"I think it's time for me to finally retire."
The prince stopped in his tracks, his eyes half bored and uninterested at what the elder woman had to say. Nonetheless he still listened. Even commenting his thoughts when the old priest kept her silence for an awkward amount of time.
"Haven't you said that five times this week?"
"I have, dear, my age has faded but not my intrepid, cursed memory."
The prince stopped looking at the books at hand and smiled instead. "So do it. Unlike every dragon in the bloody history of our kind, you can actually pass away on your deathbed." Like a coward. He mumbled
Lightning erupted from the widened sleeves of the monster priest. "And leave without an heir to the empire? I rather die in the most gruesome death, than think of you or any other being as capable enough to rule what the last Emperor has left behind. Else may it all rot into corpses and the only thing left behind is nothing but wretched useless dragons from the likes of you." She soon got up from that stubby old chair, walking with old scaled feet and a ceremonial dress burned at the end of the hems.
When she finally closed the door is when the prince threw out his book and burned the place up in flames. The priest cared not for such tantrums as the floors melted and the walls turned to dust.
Although one being did, in a different way. He looked on to the fire around it and the way it burned every being in its vicinity. Without even thinking about it, he grabbed the fruits by his hand, stole them in the garden outside of such a luxurious castle, and snuck away with the scattered smoke.
This time, the priest's eyes followed something, a red streak of hair, ruby crimson filled with dirt and ash, the most vibrant color of blood filled with the mud of the earth. Like the soldiers' wounds in the battlefield, a dragon's carcass laying deep for mother nature and its worms to feed on it.
The only thing was that it happened to be alive and kicking. Alive and stealing.
And the priest glared back.
___________________________
"After this raid, I think I will retire."
Kang-Dae turned to the side with an indifferent look on his face. "You've said it last week." He said as he went back to watching a k-drama series on the couch.
"I know… I know ." She looked at the hunter card on her wallet, quietly sitting down in the chair, placing her hands on the old table where they've eaten ever since they were kids. Her hunter ID showed her photo from when she had just recently gotten out of school. A 19 year old with a shy but excited smile. Nowadays she can hardly get herself to think of any happy thoughts when the topic of hunting is brought up. It's getting better, and it's not like she has lost the very reason to be happy, but it's not the ear-wide grin she used to have.
"I just need to check up on someone and then… then I'll leave."
The older one got up from the couch, something in his body being alarmed as she said that. Gut feeling? Was it called that? When something wrong was about to happen? And wasn't it all superstition?
Whoever it was if the human body had been alerted then he couldn't just wave it off.
Unfortunately, a message popped up at the top of his head that made him hesitate.
[A new Player has been found.]
[A foreign entity has been found.]
[A foreign entity has been found.]
Two enemies and one possible Monarch had come from who knows where and decided to finally make their presence known to the System.
Thankfully they weren't in Busan, but their presence is around Korea.
Kang-Dae turned to Ju-Hee, who was now on her phone looking at the Association’s new gate she had been assigned.
"Is it in Seoul again?"
Ju-Hee nodded. "Hum? Oh yeah. Just around where my old apartment was… oh, that's right, didn't you want to use that apartment now that you are going to work there?"
Kang-Dae just ruffled the side of her head. "Being here is enough." This way he wouldn't have any trouble protecting them until his troops got here. A castle would be more preferable actually, instead of a simple house or an apartment that was far less adorned than a peasant's home from his dimension. But if the humans liked it here, he would deal with that.
Ju-Hee smiled a bit more at that before shifting her face to the hour. "I've gotta be there in 40 minutes."
…
He sighed and let the wings sprout again. Another trail of thoughts appeared on him as he saw Ju-Hee's tiny smirk when she got on top of him. A hint of annoyance and grimace swirled in him.
As they both dashed through the cities, Ju-Hee added. "Oppa really is fast. Maybe he should be a taxi!" And laughed as soon as she saw Kang-Dae's face turned sour.
So that's what it was.
"I will drop you here."
"Bad taxi service."
"You—"
______________________
BAM!
SLICE!
The lighting attack had been cut in half by a single strike of the Monarch's hand. With little effort he went around destroying the other hands that the monster created as it tried to reach the Monarch's body.
"You think silly attacks like this are enough!?" The Monarch grabbed from its inventory a golden ax before dashing forward to the monster in front of him, dodging the rest of the flame whips and tentacles that sprouted out to get him.
