The King disappeared right after the War Games. Many people were more accepting of this as he had disappeared for a month before.
The Hestia Familia overtook the Apollo Familia's house and wealth, which was taken away to pay for Bell's weapons.
Now, an entire week had passed and things were finally calming down.
After a week of relentless hunting, the 'King' emerged from the Dungeon's maw. His armor was caked in the dust of Floor 20 monsters, and his Chi-Boost had evolved to the point where golden sparks occasionally danced off his fingertips even when relaxed.
[Finally! A week of pure, unadulterated violence! My stress levels are down by 4%, and your bank account is looking like a high-score screen!] The System chirped, sounding much more satisfied than it had after the War Game. [Now, let's go find something expensive to eat before I decide to sell your boots for data-processing power.]
It had become more unhinged after the War Games. What happened? Losing to the MC of the world? Welcome to the club, buddy.
Raizer ignored the babbling HUD, his senses scanning the crowded streets of Orario. He was heading back to the Hearth Manor to check whether Bell had stumbled upon more trouble when a familiar shock of white hair caught his eye.
Bell Cranel was being led through a side-alley by a hooded, shifty-looking man. The man was whispering frantically, his hands moving in wide, theatrical gestures.
'That's not an adventurer,' Raizer thought, his eyes narrowing. 'That posture... it's too relaxed for a mortal, yet too suspicious for a civilian. That's a 'Kidnapper' walking.'
No matter what was said, Bell Cranel was still a 14-year-old brat. So, the man next to him, probably had some strange fetishes.
Raizer could almost guess what the man wanted.
[Bell Cranel?]
'Oh, shit!'
The system also noticed his presence, along with the 'kidnapper'.
[Yes! My prayers have finally been answered! He's going to hell! HAhaha!]
'Prayers? More like curses, dude.'
Raizer shook his head and silently followed. His boots making absolutely no sound as he drifted like a shadow ten paces behind them. He watched as the hooded man led the blushing, stammering Bell toward the south-east district—an area where the architecture became more ornate, the air thicker with the scent of heavy perfumes, and the streetlights glowed with a seductive, crimson hue.
They crossed the threshold into the Pleasure Quarter.
The "shady man" finally threw back his hood, revealing the golden hair and mischievous grin of the God Hermes.
"Now then, Bell-kun!" Hermes exulted, spreading his arms wide as the red-light district roared to life around them. "Welcome to the playground of the Gods! Tonight, we turn you into a man!"
Raizer stepped out from behind a pillar, his arms crossed over his chest, his presence casting a literal cold shadow over the God's enthusiasm.
"Man? A woman, you mean?" He stepped before Bell, protecting him, "Oi, sodomy guy, take your fetishes elsewhere."
Bell jumped three feet into the air. "M-M-Mr. Raizer?! What are you doing here?!"
Hermes froze, his smile twitching as he looked at the "King." He had personally seen the War Game; the man who walked through an army without drawing a sword.
"Ah, the King himself!" Hermes laughed nervously, sweating under Raizer's unblinking gaze. "I was just... uh... providing Bell with some essential cultural education! You know, broadening his horizons!"
[Broadening his horizons? More like broadening his holes! Host, despite my rivalry with Bell, this sleazy guy is taking it too far. Using innuendos for his 'evil' tastes! Bell isn't even a femboy!]
'... I think you have the wrong priorities. But anyway-'
Raizer didn't move. He looked past Hermes toward the towering central building of the district—the citadel of the Ishtar Familia. His senses picked up the vibrations of hundreds of Amazon warriors, surrounding them, and something else... An incoming war.
Something about this place seemed wrong. Even more than the dungeon.
'But if they are preparing for the war, does it include me?'
Raizer looked at the ignorant Bell and the scheming Hermes. He felt the weight of 'King's Resolve (EX)' keeping him calm, but even he could tell that the 'troubles' with Bell was starting again.
'Nah, the war is coming for this. But I will lead the vanguard.'
"Bell," Raizer said, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "Go home. This place is full of bad choices and even worse people."
"But-" Bell started, trying to say that 'Pleasure Quarter' was life! This was all he was adventuring for!
"He's not going anywhere!" A booming, feminine voice interrupted.
A group of tall, muscular Amazons emerged from the shadows, led by a woman with a massive podao and a predatory smirk. Aisha Belka (Level 4) stepped forward, her eyes locked onto Raizer. She didn't look at the God or the Rabbit; she looked at the man who radiated the pressure of a monster.
They were waiting as if they already knew that these three men were coming. More specifically, Ishtar had commissioned Hermes to bring Bell, Raizer was simply a tag-along.
