Chronicles Of The Crafting Hero [REMASTERED]

The darkness of the night had completely consumed the world, covering the sky in glistening stars beneath a large, bright moon. The area outside was quiet, almost serene. A cool breeze occasionally brushed against the trees surrounding the mansion, but from inside, almost none of it could be heard. The peaceful night was a sharp contrast to what was happening within the Black Clouds Guild's base.

Inside the mansion, in the meeting room, the captain stood beside the tall windows, still wearing his armor. The dark metal gear covered his body, with patterns of white clouds running across his forearms. He hadn't taken it off since he arrived. One hand was resting against the edge of the window as he stared outside, his expression growing more frustrated the longer he remained there.

The vice-captain stood behind him, waiting for him to continue.

“Ben and Lucy... they'll be remembered. They helped carry this guild to what it is today. I had not expected our opponents to be this strong. I clearly underestimated them,” he said, turning away from the window.

The vice captain's face was twisted with anger. His brows were drawn together, and his hand tightened into a fist at his side.

“How could this even happen? I refuse to believe that there were only two of them there. There had to be more allies.”

“You're right,” the captain said.

The captain's arm fell back to his side. He stared at the floor for a moment before looking back at him.

“But we'll have to hear from Naomi when she regains consciousness.”

He stepped away from the window, the metal of his armor making a faint sound as he moved across the room.

“Our guild is too small right now. There's only ten of us left. The exact number that allows us to be perceived as a guild in the first place.” His expression became more serious as he looked toward the vice-captain. “We can't afford to lose more allies. If we do, we won't even be able to qualify for the guild quest that I just accepted.”

“You accept guild quest?” the vice-captain asked, his eyes widening slightly.

“Yes. There was a mission given to us by the Baron of Galeria to slay the boss monster that spawns 2 weeks from now. A wyvern.”

“A wyvern?” The vice-captain's expression immediately changed. He straightened slightly as he stared at the captain. “But that's such a strong beast. Even the Wolf Guild suffered such huge losses after they defeated it, even losing their vice-captain in the process. With our numbers, we can't—”

“We'll recruit,” the captain said, cutting him off.

“We'll spread the news to the other hunters in the area. We'll recruit more hunters.”

“Oh.” The vice-captain hesitated before asking, “How many are you planning on recruiting?”

“About five more will do.”

The captain folded his arms and walked toward the center of the room. His anger hadn't completely disappeared, but there was a growing confidence in his expression now that he had settled on a solution.

“People have always wanted to join our guild. They know the big advantages that come with it. We'll let them know we're recruiting and put a time limit on how long we're accepting new members.”

His eyes narrowed at he starred at the vice captain.

“You'll see them come flooding in. Then we'll pick the strongest out of them.”

Suddenly, the door swung open and Gary stepped into the room, breathing heavily.

“Captain. Naomi is awake.”

The captain, the vice-captain, and Gary immediately left the meeting room and headed into the hallway. They passed several doors before turning toward an open room on the right. Victoria, Catherine, and Zara were already inside, standing beside Naomi's bed.

All three looked concerned, but there was also a sense of confusion in their expressions. Naomi herself looked disoriented, her eyes moving between them as if she were still trying to process everything that had happened. There was something else in her expression too, something closer to shock, almost as if she'd seen a ghost.

As the three men entered the room, everyone turned toward them.

“Naomi, what happened?” the vice-captain asked immediately.

Naomi didn't answer at first. She lowered her eyes, then slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed until her feet touched the cold stone floor. She sat there for a moment, her hands resting against the mattress as she tried to gather her thoughts.

“Tell them what you told us,” Victoria said. There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice, as though she still couldn't fully believe what Naomi had told them herself.

“The hunter,” Naomi began.

Her voice was quiet at first. She looked down at the floor, her fingers slowly tightening against the fabric of her clothes.

“We couldn't take him down. He was so fast. At first, I thought he was weak because I landed a few hits on him. He kept taking damage because of the rune on my blade. He lost so much blood. It looked like we were just about to kill him.”

She paused, her expression tightening as the memory came back to her.

“But then...”

Her voice faded. Naomi shook her head slowly, as if even now she couldn't understand what she had witnessed.

“Then what happened?” the captain asked.

Naomi raised her eyes toward him.

“And then all of a sudden, he was healed. I don't know how.”

“Healed?” Victoria asked, her brows drawing together. “What do you mean?”

Naomi hadn't told her that part before.

“I don't know. When I was just about to kill him, he ran away. Lucy and I chased after him, but then suddenly he turned back to face us again. We knew he was coming back for her. But something was wrong.”

Naomi's breathing became a little heavier.

“I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There wasn't a single scar on his body anymore. All of them were gone. He had healed completely.”

The captain's eyes narrowed. He lowered his head slightly, thinking through what Naomi had just said.

*Regeneration?*

Zara finally spoke, his deep, gravelly voice cutting through the silence.

“If he can regenerate, then this is going to be troublesome. Who would have thought he had such a rare skill?”

“Yes, but he wouldn't be able to use it forever,” Victoria said, turning toward Zara.

“Continue. Then what happened?” the captain asked.

