Sometime later, Haruka opened her heavy eyes. Her body was drained of all mana that could be drained by normal means. A player could only use 70% of his total mana reserves; any more would lead to major side effects.
If Haruka had missed the timing, the system would have forcefully drained all mana due to the power of the SSS rank skill.
Before she opened her eyes, she realized she was lying on Akira's lap. She knew Akira couldn't see under her mask, so she decided to enjoy the company.
"You are awake, drink this," Akira said, taking out a potion bottle from the inventory.
Haruka raised her body in disappointment and asked with demand, "How did you know I woke up?"
"Your breathing changed," said Akira.
"You even pay attention to the breathing of other people?" She could not believe that real humans would actually do it.
'I was an assassin previously, so I pay attention to every little detail,' thought Akira and said, "Let me teach you later. Check your title. You will be able to access the locations of all bosses in the world."
"You want to do a solo too?" Haruka asked as she checked. "I am exhausted and even collapsed, is it okay to fight? I can't help you much."
"That's not the point," said Akira, "check if there is a boss in Antarctica."
"Antarctica...yes, there are two."
"Let's go then, I will defeat one of them," said Akira and thought, 'Maybe the error message will give me the title too.'
"How will we get back? There is no boss monster in Japan now."
"You can teleport back to this position later, but it has a 1-hour cooldown."
They both appeared in a place fully covered with ice and a snowstorm was active. However, that was not the thing that caught their attention as soon as they teleported there, they saw many dead bodies of monsters.
"They all died due to the cold," said Haruka fearfully.
"No, look carefully, they killed each other for warmth and food, and the winners also died due to wounds."
Ruka tapped Akira. "Black, look," she said, pointing towards the big four-legged monster that had a deer-like skeleton structure with hard bone-like natural armor covering its body in a beautiful design with blue and green shades. It was 7 meters long from head to tail with 6 meters in height from head to toe.
"White, you collect the materials of these monsters, I will fight it," said Akira while walking towards it.
"Be careful, it's level 82."
**Asgustin Grivin
Level 82**
As Akira reached 20 meters near, the monster opened its eyes and saw Akira. It got up casually without any alert and waited for Akira to come 5 meters closer.
When he was 5 meters from it, it opened its mouth wide and shouted, which sent a mental attack that stunned Akira. Akira's face became stiff, unable to move his body.
The monster jumped but didn't attack Akira; instead, it stepped on mid-air, causing a horizontal ripple, and then jumped further high. Akira understood that it understood its attack didn't work on him.
It took two more steps in the air, causing a total of three ripples, and descended towards Akira with high speed, stomping with its two front feet, but Akira barely dodged it. The snow on that spot for a few meters melted to the ground.
When Akira dodged, lasers came from the three ripple centers to attack him. He couldn't dodge them; he already knew that attack pattern, so instead of dodging them, he threw daggers at the monster. It dodged them, and the laser hit Akira. Haruka was watching that while collecting and panicked. 'Be careful, Aki.'
'Level up.' Akira got healed with his level up. 'It seems I can't even attack it at level 45.'
He leveled up to 59 to avoid causing commotion by getting 2nd place in global ranks. He distributed all his stats quickly.
While he did that, the monster stood on a ripple and formed a blue ball over its head, splitting it into three parts, which fell on the ground at equal distances. Then it started to jump around in the air, creating ripples in different angles, and the whole area was surrounded by those ripples.
Akira just stood in defense while it prepared all of those. Then it went to a ball and kicked it at Akira. Akira saw that coming and dodged, but the ball got reflected at a ripple, starting to bounce off many ripples until it came back to Akira again.
While he dodged it, the monster kicked another ball and then the third one too. The three balls were bouncing in the area between ripples, and Akira was trapped inside. The monster was guarding all gaps to strike Akira if he came out.
