Darvin was flipping through his screens rapidly as he tried to figure out what was happening with the system. Moments earlier, the system, which had been reaching out in a singular direction for years now, all the sudden stopped. There was no warning, and as far as he could tell, there was no reason.
To make matters worse, the system’s expansion was… shaky. Yes, shaky was the best way he could describe it. It was like it didn’t know what to do. The thing would reach for a moment in the same direction as usual, then it would expand itself in its entirety for a moment. It did this over and over.
He was a System Watcher, and he was supposed to understand certain things, but, once again, he’d been clueless. The screens that connected him to the system were flashing, putting out errors, then acting like nothing was happening at all. Everything was just going crazy, and Darvin didn’t know what to do.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, but in reality, was just a few minutes at most, it seemed that the system made a decision. It stopped expanding its entire self and instead continued reaching out in a singular direction as it had been before.
“What the hell was that?!” Darvin shouted into the empty air. Honestly, he was beginning to wonder if all the confusion and headaches that came with accepting his Legendary System Watcher class was even worth it. Yes, his class was legendary, but time and time again, he had no clue what was going on. On top of all that, it put him in charge of everyone else.
Which meant that, not only did he have tons of system problems he had to deal with daily, but he also had to solve problems and disputes between each sovereign race’s leaders. Those problems became particularly annoying when he had to deal with Kelvin or Holcom. Holcom was the leader of the Malaxi, and as a Malaxi himself, it was he that should have become the leader, but since he was chosen for a higher position, Holcom was chosen instead, and that man did not have quite the same ideas as how to better their race as Darvin did.
Darvin sat back in his chair and let out a sigh. With his hands, he expanded the screen in front of himself and tried to get a good look at the current system area and all the inducted planets. As usual, there were a few planets that had yellow flashing nodes above them. These nodes were things that he usually ignored because they almost always meant that some idiot had taken up the Portal skill and accidentally lured a Void Beast into the system’s area. That, or they had done it purposefully to kill a Void Beast to try to earn Titles.
The system was very keen on eliminating creatures that were ‘unknown’ to it. However, unless it was a recently inducted planet, there were usually procedures in place for the locals to deal with these problems. If the Void Beast wasn’t dealt with in a timely manner, the nodes on the map would turn orange. That usually meant that there was a particularly dangerous Void Beast roaming around on the planet, and that was when Darvin turned his attention to them.
So, since the entire system had just gone crazy all the sudden, then went back to normal even quicker, Darvin decided to go ahead and take a look at the current planetary alerts. He clicked on one after another and continuously received the ‘creature unknown to the system’ warning on each one, just as he’d expected.
Finally, he saw that Planet C-186 also had a flashing node above it. That was a planet that he wanted to completely forget about, to be honest. It was a planet that had only just finished its tutorial phase and was now a proper system planet. But the people on the planet… they brought nothing but headaches for the System Watcher.
This was especially true for two of the planet’s population. First was Derek Hunt. He’d disappeared long ago, but was most likely the cause of the first set of problems that occurred with the system. It was all too much of a coincidence for him not to be the problem, and he wasn’t the only person to agree. It was unanimous amongst the leaders. Derek Hunt was being hunted by the system.
The second person from Planet C-186 to bring him nothing but headaches was a man named Jace Whitaker. He was a very promising human, and had never caused Darvin any problems directly, but indirectly, he had been a pain in the ass. This was because he had caused Kelvin problems, and many of them.
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Jace still had the system’s protection from his ranking during the tutorial phase of Planet C-186, and though Darvin could pull that protection and allow Kelvin to handle Jace in any way he wanted, Darvin did not like using his power to circumvent the system’s directives. So, he just dealt with the headaches in the form of Kelvin’s incessant complaining and moved on.
With a grunt, Darvin reached out and touched the warning given by the system for that particular planet. Sure enough, there was an unknown creature there, and one hundred out of one hundred times, that creature was a Void Beast. Did that girl who started these problems use that damn skill again? No, there’s no way. She is far too cautious these days to do something like that.
