CHAPTER 172 - MISSING PERSON

Han Wu’s first stop was the adventurer guild’s branch located in the Umbral Sea. There, he submitted his application to upgrade his identification plate. The administrator, upon reviewing his record, couldn’t help but frown. According to the records before her, Han Wu was progressing through the ranks far too quickly.

Han Wu’s advancement was astonishing—it had taken him only about a month to climb from the Iron to the Silver rank, and then from Silver to Gold in just another. Becoming a Gold-ranked adventurer in just two months was unprecedented, a feat completely unheard of in the guild branch’s history. Since such rapid progression was beyond her authority to approve, she immediately forwarded the matter to her higher-ups for a decision.

The guild’s branch leader was deeply engrossed in a discussion with a group of Gold adventurers when the report was handed to him. Upon receiving it, he briefly paused the conversation, stepping out of the room. It was clear he had been experiencing some considerable difficulties recently.

Within his administrative area of the Umbral Sea, there had been an alarming increase in reports of missing civilians lately. What was particularly troubling was that all these disappearances were concentrated in one specific area. He had already dispatched several teams of Silver-ranked adventurers to investigate, yet not a single one had ever returned.

Faced with limited options, he reached out to a Gold adventurer team. However, their demands for the investigation were excessively high. Not only did they insist on a reward of 2 million gold coins, but they also requested three Platinum Title Scrolls in addition!

The branch leader was experiencing a significant headache. The Umbral Sea was hardly an ideal training site, and the guild simply didn't have 2 million gold coins to spare. However, the escalating number of missing persons cases had unfortunately drawn the attention of the higher-ups, leaving the branch leader with no choice but to find a way to urgently address the pressing issue.

The branch leader, just on the verge of biting the bullet, suddenly received a timely report from the administrator regarding Han Wu’s application to rank up. This unexpected news immediately ignited a new idea in his mind. He promptly excused himself from the meeting room and personally went to meet Han Wu, intending to evaluate his strength firsthand.

After putting Han Wu through a series of tests, the branch leader confirmed that he indeed possessed strength comparable to that of Gold-ranked adventurers, at least. He then proceeded to inform Han Wu about the troubling cases of missing people within the Umbral Sea and promised him a substantial reward of 1 million gold coins for his assistance.

Han Wu remained completely uninterested, considering he could effortlessly acquire that amount of money by simply selling some of the valuable materials he had already collected. Noticing Han Wu’s lack of interest, the branch leader decided to enhance the offer by including a Platinum Title Scroll.

The prospect of receiving a Platinum Title Scroll after the investigation indeed piqued Han Wu’s interest. Getting more titles was a priority for him at the moment, as he possessed four empty slots but had just three titles he could equip[1].

He already had the powerful Diamond Genocider, the Half-Dragon Hope, and Gold Monster Slayer titles activated. He did, in fact, hold another Diamond title, the Sky Palace Conqueror, but he left it unequipped for the moment. After all, there was simply no reason to use a title whose effects were confined to the Sky Palace.

In a sense, Han Wu still had an empty title slot to fill, and it would be great if he could fill it with another Platinum title. He decided to accept the mission for the sake of the title.

With his registration complete, Han Wu took the clues provided by the branch leader and headed straight for the area plagued by disappearances. What Han Wu didn't realize, however, was that just as he left, the three Gold adventurers with whom the branch leader had been in a heated discussion angrily stormed out of the guild branch.

“Big brother, that old bastard is looking down on us! Does he not realize that we are the only Gold adventurer team here in the Umbral Sea?” Blackbeard, the youngest, grumbled.

“Yeah, big brother! What if we kill him tonight?” The second, Yellowbeard, made a throat-slitting gesture.

Despite his simmering anger and a furious glare directed at the guild’s building, Whitebeard managed to maintain his rationality.