"So," Aisha purred, spinning her blade. "You're the 'King' I've been hearing about. I was wondering when a real man would wander into our garden."
Raizer stood in the neon-glow of the Pleasure Quarter, his eyes fixed on the flickering blue window that only he could see.
[Main Quest: Proof of a King!]
[Status: 50% Complete]
[Condition #1: Reject joining any and all Familias! (Completed)]
[Condition #2: Defeat a Level 4 (Incomplete)]
His gaze shifted to Aisha Belka. She was a Level 4; the perfect 'target' to close out his first major contract.
Raizer didn't draw his sword. He simply took a step forward.
- Thamp!
"I'm not here to fight," Raizer said. "But if you are bringing it to the table, prepare to die."
Aisha grinned back fiercely. The women behind her drew their weapons, ready for the fight to go down.
"Take me to your Goddess," Raizer commanded, his voice cutting through the humid air. "I have no interest in the street-level thugs. I want to speak with the CEO of this district."
Aisha's smirk widened. "A direct meeting? You've got guts, King. Follow me."
Bell stepped forward, his face pale but determined. "Mr. Raizer, I'm coming too! I can't just leave..."
The white-haired boy didn't understand what was going on. He still didn't understand that Hermes had sold him out.
"Go home, Bell," Raizer said without looking back. "This isn't a game of tag. This is high-stakes. Unless you like gambling, return."
"Now, now, Raizer-kun," Hermes interjected, stepping out of the shadows with a knowing glint in his eyes. "The boy needs to see the world as it is. Experience is the only currency that buys the title of 'Hero'. If you leave him behind now, you're just stunting his growth."
Even if Hermes didn't interfere, Aisha was about to drag Bell with them. After all, he was the main target of tonight.
Their Goddess, Ishtar, had been targeting Bell because he was the 'favorite' adventurer of Freya, a Goddess that Ishtar personally detested. Bell himself didn't realize that one Goddess hated him because of the favor of another Goddess. Neither of whom he knew personally.
Raizer remained silent for a beat, his mind weighing the logic. "Fine. But if you get caught in the crossfire, Bell... You have to protect your ass on your own."
He patted Bell's shoulder, who tilted his head in confusion. Hermes himself didn't know that he was mistaken to be a perverted, old man, interested in young boys.
.
.
.
They were led to the heart of the district, into a lavish palace that smelled of heavy incense and expensive sin. At the top of a grand staircase sat Ishtar, her beauty a weapon honed over millennia. Behind her and flanking the halls stood the entire Ishtar Familia—hundreds of Amazons, weapons drawn, their eyes hungry for a fight.
Ishtar leaned forward, her gaze raking over Raizer. "So... this is the 'King' who made Apollo look like a bumbling child. You don't have a God's scent, yet you stand there as if you own the ground my palace is built upon."
'It's called style.'
[It's called being mannerless.]
'...'
Forget the enemy before him, Raizer was first taking out his own system.
Ishtar stood up, her silk robes flowing. "I've gathered my daughters because a man of your quality deserves a proper welcome. Forget the Hestia brat. Join me, Raizer. My Familia offers pleasures the surface cannot imagine, and power that will make Orario bow."
Raizer looked at the army, then at the Goddess. "I told the Loki Familia, and I'll tell you the same: I don't bow to Gods, and I don't join Familias. Especially ones destined to fade into mediocrity."
Ishtar's face darkened, but then she chuckled—a low, melodic sound that usually brought men to their knees. "Arrogant. I love it. But no man refuses me twice."
She stepped down the stairs, her eyes suddenly glowing with a divine, golden light. She unleashed her 'Charm'—a mental nuke designed to enslave the mind and turn any mortal into a drooling puppet.
The Amazons held their breath. Bell gasped, his mind reeling from the mere proximity of the Goddess's power.
Raizer stood perfectly still. Inside his mind, the 'King's Resolve (EX)' barrier shimmered like a diamond shield. The waves of lust and submission hit his consciousness and shattered like glass against a mountain. To Raizer, the 'Divine Charm' felt like a lukewarm breeze.
He didn't scream. He didn't struggle. He simply smirked. A cold, predatory expression that made Ishtar's heart skip a beat for the first time in an eon.
"Is that all?" Raizer asked, his voice echoing in the silent hall. "You tried to attack me, Ishtar. In my world, that's a declaration of total war."
Raizer's hands went to the hilts of his blades. He didn't draw them yet, but the King Engine gave a singular, booming THUMP that shook the chandeliers.
"I was worried about having to hunt you all down one by one," Raizer said, his golden Chi beginning to leak from his pores, illuminating his dark armor. "But you were kind enough to gather everyone in one room."
