System Breaker: Surviving Apocalypse with Nine-Tailed Kitsune-Chapter 50: Reunion

[You have slain a Level 36 Evolved Fire Hound]

[New Monster Index bonus: +5 Vitality, +5 Stamina, +13 Dexterity]

’Not bad,’ Damon thought as he watched the monster’s lifeless body collapse to the ground. ’By using shadow manipulation for only a moment, I can use shadow step without expending all my mana at once.’

It wasn’t long after he left his temporary shelter when he turned one of the city corners and saw a group of humans amidst an intense battle.

At first, he wanted to turn around and leave them be, but then an idea struck him, a perfect opportunity to test his new ability in action.

And so he watched the three humans struggle for a couple of moments before using Shadow Step from across several meters away. To his surprise, it worked far better than expected. Neither the monster nor the humans fighting it could see him coming as he appeared right in front of them.

The only thing he didn’t account for was who these humans were, more specifically, the healer of the group.

"D-Damon?" A shaky voice called out to him from behind.

Damon turned to see a familiar figure standing battered against the wall.

"Victor..." he murmured, "It’s been a while."

Victor blinked in disbelief. His face turned pale as if he had seen a ghost. His two companions from the scouting group cautiously approached, glancing at him and Damon with complete bewilderment.

"Is this the person we were looking for?" Jax whispered as he approached Victor, who stood speechless, only nodding in reply.

The three of them stood in an awkward silence for a few seconds before Jax suddenly turned to Victor. "Artheus is badly injured. You should check him out."

"Huh? Oh, right! I’ll..." Victor hesitated for a moment, as if leaving right now would make Damon disappear, but then he still turned to leave toward the tank of the group, unwilling to let him die.

Damon, however, didn’t leave. He watched Victor use his ability on Artheus until the man’s consciousness returned.

’Seems like he got stronger," Damon noted, remembering how even a single use of his ability used to put his once scrawny companion unconscious.

But his mana capacity wasn’t the only difference. Even his posture seemed more confident, the once weak and dead weight of a companion managed to keep his scouting group alive against the evolved fire hound.

As Damon observed how much Victor had changed, he saw him finish healing Artheus and quickly return to where he and Jax were standing.

He could feel the archer’s gaze on him the entire time, but whether it was distrust, caution, or something else, he couldn’t quite tell in the moment.

"Damon... what are you doing here?" Victor finally asked.

Damon didn’t reply right away. Instead, he turned toward the enormous structure floating in the sky above, observing it for a couple of moments. "You’ve gotten a quest, haven’t you?"

Victor nodded, quickly understanding what he meant. "Then, come with us to the station. We will gather more people and hit the quest together."

Damon lingered on the offer for a second before giving a neutral reply.

"No."

Victor’s confidence seemed to crack in an instant at the words, but before Damon’s once companion could fall into despair, Damon continued.

"I will head straight for the citadel. I need to gather information before making a proper move." He paused his words for a moment before adding. "You may join me if you wish. But I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety."

Victor’s eyes lit up. But before he could get a chance to accept the proposal, the archer of his group spoke.

"Going to the citadel is a suicide. We’ve already sent a scouting group, and all but one died. They couldn’t even tell what hit them."

Damon raised a brow.

He had expected the quest not to be as simple as reaching the citadel and claiming it. There had to be some form of enemies, that much he was sure of. But hearing they don’t even know what hit them caught him slightly off guard.

But even more than that, there was a far more pressing question he needed to ask.

"How did they reach the top?"

Despite the citadel appearing to be extremely close due to its size, it was still a couple of hundred meters away from the ground. Breaching that distance was something Damon couldn’t brainstorm through.

The question seemed reasonable enough to him. But the moment it left his mouth, Jax’s expression shifted.

The archer blinked, then stared at him as if he’d just asked which direction was up.

"Seriously?" he asked slowly. "You wanted to reach the citadel without knowing about the teleportation device?"

Given how deadset Damon was on heading straight to the citadel, Jax would’ve expected him to know at least this much, so hearing him ask how they reached the top came as a surprise.

Damon kept his expression carefully neutral, but in his head, a loud giggle came from Kitsune, who was clearly enjoying his confusion.

"My, my..." Her voice purred loudly in his head, "Despite their difficulties, the quests are always fair. They wouldn’t make it too hard to reach if that was only a small part of the quest." She began to explain, "It’s an ancient device, using mana circles to breach a gap between two spaces."

’You could’ve mentioned it earlier,’ Damon replied through their connection, remembering how he spent a good chunk of time really thinking about how he was going to breach the gap of several meters in the sky. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"You could’ve asked," She replied in a sweet tone that carried her usual undertone of playful dangerousness.

Damon resisted the urge to retort and focused back to the present, realising he was simply staring at the archer, lost in thought.

"Of course, I knew about the teleportation device," Damon replied, shrugging Jax’s surprise off.

"Right..." Jax murmured in reply, taking a glance at Victor, who was still digesting the sudden arrival of his friend.

Suddenly, a faint sound of unsteady footsteps stole everyone’s attention from the conversation.

"Man, that thing was strong," Artheus muttered under his breath before coming to a sudden halt. "Huh? Who’s the newcomer?"