For three days, they raided the dungeons in Antarctica and acquired many S-rank items. Thanks to the boss in Antarctica, they were able to teleport with the help of the "Boss Hunter" title.
The following day, to avoid suspicion, they raided dungeons around Shizuoka, leading others to believe they had taken a three-day rest to recover from the boss fight in Katagami.
However, the duo used magic potions to quickly recover mana. Not many people considered using potions from the system due to the cost; instead, they mostly bought them from players who had taken up the alchemy profession.
Akira was resting in a dungeon. 'Two more days and the D-rank version will appear. I think the Earth Monap is the only boss monster in Japan in the E-rank version.'
Haruka got up. "Black, I am rested; I will go and kill some more monsters."
"Mhm," Akira agreed.
'These days she has surpassed my stamina. Are there some side effects due to the error message draining my energy?' Akira pondered as he gazed at the sky.
A few minutes later, he heard footsteps and looked to his right to see Haruka walking towards him.
"You came back early," said Akira. "Oh, right, your sword is with me; I forgot to give it back."
"Right," she said and extended her hand for the sword, while Akira retrieved one from his inventory. Suddenly, he sliced off her arm.
Quickly catching her remaining hand while falling on her butt, she shouted in pain and fear of losing her arm. "My arm, my arm!" she cried out pathetically as if her life depended on it.
While she cried, her full jacket turned into a colored gown, and her mask vanished, revealing another girl's face. Her entire body structure, face, and appearance changed.
'So you finally came,' thought Akira, expecting her arrival for some time; he already knew she was not Haruka.
Akira took the chopped-off hand and reattached it using his healing skill. 'I didn't expect her to cry like a coward like this. If she was from my previous life, she would have taken the arm while maintaining her transformation and ran away.'
"Who are you?" Akira asked while healing. "And why did you impersonate White Rabbit?"
She didn't open her mouth; she continued crying, not because she didn't want to speak, but because she couldn't handle the pain and fear.
"I can always cut off this arm again," said Akira.
"Wait, I will tell you. Please don't hurt me," she begged, cowardly afraid of pain.
Akira started to doubt if she was the person he knew. She was too cowardly like a normal 16-year-old girl, which she was.
"Then tell me who you are," he demanded, though he already knew.
"My name is Kana."
"Full name," he pressed.
"Kaneko Kana."
"Who sent you?" he inquired.
"I came on my own."
Akira placed his sword on her left arm, and she became frightened.
"I will tell, please don't hurt me," she cried, unable to escape her predicament. "Someone called..."
Suddenly, Akira swung his hand, and a card appeared between his fingers, stopping a dart from hurting Kana.
Then Akira threw needles towards a tree with some bushes, but Akira felt nothing from his strings.
'It must be him,' Akira thought as he quickly rushed there, vaguely sensing that man, but he disappeared.
Akira keenly observed, but another dart went to hit Kana, and another card stopped it.
Akira found the location from the direction and quickly went there, but he didn't find him; there was only a dart-shooting device placed there.
'Annoying skill!' Akira got irritated while stomping it.
Darts started to attack Kana, but Akira used all the cards in the deck to shield her. While he still tried to sense the man, Akira completely lost track as the darts were always shot in the gaps of the cards. So Akira had to concentrate on protecting her.
Akira understood he couldn't find him simply by searching, so he gave up trying to find him and focused on protecting Kana with cards while he was ten meters away from her.
The man was a few meters away from Akira, but Akira couldn't sense him.
The man was Shadow Snake. He was easily one of the top contributors to the Heavenly Snakes organization, but he was not as strong as most of them.
At that moment, Akira became very determined to kill Shadow Snake. 'If I can kill him, it will be the biggest blow the organization can get until the leader himself is killed. But this bastard is the most slippery. He has strong concealing and footwork that will allow him to disappear into shadows.'
Shadow Snake was able to put Akira at a disadvantage while he tried to protect Kana.