With a smile on his face. A bloody smile filled with hunger to the brim, the ax was swung and instantly ended the life of yet another apostle, as its body was cut in half and the force of his own swung managed to break the sound barrier, creating shockwaves on their own that made some of the muscles from the monster-possessed-apostle explode.
Leonardo's smile faded as soon as it was over, a grumpy and disappointed expression rested on him instead, but the thrill of the bloody battle had been enough for today. At least these ones tended to pose more of a fight than the A rank dungeon bosses from his daily basis. And this one's also weren't, you know, his kind.
His sharp eyes glowed a hint of golden and white light as they scanned the mountain range near the alps. Two cowards have run away. Looking at the way those two were gone it seemed that they were heading to the far east of Europe. He wouldn't mind hunting them down some more however he still needed a small break to gather his mana after fighting like— what? 15? 20?
Leo looked to the side of the mountain range and started counting. "1,2,3,4,5….26,27 and 28. So they came in a pack of 30? Huh. Ain't that unusual." He clicked his tongue and pulled out the system again with a snap of his fingers.
"Call Devi— I mean, The Monarch of Plagues." His phone sadly fell out of his pocket while he was fighting them. Now the only option was to call them through the system.
Another person popped up after a few seconds, their messy locks and tired face indifferent to him or to the blood that stuck around her.
[I told you to call for emergencies. I'm in the middle of a raid.]
"Aw too bad. And it is important."
[If it's about your dog being sick—]
"I've got new info about the… um fellow enemies I told you last time."
The eyebrows on her face rose a bit. Leonardo continued as he grabbed one of the remaining corpses whose soul and body started to scatter like ashes.
"Alright so these guys are apostles apparently. They call themselves that. Or 'The guardians and heavenly messengers of our great gods and creators' Yada Yada. They kept spewing about that time and time again."
[Children of Itarim.]
"So, us."
[A disgusting way of putting it. I'd rather be related to my mother than being close to that dead bastard.]
And to think she had been left to die when she was born. Even so, both had chosen to become the dark fragments of this world, to mix their bodies with those of their past lives, to become one with the darkness and in the end, be children of a monster that only seeked enjoyment.
"...Well anyways I tried to ask what brings them here."
[Jolly, I'm sure they will tell you all their evil plans while attacking you.]
"They did." He smirked.
The Plague Monarch was dumbfounded.
"They said that since our creator no longer exists we could seek shelter alongside another creator."
The Plague Monarch laughed to the point where the other guild members beside her were mildly disturbed about her. She was always talking to herself, that was nothing to care about, the usual. However these ones where a new group she had been training for a few days, so only those who had heard about her personality before hadn't been suddenly scared as she erupted in a sheer laughter until her breath was gone. Still, every emotion out there had a hint of fear behind their eyes.
"...Hey might want to lower it down. You know, before I see you in a psychiatric ward."
She turned to the place where Leo was looking through the system, and promptly began to shout at her guildmates.
[What are you all standing around for!? Get back to work!]
…aren't you doing the same?
"Right so um. I said to fuck off, and they decided to propose a better idea." Once their embarrassed-apostle selves had seen Leonardo laugh in the middle of their speech.
[Mn, and what was it?]
She wiped her tears with the smile still on her.
"They aren't our enemies right now, frankly because they don't know about—" Her face was stern again. "Right, so, they were looking to see if they could cooperate with us in order to bring down our 'common enemy'."
He didn't need to say who that common enemy was already.
"It does sound like a good bargain to some extent. Take care of our problems and we just have to bow down to another celestial being."
[Both of them are horrible choices.]
"For you, yeah."
She blinked for a second.
[Don't tell me you…]
"No." Not yet. "I was just thinking that there has to be one less horrible decision to make."
[Yes. The third option: wait for all the Monarchs to be reunited so that we can crush all of our enemies. First the Rulers and then the lower shits.]
Leo's face darkened.
"And what if they don't come soon? The Rulers are already getting the advantage by having their little vessels run around and playin with that like chalice of shits. We are inadvertently having to help the humans out in order to not be found out, the Destruction and Shadow Monarch have been nowhere to be seen and frankly, I'm getting tired of these new enemies coming out of nowhere in the middle of the day!"
[...Calm down you wet mut.]
He did, to his own surprise he did.
"Not to mention two already escaped my grasp." There were too many things he needed to say first that he had just forgotten about the main reason why he had called. "They are heading your way." Leo just sighed and sat down next to a pile of debri.
[I'll look into it then.]
He disconnected the call not soon after.
"I'm getting tired of this world."
And getting tired of seeing the Rulers desperately try to keep it alive again and again.