“Don’t let your anger cloud your judgment,” he warned. “While the branch leader himself might be easy enough to eliminate, the adventurer guild isn’t an organization that we can afford to provoke so recklessly. If we were to kill him, the adventurer guild would almost certainly dispatch their executioners, and that would undoubtedly spell the end for us.”

“But I simply cannot tolerate this humiliation! We’ve finally achieved the rank of Gold adventurers, and despite that, the arrogant bastard still treats us with contempt!” Blackbeard fumed, his voice laced with indignation.

Exasperated, Whitebeard rolled his eyes. “He went and found someone else, didn’t he? Let’s just track down that person and kill them. After that, we can come back here and make them hire us, whether they like it or not.”

“Now that’s what I call good thinking, big brother!” Yellowbeard exclaimed, a grin spreading across his face. “This way, we won’t have to worry about the adventurer guild coming after us at all, and to top it off, we can even earn ourselves some extra money!”

Han Wu remained completely oblivious to the fact that he had become the target of three resentful Gold adventurers. He diligently followed the information provided by the branch leader, eventually locating the area where people had been mysteriously vanishing.

The moment he stepped into the place, however, a deep frown creased his brow. Though he hadn’t activated his Black Dragon King Transformation, his heightened senses as a Lord were more than capable of picking up critical details. He had barely set foot in the area when his nose detected the scent of miasma hanging heavy in the air.

The miasma itself was harmless to Han Wu, but for regular people, it was quite fatal. Those who inhaled a significant amount of the miasma would succumb to hallucinations, eventually dying without understanding the cause.

“Is this why so many of the adventurers went missing? No, that just can’t be right...”

Silver adventurers simply weren’t weak enough to perish so easily, even if continuously exposed to miasma. Puzzled, Han Wu cautiously advanced deeper into the area. With every step, the miasma grew noticeably denser, and unsettling sounds began to emanate from all directions around him.

Through the murky miasma, Han Wu’s keen sight picked out several monstrous spiders lurking in the undergrowth. He swiftly transformed his Genocider Weapon into the gatling and opened fire, riddling the arachnids with countless holes. However, the sound of gunfire drew an even larger horde of spiders to attack him.

Han Wu aimed his gatling gun and unleashed a torrent of fire. Bullets streaked through the air, tearing the attacking spiders into countless shreds. Five minutes later, the ground around him was strewn with their mangled corpses. He took a moment to inspect one of the creatures and found that they were called Man-eaters.

The Man-eaters were large spiders, yet their venom was surprisingly weak. Han Wu examined their drops and quickly confirmed that they were just Bronze monsters. Even accounting for their overwhelming numbers, it was highly improbable that Silver adventurers would be defeated by such weak foes.

Having eliminated the wave of spiders, Han Wu pressed onward, venturing deeper into the area. Interestingly, one of his original titles, the Spider Slayer, emitted a unique scent that provoked the hostility of all nearby spiders, drawing them towards him. Perceiving this as an unexpected boon, he decided to capture the arachnids rather than simply eliminate them.

Using Gene Recombination, Han Wu fused the captured spiders into a single, massive Gold Man-eater, a grotesque creature with hundreds of legs. The creature barely had time to register its existence before Han Wu ended it with a decisive blast from his cannon.

His Spider Slayer title had now been successfully upgraded to Gold rank, and as a result, its initial skill to summon Wolf Spiders was significantly reinforced. This meant he could now summon a force of 20 to 100 Bronze Wolf Spiders or Man-Eaters.

Given his prior experience commanding swarms of locusts, Han Wu found it incredibly simple to exert control over such a large number of spiders. With a mere thought, the spiders he had summoned became his drones, forming a large intelligence network at his disposal.

He meticulously inspected his surroundings through the eyes of his spider drones, and his investigation progressed at an incredible pace. It wasn’t long before he stumbled upon a significant discovery—one of his spider drones had located several half-eaten adventurer corpses!

1. We aren’t sure why the Planeswalker title wasn’t listed here ☜