'I don't know why he is protecting her, but killing this guy will give me a huge contribution in the organization,' thought Shadow Snake while jumping between shadows.
Shadow Snake understood Akira was in a panic, unable to sense him by Akira's movements.
Akira was constantly looking around to see if someone would jump at them. His movements became clumsy as he didn't know whether to guard left or right.
Shadow Snake observed keenly and found his chance. 'This is it.' He fired a dart and turned into the dart's shadow.
At the same time, Akira smirked under his mask. 'I caught you.'
As the dart came, Shadow Snake tried to divert the dart so that it would hit Kana's leg, and then he would pop out and kill her.
As he planned, as soon as a card came to stop the dart, the dart changed its direction slightly, and the card missed it.
'Hahaha, success,' thought Shadow Snake before moving in to kill her. But suddenly, the scene in front of him split into two parts. One fell to the right and the other to the left.
"Aaahhh!" Kana shouted, crawling backward upon seeing Shadow Snake's body fall apart in two parts.
She was terrified and fainted on the spot.
**Error...
You killed Shadow Snake. All his inventory items and coins will belong to you.**
'You used your old trick that I've seen a lot of times,' thought Akira. 'There are still players and monsters that I can't sense. I should quickly start researching how to make this power my own.'
**Black Bear: Where are you?
White Rabbit: I am fighting monsters.
Black Bear: Abandon and quickly come to me.**
A few minutes later, Haruka came to Akira and saw the girl lying on the grass and the dead body.
"What happened?" she asked.
"She tried to impersonate you and got caught, but later we found out that this man was manipulating her. She seems to be a victim, so I helped her."
"It seems you kept your anger well in check," said Haruka, moving closer to Kana. "You didn't hurt her." But then she noticed Kana's arm, her sleeve was cut, and her arm was covered in blood. "Never mind. So what will we do with this girl?"
"I think we should invite her to join our group," said Akira casually, causing Haruka to pause.
Akira took some water and splashed it on Kana. She woke up as if from a deep sleep.
"It seems like she hasn't slept well for a few days," remarked Akira with a concerned voice, which made Haruka's heart feel a little heavier, though she didn't notice.
As Kana opened her eyes, she saw Black Bear and immediately tried to crawl back, but *she hit a tree. "Ouch!*
"Please don't hurt me," she pleaded, kneeling and bowing by touching her head to the ground. "I will do anything you ask."
"Are you sure you will do anything we ask?" Akira inquired.
Haruka looked at Akira with a face that seemed to say, 'What are you going to ask?' but she was wearing a mask, so no one saw it.
Kana unwillingly unbuttoned the first button of her gown and pitifully said, "If you are going to sexually harass me, then please do it alone and don't share me with others."
Suddenly a hand chop from Haruka hit her head leaving a big bump.
"I feel like you are expecting something," Haruka reproved her.
"Tell me who you are and how you fell in his hands?" Akira asked.
"My name is Kaneko Kana, I used to be a high school girl."
"I cannot belieeeve it." Haruka remarked sarcastically and said in a serious tone, "he didn't ask that."
"Someone rapped my big sister after the game descended," Kana said as she tightly grabbed her gown at her chest. "When I found her rapped body in our house, someone came and said he knew who did it. If I do what he asks me, he said he will let me kill the rapist."
"So you joined him?" Haruka asked.
"No, I refused," Kana yelled then became timid again. "If he saw the rapist, why didn't he report it to the police, I didn't trust him but..." Trauma kicked in. "But he slapped me and yelled at me to work under him. If not, he said he would torture me and put me in a pool of insects.
I got very scared and agreed with him. Until now, he sent people to help me level up to level 60 and he gave me to another man to use for a few days. No...not in that way, just using my superpowers.
That another man asked me to get close to you as her."
Haruka and Akira were shocked. 'Her, does she know White Rabbit is a girl?'
Akira became very anxious. 'Damn it, when did that happen? What mistake did I do?'