to make it stronger... To say nothing of how the monsters were walking on my territory and making my Homeless Emperor skill itch at the knowledge.

With that final groan, I got out of my chair and left my room to make my way toward the monsters on my radar that were seemingly lost in the labyrinthian twists and turns of NYC's subterranean systems.

"Bok, I told you that nibblet would just drown when he jumped into pipes! Now look at this mess! I don't want to eat a demigod covered in sewage!" I heard a deep guttural voice complaining and I peeked around the corner of a tunnel I and saw a trio of four-meter tall Cyclops-looking monsters each with only one eye in the center of their tanned and rough faces, poking at the ragged corpse of some young teenager with sunny blond hair.

"Drok, you are the one who wanted to chase the demigod across the drainage areas so quite complaining and eat the arms and legs you called dibs on." The leading bigger Cyclops spoke and I grimaced as the one apparently named Bok grumbled with a disgusting noise I saw the giant's thick and rugged hands tear off the demigod's hand and as I stared at the humanoid monster in disgust, I could literally hear the ligaments and small bones in the teen's hands cracking as the giant ate it.

For a moment I considered running away at the sight out of disgust but as I used to observe on the Cyclops and saw they were all only level 15 and only had fire resistance as a trait... My disgust for the sight turned to disdain for the weaker monsters and I just walked out from the corner of the tunnel and as the monsters had their backs to me as they began arguing about who was going to get the honor of sucking the bone marrow out of the kid's spine I made my appearance clear when I shanked the leading Cyclops in the spine with a machete.

"Fuck you and your spine obsession." I snarled as I used Giants Blade and the machete that was from the ground up to my hips in length including the handle, had its blade almost double in size as the glowing rainbow-like mana clung to the blade and used it as a foundation to form a construct over the blade.

With the Giant's Blade technique active I violently wrenched the machete that was buried in the back of the Cyclops sideways I could feel the blade crushing and parting the monster's ribs as I pulverized it and finally I hit the softness of its heart and lungs.

The cyclops I got the drop on gurgled as ichor flooded its remaining lung and even as its legs that could no longer move under its control flexed and shot about at its ruined and severe nerves I wrenched out my machete and took a swing at the back of the neck of the Cyclops and got about halfway through before it got stuck and I jumped backward to dodge the violent slap of another cyclops that roared as the leader of the trio fell to the ground and burst into golden dust.

"You killed big boss Drok!" One of the cyclops roared rushing at me and in response, I took out a large can of Grizzly Bear-rated bear spray, and with a hiss of the can as I pulled the trigger, a thick spray of the darkened magically enhanced irritants splashed into the faces of the last two cyclops making them scream in unholy anguish. "It burns! It burns like the waters of Tartarus Bleeeeh!" They screeched with one of them giving more detail but I was more focused on putting on a gas mask as I came in with a large sledgehammer and then I brought the blinded monsters down to my size as I used the sledgehammer that was imbued with the Giant's Blade technique to make the hammers head larger to break the monster's knees.

"Tell the other monsters in Tartarus that the subway is mine," I said as I swung the large sledgehammer that had a glowing hammerhead about the size of a watermelon onto the head of the downed cyclops closest to me almost like a watermelon itself, the head of the cyclops exploded under the weight of the blow sending golden ichor everywhere until a moment later when the body disappeared into a cloud of golden dust.

"Wait! Don't send me to Tartatus, I can tell you where more monsters and some weapons, we forged are!" The last cyclops begged for its life. Honestly, the fact that it knew not to beg for some kind of mercy out of some form of sympathy showed me how much it had done this song and dance over the centuries.

"Nope fuck you, I will be glad just looting your corpses," I grunted as I hefted the oversized hammer up again, and with a loud cracking noise, the hammer's head went through the blinded cyclops head and shattered the tile beneath the monster making another mess as the monster's body disappeared.

A minute later as I cleaned up the battlefield I wore a grim smile as I took in the best drop on the ground a skill book. [Forge Master's Hide,- Grants user the ability to take on the properties and durability of metals, starting from simple copper. this skill will grant said durability and properties of metals to the user's skin and tissues. - Learnable but reduced growth until the user switches to Unarmed Combat Master.] The skill read and with a mental flex, the skill book broke apart into motes of light with it merging into my body and for a moment my body took on the color and consistency of dark copper before turning back into my normal skin color.

"Now what do I do with you..." I muttered as I took in the young teenage boy's corpse my Observation only picked up that he was a child of Apollo so with a sigh I decided that for one leaving a demi-god corpse in my territory was going to cause issues, but also secondly was also the fact that I had no idea if Apollo even knew or cared about this kid so I put on a pair of rubber gloves and took his corpse through the tunnels and with it being pitch dark outside I took him out into Central Park and literally buried him in front of a nice tree.

