47 Man among hunters

Frederick was sleeping on the floor in one of the numerous apartments, empty of any residents. Waking up from his nap, he stood up and stretched his limbs. He spent most of the remaining time sleeping. 

With his purified body, he felt he didn't need to sleep as much as before and only needed about three hours at most.

Yet, he still decided to sleep for a full five hours. This was primarily to accelerate his recovery. The second reason was that he wasn't sure if he could afford to sleep during the main story. From what he knew, the length of a main story was random. Some lasted only a few hours, while others lasted weeks, months, or years.

When Frederick finished stretching, he started to eat some jerky from an unknown source he had kept in his subspace.

Then, he started counting all his ammo and guns in the room's corner. Unfortunately, most of them were useless. In a single night, he had found plenty of weapons from scavenging places hunters went.

Most of the weapons were still bloodied, so Frederick needed to clean them first. Otherwise, he could be detected by the smell of blood. Having an extremely sensitive sense of blood himself, using a bloody weapon could also hinder his own detection abilities.

Unfortunately, he did not find many useful things. There were only a few modern weapons, such as pistols or automatic rifles, but unfortunately, all (most of them) of them were broken and beyond repair.

It seemed like hunters would deliberately break them if they saw one. Frederick only took them because he wanted to see if they had parts he could salvage.

Before the chronicles, he had never used a gun, and his knowledge of them was mediocre at best. Still, he was proficient enough to repair a single automatic rifle after an hour. 

Unlike in games, his dexterity attribute did not help at all. However, surprisingly, his improved mind helped fix the weapon.

After inspecting the now repaired rifle, he deduced that it was in good shape—at least enough to be used for now. He had fixed most of the problems, and even though the magazine was damaged, it should now be usable.

The biggest issue during the reparation was that it was extremely difficult to match pieces. Most of these weapons originated from different realms and were incompatible with each other.

Each realm had its own unique way of thinking, which influenced the design and functionality of its weapons. As a result, it was nearly impossible to integrate weapons from different realms.

Then comes the issue of ammo. Like guns, ammo was not compatible with every gun. Fortunately, Frederick found a whole box of ammo that matched his hand-made rifle. 

Frederick knew that he did not really need a gun. He could have done the same with a blood projectile, which, in addition, doesn't make any noise.

Unfortunately, despite his now current 17 attributes in mind, thanks to his latest point allocated to the mind, Frederick could only muster three to four blood projectiles before depleting his calculative power.

He knew that this was normal at the beginning. With his attributes steadily increasing, his power would grow exponentially, which would allow him to unleash increasingly lethal attacks. But it was not for now.

It wasn't much, but Frederick could also temporarily halt the movement of someone weak enough with Blood Dominion. He was sure that he could even cause internal bleeding if given enough time.

With a perplexed gaze, he looked at the window that served as a timer.

<Time 0 32 until the beginning of Main story: hours minutes>

'It's about time. Let's retrieve it.' thought Frederick as he turned his gaze toward the exit.

Surprisingly, a woman was attached to the exit door. Her clothes were in tatters, and she looked scared and exhausted. However, the most disturbing thing was that all her limbs were broken.

She was someone Frederick found luckily when he was searching for a place to sleep.

Approaching her, he smiled nicely and said in a very kind voice.

"As promised, I will free you."

She was initially frightened, but her expression suddenly changed upon hearing Frederick.

"R-Really? Thank You-" However, before she could even finish her words, a sharp blade penetrated her neck.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth gaped, but no words could come out. She tried to resist but could only cough blood until her life slowly faded away. At the last moment, she thought of the reason why she had been brought here and finally guessed it...

The man in front of him did not kidnap her to "use" her body as she thought but ... as a living alarm.

If the hunters arrived by the front door, their attention would naturally focus on her as she is the closest to the entrance. Her scream would inevitably wake him up.

But he wasn't foolish enough to sleep beside someone who could harm him. So, after bringing a candidate whose status could be seen and after confirming that their authority was not a threat thanks to his now increased perception attributes, he broke her limbs one by one. 