Asgustin Grivin was an intelligent creature, not intelligent in thinking wise but in battle wise. It understood its attacks very well since it was little and practiced them well. It knew the moment Akira walked towards it without any hesitation that it shouldn't take Akira lightly.
In fact, it would normally attack its enemy with intention of killing them in one strike from the start, but it sensed something dangerous coming from Akira, his killing intent. Due to this, it decided to use its full power which would take some time to cast.
However, that was its mistake and the cause of its downfall. After many bounces, two balls hit each other and combined. Then after a few bounces, the third ball also got combined and it suddenly gained a homing effect on Akira. It went straight to Akira. Haruka watched it, but this time she was calm.
The monster got relaxed before the ball hit Akira because that ball could smash a mountain. Its one second of carelessness gave Akira a chance to use his favorite professional skill called 'You forgot this.'
**Skill: You forgot this
Rank: D (G)
Required: 500 intelligence
This skill allows the player to vanish any kind of attack and make it appear anywhere he wants.**
It was a simple yet powerful skill, but the downside was it required a lot of intelligence, so the player had to sacrifice other stats to build it, but it was a skill of the SSS rank profession, to begin with. So the stats lacking would eventually come back with level-ups.
The ball attack vanished, which shocked the monster, and at the same instance, the ball appeared above its body and crashed into it. That crash sent out a huge flash over a large area.
Akira and Haruka covered their eyes, and by the time they could see, the monster was heavily injured, with its spine appearing along with all the flesh melted around the spine by the attack.
Most of its outer appearance got burnt, but its defense armor was intact. 'It's still alive after that?' Akira wondered as he came closer to kill it. He took out a sword to finish it off, but something came out from its back, so Akira stopped. It just gave birth to a new Asgustin Grivin and it died.
**You killed the boss, Asgustin Grivin. You received . . .**
**Error...
You are the 2nd person to kill a boss solo after your partner. You received the title, boss hunter.**
Akira was captivated by the newborn baby. Never in his life did he expect to see a monster give birth in front of him.
"Woo! What an adorable baby," Haruka exclaimed, taking it into her hands despite the liquid covering it. "Are you going to kill it?" she asked so casually that Akira felt a twist in his stomach.
"Did you just hear what you said?" he asked.
She became embarrassed. "I mean, you are going to kill it anyway, so I asked. I myself don't want to see it get killed."
It might have sounded funny to Haruka, but that made Akira think deeply. 'She's starting to see me as a heartless killer, but what choice do I have? I am just another creature; I am trying to protect my life, shelter, and my loved ones.'
"Do you want to raise it?" Akira asked.
"Can I?"
"There is a contract book in the system shop."
She checked it, and then she silently took her sword out and raised it to kill the baby.
"What are you doing?" Akira asked dunm folded.
"It costs 100 million coins, why the hell would I waste that," said Haruka, but she put the sword back in inventory. "It's too costly, let's leave it here."
"Are you sure about it?" Akira asked.
"We are already struggling to ascend, not just because of the SSS rank profession but the damn system asking for more than normal. It will be too much."
"Don't say all that. Do you want to keep it or not," Akira asked, "I will work twice as hard to raise it if I have to."
"You will do that for me?" Haruka asked.
Akira lifted his mask to show his 'what kind of question is that?' expression, then put it back and said, "Quickly do it before I change my mind."
She became very happy and quickly purchased the book and formed a contract with the beast.
"But Ak...black, won't people freak out if they see this?" Haruka asked.
"Who said we are taking it back? We will leave it here."
"What? No way. It is just a baby, it will die." She was more worried about the money she just used up.
"You don't know about the monster; it is already a level 42 monster, check it. It is also intelligent. It will survive well. If we domesticate it, it will just be a horse. I suggested you raise it because when it kills monsters, that exp will come to you."
"Will it survive here?" Haruka asked.
"Yes."
Haruka placed the baby down. "Sorry little one, I can't disobey him."
Akira took out the boss's materials.
"You didn't make it auto?"