While also very important, I remembered to put a couple of gold coins on his eyes so he had some money to bribe Charon with to get into the afterlife faster.

"Uhhh... So I don't know your name, and I don't know of your deeds, but as a child of Phoebus Apollo, I wish you a speedy and easy reincarnation process. Become a great hero in the next life and uhm... I guess kill all the Cyclops that you come across and maybe get a harem?" I spoke really awkwardly over the very hastily dug grave I made for him before I sighed but the night sky seemed to brighten for a moment as I felt a hot ghostly hand grip my shoulder for an instant before disappearing.

[Lesser Blessing of Apollo gained. Improves the user's talent and luck with various forms of archery as well as improves the user's total body attributes by a flat fifty percent while under the sun's gaze.]

I read the blessing I got and took a breath at that very real confirmation that Apollo was in fact watching my actions or just had his attention called here when I spoke his name either way, I was happy with the blessing I got, but I didn't make a spectacle out getting it as I just turned around and retreated back into my subways.

"Those monsters said something about a group of them coming together... And that they had demi-god-grade weapons stored somewhere, probably to arm the monsters." I muttered as I reviewed the information and then with that context, I realized that likely the monster group was likely down here in the subterranean levels of NYC that were far larger than they should be. Or otherwise, maybe the monster group or the weapon storage could be on the surface in some kind of abandoned building or something.

I wanted the weapons more than the information on the monsters really... Honestly punching a monster in the face with a pair of 'Hello Kitty' bladed brass knuckles was a disgrace to all would-be heroes and my disgusting tricks were going to fail me at some point so I needed actual weapons.

"I should try to retrace those cyclops' steps through the tunnels if I can," I muttered as the sounds of my footfalls filled the dimly lit corridors for the next five minutes as I tracked how the cyclops dragged the Apollo child corpse across the ground leaving a very obvious trail for me to follow.

Finally, as the sounds of rushing water reached my ears I frowned as beyond those sounds my map began madly pinging as dozens. No literally hundreds if not thousands of small divinity signs that meant monsters, were in the direction of what I was heading towards.

"What the actual fuck..." I whispered as I looked out past the corner of the tunnel and I saw something out of some kind of monster version of a hobo tent city. Monsters of all sizes and shapes were inter-mingling in some kinda of tent city that filled the catwalks and large concrete platforms that surrounded the several large paths of water congregating to fall into a large hole in the center of the cistern that was a couple of hundred meters in width.

Taking in the sight I realized that the monsters were most definitely monsters of the worst kind as they were clearly eating human flesh from what I could see with my enhanced vision from the sight of a literal pyramid of human skulls they made in the center of their encampment.

For a moment I thought about how I could kill all of them but my eye twitched as from the filthy water a large skeletal dragon's head pushed through it and I literally just turned on my heels and left after reading the notice from my Observe. [DracoLich Level ?- Highly advised to flee at this time.] When even my gamer system is telling me to fuck right off I was going to be a smart boy and get the hell out.

But as I was jogging the hell away I realized something... Why in the hell did I need to kill them all? I literally joined a monster-hunting group to get paid and whatnot.

As I called them I realized it was the right choice as I even got a quest for it.

So with that realization out of the way as soon as I got out of my map sensory range of the monster tent city I got closer to the surface so I could call Chiron, the concierge man who brought me into the Continental's monster hunting side of business. "Hello Jake Bariss, have you called to enquire about missions or other matters?" Chiron asked respectfully through the phone.

"Sorta... Uhm I ran into a large group of monsters, easily more than a couple hundred of them down in the subterranean levels and there were a lot of human remains there from all the people they killed as well some strong monsters like a Dracolich and other things keeping me from trying to do anything." I explained as I reported on what I saw.

"Are you inquiring as to whether there is a bounty upon their lives like that Jersey Devil or just reporting the location of the monster for some kind of reward Jake?" Chiron asked and I blanked before shrugging as I responded simply with a yes to both questions he asked. "I see, then in that case as the scout who found and reported the monsters you are entitled to a ten percent finder's fee but with such a congregation of monsters, we will likely need to send out more... Thorough cleaners, would you care to join this punitive expedition though be warned that any monster drops are to be distributed according to team contributions," Chiron explained and I rose an eyebrow before I thought about watching some monster hunters in action before I nodded.

"Yes, I will join this expedition. Plus I imagine I would need to join anyway due to how much of a maze these tunnels are." I said wryly and I heard Chiron chuckle from my phone.

"Indeed. The monsters on the surface are rats that hide as best they can, but the monsters underground are arrogant with how monster hunters won't go deep into the floors to find them, as well as demi-gods, easily being overwhelmed by dozens of monsters due to their supernatural scent attracting the monsters in the confined space." Chiron explained briefly before telling me that a strike force would be called upon and sent into the tunnel entrances where I would need to lead them to the monster group.

