Chapter 8: Ranked Monsters
After a few hours of riding his bike through the busy night streets, Klaus returned to his house.
From today’s session, he understood that he needed to work out daily to keep up with the changes in his body.
Trina’s offer to be a gym partner is more beneficial to me than to her in multiple ways.
[You can also build a close relationship with a future hero or maybe even have a child or two.]
"Shut it." Klaus glared at the system screen as he took off his gym attire and stepped into the bathroom.
After having a bath, he ate the dinner which he had ordered, then he jumped into his bed and slipped into sleep.
"Sweet dreams to me."
This time, the system said nothing because it had no reason to repeat the same unless it was highly important.
[Host has completed five daily tasks!]
[Host has leveled up!]
[No environmental mana found. Level up effect has been reduced by 50%.]
[Remaining effect would be reapplied once environmental mana has been detected.]
In the morning, after taking care of his daily needs, he sat on the sofa, put on his gloves, and began killing the larvae to complete the kill missions.
[Host has killed a mutated monster: Klaus Murrow is the best host ever!]
He leveled up twice by killing one hundred and two hundred fifty mutated monsters, but the notification of the updated mission caused him to pause.
[New normal mission added!]
[Kill a D-rank mutated monster.]
’D-rank? What is this crap now?’
Klaus stared at the screen with a confused expression and asked, "What does that mean?"
[Rarely, some mutated monsters form elemental cores. These cores allow them to manipulate elements such as fire, water, thunder, darkness, etc.]
’So they won’t just be some mindless zombies?’ Klaus’s face darkened, and he mumbled, "How are they ranked?"
[They are ranked based on the number of elemental cores. D-rank has one elemental mana core, C-rank has two, B-rank has three, and A-rank has four.]
This sounds seriously problematic.
"I see," he whispered.
His gaze shifted toward the box of live larvae. "I cannot farm levels anymore, huh..."
Strangely, Klaus didn’t feel too dispirited from this; instead, he felt somewhat happy.
Mostly because he had no desire to spend every morning crushing hundreds of larvae.
Though now that he knew that there were ranked monsters, multiple questions had appeared in his head.
"Is A-rank the highest possible rank?"
[I am restricted from providing more information on this topic.]
"Hmm... so there are ranks above A," he concluded and leaned back on the sofa.
"What about the seven calamities? Do they have elemental cores?"
[It is speculated that the seven calamities have four elemental cores, but there is no proof to support that.]
"How useful." He rolled his eyes and groaned like an injured beast.
It would’ve been better if I had been able to level up a few more times, but there is nothing I can do about it. The apocalypse will happen in five years, so there shouldn’t be any D-rank monsters at the current time.
"I should focus on doing other missions." He nodded to himself and commanded the mission list to appear.
[Normal Missions]
- Kill a D-rank mutated monster.
- Save a human from a mutated monster.
- Gain a companion.
- Create a safe base.
- Have a child.
[Special Missions]
- Awaken your trait.
- Kill the first calamity.
- Kill the second calamity.
- Kill the third calamity.
- Kill the fourth calamity.
- Kill the fifth calamity.
- Kill the sixth calamity.
- Kill the seventh calamity.
He had no method to complete the special missions yet, so he ignored them like his exes.
"Who is considered a companion?"
Even after meeting Martin and joining Trina as her workout partner, the mission "Gain a companion" hadn’t been completed, making him believe that he had to do something specific.
[A companion is a person who wishes to help you achieve your goals.]
"That seems more like a retainer..." Klaus remarked.
[Retainer sounds rude.]
"So it really is that."
[Being polite does not hurt.]
He was left stunned by the system’s shamelessness and the difficulty of this mission.
His goal was to silently rule the world, and for that, he needed to save as many lives as possible during the apocalypse, but how was he supposed to tell that to anyone else?
Unlike him, they didn’t have a system, so no matter what he said, they would think of it as a joke, or worse, he would be labeled a madman.
"Maybe there are ways to complete it without telling them about the apocalypse?" He truly hoped that was the case.
[Host, the apocalypse is already happening.]
"..." Klaus once again wondered what sins he had committed for this stupid system to choose him.
Shaking his head, he lowered his gaze to the next mission.
’My house is a safe shelter, so what is a safe base?’ He rubbed his chin with a thoughtful expression, which he didn’t need to because he had a literal encyclopedia in his head.
[Host’s rundown house is not considered a safe base because it lacks a big storage, weapons, a defensive system, and members.]
A vein throbbed at his forehead. "What do you mean by ’rundown house’, huh? My walls don’t even have a single scratch!"
[My apologies, I had forgotten that you still haven’t come to terms with your new reality.]
"You are the delusional one." Klaus threw a fist at the blue screen, and it passed through it without doing anything.
"Hmph!" He snorted and said as he rose from his seat, "To create a safe base, I need land. To get land, I need money, for which I need to wait for a month."
[Host, there is an easier normal mission below it.]
"I don’t want any kids," he blurted and returned to his room.
His hand found the switchboard, and he turned on the fan.
As there was nothing for him to do, he simply sprawled on his bed and began watching workout tutorials on TheeTube.
Although he could become Trina’s friend by simply working out with her, that friendship would be no different from a hundred others. He needed to be different, to stand out. He planned to do so by beating her in her own game and earning a permanent place as her rival.
"Just you wait, I will leave you in the dust," he said with a wide grin on his face, his eyes gleaming in excitement.