Chapter 61: A Matter Of Time: Part One

I exit the Item Space and teleport right into my car.

“I’ll probably never go back to my room in the hotel until I finally check out. I’m willing to bet a hundred kk’s there’s an Assassin Class Warrior there in hiding, waiting for yours truly at this very moment.”

I drive off and start looking for D-Rank Dungeons.

“Niger has over ten thousand of them, last I checked. Though nowhere near the large number of E-Rank Dungeons, it’s still a lot of them so finding one shouldn’t be a hassle. Just need to look for a human sized green hole in the fabric of space and time, nothing special.”

I drive around District-2 and see a lot of them. Except none that are currently empty.

“Fuck… Why can’t I have privacy?”

I keep driving around until…

“Hm? Well hello there my neglected friend.” I say noticing an empty Dungeon to my side.

I drive towards it and park my car accordingly. After stepping out of the vehicle, I walk towards the site and hand my new ID over to the guards that stood watch. One of them then uses his Verification Tool to check it out. It checks but for some reason, he stops to look at me with a perplexed expression. He then looks back at my card then looks at me again. His partner as well.

I look at their nametags and they read Hugh and Barry respectively.

Hugh then speaks. “Uhm…sir. Correct me if I’m wrong but it says here that you’re an F-Rank, am I reading this right?”

“Yep.” I answer. “That’s me, the first and only F-rank in the world. Problem?”

“Well…I’m sure you understand that if that’s really the case, then we can’t allow you to enter this Dungeon without a party.” He replies.

“Oh right. That. Yeah look behind the card.”

“Behind the card?” He asks as he turns the card over to see what’s behind it. The moment he does, his entire expression changes. “Th-the Manager!? Is this real!?”

“Yeah.” I answer. “Seems he didn’t look at the card’s front carefully since it indicates there that I work for the Warriors Association as a ’’Correctional’’ Officer. That or…he may not know about the Disciplinary Committee, which would make a lot more sense.”

“I-I am so sorry sir. I didn’t realize that you w-”

“Hey don’t worry about it.” I see fit to console him seeing as he’s starting to panic.

His partner Barry also looks like he’s in pain.

They’re probably afraid that they might lose their jobs or something at this point.

“You both look tense.” I chuckle. “I’d say don’t worry about your jobs or something like that but I’d be lying, since technically, you are going to lose them somewhat after I clear this Dungeon.”

“Pardon?” Barry finally speaks. “You’re planning on clearing a D-Rank Dungeon on your own?”

“You betcha.” I punctuated nonchalantly as I swipe my ID from Hugh’s hands and start walking towards the Dungeon.

“I have no reason to hide my capabilities anymore. After all, as it stands, the only people who can pose a threat to me are S-Ranks and above. But the above guys wouldn’t waste their time with me, some newbie, so I don’t need to worry about them. Which leaves only S-Ranks, threats I can deal with easily through my overprotective Uncle who’s got a worldwide organization backing him. Not to mention the fact that with how strong I’m growing, I’m sure in a few months’ time I’ll be crushing S-Ranks like ants. I’m already capable of reaching average S-Rank level speed with Hypermove. It’s only a matter of time at this point.”

“I’ll be steamrolling through Dungeons from one Rank to another. All the way up to S-Rank!”

I enter the Dungeon, leaving the guards staring at me with flabbergasted expressions.

I find myself falling immediately after going through the portal.

“Huh. That’s different.”

I activate my flight Spell and stop to float in mid-air then look down.

“The heck?” There isn’t a down to look at. There’s no surface whatsoever. I’m surrounded by an endless sky. “I’ve heard that some Dungeons have weird environments but, wow… this is just otherworldly.”

Well, a Dungeon is technically an otherworld so I guess I should expect this much at least.

~Swoop!~

“Huh?”

~Swoop!~

~Swoop!~

Sharp sounds start travelling through the air. A barrage of gushes of wind travelling along with them. Before I even notice what they are, a spear comes flying at me at an incredible speed. It misses my stomach as I almost instinctively spin sideways to avoid it.

I look to where it came from, slowly turning my gaze with unyielding focus and there they are.

“Those are…”

Harpies.

