CHAPTER 150: RETURN OF THE WHITE CROW

Earlier this morning, KiRA received a strange message through the system, a message related to a certain someone he had almost forgotten these past few days.

Right after receiving the message, he was instructed to go to a place with as few people as possible so, he called Izzy and the rest of his family to the basement of their base, the secluded place only Ziggy and he used for training.

The open place, the arena which seemed to be damaged already, was covered in a few deep weapon marks, sword cuts that seemed as smooth as laser cuts.

The markings were also present all over the place, something that surprised the ladies who didn’t come down here often.

Still, they all did not pay much attention to these things. Their children weren’t playing with guns and machetes anymore.

Since they had grown up, the mothers were fine even though the children were playing with dangerous swords.

"So a Luminarie is a creature that maintains a dungeon?" Miss Lia, Izzy’s mother, was the first one to question the existence of the beings that managed the dungeons that were originally created by the gods.

The fact that these creatures were the ones who made the dreadful dungeons that were killing so many players nowadays had her resenting them.

However, thinking from a different perspective, they were also not that different from the humans.

Humans were trying to survive by clearing the dungeons for the resources and rewards so that they could ultimately clear the tower, while they were making the dungeons for their own survival.

Sure they were getting paid for it and were practically doing sales, at the end of the day, they were also doing what was right from their point of view.

"They are cultivators of dungeons as well as mythical creatures of the tower. Well, we can also call them product developers." KiRA explained to her in a way that she would understand the best.

In his words, they were pretty simple beings. And since he had brought them here, it seemed like they weren’t dangerous either.

"Well, this one’s a little different from the others you might see in other dungeons in the future." He mumbled under his breath as he stared at the empty air before him.

The message he got through their contract connection was simple. He just had to wait in an empty place and his ’business partner’ would appear before him.

"The last time you saw this buy was during your tutorial, right? What happened to him after that? Where has he been all this time?" Ziggy was really curious about this.

"Beats me. I’m just as clueless as any of you." KiRA didn’t have any answers to his brother’s questions this time.

Ziggy had always seen the dungeon managers in a negative light.

Not all of them were good. They made dungeons for the sole purpose of entertaining the higher beings.

Since most of the higher beings preferred drama and originality over mystery and cliche, these dungeons managers made dungeons that would appeal to those higher beings instead of helping the players in any manner.

The players who died in dungeons several times before leaving the game were just as high as those who died during the tutorial missions.

That’s why he believed the natural labyrinths and the space-time cracks or the Gates were much better compared to the dungeons.

But there weren’t as many gates or labyrinths around the world as there were dungeons around each city with a tower. They were naturally evolved structures that only had a partial influence on the Tower while the Dungeons, in their true forms, were artificial.

"Well, we will get our answers now, I guess." KiRA was staring at the blank space for a while now so he was the first one to spot the strange ’crack’ that appeared in the space before them.

The Crack grew larger instantly and soon, tearing the space itself, a white beak of light slid past into their underground training room.

-Oooooooooooooooong!

Pure white features and a body even bigger than a hawk. The three legged crow that used to be as big as his arm was now half of his size.

The dungeon manager that he knew had grown, the three legged crow was now as big as a vulture and, with the divine and mystical presence that it possessed, the people present there instantly felt the strange dignity of the mythical creature.

The crow seemed ethereal to them as well. Even though it was present right before them, it didn’t seem like anything physical existed there.

{ "Huh?" }

When it opened its white eyes after the dimensional transfer, the creature was pretty surprised to see so many people before him.

{ "What is this? Shouldn’t we be meeting in private?" }

The first question he asked came out with an unwanted rude tone.

"This is private. They’re fine, don’t worry about them." KiRA didn’t really mind his tone.

Miss Suzen, his aunt, most certainly did not like how he said that, but when she looked at the crow with an angry gaze, the creature, the big creature that seemed strong enough to kill all of them, lowered its eyes as if it was intimidated by them.

{ "Um... could they be your family? I wasn’t really prepared to meet your family so soon." }

The dungeon manager seemed embarrassed right now, something none of them had expected to see at that moment.

Especially Izzy and Ziggy, the two were especially surprised by the behavior of the creature.

"You’re not my secret girlfriend or anything like that. Why are you acting like that? That’s so... strange." KiRA, on the other hand, had a frown on his face right now.

The creature that he signed the contract with, as he remembered, was young, chatty, and meticulous. After not seeing him for a few months, did that guy get corrupted or something?

{ "Hmm? Hey! Don’t say things like that! Isn’t the presence of families during a business meeting a sign of something serious? Are you going to change the contract?" }

The crow defended his actions strongly and KiRA understood at that moment how serious these simple things were among their kind.

"I forgot you were still young, right..." KiRA simply shook his head and sighed.

Then, he explained to his family how his business partner was just a little dumb crow and cooled things down.

But then...

-Ooooooooooooooong!

The crack that the crow had come from glowed once again, and, something unexpected happened.

"Huh?"

Something else walked out of the crack and stood beside the big, three legged crow, stunning the group standing before them.