Some other idiot who didn’t like to read the almost free information given out in the system store probably saw the description of the Portal skill and thought that it would be a ‘really good’ skill to have. Darvin shook his head. It was the only explanation he’d ever seen, and he doubted there was anyone on that planet who would want to take the chance just to hunt a Void Beast. It may have been part of the system proper, but it was still an infant compared to the other planets.
Odds were, the Void Beast was going to wreak havoc on the population until its threat was upgraded to orange. Then Darvin would send out a strike team. At least he could do that now that the planet was no longer in the tutorial phase. However, while he was staring at the warning and waiting for it to turn orange, he decided to open further details on the warning. His eyes went wide as he saw that there was not just one warning, but two.
There were two unknown creatures on the planet at the exact same time, and in the exact same place. In all his time as a System Watcher, that was something he’d never seen before. Sure, he’d seen two Void Beasts appear at the same place, but they were never there at the exact same time. One always came before the other. Void Beasts didn’t travel in packs, they were solo hunters.
Darvin’s hands started shaking as he put them on his head. Why did I let my curiosity get the better of me? It would have been so much better had I never seen this, he thought. But then, all the sudden, after being on the planet for not even an entire hour, both warnings vanished at the exact same time, right in front of his eyes.
“I hate that planet!”
Silvi was having fun again. It was a new occurrence that had taken her a lot of time to get to after losing her team and also becoming a pariah after causing one of Earth’s best fighters to disappear to get back to, but she was having fun.
It had taken her months to scrape together a new team after learning that Derek was, in fact, not dead. That was, if she could trust the red human who visited her back then. But she had taken the man’s words to heart, and she chose to believe him. Derek really was alive… she knew it… she could feel it. She knew those feelings were most likely nothing but placebo, but she also chose to believe them.
But, one person after another had chosen to look past her history and give her another chance to lead, and she vowed that things would turn out differently this time. Along with herself and Gerard, four new members had joined her, and they had been together for months now, without incident. Well, almost without incident.
A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered that monster ‘checking in’ on her once. No, he wasn’t checking in on her. He was obsessed with Derek and was checking in to see if she had heard anything about him. And to top it all off, he had come with an entire team of monsters.
Silvi was proud of her new team, and believed that they were stronger than most, even though she had fallen behind for a while after Derek disappeared. But after seeing Jace and his team, she knew better. But that didn’t deter her, or her team. In fact, it made them all want to work even hard. But still, she had no clue how that man managed to get a team.
No, more than that, she had no clue why anybody would ever want to follow that man. He was dangerous. Every time she had ever seen him before, it had felt like he was crushing her just with his presence alone. Then, he ‘visited’ again, and that crushing feeling was so much worse than before. Jace gave her a feeling that the red man didn’t even give her.
Sure, if she were to fight either of them, she would die without being able to fight back. But she would fight that red man ten times out of ten if the choice was to fight him or Jace. There was a reason that not even those on top of Earth’s tutorial leaderboard would fight him. Well… none of them but Derek. She guessed that made him a little crazy, too.
However, in the few times that Derek had helped her and her old team out, she knew that he didn’t exactly ‘choose’ to fight Jace. Instead, Derek was stubborn and more of a lone wolf and just didn’t want to leave his cabin. So, instead of running away from the maniac, Derek stayed and got beat up time and time again.
That was another sore spot for Silvi. After Derek disappeared, she fell into depression and almost never left the bar. She should have been taking care of Derek’s home, but because of her despair, she never even thought about it until it was too late. By the time she was ready to adventure again, it was too late. She went to the cabin to at least collect Derek’s belongings, but the entire thing was destroyed and she wasn’t even able to find a single thing worth taking.
It was another one of the things she regretted more than anything. How would she face Derek again, knowing that not only was she the cause of his disappearance, but she had also managed to let the only place he seemed to hold dear to him be destroyed? She hated herself for it, but there was nothing she could do about it. She would have to atone for it if… no… when she met Derek again one day. But that day was not today. Today, her team was running a dungeon.
They had prepared for it for weeks, and they were ready. They were so ready that the first half of it had been a breeze. Everything was going great as she and her team began the second half.