_____________________
Two of the five people she had escaped with in the Double Dungeon incident, were here again. She didn't know much about the second person, but she did know the first.
Kim Sangshik. The person that had left her and Mr Song to die for themselves. For his family, he said, to live for them.
She too had a family to live for, she too had lost enough and didn't wish to keep adding more graves for her grandparents and brother to visit.
Not that he cared.
Ju-Hee wished to be able to get mad right there with him. Sadly, as she looked back to the incident, she also looked back to her own mistakes.
Jin-Woo sitting upon the altar, his sliced leg, blood mixed with hair, injuries that could never go away. A young man who died and never looked back as she ran away. Not that he could, since his frail body would only hurt more if he kept moving.
Unknowingly, Ju-Hee had started clutching the essence stone inside her pocket.
"Are they a bother to you?"
"Ah!" Right, she had forgotten her brother was also here. Too much thinking about the incident was bound to bring up bad memories. She had already been pestered by her therapist to not think about those things, and if something were to trigger it to simply take deep breaths and turn away from that place as quickly as possible. Of course, they had also said to stop being a hunter, in order to let her mind take a break from all the fear.
She listened, just that she felt it wasn't the time yet.
…Maybe until I… Ju-Hee looked back at her brother and asked him to come closer, to which he reluctantly did.
" They were the ones who were with me on the incid— hey! Wait wait don't go there Oppa!— Oppa–"
A sudden pressure wave of mana burst out. Everyone who wasn't a Hunter felt the air thicken out or the sunlight suddenly get hotter. But for the Hunters it felt as though they just entered the pit of a volcano.
But its experience was short as a new voice appeared from the rear.
"Miss Ju-Hee!"
"Ju-Hee and… Kan– Ahjussi."
"Jin-Woo! Mr Song!"
She purposely blurred out Jin-Woo’s name first in order to attract her brother's attention. A plan that worked efficiently as the atmosphere grew back to normal again. As a sigh of relief escaped from her lips, she stopped holding back her brother and instead headed to the opposite direction where Jin-Woo and Mr Song had just come from.
"I guess we will be working together again."
Jin-Woo smiled, a small case of deja vu coming back to her and all the times she and Jin-Woo paired up with each other. However unlike before this smile seemed more genuine, relaxed. It was less terrified than when he came to greet her each time, carrying his backpack around with first aid kits and holding back the sour expression in his eyes of a man that came back to hell again. Once again, working together meant Ju-Hee would have to pour half his mana on him more than the rest. Thus he would often shrink his head down as an apology and say the same thing.
"Please take good care of me" Just often translated to "I'm sorry again, but please don't let me die."
Right now, he stopped his lips before finishing the sentence and just smiling back at her.
Right the backpack… Ju-Hee turned a bit to the side. Did he forget it?
"Um Miss Ju-Hee. Who is…" She looked to where Song Chi-Yul stood, pointing to the taller man behind her, wearing a red trench coat around him, sunglasses, a hat and a red bundle scarf.
A shy smile appeared on her face. "...My brother."
Blink twice if you are being held hostage. Would have been anyone's thought upon seeing him.
It took a while for Mr Song to peer his worries, and eyes, away from Lee Kang-Dae.
Thankfully the Lee name was something very common in South Korea, so a lot of the people didn't connect Lee Ju-Hee with the new S rank. And since the association had done a better job on keeping his image secure while he kept hunting down ignored gates, then it was a win-win situation for all those involved.
His face was still widely known though. The teens and young women everywhere seemed to not let it live down no matter what.
Oh if only they knew…
"As for the rest." Mr Song took a second glance at Kang-Dae and then diverted it towards the rest of the people that had been called here. His eyes only widened as he noticed Kim Sangshik and the former hunter that had been with them on the incident.
He seemed to be the only one here to be able to hold his temper while the rest of the younger ones were still huddling closer to each other and glaring back at the two men that sweated like chickens near a KFC.
Because of this, once they finished greeting each other, Mr Song went over to discreetly, politely, greet them also. Jin-Woo moved closer to the other two instead.
"Is Ahjussi going to work with us today?"
"No." He replied with a sharp tone of voice. The Dragon Emperor doesn't work with anyone and he already has two bigger pains in the ass that are getting closer and closer to Seoul. For a moment he does ponder as to why the Ruler hasn't done anything yet, before all the sudden a strong wave of mana comes in the near east.
He looks back to Ju-Hee, ready to leave and let Jin-Woo take care of her in this dungeon– even when the 'gut feeling' hasn't stopped since this morning— when another car pulls up and a new scent spikes the hair on his neck.
