"Since you don't have the money for rent. I'll be taking these to make sure I don't suffer any loss in case you run away. When you get the money, you can come reclaim them. And if you don't, then you'd better find a comfortable place to stay on the street," Mr Jonathan, a potbellied man dressed in black trousers and a grey shirt said.
He turned around and walked out of the apartment with the items in his hands.
Maximus looked at the door with a defeated expression.
Suddenly, his gaze grew lifeless.
Maximus was a reincarnator. He had entered this world from his mother's womb. From the moment he was born, he chose to take full advantage of his new life and achieve the things he couldn't do in his former life.
By the third month, Maximus uttered his first word. By the fifth month, he could walk on both legs without support.
At two years old, he spoke his first full, coherent sentence. At the age of five, he mastered two languages. By the age of ten, Maximus's house collapsed, and that was when he encountered the true nature of the world he had reincarnated into.
This world was unlike his previous one. It was a world where humans were capable of wielding supernatural powers, and monsters only seen in stories, myths, and folklore could emerge from dungeons to wreak havoc on the world and terrorise humanity.
The humans capable of facing these monsters were known as Hunters.
The reason his house had collapsed was that a dungeon had emerged beside it and immediately broke out, releasing terrifying monsters into the world.
Before the Hunters arrived, it was already too late. His parents had died protecting him.
Maximus was taken away and placed in an orphanage. He displayed his genius there as well and was placed in a school for geniuses, where he aced every exam and broke every record that could be broken.
Initially, he spared no effort to display himself as a genius and enjoy the benefits it brought. But upon learning about the Hunters, Maximus's true goal became becoming a Hunter, because only then would he be able to live his life to the fullest.
However, he failed his awakening. He didn't have the qualifications to become a Hunter.
The once extraordinary life he had claimed to live became pointless. Maximus kept trying to awaken. He even began to think that perhaps he had brought a cheat along with him into this world.
He tried his parents' souvenirs that they had left behind after their death, but found nothing.
He tried to check if he could activate a system, but found nothing. He didn't have any ability, nor did he awaken a system.
From that day onward, everything came crashing down.
Soon, he found himself on the streets, living from debt to debt. Every collector around his home knew him or had heard rumours about him.
Due to a monster attack, he lost his last job and home and had to flee the city to escape with his life. That was how he ended up here. He used his last remaining money to rent this house and stock it with food, preparing for his death when the food ran out.
Maximus hadn't eaten for the past week, so he had no strength to argue or make trouble with a big-bellied man like Mr Jonathan, who was well-fed and could provide for himself and his family.
He hadn't found any job at a grocery store, much less gone for a job interview. So he had no money to pay by the day after tomorrow.
"What's the use of transmigrating into another world without any cheat?" Maximus muttered.
He remembered a story he had once read in his past life, where a man awakened a power that allowed him to rewind time by ending his own existence, acquiring immense power, and becoming a powerful Hunter in the process. Though the cost of the power was immense, its potential was limitless.
"Any cheat… even a system… I don't care what I have to do to grow stronger."
DING!
[You've uttered the word 'System' for the one billionth time.]
[Congratulations, you've summoned the Inter-Dimensional System Interface. You are the 10,000,000,000 winner to obtain the system roulette.]
[Please wait a moment for your reward…]
Maximus's eyes shot open as he swiftly sat upright. He wiped his hands across his eyes to ensure that he wasn't hallucinating. He passed his hand through the holographic blue screen, but it felt like a tangible existence.
It followed his eyes wherever he looked.
Maximus had never experienced such a hallucination before.
"Is this real? Have I finally awakened a system?" he muttered to himself.
Perhaps he was dreaming, and Mr Jonathan had never come to take away his belongings. In the dream, he had realised his lifelong wish of awakening his transmigrator's cheat.
Maximus pinched his wrist tightly. "OUCH!" he gasped in pain.
However, the blue holographic screen was still present.
At that moment, Maximus realised that he was not hallucinating.
He was fully awake.
"I have finally awakened my system!" Maximus shouted gleefully.
He stood to his feet, raised his hand to the ceiling, and roared, "DID YOU HEAR THAT, WORLD?! I HAVE FINALLY AWAKENED MY SYSTEM!! I KNEW IT!! WITH ONLY PERSEVERANCE IN MY HEART, I CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING!"
BANG!! BANG!!
A loud ruckus came from the ceiling.
"THAT'S IT! I'M CUTTING OFF YOUR WATER AND ELECTRICITY SUPPLY!! LET'S SEE IF YOU'LL STILL HAVE THE VOICE TO DISTURB MY EARS AND PEACE!!" Mr Jonathan's booming voice came from outside.
Maximus quickly sealed his lips with his hands.
He rushed toward the door and shut it closed before collapsing onto the bed. His eyes became heavy and his vision hazy. He had used his last remaining energy for his brief outburst and was completely spent.
If he didn't get any food to eat or water to drink within the next five minutes, he might truly die.
However, Maximus focused on the system interface before him. Perhaps he might win something from the system that could get him out of his current predicament.
[Congratulations, Maximus. You've awakened the Final Boss Role-Playing System.]
"Final what…?" Maximus looked at the system in confusion.
[Would you like to activate the system? Yes/No]
Without thinking or hesitating, Maximus said, "Yes."
"Arrghh!" Suddenly, Maximus felt a splitting headache.