And I was very clearly warned that whatever the strike force did to me if I lied about this call would be purely on my own head... Either way at the end of the call I got a notification that my Continental account was filled with several dozen credits.

[Monsters in the Sewers- Rank S]

[Many monsters hide in the darkness beneath the surface of the Earth, but this group has come into your sights as too close of a target, work with the forces of the Continental or other allies to slaughter all monsters in the area. - Rewards scale and differ with accomplishments of user and total competition of the goal of slaughtering monsters.]

-

You know what I expected Chiron to send a message about this strike team he was assembling I expected you to know that it would take a couple of days to round up some people or even for someone to verify my information... But no not even half an hour later as I was relaxing on my couch and watching some downloaded movies to drown out my thoughts of burying a human corpse I got a text message.

{Strike team en route to the location you designated for you to guide them. They will be there within five minutes.} The text read I wanted to groan at how damned quick it was so I quickly got my shit together as I powerwalked through the tunnels until I reached the area I was supposed to be meeting these people but as I came around a corner I froze as I saw the duo who were supposed to be the so-called strike team.

"Arianna it's good to see you again." I said wryly as her smokey eyes took in my form and I held in the desire to shiver as her 'Ara Ara' energy spiked in her tight-fitting office outfit that had its top buttons undone to expose her ample cleavage.

But standing to the side of the room with a hand in his pocket and eyeing me with a silent weight behind his gaze was someone I both greatly desired to meet, as well as feared meeting... The greatest monster hunter of this age is John Wick.

"Mr. Wick I presume?" I more stated than asked, and the man silently nodded.

"Well, big boy I heard you found a big catch!?" Arianna whispered giddily and I looked back to her and saw she was visibly shivering in excitement. "A Dracolich! They haven't been seen for literally centuries due to all of them being hunted down and having their bones ground down for obscenely powerful potions or used to make heavenly herbs grow at obscene speeds!" Arianna cheered and I wondered if that damned undead dragon was the reason she was here entirely.

John grunted and Arianna instantly shut up as the killer spoke with a voice clear with a deep concise weight behind his voice that demanded my attention. "Number of monsters, and is that Dracolich the leader of the monsters?" He questioned and I shook my head.

"I don't know of the total number of monsters honestly as I couldn't keep count, past guesses of there being at a minimum a couple hundred. And as for the Dracolich being the leader I cannot be sure as seeing it come out of the sewage waters, I realized I was out of my depths and left to put in the call." I explained and John nodded silently as he clearly thought about the information I gave him.

Even Arianna was silent before John Wick grunted. "Then lead us there, I will take point. Arianna you provide buffing spells on me and kill what you can, Jake you just keep yourself out of the line of fire, if you can help from a distance do so, but I won't save you if you get caught as a hostage." He said flatly and I nodded in silent agreement.

Then our apparent leader twitched his head to the tunnel I came down in a silent order for me to lead us onwards and I didn't say anything and just did so with Arianna powerwalking to keep up with me as John stayed a good five or so meters behind us.

"John's a pretty cool guy once you get to know him but you are a greenie and he doesn't like newbies because of how unreliable they are." Arianna obviously tried to comfort me but I shook my head.

"It's fine I get it but uh-" Before I could continue I felt one of Arianna's fingers poke me in the side and make me shiver as her dark grey eyes narrowed at me.

"So, you get my most prized possession a part of myself that I dedicated years to and after you get home you didn't call or text me!? Woe is me and the man who has used me!" Arianna said dramatically and I could literally feel John Wicks's eye roll as I tried to make Arianna take this more seriously, I learned that if anything her fallen angel heritage was more prevalent than her blood from Athena as she acted a bit like a child of Aphrodite with her social skills and appearance frankly.

Honestly... I don't know how but within five minutes of Arianna's needling she had me promise to take her to NYC's public library for a date of some kind. Even John raised an eyebrow as he bluntly asked why in the world we would go out on a date at a library.

"Well duh! Because a hot steamy date reading some great literature while snuggled up on a couch in public is just... So dreamy!" She whispered and me and John shared a look before he shook his head.

"Careful kid, she is a fiery one... No idea why she is interested in someone new to the world though." John bluntly warned me and Arianna pouted and went to slap his shoulder but the man glared at her with his eyes flashing pitch black and she cowered literally running to hide behind me with her large breasts pushing into my back as she held onto me for 'safety'

The next bit of walking was thankfully silent and I didn't make an ass out of myself in any way while Iead the two down the same way I came and finally, we reached that cistern that became a tent city for homeless monsters.

"Well, this is a right mess..." John muttered as he took in the sight of a crowd of monsters and then his eyes glowed with that same black abyss-like power but it went further as within his hands swirled pure black energies that formed a set of dueling pistols that made my senses scream at the sight and a quick observe told me why he was a fucking monster.

