"Master, the report from the request have arrived."
Simmons got off his chair the moment he received the news. He took the folder from his assistant, then scrutinised its contents. He frowned, dissatisfied.
"Where's the rest of it?"
"This is all we could find. Everything before his entrance into the academy is non-existent. It's like he never existed before now."
Simmons shrugged.
"I see. Then his name is most likely an alias as well."
"What are we going to do about it?"
Simmons didn't respond. He merely snapped his finger, and a masked figure appeared before him, seated at the other end of the table. In Simmons' eyes, nothing changed, but to the masked man, he was in a dark room, facing an old, wrinkly man.
He dropped the folder on the table, then said, "This is all we could find on that person."
The masked man took the folder and looked through its contents. He then looked up at Simmons. A cold glare could be felt.
Simmons, already prepared for this, placed his hand on the orb.
"Normally, I'd have already kicked you out or requested for further payment if you wanted more, but this one is on the house."
Simmons bit down on his finger as he looked into a crystal orb. In this crystal orb, light and darkness mixed until they formed the shape of two people walking in a tunnel. The lights slowly developed more colour until they could see a pair of teenagers, dressed in an academy's uniform.
One of those students, he recognised as the target of this request. Alexi.
"What is this?", The masked man asked, staring deeply into the orb.
"You've been such a good customer." Simmons grinned. "I figured a little favour like this couldn't hurt."
That was a lie. All he wanted was to scratch his insatiable itch for knowledge, as well as to get this man away from him.
Even then, there was barely anything he could find on him. His birth, his family, his lineage, all of it was blank. Almost like he didn't exist. The name he used, Alexi, just an alias no one could confirm.
"Where are they?"
"The Night Singer's Dungeon."
"Why?"
Why?
Simmons was also curious as to why.
An Arbiter, for the first time in over a decade, had appeared before him wanting to make a deal and searching for a great devil. Coincidentally, the arbiter was supposed to go to the Night Singer's Dungeon.
It was physically impossible to tell what a person looked like inside the Umbral Sphere and out because of certain restrictions, but something about this student intrigued Simmons.
Whatever the situation was with that student, it was much too interesting for the boy to ignore.
*****
"Maybe I shouldn't have leaked his pictures?", Alexi snickered to himself. On his phone, the photo of Cain in his underwear was on display. "Was it too much?"
Alexi asked his companion. She shook her head violently.
"I didn't thank you for sharing it around, did I?", Alexi said.
It had already been a few days since the incident. Cain hadn't made a public appearance yet, probably waiting for all the heat to die down. In the meantime, Alexi was preparing a way to deal with him permanently.
"I-It was no problem.", She muttered, barely managing the words out of her mouth.
His smile faded as he saw her reserved responses. It was starting to get annoying, but there was nothing he could do about it.
'Oh! There is something I can do about it!'
Alexi just remembered his status and suddenly had an idea. Maybe he terrible reputation didn't have everything to do with his race alone.
=======
STATUS
Username: SYSTEM LOVER
Combat Points: 15/15
Mana Points: 30/30
Race: Infernal
Bloodline: -
Strength: 11
Agility: 10
Dexterity: 13
Intelligence: 14
Constitution: 15
Charisma: -5
ABILITIES
Talent: Crystal Horn (F grade)
Skill: Mana Punch (E grade), Mana Control (D grade)
=======
'-5 Charisma? Was it that bad? No wonder she's terrified of me.'
Alexi looked back at Amane. She couldn't bring herself to meet him in the eye.
'Now that I think about it, she was talking normally until she got a proper look at me.'
In their first meeting, Alexi didn't see anything wrong with Amane's behaviour until halfway through he conversation she suddenly turned scared. The charisma stat had something to do with appearance.
Alexi nodded with understanding.
'Well, let's resolve this for now.'
He put all 5 combat points he earned from the battle with Cain into his Charisma stat, placing it at a disappointing 0.
'If negative makes her scared of me, I'm guessing 0 makes her neutral?'
To test out his theory, Alexi turned to Amane. He called out her name, compelling her to look at him.
"Y-Yes?"
Her eyes still didn't meet his. They fluttered around the place.
Alexi shrugged, giving up.
"Sorry, don't mind me. I was just like saying your name."
With a sigh of resignation, he looked out the window of the train. They'd been in the sky train for approximately 20 minutes now. Yet oddly enough, the train car they were in was empty.
And it wasn't because no one was on the train. It was the weekend. Several people travelled to and from the sky dome on the weekends for various reasons. Be it to see family members, sight-seeing or even work. Some people also simply liked the unique view the sky train gave.
At least, that's how Alexi described the sky train in his novel. Now that he himself was here, he couldn't see anything magnificent about the view. It was an endless sea of white and blue.