A flood of commands and information on how to utilise the system poured into his mind.
[Final Boss Role-Play will be assigned in ten seconds… 10… 9… 8… 0]
Maximus's vision immediately went black.
***
[Final Boss Role-Play Assigned.]
[Boss Identity: The Caretaker (Shadow Reaper.)]
[Level 1 Dungeon: The Abandoned Orphanage.]
"Arghh! My head," Maximus groaned, clutching his head as he looked at the holographic status screen before his eyes.
Suddenly, he froze as he realised something was wrong. He looked at his hand. It was covered in worn, dirty bandages.
This wasn't his hand. And the attire he was currently wearing wasn't his either.
Even the voice he had spoken with wasn't his.
He surveyed his current environment. He was seated in a small office, sitting on a chair with a table before him.
There were piles of books stacked on either side of the table and piles of papers spread out before him.
However, they were all covered in dust and spiderwebs. Even the four corners of the office walls, along with the shelves, pictures, and other decorations, were blanketed in dust and spiderwebs.
There was only a single flickering light on the ceiling, casting a dim glow over the room.
Was this truly a dungeon?
Was he truly role-playing as the dungeon's final boss?
It felt as though he were a mummy in an abandoned building.
"Status," Maximus said.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Name: Maximus Damascus]
[ Race: Human ]
[ Age: 21 ]
[ Talent: Final Boss Role-player [???] ]
[ Level: 0 ]
[ Mana: F ]
[ Strength: F- ]
[ Agility: F- ]
[ Physique: F- ]
[Dexterity: D-]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Attribute: None ]
[ Skills: ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This was his status sheet, an interface that only Hunters could possess. However, thanks to the Final Boss Role-Playing System, he could now access it, granting him the opportunity to become a Hunter.
Among Hunters, those who possessed talents were treated differently because they were rare and special. Any of them was bound to become a high-ranking and powerful Hunter, depending on the type of Talent they awakened.
Seeing the talent he had awakened, Maximus wasn't surprised by the question marks. If the Final Boss Role-playing system was exactly as the information he had received suggested, then its potential was limitless.
It couldn't be rated by normal means.
He also wasn't surprised by his attributes. He was a normal human who hadn't eaten for a week.
If he were a Level 1 Hunter, then his attributes would have been different.
"Boss Status," he said.
Instantly, the holographic status screen vanished, and a new one appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Final Boss Status Panel ]
[ Boss Identity: The Caretaker (Shadow Reaper)]
[ Boss Level: 1]
[ Mana: D ]
[ Strength: D ]
[ Agility: D+ ]
[ Physique: D ]
[ Dexterity: C+ ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Attribute: Darkness ]
[ Skills: Shadow Jump(D+): Instantly move between connected shadows.
Chain Throw(D+): You can throw a weapon tethered by a chain to strike a target at range.]
[ Passive Boss Effects: Morale Pressure (D+): Hunters under sustained pursuit experience panic buildup.]
[Unique Final Boss Skill: The Survivor(???): One survivor will always make it out alive to spread your legend. ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Maximus stared at his stats screen in surprise. He had gone from Level 0 to Level 1 in an instant.
Sure, even if it wasn't exactly his original body, for now, it was his to control as he desired. And even if he didn't like the system he had awakened, beggars couldn't be choosers.
Maximus didn't bother to think about where the system had emerged from either. If he knew, what could he do?
It wasn't as though he would stop himself from utilising it.
It was either this or going back to worrying about putting a roof over his head and fleeing from city to city until the next dungeon break.
Maximus was content with what he had received. He pushed away the silly thought from his mind and looked at the other status screen beside the Dungeon's Final Boss Status screen.
He didn't know how The Survivor skill worked, but he sensed that he would find out either way.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Objective: Eliminate the intruders.
Penalty: Death.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Fear Points: 0 ]
[Fear can be used to enhance stats and skills. Unlocks at 50 Fear Points. It will determine your [Reward extraction]]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Maximus realised that he would die if he didn't complete the quest. If he wasn't mistaken, then Fear Points were generated from Hunters entering the dungeon to conquer it, or to target him.
The only thing Maximus looked forward to was the Reward Extraction, which came from completing the dungeon. It was related to how many Fear Points he could gather. The higher the Fear Points, the higher the reward he would receive.
He had received hints from the system, but still didn't know what it was, so he was eagerly anticipating it.
[Dungeon will open in twenty minutes. Take your position, Dungeon's Final Boss -The Caretaker (Shadow Reaper)]
Suddenly, another status screen appeared before him.
[20:00]
A timer appeared beside it.
"I think it's time to get to work," Maximus said.
However, his voice was raspy, sounding more like a groan, making it difficult to discern what he was saying. It was nothing like that of a human. Currently, he was a monster through and through.
He pushed the chair back and stood up from his seat. He took a good look at himself.
His entire body was covered in worn-out bandages, except for his eyes, allowing him to see his environment. Over his body was a black coat.
Maximus saw a black hat hanging on the wall behind him and a cutlass with a large blade and raised edges. A chain dangled from the handle. He picked up the hat and wore it, then took hold of the cutlass.
The chains immediately wriggled and wrapped around his hand as though they were alive.
Maximus swung the cutlass forward across the room. The cutlass extended outward alongside the chains, and after reaching its limit, it returned to his arm.