The System’s Harvester

Early Evening - Early Summer : Arlington, Virginia | East Coast United States

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"Huh? Alrek? What are you doing here so late?"

*Woosh* Air rushed into the room as Alrek walked inside. "I have a special client I need you guys to work with."

"Hoh? For you to say that, I'm curious who-"

Hearing her suddenly go quiet as I walked in, I looked up to see a young, well-dressed elven woman just behind a wide desk with her feet perched up on it. -She must be the receptionist.- Walking up to the desk, I was quick to reach out my hand. "The name's Evren."

As if dazed, she blankly stared at my hand for a moment before jumping up, fixing her posture, and grabbing my hand with both of hers. "I-I'm Lori!" She was a bit panicked at first. "I-It's a pleasure to meet you, Madam." But it was only a moment before it turned into excitement. "So, how can I be of service?"

Alrek quickly took over as he walked up next to me. "Miss Lestir here is a returning mercenary looking to learn the basics of mana and aura. I've already contacted Crow, but he said he would be a while."

"Is that so?" Curiously turning to me, Lori tilted her head in confusion. "What is your class? Are you perhaps a barbarian?" She asked since barbarians didn't innately have access to magic or magic-related skills within the system.

-But...- "No, I don't have any class, so I have no restrictions on skills, but for reasons I can't explain, I don't have any skills at all anymore. Now I need to relearn how to suppress or redirect my aura."

"I-Is that so..?" Taken aback she paused to think for a moment. "So you're looking for a grimoire for aura control?"

I nodded. "But I have some doubts about whether it will work for me, so it's more likely I'll need someone to teach me."

"That would be quite odd, but..." Looking down at a holographic screen, she hastily tapped through a few panels. "We'll see what happens. I've requested for a grimoire we can try to use. It's a basic skill called 'Presence Suppression'. It's pretty common, even among civilians, since it can help them hide if they ever encounter a monster."

-A skill for civilians? Are these grimoires that easily accessible here?- She quickly continued as I tilted my head with curiosity.

"As for having someone to teach you, it's a bit late, our instructors have all gone home, so you can either ask Crow when he gets here, or I can set you up with someone in the morning."

-Ah, the morning is too long...- I was quick to wave her off. "I don't care who teaches it, instructor or not, as long as they can explain the most basic of basics."

"Alright, well we'll see what we can do. There may be some legal issues if someone unqualified tries to teach you." Wrapping up what she was doing on the computer, she quickly hopped up and made her way to a set of doors leading into a long, well-decorated hallway. "For now, if you'll come with me, I'll bring you to one of our training rooms and bring you that grimoire." She quickly motioned me along, leaving Alrek alone to wait in the lobby. "I apologize in advance. Usually, we would have someone more fitting walk you to a room, but most people have gone home at this hour."

"I don't mind." We idly spoke as we began walking. "Thank you for obliging, regardless."

Turning back to me, she quickly flashed her bright smile. "It's my pleasure!"

Eventually finding our way to the large room with the floor, walls, and ceiling lined with pure white tiles, I promptly found my way to a small glass compartment in the wall lined with devices similar to what I saw in the mana monitoring facility. -These look familiar...-

Deciding to tinker with it while I waited for Lori, I eventually got it turned on before suddenly being presented with a 3D hologram of the room completely surrounded by dots of varying sizes and colors similar to the holographic map I saw previously.

They were all sensors, seemingly reading and correlating to different information, using opacity to let you read it all at a glance. -'Temperature', 'Ambient mana', 'Aura'... They have everything on here...- There were even sensors for things like moisture, wind, and weight.

If there was something you needed to measure, you could do it here. -The aura one has me curious though...-

Although I heard from the researchers in the facility in Richmond that aura clouded runes, the aura sensors, seemingly meant to monitor it, picked up nothing. -I wonder if it has something to do with why people can't seem to sense my aura...-

Giving it some idle thought as I checked out the other sensors and their data, Lori eventually returned, this time with a thin, leather-cover book in her hands. "Sorry for keeping you waiting!" Quickly coming into the side room I was in, she was simply gleaming. "Here is the grimoire." As she handed me the book, she also gave me a small black marble. "So, in case you aren't familiar with these types of grimoires, before you put it in your inventory and let your System read it, you have to actually set this little artifact in that divot on the cover, and inject a bit of mana through it." She gently opened it to show me the intricately carved, circular rune on the inside of the cover.

"Huh.. to think there would be a type of grimoire I've never seen..."

She immediately puffed up her chest with pride. "It's because they're only made here on Earth! When people first started commercially selling grimoires, there was a problem with stealing, so we had to create unique little marbles like this to act as keys. If you don't use the key, the grimoire is empty." Quickly picking it up, she fanned the pages to show they were all blank with additional runes carved into each page. "If you use the wrong key, the runes won't print the text properly, and it will just trash the book."

-Wow...- "So the key is like a cipher to the rune, and the cipher is wrong, it will just destroy the grimoire? How do you make a unique key for each rune then? Wouldn't every grimoire have to have the same rune?"

She quickly shook her head. "The first rune here in the cover is purely to act as an encryptor, and the key is its cypher. Although the encryptor doesn't have infinite possibilities, if we also angle and tilt the rune itself, we can squeeze out a few hundred thousand unique copies."

-R..Really?- It was surprisingly clever. -If they know that much about runes, maybe they'll really be able to help me...- Finally following her instruction, I laid down the book and set my finger on the key. "Hooh..." -Okay.. let's see if I can inject it with some mana...-

Trying to mimic the sensation of an old mana injection skill I had, I reached into the lump of energy in my abdomen and grabbed a handful of it.

But, I didn't feel a thing.