Alexi had never been on a plane. He'd never travelled in the air, save his first day in this world. But one thing he knew for certain, there was nothing grand about it.
"Or, is the world I made just not as grand as I thought?", He found himself mumbling.
He shook his head, clearing the nonsensical thought from his head. It was the top selling story for a reason. Even if he was disillusioned with it, there was definitely some form of beauty in there to be found, right?
"Please hold fast to your seats as we approach the Ground Station 13."
An announcement was blared over the P.A.S.
After a few more minutes, they arrived at the station and were already off to their location. It was a bit of a hassle since the guards all had their eyes on Alexi, but since he wasn't doing anything shady and had Amane with him, he somehow made it through.
Following that was an hour-long car trip to the Night Singer's Dungeon.
As soon as they arrived, Alexi stretched.
He took in the view of the Dungeon. On the outside, it was a tiny mausoleum, created with black marbles dotted with white spots. Its appearance was odd enough, considering it was surrounded by trees and red earth, but the dungeon itself was nothing to write home about.
Dungeons were the results of devils' mana terraforming the earth. They created spawn points for monsters, which led to several deaths in their initial appearance. However, after Defenders found out about this fact, it led to the creation of dungeon exploration teams to destroy these dungeons.
Overtime, humans found out that apart from monsters, the devils' mana also created extremely valuable resources that could help facilitate them in their fight. Rather than completely destroying the dungeons, they ended up maintaining them. They kept the monster population under a certain level, in order to continue farming the dungeons' valuable resources.
In the long run, the monsters ended up becoming training tools for young defenders. Dungeons ended up becoming one of humanity's greatest advantages in the war against Devils.
The pair went past security, after handing out their student ID and having their information crosschecked.
With a vote of confidence from Amane, Alexi was allowed to enter the dungeon.
"H-Hey, Alexi. I don't want to talk back against you or anything, but… do you really need my help for this?"
"Of course.", Alexi gave her a thumbs up. "If you weren't here, I wouldn't have even been able to step foot on the sky train, let alone enter a dungeon by myself."
"Oh… right.", She looked exhausted. She really didn't want to be here. Most likely because it was with Alexi.
"Sorry, Amane, but please indulge me just a little bit more."
"Huh?"
"Have you heard of the Night Singer's Dungeon before?", He asked as they marched down into the darkness.
"Yes. It's a E-rank dungeon that bears the illusion and darkness attribute.", She explained. Suddenly, her fear was gone. "I've had a class here before. In fact, I think it was the first dungeon exploration class we had. Not to brag, but I was the only one to not fall for the dungeon's tricks."
"That so? Interesting.", Alexi nodded confidently.
Her explanation of the Night Singer's Dungeon was only surface knowledge at best. As expected, considering the current arc of the story, not many people still knew of the true terror of this dungeon in particular.
From the experiences most had, the Night Singer's Dungeon was merely E-rank at best.
That was only because in the history of the world, no one had ever made it past the first floor.
=======
SIDE QUEST: ITEM RECOVERY (B GRADE)
Description: The guild master of the Flowers of Love guild wants you to acquire an item for him!
Requirement: Soundless Feather (+1)
Reward(s): +2500 System points (SP), Laplace's Location (From Guild Master)
=======
*****
Cain punched the wall in a rage as he looked at the photo that had been spreading around the past few days.
A teacher had come around to check up on him considering his odd absenteeism, but he merely pretended to be sick. For some reason, the students were keeping this hidden from the teachers and Cain was satisfied with it being that way.
If the teachers got involved, that would take away Cain's chance of exacting his revenge.
That blasted infernal scum. How dare he do something so embarrassing. The only reason he was even winning the fights was because he cheated. Both times, he had to catch Cain off-guard. Next time… for sure, next time he wouldn't find it so easy.
As Cain was deep in thought, his phone rang loudly.
He took a look at it, then froze.
Boss.
The last time he got a call from the boss was when he messed up with Fala. Had the boss seen the pictures floating around? Was he going to cut him off?
Unable to hold himself back, he answered the phone as quickly as possible.
Cain: H-Hello!
Boss: Do you know what a Reader is?
Cain blinked several times over.
A reader? A person who reads books? What did have to do with anything? Was it code for something else? Maybe he was testing his intelligence?
Cain: E-Excuse me?
Boss: … You want to know how to defeat that infernal, right?
The question was so silly Cain almost laughed. Was this a Godsend? It had to be right? The boss wasn't cutting him off. He was here to help. Without a moment's hesitation, he answered.
Cain: Yes.
Boss: A package will be delivered to you shortly. Once it arrives, consume its content. Until then, listen very closely.