The air in the throne room didn't just turn cold; it became heavy at his words, as if the oxygen had been replaced by liquid lead. Raizer stood at the center of the opulent hall, his gaze fixed on Ishtar, who was still reeling from the failure of her Charm.
"I have always wanted to say this," Raizer said, his voice dropping an octave. "Haoshoku Haki!"
- THUMP!
The first beat of the King Engine wasn't a sound; it was a physical shockwave. The decorative vases lining the walls shattered into dust.
- THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The rhythm accelerated, a booming, mechanical roar that resonated from Raizer's chest and vibrated through the floorboards. To the lower-level Amazons, it sounded like the heartbeat of the world itself, a primal sound that triggered an ancient, lizard-brain terror.
One by one, the Level-2 and Level-1 adventurers collapsed. They didn't even have time to scream; their nervous systems simply shut down, forced into a state of forced sleep by the sheer pressure of Raizer's presence. Those at Level-3 clutched their chests, falling to their knees as they struggled to breathe in the thickened atmosphere.
This effect was only because he was holding back, if he intended all Level-1 and 2s would die.
"Stand back, Bell!" Raizer commanded, his eyes glowing with a terrifying, cold intensity.
Out of the hundreds of warriors, only a handful remained standing: Aisha Belka, three other Level-4 elites, and the towering silhouette of the Ishtar Familia's ultimate weapon—the Level-5 Captain, Phryne Jamil.
Phryne, a woman whose physical presence was as repulsive as it was powerful, licked her lips, her eyes widening with a sick lust. "That sound... that power! I'm going to break you, little King! I'm going to make you mine!"
Raizer's 'King's Resolve (EX)' filtered out her words like unwanted spam.
- THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
[Trait: King Engine (EX) — ACTIVATED!]
- Your 'Engine' is beating with disgust!
- Your Stats have been increased by 100%!
Unlike his first use, his stats only increased by 100%. Raising his stats from Level-3 to Level-4 temporarily.
Phryne moved with a speed that belied her massive frame, her twin axes whistling through the air in a horizontal decapitation strike. Simultaneously, Aisha and the other Level-4s lunged from the periphery, their spears and swords creating a cage of steel.
Raizer didn't draw his swords. He didn't need to.
With Absolute Control Lvl 2, he moved within the 'Zero-Latency' zone. As Phryne's axes approached, Raizer didn't retreat. He stepped forward, entering the eye of the storm. He tilted his head, the axe-blade missing his ear by a millimeter, the wind pressure alone cutting a small line in the stone pillar behind him.
He slammed his palm into Phryne's stomach.
Chi-Boost: Quake
A golden ripple of energy exploded at the point of impact. Phryne, a Level-5 tank, gasped as the concentrated mana bypassed her outer muscle and vibrated her internal organs. She stumbled back three steps, her eyes bugging out in shock.
"How?!" she roared.
Before she could recover, the four Level-4s were upon him. Aisha Belka was the fastest, her podao coming down in a vertical cleave that could split a boulder.
Raizer's hands moved like blurred gold. He caught Aisha's blade between his palms. The friction generated a shower of sparks, the metal groaning under the pressure of his Chi-Boosted grip. With a twist of his hips, he redirected her momentum, swinging Aisha's heavy weapon into the path of the other three attackers.
- CLANG!
The weapons collided, sending a shockwave that blew the remaining Level-3s out of the room.
Raizer finally drew his blade, taking another out from his inventory. They weren't long, but in his hands, they were scalpels. He accelerated his pace, his movement becoming a flickering shadow.
He engaged all five elites at once. To Bell, who was watching from the corner, Raizer looked like a golden cyclone. He was everywhere at once.
Aisha lunged with a thrust; Raizer stepped onto the shaft of her spear, using it as a springboard to launch a flying knee into a Level-4's jaw. As he landed, he ducked under Phryne's desperate axe swing and delivered a flurry of six staccato strikes to her thighs and waist, each hit punctuated by a golden flare of mana.
"DAMN YOU!" Phryne screamed, her body beginning to bruise through her high-level endurance. She unleashed a massive, indiscriminate burst of her own mana, a 'Shockwave Roar' intended to blow everyone away.
Raizer saw the mana building in her throat. Using his senses, he calculated the frequency of the wave. He didn't move away; he adjusted his own internal vibrations to match hers, using Absolute Control. When the roar hit him, it simply flowed around his body like water around a stone.
He appeared in front of her, his hand glowing with a blinding, concentrated golden sun.