He then attached her to the door and warned her that if she fell asleep, he would kill her. Thanks to her sacrifice, Frederick managed to sleep peacefully.

'I don't need blood at this moment, but I should not waste it,' thought Frederick as he retrieved a small glowing orb from the corpse while planning how to use the body so that the rest of his loot wouldn't be wasted.

However, before he could store the orb, he suddenly heard hundreds of high-pitched screams outside.

'...What was that?'

Frederick's brows furrowed slightly. Those screams seemed to have triggered an endless charge, causing the hunters all over the city to charge toward a specific place.

After a brief moment of consideration, he decided to follow the crowd of hunters. Hastily gathering any useful items, he directly went outside. 

The instant he stepped outside, he activated his camouflage and blended seamlessly into his surroundings.

He didn't need to travel far to witness the chaos unfolding. Hunters of all sizes were charging down the streets, appearing from every corner. Some abandoned their meals abruptly, while others traversed the walls of buildings like spiders, all converging in the same direction.

As he navigated the streets, he progressed towards the heart of the city. The farther he went, the more the streets were packed with hunters, causing him to slow down.

Frederick stopped at an intersection and scanned his surroundings.

'Let's see what this is all about,' thought Frederick.

He then saw what was happening, and his eyes grew bigger.

A man stood alone in the center of the street and surrounded by hunters.

The man was extremely tall, with a slender, muscular physique. He had long blond hair, and his features were well-defined.

However, the most noticeable feature was the black aura that radiated from his entire body. It was not only dark but also dense. It was very similar to the veil that separated the three stages back in Dyrroth. 

The man's aura was so thick that Frederick could not see his face, but he did not need to because he knew exactly who this man was. He had met him multiple times before but under a different condition. 

His name was Antoine Tremblay, also known as Haven's mayor.

Antoine wore a golden suit that contrasted with the aura around him. A deep red partially tainted the golden color as the edges of his clothes were tattered and covered with dried blood.

Hunters jumped at him from every direction, trying to get him, but their bodies exploded into a bloody mist as soon as they touched the man's aura. 

Even so, Frederick was sure that the hunters couldn't hurt him even without the aura.

Each of the man's punches was like an explosion, instantly killing the nearby creatures. It was as if hunters were all made of sand.

Hunters were certainly not weak. Frederick was confident he could handle a group of tier 1 hunters, although it might pose some challenges. But this much was out of his own league.

The man strolled casually down the street as hunters swarmed around him, attempting to tear his head off, but their efforts proved futile. They didn't even have time to react before being instantly obliterated the moment they approached him, their remnants scattering across the ground before turning to dust.

Some of the tier-two hunters used their authority to launch long-range attacks. Tens of them would group together to fire at the man. Some used projectiles made of solid ice, others used wind blades, and others used earth spikes.

They launched their attack in unison, and the air became heavy with power, but the man merely ignored them and continued his stroll. 

Just as the attacks were about to reach him, golden shields materialized and stopped brutally all the projectiles.

Each shield was like a piece of a star; no matter how many attacks were launched at him, shields would appear out of nowhere and stop them.

Observing him closely, Frederick noticed that Antoine's golden suit shimmered brightly each time a shield was conjured. The radiance emitted from Antoine's suit was so intense that it shone through his dark aura.

'An authority item. Seeing how it protects him automatically, it must be a passive authority.'

Each of the man's movements was extremely fast, and Frederick could barely see his hands move. However, the problem was not his speed but rather his strength, which allowed him to shatter the hunters by randomly swinging his fists.

Frederick's eyes narrowed.

'This doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be possible to be this powerful at this stage. We haven't even reached the first main story... Judging by his current state, his constitution attribute should be around 30... No, perhaps even 40. And let's not ignore the expense of using a passive item to withstand all those attacks. His mind attribute must be high too.'

As he watched the carnage, Frederick noticed something strange.

'His movements are messy and look very similar to mines when I just completed the purification… It looks almost as if he is not used to his own strength. Moreover …'

The man's aura was diminishing rapidly, its once overwhelming darkness gradually thinning. Initially pure black, it now showed a hint of purple amidst its fading intensity.