His heart began beating faster and faster. Because the size of the box was rather familiar to him. His hands ripping open the box became far more urgent.
'As I thought.'
Hal's eyes grew wider. There was a golden card inside the box. The Blank card.
Indeed, it was the Blank card that granted him entrance to places he couldn't access normally, and this time it granted a password.
A password that from experience, Hal knew to grant access into instant dungeons!
It was indeed what he had been hoping for.
The information on the key appeared afterward.
Tti-ring!
[Item: Pass card of the Demon's Hellspawn.]
Rarity: S
Category: Password
A password that will let you enter the 'Dungeon: Demon's Hellspawn. It can be used at the Epic Center Tower, located at 301N Main St, Wichita.
"It's an S?"
Hal raised his voice in surprise.
Of course, there was no guarantee that the rarity ranking had any bearing on the difficulty of the dungeon. But he couldn't think of it any other way.
The rarity 'D' key opened a dungeon that was on par with a Gate ranked D, after all.
What would his fate be, if the difficulty of the instant dungeon turned out to be 'S' then?
Even with a raid team consisting solely of S-rank hunters, there was no definite assurance that the dungeon would be cleared without any casualties.
The difficulty of a Gate increased with a high difference, from the B-rank and above, which is to say that, the spawning of an S-rank Gate was rare, and there had only been a few occurrences of it, all over the world, so few he could count it on the fingers of his hands. But.....
'One of them appeared on Olathe, though.
Afterward, the town of Olathe became an abandoned Hellhole where no humans could exist and was now locked down by a Dome to keep the monsters in there locked.
Hal stared at the pass card in his hands for a long time.
'This is what I wanted?'
If there was one silver lining in the matter, then it would be that the explanation said he'd be able to 'enter' the dungeon with the password, unlike the previous one where he was 'transferred'.
The benefit there was that he could exit the dungeon at any time he felt like.
' Well, that's assuring enough.' He thought.
'I've worked so hard to earn this chance, so I can't throw it away like that now, can I?'
He simply had to confirm right away with his own two eyes whether this was what he wanted or not.
Before that, he'd have to get okay with making use of this weird password the system had dropped on his hands, without feelings for him.
****
Part One. Demon's Hellspawn
In Front of the Epic Center.
It was an average skyscraper with just twenty-two floors, it boasted the title of the the tallest building in Wichita, Kansas.
The building was used by agencies like the FBI, Secret Service, and other security agencies before the Invasion, but it is now used by the Organization.
Every security agency, like the police force, the armies, the FBI, and the rest, had all been merged into one general body after the Invasion.
The 'Monsters Hunter Organization' they called it.
Hal never seized to wonder, about whoever came up with such a plain name. The 'Monster Hunter Organization'.
'Just plain plain'. He thought.
A few people were walking about, as it was a ground for Hunters and not regular civilians.
It was late in the evening, so the building wasn't buzzing with people like it normally did, only a few Hunters that served as security could still be seen patrolling the lengths of the building.
Because of the weird way he had to access the building, Hal decided to conceal himself by pulling up the hoodie attached to his top.
If someone saw a person disappearing and reappearing in thin air, without a Gate in site, it could cause a ruckus. Not only that, there were several CCTV cameras installed here and there in the vicinity, so it wasn't such a bad idea to avoid being conspicuous.
...., there was someone busy eyeing Hal at that moment.
'Who could that kid be?'
To think, there would be a straggler wearing a hoodie busy loitering around the building at this time of the day.
The security guard watching from inside the building found Hal's behavior rather suspicious and stood up from his chair.
But he soon stopped dead in his tracks again as the youth did something even more strange.
The kid had walked forward and was just a few steps from entering the surroundings of the building, but that wasn't what caught his attention the most; no, it was the fact that the kid's mouth was moving fast.
'Ah, just what could the system be thinking to give me such a password.' Hal thought with a disgruntled look.
'Like I'm some kind of old Taoist. Hey, system, after this, you make sure not to give me such a password, okay?' Hal voiced his displeasure to the system, but of course, there was no reply.
"Ok let's do this," Hal said and started reciting the password.
"From the Deep Unknown they call,
Through Eternal Abyss echoes response,
Where the Depth and the Abyss meet,
There Hell spawns!"
While Hal was still reciting the strange password, blue electricity was beginning to spark and jump all over his body and in front of him, and as soon as he finished, he took a step forward and disappeared from view.
The security guard stood frozen, but only for a moment, as he soon came back to his senses and ran to investigate the weird matter.
'Just who the heck, could that kid be?' He thought in utter surprise as he ran.
Never in his years as a Hunter had he heard of another simply disappearing from view, with no tricks added, not to talk of a normal civilian.
As he got to the spot where Hal was earlier, he searched around for any signs of him but couldn't find any.
The man was standing there, yet he had just disappeared after saying some words. Vanished! Without a trace!
The security guard searched some furthermore, and even stood at the exact spot he thought the kid must have stood in.
He put his hand forward to feel for anything – maybe there was an invisible Gate there, without their knowledge, but he was disappointed. It was just clear free air.
"How strange! I'll be damned!" He shouted and turned to left, but as he did, he saw something out of the corner of his eyes and quickly turned to look, hoping it would be that kid.
His hopes weren't dashed, no, they were just cut shot.
"U-whack!"
He cried out in shock as he fell hard on his butt.
"What, what, what the heck is going on here? !"
The security guard cried out with a pale face.
A person's disembodied hand, crackling with electricity, floated in the air, then vanished once more.
Hal retracted his hand.
'It's connected to the outside world.'
Unlike the other time, there was no invisible wall blocking his exit. If he wanted to he can get out of here at anytime, as long as he didn't forget that weird password.
'Now that I'm finished with confirming the escape route...'
Hal dropped the hood, and turned to look ahead of him.
"...."
What he saw was enough to make him groan. The building a few miles from him, was almost an exact replica of the Epic Center, just that in this space, it appeared more huge, grotesque, and strangest of all.....it was aflame.
The surrounding was filled with an energy unlike any that he had ever felt.
A tower rising up into the air without an end, wrapped in reddish black flames. It was as if the tower was burning, but it wasn't being burnt, instead it spewed out billowing flames, instead.
Looking at it, only one name for it came to Hal's mind.
"High Aflame."
Hal slowly walked towards this burning tower, while thinking.
'....If the tower is like a replica the Epic Center, then while did it seem to span forever without no end, instead of the normal twenty -two stories that the Epic Center was?'
This phenomenon still seemed to baffle him, and only after some time of thinking did a reasonable explanation came to mind.
'It's all an illusion...' But if it was so, that begged the question why?
'Perhaps designed to make the building seem infinite, thereby weakening the resolve whoever challenged it.'
After Hal came to this conclusion, he couldn't help but further think about who or what was powerful enough to build the system containing such complexity.
But there was one thing he was sure of, whoever or whatever created it, they must have been a being of great power.
He could only hope to come to the knowledge of that sometime in the future.