BXBX NOVEL Chapter 357 - Agreement
The tall, blond woman studied Ryan for a while, wondering if he was really serious about what he said. Every sane person who was still alive would try to clear dungeons and obtain as many classes as possible, but she didn\'t hear of anyone that decided to leave their countries behind just for that. Like America, Russia had many dungeons, considering both countries\' terrain, she failed in believing that Ryan had cleared more than one hundred of them in less than five months.
"There aren\'t many dungeons in your country?" The woman asked.
"There are plenty of dungeons there, but as I said, I am looking for the special ones," Ryan replied. "The ones that are hard to clear."
Ryan was either insane or very confident in his skills. Even though it would be hard to level up dozens of classes, any reasonable person would try to focus on getting as many low-level classes as possible. Still, Ryan was greedy enough to think that such a method was a waste of time. After all, while he clears high-tiered dungeons, he obtains much more coins and better loot and classes that are at least three times better than the ordinary ones, and that was without mentioning the skills.
"… If you agree with our terms, we can guide you toward some of those dungeons," The blond woman said.
"I am listening," Ryan said.
"Aside from paying to use our dungeons, you must agree that all the loot will be ours," The blond woman said. "Also, while you stay within our territory, you will be on watch 24/7. You can\'t use your skills when you are not fighting inside the dungeons, and your beast has to stay put the whole time."
"That is fine. I don\'t see any reason why I should use my skills outside combat," Ryan said. "Unless someone makes me use them, I won\'t."
Those terms were a bit hard, but they were hardly a problem for Ryan. He could create his own magic items, and he preferred that way to rely on luck. As for the lack of freedom, it was only natural given that Ryan looked indeed suspicious crossing continents alone.
"My name is Natasha, and I am currently the leader of the survivors in the extreme eastern side of our country," The blond woman said.
"You can call me Ryan," Ryan said. "If you don\'t mind, I would like to visit the dungeons as fast as possible."
"All right, but before anything, I would like to ask you to pay for the visit of those dungeons before anything," Natasha said. "We don\'t know if you have enough coins for that, after all."
"That is fair. What are your prices?" Ryan asked.
"I believe we divided the dungeons on the same level you divided them, so you will have to pay one hundred thousand coins to use the level one dungeon, five hundred thousand coins to use the level two dungeons, and one million for the level three dungeons," Natasha said.
"Are you fine with that?"
"No problem," Ryan said. "While my main focus is the level three dungeons, I am also looking for a dungeon in which I can obtain the Alchemist class. Which one is the closest?"
"You are lucky. You can obtain the Alchemist class in a dungeon fifty kilometers away from here," Natasha said.
"So, five hundred thousand first, huh," Ryan said and then jumped from Furball\'s back. "If you don\'t mind, I will pay for the other dungeons later."
After approaching Natasha, Ryan offered the handshake. Tension rose in the air since Natasha hesitated. Her allies had no idea what they talked about, it seemed. So, her accepting the handshake or not will determine if things will end in a fight. In the end, Natasha\'s instincts didn\'t warn her of any danger, so she accepted the handshake. Soon, afterward, she opened her eyes in surprise when she obtained the coins… apparently, she had used the price to use the dungeons as a means to discourage Ryan and make him back down.
"Is something wrong?" Ryan asked.
"No… follow me," Natasha said.
After turning around, Natasha gave the order to five of her men to keep their eyes on Ryan. Much to Ryan\'s annoyance, they would stay behind him, but that wasn\'t a problem since he had the mystical cape.
"Femradiel," Ryan thought. "Your vision is the same as mine or is different?"
"I can see everything around you," Femradiel replied.
"Good, if those five guys point their weapons at me, I will give you special permission to use Absolute Zero and turn them into ice statues," Ryan said.
"How unusual of you to give me that kind of permission," Femradiel said. "If you are worried about them, you should use Appraisal on them."
"Nah, knowing their strength will make me relax a little more than I should, so I won\'t use Appraisal," Ryan said. "You are still using Zen, right?"
"I never stop using it," Femradiel said.
That was good. Ryan won\'t have to worry about running out of mana if those guys keep using Appraisal on him. Still, fortunately, they tried initially since they had no idea that Mind Armor consumed mana constantly to protect Ryan\'s status.
For a while, they traveled in silence since Ryan\'s presence wasn\'t something they used to. Or perhaps it was due to Furball… Regardless, Ryan decided to break the silence and ask a few things to Natasha.
"If you don\'t mind me asking, those stone humans were survivors that got captured by some sort of monsters and taken to their world, right?" Ryan asked.
"Yes, something similar happened in your country?" Natasha asked.
"Yeah, but the ones who did that were demons," Ryan replied. "Demons didn\'t capture them, am I right?"
"What makes you think that?" Natasha asked.
Ryan sighed. That game of trying to obtain information while not revealing much was tiring… maybe Ryan should just ask Femradiel to read Natasha\'s mind, but in the end, Ryan gave up on that. He got mad when Alissa did that, so he couldn\'t let himself become a hypocrite.