[Report. Subject has entered the Harpies’ Domain: The Sky Fortress Outskirts. Subject will now receive an Immediate Quest…]

“Oh, now you tell me.”

[Immediate Quest contents.]

Immediate Quest: Subject must exterminate the Harpies in the vicinity within the given time duration.

Duration: 30minutes

Upon Success: Subject will be able to see the Sky Fortress.

Upon Failure: Subject will die.

Rewards will be calculated after the Quest is completed based on the Subject’s efficiency

“I’ll be able to ’see’ the Sky Fortress? Is it saying that’s it’s hidden somehow…? Welp. No time to think about that now…”

The Harpies are still attacking. Hundreds of their spears flying straight at me in mid-air while I simply just dodge, spinning and flipping around through the air with relative ease, the aeronautical acrobative displays almost mesmerizing. The ignition function of my flight Spell is helping a lot in my dodging, as it allows me to catapult myself towards any direction with no need for a surface to step up off of.

There are two alphas among my enemies and over nine-hundred normies. One of the alphas then speaks… well, ’yells’ basically…

“Haisek yosinume! Nakiier soka G’nori! Nakiier soka hiwenki!”

“I know ’soka’ and ’G’nori’ means ’the’ and ’Warrior’ respectively. So ’nakiier’ must mean ’kill’, ’attack’, or ’get’. ’Kill’ seems more like what someone would say in a situation like this. I’m able to understand a little since I memorized every single word Hayzar said to me when we spoke.”

In time, I’m sure I will have learned the whole language.

“Now then, time to get serious…”

I conjure out First Dawn from the Item Space.

“Let’s show these birds who the real masters of the sky are, ey First Dawn?” The blade shimmers, releasing a white glow as if responding to my statement. A silence follows. Then a whisper. With it, I launch my most powerful attack.

“Sunset Slash.”

Precisely nine-hundred and forty-seven Harpies’ heads fall simultaneously as they are separated from their bodies that follow.

“Yeesh… Wonder how long that’s gonna last.” I express, in observation of the free fall.

[Report. Immediate Quest: Harpy Vanguard Reduction has been completed. Now calculating rewards…]

[Mana Capacity has increased by 50000. Strength has increased by 25000. Speed has increased by 30000. Health has increased by 20000 and Intelligence has increased by 20000.]

[Now redesigning overall Warrior info…]

Name: Raid

Surname: ???

Affiliation: Awakened Warrior

Class: Blacksmith

Skills:

……

Rank: F

Level: Locked

Mana Capacity: 5 725 240

Strength: 386 250

Speed: 417 182

Health: 403 974

Intelligence: 571 740

[Final rewards are being allocated. Subject has received 947 D-Rank monster cores.]

“Noice.” I transfer all the Mana Crystals to my Item Space.

[Report. Sky Fortress is now manifesting…]

The sky begins rumbling as an entire land the size of a large city starts to materialize out of the sky. It’s as if it was hidden by the sky and is now being revealed by the sky.

“A floating fortress.” I behold.

It’s a large land, filled with a number of buildings and pathways. One building in particular is found at the very center, a castle basically, bigger than all the other buildings surrounding it. I attempt to fly down and enter the domain. To my surprise I’m stopped by some invisible force.

“A barrier.” I say noticing the flow of Mana in the air, constantly being emitted every time I touch said-barrier.

I then look down, there are countless harpies moving around the place. I can see them but it seems as if they can’t see me.

“A barrier that can warp perception? Then, what is it exactly that they see from the inside? A fabricated sky?” I wonder as I start to look around the area…

“Well, regardless, there’s gotta be an entrance somewhere around here, right?.”

I look to the front of the whole land. There is a large black temple-style double-gate seemingly made entirely out some unknown metal-like substance. There are no guards, however, although I probably could’ve killed them already.

“Chances are, the alphas from before.”

I descend over to the gate, there’s no foothold structure to stand on and open it so I have to open it while still flying. Thing is, I don’t simply push it open, rather I punch it open.

“Have I gotten a little more violent recently?”

No way.

“No way.”

The gate then shatters into multiple pieces as the impact echoes throughout the entire fortress.

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