Because if surprise was a dish then today they had just entered its restaurant.
_____________________________
"Disgusting." The Priest says. "You have the most disgusting smell a dragon could ever have."
The little boy with dark patches asks just what kind of smell she is talking about, and the priest answers.
"A clean one. There is no blood in your hands whatsoever, there is no thrill in your bones, there is no lust in your soul, there is nothing in your pathetic dragon form that seeks to kill. Yet you steal from kings."
The boy bows its head, blood and red hairs mixed in under the plants of the forest. "Even when you've been sliced over and over again, do you feel nothing?"
"...I promised I wouldn’t hurt anyone."
"And who did you promise that to?"
The child from the slums tilted his head forward, the dragon priest leaned in, curiously so.
A spit was thrown to her face. "No one you need to know."
Indeed, the smell for this dragon was clean and pure. His hands had not dared to hurt another being, his teeth hadn't drained the life of any animal or denizen here.
But that doesn't mean he was weak, it doesn't mean he would cower to the grand dragons that killed his kind when they thought themselves as superior.
He of all the species was the strongest. The priest, if she had had more wisdom than ego, would have noticed it.
Why would a dragon in the form of a child be here? In the garden? Taking specific fruits and crawling away with them instead of flying up and hiding in the trees?
Why had his hair been as red as the strongest fire? His eyes ember and bloody colored as the moonlight covered by the sun? How had it been that this child endured so many whips for his punishment of stealing those fruits, and yet had come back here again and again until the priest herself chose to reprimand him instead?
The answers appeared as the child had been punched to the ground and choked on his blood. The whip had been ready to injure him to the point where his legs couldn't move, and as the lash struck…
A giant form appeared instead.
After night, guards had appeared to search for the priest in the forest where the river dragons lived.
Red eyes hidden among the veil she wore, staring back at the next victim. The prince on the throne.
________________________________
A scent for killing one's species was always a strong smell for dragons. It was something they valued and evolved to be wary about. The scent of the blood that appeared on one's hands would mix in with mana, and like a soul attaching itself to its killer, its small scents would permeate them for the rest of their life. Therefore the more kills one had the more feared he was.
This didn't directly mean he was respected or even liked, just feared.
It seemed that the smelling quirk also worked on those who were human. The Lizards back at the dungeon had a repugnant smell all together, and these ones had— well only three of them had some sort of smell— a thickness not found in the ordinary person. The one with the highest rank far bigger already repugnant the moment he got out of the car, the rest were a drop from a gallon.
And the fourth one was… something else. This time it wasn't any of his senses talking but that 'gut' feeling again, going completely unchecked. It should stop twisting his guts so often, maybe he should actually get this checked? Either way something was off, and by the look of their outfits and chains, he was right.
Prisoners. Criminals. Apparently a thing in this world. If they were so much of a pest in our society we would have just killed them.
The man winked back to Ju-Hee as they passed by them and into the gate. The ladder cringed, huddling a bit closer to her brother while Jin-Woo threw back a cold glare.
Not that it was needed considering the pale fishbone that he had become as soon as he met someone else’s eyes.
___________________
"Agh. Furry bastard."
Devi cut out the rest of her work to her subordinates while she flew out of the dungeon and towards the side of Eastern Europe. Her sense was far weaker than the other Monarchs but it was enough for her to sense tremendous amounts of magical power around her while she flew at the speed of an airplane to the last location Leo had said they were found.
After a few hours, a pair of soft firefly wings stopped their buzzing as she stood present in the outskirts of the middle east.
"There's nothing." Her eyes surveyed the border for a good while before calling up the other Monarchs. "Call the Iron Body Monarch and Frost Monarch."
[Hm?]
[...]
One of them was just waking up from its beauty sleep, another was still writing who knows what inside a laboratory.
"Where are you two right now?"
[Cambodia]
[Chile]
Devi sighed and closed the chatroom. No reason to keep on talking and no reason to tell the others why. She placed one hand on the floor and extended her wings.
['Skill: Echo Emission' is activated.]
['Skill: Race' is activated.]
['Skill: Metamorphosis' is activated.]
In a second she vanished from the country.
In two, maybe three days, she had gotten the whereabouts of the apostles, and from then on it only took five more hours to get to Chuncheon.
~~~~~~~~~~
A/N sowy for the late updtaes as always~
It will happen again I'm sure.
UwU I wanna scream after suho just got announced *spoilers spoilers spoilers* MY SHIPPING IS THRIVING EITHER WAY!