The Goddess Of War

Chapter 153 - The Group of Abductors?

Jirou immediately approached a large monitor on one of the walls of the room and made a few touches to the screen to show what Kenichiro and Eiko should know.

Not long after, on the screen, 3 Hunter faces appeared that Keisuke and Jirou wanted to show to their two guests.

Kenichiro and Eiko only stared briefly at the faces of the three Hunters. They are more focused on staring at the identity of the three.

Nevertheless, Kenichiro finally looked back at the face of one of them, who was very familiar to him.

From the look on the faces of the two guests, Keisuke and Jirou know that they are both interested in the face of one of them, but do not show excessive reaction.

"Kevin Jung? He's a secret agent from the Association of Australia and Southeast Asia, right?" kenichiro asked without turning his face away from the screen.

"Yes, Tanaka-San. But, Jung-San had already resigned from the Association a few months ago. He was now joining the new guild from City C, the Nine Bears."

"Nine Bears?" Kenichiro ignored the information at the beginning of Keisuke's sentence. He was more interested in the guild's strange name.

'What is the philosophy of that strange name? Wouldn't that be more suitable as the name of a children's playgroup?'

However, Kenichiro was finally able to forget the name that sounded like a joke when he saw the long history of raids carried out by the Nine Bears guild in just 5 months since its inception.

The Nine Bears Guild had conducted 157 raids in Dungeons with E, D and C rank. Then they had also conducted raids in B-ranked Dungeons 51 times and the latter they had conducted raids in 16 A-ranked Dungeons.

Amazingly, there was not a single raid they failed to deal with. Only once did they lose many members during a dungeon break. However, they could still overcome the dungeon break without help from any party.

"They're crazy!" exclaimed Kenichiro, who managed to make the three others who were inside the room turn to him simultaneously. "How could a guild do such a raid in just five months?"

"They get cooperation contracts from many cities in Southeast Asia, even from many countries in the world that do not have many adequate Hunters." Keisuke explained.

"Did they do it just three?" ask Kenichiro again.

"They have a lot of members now. In fact, they had six different raid teams that would serve in each level of different Dungeons." Jiro explained. He then touches the screen again, and the display on the screen changes.

"This is the first team."

Kenichiro looked at the faces of Hunter who was in the first team of only 10 Hunters. However, the rank that the ten Hunters possessed was not playful. They had 7 S rank Hunters in them.

Kenichiro can see their identity that Jirou has condensed into a single look. However, out of those 10 Hunters, there were 3 Hunters which made him a little confused when looking at the rankings they had. It was the same 3 Hunter in the photo in the previous view.

 

Gina Stewart (Leaders)

Rank :??? - Legendary

Class : Healer

 

Kevin Jung (2nd Co-Leader)

Rank :??? - Mythic

Class : Mage

 

Bimo Gandri (Member)

Rank :??? - Legendary

Class: Tanker

 

"What do question marks and captions mean behind that ranking?" asked Kenichiro who was a little confused on that piece of information.

"The Mana energy detector that Sato Corp had could not yet detect the Hunter rank if it was higher than the SS. That's a new rating for 9 AM."

"Company 9 AM?" Kenichiro is somewhat troubled again by another strange name, which seems devoid of philosophy.

"The company was a subsidiary of the Nine Bears guild. A technology-based company that uses raid products as its products."

Kenichiro nodded. "Then, what rank are these three Hunters?"

"Legendary can be equated with SSS rank, while Mythic can be equated with SSSS." said Jirou.

Hearing that, Kenichiro fell silent. Both of his eyes widened and his mouth gaped as he looked at each other with Eiko, his daughter.

He really did not expect there to be any other SSS and SSSS rank, other than Takayoshi and himself.

"W-what... Don't they look very young? And again, didn't this guild have too many S rankers in it?"

Kenichiro who could no longer hold back his curiosity and surprise finally wondered.

"Keisuke Sato-San, what do you suspect has kidnapped Sato-San are them?" Eiko who had been silent since then finally made a sound.

Keisuke nodded his head.

"But, what's the basis of your suspicion of Keisuke?" this time Kenichiro asked.

"My suspicions began with Jung-San's move to City C and quitting the Australian Association." Keisuke began to explain his initial suspicions, "It was not an easy thing for a secret agent to do, especially since Jung-San had an SS rating at the time,"

"The Australian association is also unlikely to take Jung-San off the hook, given how much investment they have spent to help Jung-San get to the SS rank."

