Dungeon Raider System

The ranger's headquarters looked the same as aways on the outside but inside things were completely different from what Uriel remembered. Rangers would spend most of their time outside city walls tracking cryptids and thinning their numbers to make the wilderness safer for other hunters, which led to their headquarters being treated as a short stop before going out again.

But now it was different, the place was crowded with people moving from place to place looking busy, just like an anthill.

"Excuse me, I'm here to..."

"What do you want? Can't you see we're busy? We're not accepting any requests from civilians at this moment, if you're having trouble with your neighbors or something just pay a hunter to take care of it." The ranger behind the desk voiced out loudly to compensate for the background noise.

"Actually, I'm a ranger too." Uriel showed his rookie badge. Even if it wasn't as fancy as his Army rank, the humble ranger badge was more than enough to open some doors for him.

"Why didn't you start by that? Present yourself to one of your superiors and follow their lead. You did a good thing by presenting yourself, I'm glad to see there's a sense of duty in the rookies, but no one would have blamed you if you stayed home with the ones you love."

Uriel was tempted to ask what was going on, but he guessed the answer already. Instead, he decided to clear the misunderstanding.

"I need to speak with the boss, he's expecting me."

"He is? He just said not to be bothered by anyone, what's your name?" The clerk asked with suspicion, though he knew not just anyone would dare bother their boss with something trivial, especially if he asked not to be bothered.

"I'm Magnum." Uriel replied in the same loud manner as the man and suddenly silence was made in the whole building. Although rangers were known for possessing weak traits, they were still hunters and their heightened senses allowed them to hear Uriel's words clearly. He wasn't speaking softly or being cautious, but in retrospective he wished he was.

Every single ranger stopped what they were doing on the spot and they all directed their gaze upon him. Uriel couldn't feel any hostility coming from the people glaring at him, but it didn't make it any less awkward. In a sense, he preferred when people did want to kill him, because at least then he knew the reason behind their strange behavior.

"You don't look like him, but the boss warned us to not judge you by your appearance. The only thing I'll tell you is this, if you're not truly 'him' and you're only here to collect the reward, the last one who tried left the place in a body bag. Do you still want to see the boss?"

"I didn't even know there was a reward, but I still want to see him," Uriel spoke calmly and without showing a hint of fear, but as he was being ushered to the boss' office he reminded something."By the way, it was Jimmy who sent me."

It had been a while since the boss offered a reward for bringing Magnum to the ranger headquarters and many people came pretending to be him, though Uriel was the first one who didn't flinch when threatened and he even mentioned the person who sent him and it was a respectable ranger.

"I said I don't want to be bothered..." A dejected voice greeted Uriel, a voice he heard before, though he couldn't recognize the man who that voice belonged to. He used to look like the epitome of cowboys and had the sharp gaze of a duel at high noon. Now, he was drunk and disheveled, his cowboy attire hanging in the clotheshanger besides him and his eyes looked droopy and sad.

"But you called for me, didn't you?"

"Magnum! You're here! You really are!" For a glimpse of a second, the man's eyes lit up brightly, but the light faded along with his excitement. "It's too late now, there's nothing you can do to help me anymore."

"If that's all, then I'll let myself out." Uriel shrugged and turned to leave, but the man continued speaking which prevented him from exiting the office.

"My sweet child, she's not the same as before and I don;t know what happened to her. She used to be this lovely upbeat kid, now she only gos out at night and acts as though she doesn't know me. Could this be a belated teen phase or she just doesn't love daddy anymore?"

'She's a vampire now, what else did you expect?' Uriel inwardly thought.

"And to make things worse, there's something weird going out east of this city. There used to be an order and we were able to classify hunting zones according to their threat level, now the wilderness are overrun with cryptids of all levels. It just doesn't make sense! We can't even mae contact with the only outposts that might have some information. I'm helpless, we're helpless..."

"I think you'll want to hear this..." Uriel let out. Uriel didn't want to share any information about the titan rank cryptid with the ranger, not just because there wasn't anything to gain but also because there was nothing the rangers or even the Cryptid hunting agency could do about it. After all, they sent two holy rank hunters to Louisiana and they failed to even identify the threat.

Besides, Uriel was certain that instead of helping him, both the rangers and the Cryptid hunting agency would attempt to twist his arm and recruit him.

This didn't sound so bad, especially since siding up with them would grant him some resources and even hunters to command, but Uriel now knew it was a waste of time. He needed to become stronger, not babysit incompetent people and there wasn't a hint of sense of duty in Uriel to compel him to 'do the right thing'.

However, he couldn't just let the top boss of the rangers fall into despair. Rangers were the city's last line of defense, which meant the stronger they were the safer it would be for Uriel to move around.

Following that line of thought, he shared what happened in the ranger outpost and told him about Sharp, though he omitted the part where he asked her to take the wild girl to hollywood to keep both of them safe. He also informed about the titan rank cryptid and the involvement of the Fallen corporation in the downfall of three out of four districts.

"This can't be... the Fallen corp. has been doing a great job at keeping people safe and well fed, I can't believe something like that!"

"This is the truth, but it's your choice to believe it or not. I think you already figured it out, but Charlie is now a vampire. Do with that information what you want, i'm out of here."

"Wait! Don't go! I thank you for sharing this information with me and I have a lot of thinking to do now, but this isn't the reason why I called you. When I saw that video I knew it had to be a doppelganger, that's why I offered reward for bringing you here. I wanted to kill the creature that made that video myself, but I wasn't actually expecting the real you to show up."

"Let me guess, now that I'm here you need my help with something..."

'You need to understand, you're the one who proved to us there were cryptids inside the city, but we can't let others know. It will only cause panic, imagine if they found out about the Fallen corp using citizens as cattle.

You're the only person I can ask for help," The more the man spoke, the more he seemed to understand the situation, though instead of being discouraged his voice began picking up strength. "I see now we should have paid more attention to your words before, we should have prepared better. Heck! I suspected there were cryptids loitering around in the city but everyone shut me off.

I know asking you to join us is a waste of time, I understand the longing for freedom better than anybody else, but if you do this for me, I'll be in your debt."

"Even if you say that, I can't move freely in the city. The video of me killing people should still be online and my face should be everywhere."

"Your face? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror these days? You look nothing like you did the last time I saw you, the only reason I recognized you was because of that damned hat!" The cowboy chuckled and only then Uriel realized he was wearing Jon's Fedora. "Anyway, I'll take care of your ID and cleaning your record, you'll be able to go back into your true identity for this mission.

In fact, you'll need to."