He had two fucking Sacred Gears both being different pistols.

[Sacred Gear- Deathbringer, forged from the bones and scythe of Hades's head reaper Pluto, this pistol shoots beams of conceptual death from its barrel.]

[Sacred Gear- Nightbringer, forged of parts from the goddess Nyx that she lost in a battle against Yahweh, this gun shoots dimensional shredding bullets, as well as the bullets, shot out of the gun are enhanced with the concept of the Night which makes so all beings not aligned with the concept of Star's or Night being incapable of seeing the shots.]

Now I knew why Arianna was terrified of John fucking Wick and now as he walked into the cistern with his presence filling the area I shuddered as both did the monsters that caught sight of John Wick's pitch-black abyssal eyes as he raised his pistols and then all hell broke lose the moment he pulled the triggers on the guns.

Beams of pure grey necrotic energy shot from the Deathbringer Sacred Gear, and all I could see from the Nightbringer's shots were just the air itself being annihilated with its passing blur of the shots crossing the distance and smashing into the encampment.

It didn't matter if the monster was a level twenty harpy, or a manticore far above my level so I couldn't even see its stats, if the beam from his Deathbringer touched the monster they crumbled into ashes. They didn't burst into the golden dust of them returning to Tartarus, they simply turned into dust.

And at the sight of their fellow monsters made into white dust or possibly ashes, the monsters screamed with them saying things like. "The Ashbringer is here! Baba Yaga has found us!" At that, I realized the monsters killed by John Wick were actually in truth truly dead and weren't being sent to Tartarus to reform. And that knowledge was utterly terrifying to these monsters as most just attempted to flee into one of the many tunnels rather than bothering to resist.

But then I noticed how those monsters that attempted to run, just ran face first into now glowing magical shields that Arianna placed in front of all the exits, so seeing how the majority of the monsters were now a fish in the barrel metaphorically I took out my long bow and started shooting arrows at the thickest clumps of monsters and with my new blessing of Apollo I realized that my arrows were striking in places much more lethal more often than should be possible.

"Not bad Jake, but try the Giants Blade technique on the bow and arrow Heh." Arianna giggled and then like using Loretta's magic bow from Eldin Ring, my Long Bow more than doubled in size and took on a rainbow hue as the arrow I placed on the bow's string grew as I pulled the bow back at an angle due to the bow being taller than I was now.

A loud crashing noise rang out as the two-meter-long glowing arrow was blasted out of my enhanced bow and with a screaming noise it tore through the air before colliding with a crowd of monsters running away from John Wick and I realized there was no retrieving that arrow as the arrow enhanced with the Giants Blade technique and martial intent violently destabilized when it was out of my grasp.

And thus when the massive arrow pierced through the chest of a cyclops the arrow violently exploded into a corona of rainbow lights that horribly burnt the surrounding monsters.

"I'm going to need better arrows," I muttered as I realized I completely over fucking looked at how useful the Giant's Blade technique combined with my rip-off Haki was. It basically looped around to follow the logic of Luffy's blowing air into his body to get bigger which somehow made him much stronger or in other words the bigger the weapon the stronger it was.

Arianna only gave me a look that clearly said 'Fucking duh!' as I mentally said screw it and kept using more arrows enhancing the Giants Blade technique knowing that arrows and bolts I stole from a sporting goods store wouldn't last me long anyway.

Still, though the star of the slaughter show was John Wick, nothing got close to him as invisible bullets shot by his night-themed sacred gear gun killed anything that dared to get close with their heads or hearts exploding and John used his death-themed sacred gear to shoot a sweeping pillar like fog of necrotic energy that made the monsters simply fall apart into white ashes.

"John Wick! You overstep your boundaries human!" A deep voice hissed and that Dracolich I mentioned raised its head from the sewage and spat out a stream of corrosive glowing green flames that attempted to wash over John Wick but in the face of whatever kind of evil flames the undead dragon was using, conceptual death won as the pillar of necrotic energies John Wick shot out of Deathbringer powered through the flames and once the energies landed on the dragon it roared as parts of it's skeletal frame began to break down.

Arianna shuddered and whimpered with a soft cry. "Noo.... My alchemical reagents!" She cried out weakly but John Wick didn't give a damn, and as the dragon attempted to throw itself through one of the magical shields to escape the room, John's Nightbringer glowed with a starry-filled darkness before a thin line of what looked like star-studded darkness zipped through the air and pierced into the dracolich's head with a scream from the undead dragon.

I saw John Wick's arm pull backward and the fucking Dracolich's soul got dragged out of its body when another line from the Deathbringer sacred gear attached to the monster's body and then with a pulse of energy from both lines, the soul of the Dracolich violently exploded killing many monsters that tried to use the opening the Dracolich opened by breaking through the magical barrier Arianna made.