[Dungeon Cleared]
[Reward: 4000 Gold, 4kg mana stone]
[You have levelled up]
Raven exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. Clearing a couple more dungeons today wasn't bad. He even snagged a lot more resources and rewards, but that nagging irritation remained. Someone else had beaten him to the first E-rank dungeon clear.
That should've been his achievement.
'I was too late, someone else seems to have cleared one first.'
It wasn't that he didn't try to find an E-Class dungeon quickly to clear, except none had spawned in his vicinity.
'I can normally sense these rifts quite accurately, but unfortunately, I have no way to tell which grade it is.' He felt a bit helpless about this and had to move on, since it was already in the past now.
Still, he was level 60 now, with 11 unspent attribute points, 25 kg of Mana stone he didn't yet know how to use, and 40000 gold burning a hole in his pocket.
Realising that he really needed to pick up some necessities, he decided to head to the city centre before making his way back to the base.
The city streets were alive with noise. People chattered loudly, car horns blared, and somewhere nearby, a dog barked.
It was almost 5 pm at this point, and some neon signs buzzed and flickered, providing the city with some ambient lighting that wasn't the setting sun. Raven kept his head down, trying to melt into the crowd.
It had been three years since he'd properly talked to anyone outside of battle. Social interactions felt awkward and unnatural now. Every word he spoke sounded foreign in his mouth.
At an electronics store, a woman behind the counter caught his eye.
"Can I help you?" she asked with a friendly smile, glancing over him with subtle curiosity, only to realise how different he was.
Raven nodded, "Yeah, I need a basic phone, a charger and a SIM. I've got cash."
She studied him for just a moment longer, probably thinking he looked out of place.
'White hair? Strange…'
'Oh damn, he's hot though.' It took a second to break free from her trance-like state, but afterwards, she nodded. Reaching under the counter, she handed him a plain black phone.
"How much?"
"Eighty thousand Rubles," she said.
Without thinking much, Raven pulled out a thick stack of bills and slapped them on the counter.
She counted quickly and handed him the phone.
"Here you go." Then walked over to another shelf to retrieve the charger and Sim.
Retrieving everything, Raven pushed open the door to a nearby clothing store. The bell rang as he entered, alerting the clerk, who smiled at him.
"Looking for anything specific?" the clerk asked cheerfully.
"Just a jacket," Raven remarked while scanning the racks.
The clerk's smile faltered for a moment, probably caught off guard by Raven's uncomfortable presence coupled with extremely eye-catching white hair.
Raven grabbed a matte black jacket as well as a couple of other comfortable sets of clothes, paid, and left before the clerk could say more, finally deciding to visit a grocery store to purchase something to eat.
After a few days, most of the food left at the hideout had either been eaten or left to go rotten, and so he eventually had to buy some if he didn't want to starve.
The grocery store was packed with people buying food and supplies.
Picking up some instant noodles, bottled water, as well as some ready-to-eat chicken from the store, Raven headed to the queue to check out.
As he waited in line, he overheard a conversation about the gates and dungeon clears, but he stayed quiet, not wanting to draw attention.
Underneath his calm, measured exterior, there was a quiet confidence forged by years of surviving impossible odds as well as the power he currently possessed.
'Still, I should just keep blending in, at the very least until my main goal is fully realised.'
Raven found a quiet alley and leaned against the cool brick wall. He pulled out his new phone and turned it over in his hands.
It was weird. This little device was a connection to the outside world, and a reminder of everything he'd lost.
His parents. His brother…
Would they recognise him if they saw him now?
Would they see him as their son, or just another monster born of blood?
Would they be proud or terrified of what he'd become?
He clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms.
"Doesn't matter," he whispered. "They're already dead. And I'm going to make the rest of those bastards responsible for it, pay."
'They might be living in sweet, ignorant bliss, thinking that their connections to those murders couldn't be traced, but their time will run out soon.'
…
As the sun dipped, Raven decided to call it a day and head back to base. He was curious to hear how the rest of the world was faring, and, in particular, who had gotten the first E-rank clear.
'Let's use my new phone this time to check the news.'
'Oh, I think I'm currently seeing this anchor's face more than my own.' Raven smirked for a few moments, amused at his sarcasm, then started to concentrate.
"There finally seems to be a way out of this predicament," the news anchor reported, though her voice carried a shadow of worry.
"Awakeners have begun to clear the gates. Many governments have formed their own teams." She continued.
"It has been reported that as many as 5 F-Rank gates have been cleared so far, as well as one E-Rank and one D-Rank."
"We have heard that the first E-rank clear was achieved by a US group led by an awakened named Gwendolyn Garcia. She seems to have already formed a guild after teaming up with those who cleared that gate with her. Going by the name Frontier, they have rapidly become the biggest guild, with hundreds of awakeners joining it."
She continued, "Regarding the first D-Rank clear, the information available is scarce, to say the least. There is nothing on the awakeners that were responsible just yet, either."
Raven leaned back, smirking faintly. So, this Gwen was the one who had taken the first E-rank. Interesting…
"I should remember her name," he muttered. "Might be worth meeting her… just to see what kind of person she is."
'Though for now, I'll leave that up to chance.'
But still, she was just another name on a list he didn't care about.