"You have awakened my inner dragon(Chunibyou)," Raizer said, his voice cutting through her roar. "Your movements are wasteful. Take this, Ryou!"
Chi-Boost: Dragon Burst
He struck her center-mass. An ethereal, golden dragon slamming into her gut. The sound wasn't a bang of a 'Quake'; it was a high-pitched ping that signaled the shattering of her physical guard. Phryne was launched through the air, crashing through Ishtar's throne and the stone wall behind it, disappearing into the night outside.
The throne room was a graveyard of ambition. Hundreds of Amazons lay sprawled across the marble, their breathing shallow as they succumbed to the sheer atmospheric pressure of Raizer's presence.
Only the elites remained. The four Level-4 warriors stood in a jagged semicircle, their knuckles white as they gripped their weapons. One lunged forward, a scream of defiance dying in her throat as Raizer's gaze shifted toward her.
In her eyes, Raizer's silhouette didn't just grow—it seemed to swallow the light in the room. She saw a primordial god of judgment where a man stood. Her knees buckled, her sword clattering to the floor. Two others followed suit, their wills snapping like dry twigs under the weight of his glare.
Only Aisha Belka remained standing.
"I don't care if you're a King or a Demon," Aisha spat, her podao trembling. "I don't leave my sisters behind!"
Behind the fallen pillars, a small, fox-eared girl stirred. Haruhime, protected by the frantic mana shielding of her fainted comrades, crawled into the light. Tears streamed down her face as she saw Aisha—her only true friend—facing the golden-eyed monster alone.
"Level Boost!" Haruhime cried, her voice cracking.
A pillar of kaleidoscopic light erupted around Aisha. Her stats, already at the peak of Level 4, were forcefully shoved into the realm of Level 5. Her presence exploded, the air whistling as her mana tried to compensate for the artificial growth.
Raizer didn't wait. He didn't give the boost time to stabilize.
He closed the distance in a single, silent stride. Aisha swung with the force of a falling mountain, but Raizer perceived the 'stress points' in her technique. He didn't parry the blade; he struck the side of the podao's hilt with a Chi-Boosted finger-flick.
Chi-Boost: Ripple
The vibration traveled up Aisha's arms, numbing them instantly. Before she could recover her grip, Raizer delivered a palm strike to her forehead—not with the intent to crush, but with a precise shock to her equilibrium. The golden shockwaves gently spread across her entire body, knocking her out. Aisha's eyes rolled back, and the Level Boost shattered as she collapsed into the dust.
Haruhime scrambled back, her tail tucked between her legs. She fumbled on the steps, tripping over her own kimono as she looked at the man who had just dismantled her entire world. "Please..." she whimpered, "Take me... use me... just spare the others..."
Raizer walked past her as if she were a piece of discarded furniture. His focus was solely on the Goddess trembling on the upper balcony.
"Raizer! Stop!" Ishtar screamed, her pride finally replaced by the raw, cold terror of a deity facing a power she couldn't quantify. She reached for a dagger, hoping to end her mortal vessel before he reached her, but she was too slow.
Raizer appeared before her. He didn't use a sword. He didn't use a fancy technique. He simply reached out and gripped the air in front of her face, his hand glowing with the concentrated golden light of a dying star.
Chi-Boost: Burst
- ROAR!
A pillar of blinding light—the Great Light of Tenkai—erupted from Ishtar's body, tearing through the roof of the palace and illuminating the entire Pleasure Quarter.
Ishtar was gone, sent back to the heavens in a forced 'Death'.
The silence that followed was deafening. The gleaming light faded from Raizer's eyes as the King Engine finally stilled. He stood on the balcony, looking out over the district he had just decapitated.
Raizer looked down at his hands, then at Haruhime, who was staring at him in stunned silence.
"Bell," Raizer called out, his voice weary. "Clean this up."
[As expected of a professional slacker, passing your work to others so easily! Tch! Tch! Tch!] The system shook its head in disappointment. Then it shot forward, as if remembering something, [Hey, what did you say before exactly? Haoshoku Haki? It's King Engine, you bastard!]
"I mean, Haoshoku Haki sounds a lot cooler."
[Only for halfwits like you, you bastard! I dare you to rename any one of King's other moves! I will fcking sprinkle you with-]
Raizer waved off the system and walked out the Pleasure District. It seemed that his time in this world was coming to an end. He had grown strong enough to face most thugs in Marvel. Not the mutant villains or the intergalactic monsters but it was enough for now.
"Time to leave. Unsurprisingly, I won't miss it much."
He would return when this matter had died down. After all, Loki Familia still owed him a free meal. f course, he would return for a free meal!