Chapter 397 - Offers

In order to speed up things a little bit, Ryan gave Femradiel the duty to kill all mob monsters that approach the group. Her senses were better, and Ryan wanted to pay attention to Haruna's story. Still, thanks to that, Haruna and her soldiers that were twenty pretty beaten down men and women, frowned when Ryan's attacks killed several monsters without him looking at them. He was gaining credit for Femradiel's works.

The monsters that Ryan found were smaller versions of the bosses, and their names were pretty much the same, but they also had the name offspring after them. However, until now, Ryan only found Byakko's offspring and Genbu's offspring.

"So, you aren't from here… Can I assume that the dragons caused a lot of destruction pretty much everywhere?" Haruna asked.

"Yes, that happened in every single major city," Ryan replied.

"I see… after the dragons destroyed pretty much all of our civilization, those who managed to survive began to fight the monsters and obtain strength to recover our lands," Haruna explained. "However, human settlements were too far apart and too few, the number of monsters was too high. So, we felt like we were losing the war. When we found about dungeons and classes, the situation improved a little, but then when we found the four dungeons around Tokyo things took an unexpected turn."

"The bosses offered you power," Ryan said.

"Indeed… so something similar happened in other places?" Haruna asked.

"In a sense, but it is the first time I saw the bosses fighting alongside humans," Ryan replied.

"People like me found that too suspicious, but others quickly were convinced since they obtained power without doing anything particularly dangerous," Haruna said. "Besides, the four beasts were supposed to be mythical creatures that can bring luck, so many of us thought they were the answer to solve this crisis."

"Byakko and Genbu… what are the others?" Ryan asked.

"Seiryu and Suzaku," Haruna replied. "Others like me found it strange that those monsters were at a war with each other. So, we were cautious of them. However, after a while, the four beasts managed to convince humans that those who didn't accept their offer of power were infiltrate agents that worked for other monsters that soon might attack our country. We became their enemies and they even went as far as causing dungeon breaks to create copies of the original bosses."

Ryan sighed when he heard that. While he could understand that many were blinded by the power they obtained since with that power, they could protect their family and friends. It was very disappointing that they went as far as causing dungeon breaks. No wonder the level of those monsters was that high.

"The humans on the beast's sides and the beasts themselves fought against each other for quite a while, but since their powers were pretty balanced, they failed at winning the fight," Haruna added. "So, they decided to capture other survivors and force them to join their side."

"I can't imagine how that might solve the problem, as far as I am concerned, those empowered soldiers weren't that powerful," Ryan said.

"They received some obvious power-ups at the beginning, but the beasts stopped doing that even though they apparently could power up a single human many times," Haruna said. 

"They wanted to make the humans on their side fight harder by promising those who might stand out even more power. While I think those guys you killed were pretty powerful thanks to it, they relied on that boost too much and thus their growth decreased."

That was one of the reasons why Ryan didn't want to rely on Femradiel's power. Human nature is something complicated. Once most of them get used to something, they tend to overuse it, and when that something is too beneficial, it becomes like an addicting drug. Power in itself was probably one of the most powerful drugs, but the path to becoming powerful wasn't an easy one. That was why some of the Japanese survivors allied themselves with the four beasts.

"I am not familiar with Japanese mythical creatures, but I assume they are similar to the creatures in your folklore, right?" Ryan asked. "Byakko is a tiger and Genbu is a turtle, what are Seiryu and Suzaku?"

"Seiryu is an Eastern dragon and Suzaku is like an Eastern version of Phoenix," Haruna said. "At least in terms of overall appearance."

As expected, those monsters were Eastern mythological creatures. While for their size, Ryan managed to kill some of them with relative ease, it was only because they were dumb and alone. Also, they couldn't fly… Seiryu and Suzaku can, and those will definitely be a pain to fight against. Not to mention, their numbers must be pretty insane by themselves, and Ryan had to multiply that by four.

"Fortunately, most of them are just copies from the originals," Ryan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Is there anything else you can say about them that you find it weird?"

"I guess the fact that they never talk? Not even with their allies…" Haruna frowned. "I assumed that they really don't see humans as allies or as foes strong enough foes, but I might be wrong about that because when I first heard of them, some survivors said that they did talk with them."

"Possibly, talking is something only the originals can do," Ryan nodded to himself. "So, aside from those four dungeons near your capital, is there any other that can spawn really powerful creatures?"

"No, but it has been a while since we investigated the Southern part of our country, so I can't be sure," Haruna said. "Seiryus and Suzakus dominated those parts and we have even more trouble fighting them."

So, the melee monsters that couldn't fly were dominating the Northern region, and the long-ranged monsters that could fly were in the South. Ryan concluded that they figured out staying in a single place and fighting against three other species wasn't productive. So they divided themselves and moved a little… Still, there was a question Ryan wouldn't obtain by asking Haruna… who are the dungeon masters, and why they put their dungeons so close to Tokyo?