Five hours after Rio left the border area.
"It’s been completely erased off the map... the soul imprints of all six of them have shattered and the entire hidden base is destroyed..."
"It seems that idiot Snegnar couldn’t sit still and attacked a civilian home; he seems to the one who caused the rest of them to fall in trouble too..."
"After all, his soul imprint shattered first and then four of them shattered together... Well, I never liked that creepy man guy in the first place..."
Two individuals were standing in the air looking at the flat ground where a secret underground bunker should have been.
One of them seemed to be reporting the situation to the other with a respectful tone, and the other one was staring at the ground with a frown on his face.
"These humans are always a useless bunch... I knew I shouldn’t have relied on those lowly beings... Compared to us High-Orcs, they lack discipline too much..."
Both of those floating individuals had dark red skin and two small horns on their heads; they were both S-rankers and belonged to the high-orc race.
Just like how humans have differences among them according to where they live, even Orcs have various different tribes, and there are many sub-races too.
Orcs are not exactly on friendly terms with the human empire, and even though things have been more peaceful recently, the hostility of the last war has never fully died down.
Official S-rankers and awakeners of the Orc race are obviously not going to trespass on the territory of the human empire, but that wasn’t the case for those who didn’t need to obey the rules.
Even among Orcs, there are criminals and individuals with a thirst for violence, even more so compared to humans, as they are inherently a violent race.
These two Orcs are foreign criminals who have entered the human empire along with many other criminals after hearing the news that ’Ashtel Rex’ has fallen into a coma.
If it was before the Chronos incident, no local criminal or foreign criminal would have dared to enter the human empire because there were four SS-rankers guarding the nation.
Moreover, the fear of ’Ashtel Rex’ was also a big deterrent.
But after the incident, the human empire lost three SS-rankers all at once, and the last one also became busy, causing the entire nation to become an easy target for all sorts of criminals wandering around the world.
Dozens of international criminals flocked over to the human empire and made things chaotic and difficult to handle.
Fear spread in the populace, and the criminals were able to enjoy themselves to their hearts’ content for the first month or so.
What they didn’t know was that the real nightmare was just about to start.
Just when they were roaming free and enjoying themselves to their heart’s content, a literal terror incarnate, a demon in human skin, started hunting down each one of them one by one.
Moreover, not only was he killing powerful criminals one by one, but he was also torturing them to the point that they couldn’t even beg for mercy anymore.
That lunatic was slaughtering five or six S-rankers every single day!
All the other S-rankers of the human nation were only told to maintain the order and do the work of guards, while that horrible lunatic was told to run wild and slaughter every criminal he could find.
Four months passed in this frenzy, and that lunatic has already slaughtered more than a thousand A-rankers and several dozen S-rankers.
His terror has spread all over the underground world, and the moment any criminal sleeps, they end up getting nightmares of that lunatic appearing near them.
"I already told that idiot Snegnar not to go out unless absolutely necessary... That lunatic Rio has been searching for people like us like a mad dog!!"
"I don’t know where he gets his information about us; his nose is so strong he always manages to sniff out whoever he targets!!"
The two orcs looked at the ground and felt a chill run down their spines, as they could sense the power of the lingering ’sword intent’ in the ground.
"Do you think he’s still nearby? ... actually... how about we just go to some other nation... I don’t feel comfortable living every single day in fear that I might be his next target..."
The orc gulped his saliva and looked around nervously.
"I think we shouldn’t stay here for long; I don’t feel safe standing out here in the open..."
Several months have passed, and everyone knows by now that the maniacal bast*rd Rio is hunting down his targets according to a set list.
Whoever is the next target gets stalked by him to death unless they run away from the nation.
The moment your name becomes the next one in his list, you will already be counting your last days.
The two of them have been able to survive because they chose to stay low, and their turn hasn’t come yet.
"Y-yeah, let’s go; we will have to discuss about the plan with others..."
"What about that girl that Snegnar targeted? Should we deal with her?"
"I investigated the matter... seems like she was saved by that lunatic... it’s better to leave her be... he’s got that weird ability to mark people with sword intent; he might notice us if we do something..."
"Forget it, let’s retreat for now..."
The two high orcs immediately flew away and retreated in a hurry.
...
Capital City, Astra.
Rio landed near the front door of the awakener’s association headquarters, startling the guards standing nearby.
The poor guardsmen were just early A-rank people, and Rio’s aura was too strong for them to endure; they shivered in fright as they hurriedly opened the door for Rio.
’Hmm? Is it just me, or do people get frightened a bit too often when facing me nowadays? Has my reputation really worsened that much nowadays?’
’The toy companies seem to love me a lot though...’
After the success of that first plush toy, many other companies contacted Rio and asked him for permission to use his face as their product’s model.
Rio wasn’t too interested in it, but they offered him a lot of money and benefits, so he didn’t bother arguing and agreed with them.
Aside from that, Rio also did many missions for the association and earned a sh*t ton of money and resources from that too.
Now his bank account has so much money that he doesn’t even have to remember it anymore.
He can just buy whatever he wants to without looking at the price tag, unless it’s something too excessive, of course.
While walking through the main path leading to the building, Rio glanced at the gardens on the side of the path and thought to himself,
’It’s already been four months since Lia left... even though I talk to her on phone often, I kind of feel lonely...’
’Four months passed in a blink of an eye and I didn’t even notice... sigh, when you are too busy training and researching new skills, it’s really easy to forget about the flow of time...’
In these past four months, Rio has polished his assassination skills tremendously. His other skills have also improved tremendously, and he has stabilized his realm at the peak of the lower levels of S rank.
He spent most of his days in the previous months hunting and practicing, so nothing significant happened except for his reputation spreading far and wide.
’Perhaps even some foreign SS-rankers know my name nowadays... I heard that foreign news reporters were also reporting on my hunting party...’
’Time passes so fast, sigh. I wonder when I will reach rank SS at this rate... there isn’t much time left before the real challenge appears in front of me...’