"Surprisingly again, Jung-San suddenly became the CEO at the company 9 AM, which we did not even manage to find out who the investor was. The City C Association looks like it's working together to cover it up."

"What's? The association covered something as important as that?" The surprised Kenichiro, cut off Keisuke's explanation.

"Yes, Tanaka-San. And these guys could suddenly rise in rank very quickly." Keisuke said as he turned to the monitor, "They've risen in rank in just 5 months."

"What?!"

Kenichiro and Eiko together.

Eiko who is usually always calm was surprised when she heard it.

They knew, in order to achieve an S rank alone, it required a huge cost.

Unless someone does a raid alone and uses all the results obtained from the raid to invest in one person, it only makes sense that someone can do it quickly.

However, 200 Dungeons might not be enough to make 1 person to the S rank, let alone there being many S rankers there. It will still take a long time.

Just like what happened to the Tanaka family, Kenichiro invested his entire raid proceeds over the past 10 years just to raise Eiko's rank to the SS rank, while he himself used the money he collected since 25 years ago to raise his 2nd rank from SS to SSSS.

One must not share and be greedy to do so.

Except, there were people who could extract Mana energy from magic crystals that stored a lot of Mana energy, compared to monsters that had already consumed a lot of Mana energy before they died in battle, then the rise in rankings very quickly will make sense to do.

Takayoshi Sato has been doing research for decades, but he cannot.

"It is impossible to transfer the results of Mana energy extract from inanimate objects to living things. Being able to move from the corpse of a former living creature alone is already very extraordinary." Takayoshi once said to Kenichiro.

Kenichiro stared back at the screen before them. "So, you suspect that they're the ones who kidnapped Taka?"

Kenichiro nodded.

"9 AM companies also suddenly appear with high technology that has never even existed in the whole world. They were able to create an avatar hunter."

"Avatar hunter?"

"Yes. Tanaka-San."

Jirou changed the display again on the screen and they could see an avatar hunter there.

Jirou then played the avatar fight video while telling and explaining how sophisticated the avatar was.

Kenichiro and Eiko watched the show while listening to the story that Jirou conveyed with amazement, especially when watching the avatar fighting technique that was even better than the human Hunter.

But, what makes them confused is the typical Japanese weapon that avatars use.

"Isn't the avatar using the tanto? And.., there's wakizashi on her waist too." said Eiko.

"Yes." Yeah." Jirou said quickly, "Because this technology appeared to coincide with the disappearance of the father, and again, the weapons used were also from our country, therefore we put suspicion on their group."

Kenichiro and Eiko nodded their heads.

"It makes sense then," Kenichiro responded.

"We were suspicious, they kidnapped and held dad hostage, then took the technology that our dad had been researching all this time." Keisuke.

Hearing that, Kenichiro recalled Takayoshi's story back when he stopped by this laboratory a year ago.

Takayoshi once said that he was conducting research that the results might change the future of the Hunters. So, he also agreed with Keisuke.

"Then let's try to get into their trap and find out the truth." Kenichiro said suddenly, with a serious face.

°°°

Kenichiro and Keisuke finally discussed the plan they were going to do and when they were going to C City to start the investigation.

Meanwhile Jirou continues the screen display of the results of her investigation on Eiko.

There, Eiko saw members of the Nine Bears guild who were averaging A and S rank.

However, as Eiko passed through the photo of someone's face, both of her eyebrows frowned as she seemed to recognize that person's face.

"Jirou Sato-San, can you return it to the previous screen?" Pinta Eiko, shortly after Jirou changed the page view.

After Jirou returns the display to the screen, Eiko asks to enlarge the photo of one Hunter.

Eiko slightly tilted her head while rubbing one of her hands with the other.

"Dad, isn't his face very similar to the one in my father's painting?" eiko asked, without turning to her father and continuing to focus on observing Anna's face inside the screen.

Kenichiro turned to Eiko for a moment before finally staring at the screen.

Both Kenichiro's eyes widened abruptly. He even opened his mouth without being able to say the words he wanted to say.

"D-he..."

Exactly as his daughter said. Although the hair color and bead color of their eyes are different, but the face in the painting and the face Kenichiro saw on the screen in front of him is really the same.

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