Now that I had access to more mana than I could fathom, the mana I used my old skills as a reference to move was of such a tiny volume that I couldn't even feel it.

But, in the end, I managed to get it to work. *Glow* After several attempts to move a clump of energy out of my finger, the key started glowing before suddenly crumbling to dust.

"Hooh..." I quickly let out a breath of relief as I picked it up and saw the clean, clear text and diagrams on all the pages. -Well.. here goes nothing...-

Following Lori's instructions, I casually tossed it into my inventory and went into the 'Item Information' tab to have the system read it. *Beep*

But while it beeped at me, confirming it was read.. nothing happened.

There was no message, and there was no skill.

"So?" Lori's eyes gleamed with expectation, but...

"It didn't work..." Agitatedly leaning back onto a desk, I pulled the book back out of my inventory and tossed it on the desk. "You try it."

A little nervous, she did as I asked and put it in her inventory, but her expression suddenly turning curious told me all I needed to know. "It.. worked fine for me... Are you sure you-"

"Yeah, I've used plenty of grimoires before." Gripping my forehead, annoyance instantly drenched my expression. -I knew it was a possibility.. I just didn't want to believe it...- But I didn't have time to dwell on it. "Haah... Okay..." As thoughts raced through my mind, I finally looked up at the young elf in front of me. "How much do you know about mana and aura, Lori?"

Immediately tensing up, she responded awkwardly. "I-I know the basics, but I'm a notoriously bad teacher-"

"I don't care." Cutting her off, my cold gaze found its way into her eyes. "The basics are all I need for now."

Understanding what I meant, her demeanor turned nervous. "O..okay... I will try my best..."

"Haah..." -My gut is telling me I need to hurry up...- "I'll give you a bunch of gold if you do well."

Finally walking out into the center of the tile room, I sat down and crossed my legs.

"Hooh..." With another breath to try and alleviate my stress, my focus moved down to the immense, swirling sphere of energy in my abdomen. -I should have some time...-

Thinking that the military would be occupied with the evacuation efforts in Richmond for some time, I figured even if the researchers spotted me with their sensors, they wouldn't be able to do anything until the evacuation was finished. -Worst case scenario I probably have a few days...-

Considering I believed I had already controlled a substantial amount of my aura without any instruction in the mana monitoring facility, I was confident even a day would be enough. -But I shouldn't test my luck...-

The issue was there was something I failed to take into account...

During my flight to Arlington, I sank knee-deep into an ant hill, and I disturbed the nest.

But the nest wasn't humanity.. nor was it the city.

 

*Beep* -Tch...- Clicking my tongue as my System broke my focus, I opened my eyes with annoyance and looked at the panel that appeared.

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- Bently Horne ~

*wwwOOOOSHH* Zipping through a concrete tunnel in an underground, military-exclusive maglev, I looked at my reflection in the opposing window with a face drowned with worry and stress. "Haah..." -What the hell am I getting involved in...- Anxiously clenching my hands together, I turned my gaze to the woman next to me, only to see her gripping her helmet like her life depended on it.

As things were, we were about half a kilometer underground, zipping through a concrete tube at several times the speed of sound, heading straight for the colossal military base on the north end of the city called 'The Final Bastion'.

Meant to stand as humanity's last defense if it came to it, It was the largest and most secure military base in the world, and the same military installation that kept the United States from collapsing due to a surge of monsters three hundred years ago.

Of everywhere I could be going, it was by far the safest place.

But somehow, the longer we sat in silence, the more my gut yelled at me.

From what Miss Hale had told me, the streak of light I saw cross the sky back in Richmond was actually the apostle Jack Ricora, a man known to be one of the fastest system users in the world, after getting hit by a monster.

Even taking into account his level, I couldn't imagine a reality where he was alive, or at the very least wasn't crippled given the speed he crossed the sky. -At that speed, I'm sure his armor melted...- But what was more horrifying than anything was the monster behind it all. -A creature wearing the skin of a human...-

It was a monster that looked human, sounded human, and could even act human, but was both outside the bounds of the system and the reach of administrators.

No matter how I twisted it, it sounded like something entirely out of our league and was something we needed to handle extremely carefully. -What if it isn't just a bit stronger than an apostle? What if we just piss it off?-

But, I had no say in the matter. Because I was an international hunter, I was required by law to escort Miss Hale until she delivered her helmet to the higher-ups, and that was it. No matter how much I wished to speak up, I couldn't. -But there may be a chance I can get interrogated... Maybe then I can get my words through...-

As a long-term system mercenary, I trusted my instincts more than anything, and no matter how I thought about it, the situation I was being wrapped in would be one that my life would depend on. -But if there's anything to be thankful for.. the military base should be the safest place in Arlington...-

And it was, however, I would soon come to realize that what made it safe wasn't its power or security, but rather its distance from where everything would go down.

The moment we arrived at the underground headquarters several minutes later, we found everyone in a complete panic, with people donning white lab coats sprinting around with stacks of paper, and even military generals so famous I could immediately recognize them dashing around with expressions of worry, anxiety, or determination.

It made my mind short-circuit for a moment. -Something bad happened... Something really, really bad...-

Eventually being greeted by another general, we were quickly rushed to another section of the facility where we came face to face with several globally known figures, from revered generals, to leading scientists and famous mercenaries.

But none of them turned around as we walked inside.

Instead, they were all silently staring at a large, bright screen on the opposite side of the room...

A screen that displayed a news broadcast...

One that showed a sea of collapsed buildings near a spire I could recognize. -Thats.. the International Security Organization...-

It was the heart of the International Security District.. but now it was a sea of rubble...

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Art of Evren, as well as a new cover for TSH are on the way! Patron's are getting updates in the discord!

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