Naomi swallowed before continuing.

“Then all of a sudden, he got faster. Stronger. Way stronger than he was from the beginning.” Her hand moved slightly as she spoke, almost as though she were trying to show them how drastic the change had been.

“When I thought I had him, he used some kind of skill. I think it was subspace magic. He could materialize things out of nowhere. He was throwing water barrels at us the instant we got too close.”

“Barrels?” Gary muttered, his eyes widening.

“I didn't expect it at all,” Naomi continued. “He used my surprise as an opening and struck me right in the chest.”

Her hand immediately moved to her chest, clutching the fabric of her clothing. She pressed her palm against the spot where the attack had landed, her fingers tightening as the memory of the impact came rushing back.

Even though the injury had been completely healed, Naomi could still remember the force behind that strike. For a moment, the pain almost felt real again, lingering in her chest like a faint echo of the wound that had nearly taken her life.

“What happened next?” the captain asked.

“That's it. After that, I had no choice but to teleport back here,” she said, looking directly at the captain.

“What?” Gary said out loud. “What do you mean, that's it? You got hit once.”

“Yes. His strike was so strong, I was sent flying. I even rammed into Lucy on the way. I felt something break when I hit her. Before I could hit anything else, I teleported myself out of there twice to get here.”

“She’s right,” Victoria said. “When I healed her, I could feel that some of the bones in her chest were broken.”

“All from one hit?” Zara said, his expression shifting as he looked at Naomi. “I know assassins are pretty fragile, bu—”

“Who are you calling fragile?” Naomi protested, cutting him off. “I said he was too strong!”

“Even so, one guy—”

“He killed Lucy and Ben!” Naomi said, cutting him off again. Her voice rose as she looked toward Zara, clearly unwilling to let him reduce what had happened to something so simple.

“Lucy was killed by the other hunter who was with him. The girl with the light hair,” Catherine said.

Naomi's expression shifted as she remembered the fight. Her eyes lowered for a moment, and she pictured Rebecca.

“But she was wounded,” she muttered.

“So there were only two of them?” the captain asked.

Naomi looked back at him and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“What did they look like?” he asked.

“The man had an athletic build. He had short dark hair and blue eyes. He wore a blue coat and dark pants. The girl had silver eyes and long silver hair. She's an archer.”

“Huh. So only two of them, just like before,” the vice-captain said. He rubbed his chin, his eyes dropping toward the floor as he thought about it.

The captain remained quiet. His gaze stayed on Naomi, but his expression had become increasingly tense. Two people. Only two people had managed to kill Ben and Lucy, nearly kill Naomi, and leave the guild with more questions than answers. He slowly clenched one hand at his side.

The thought was difficult to accept. Two hunters causing this much trouble made the guild look incompetent.

“Did he use any other skill you recognized?” the captain asked.

Naomi shook her head. “No, not really. He did seem to get drastically faster and stronger, though. So it must have been some kind of enhancement skill. Other than those three skills, I didn't see him use anything else.”

The captain's eyes narrowed slightly.

“Where were they headed when you found them?”

“They were very deep inside the monster zone. There were corpses of Draco monsters scattered across the ground, they must've been hunting.”

The captain's expression changed at the mention of the corpses. He turned toward the vice-captain, holding his gaze for a moment.

“Rowan, come here for a moment.”

The vice captain followed him out of the room. The door remained open behind them as they stepped into the hallway, leaving the others to continue their conversation.

Once they had moved far enough away that their voices wouldn't carry into the room, the captain stopped and looked back toward the doorway.

“By the sound of it, we might be dealing with just two people here,” he said quietly. “Two very dangerous people.”

He turned back toward Rowan, his arms folding across his chest.

“And it sounds like the young man she described is the most dangerous. He's obviously an A-rank or higher. Maybe even S-rank.”

Rowan's brows drew together. He looked down for a moment, replaying Naomi's description in his head before shaking his head.

“I don't think he's an S-rank.”

The captain's eyes shifted toward him.

“Naomi said she was able to land a few hits on him. If he were an S-rank, it would've been impossible for her to do that. The battle wouldn't have lasted nearly as long either.”

Rowan raised a hand slightly as he continued, carefully considering his words.

“So if anything, I think he has a very powerful ultimate skill. It might have been the one that allowed him to become so much stronger and faster so suddenly.” He lowered his hand and looked directly at the captain. “I've heard some assassins have skills like that.”

The captain remained silent, his arms still folded as he considered Rowan's explanation. His eyes narrowed slightly.

“An ultimate skill...” he muttered.

“That’s the only reasonable explanation,” the vice-captain said.

The captain kept silent for a small while, his expression remaining serious as his thoughts lingered on everything they had just discussed. He lowered his gaze, rubbing his chin as he considered what they could do next.

“Do you still remember Jared?”

“Jared? Yeah. He’s the leader of the mercenary group, right? The one who couldn’t pay us that time.”

“How many people does he have in his band at the moment?”

“About eight of them.”

“Huh...” The captain rubbed his chin again, staring at the floor as he worked through the idea in his head.

“Would you send your son to contact them tomorrow? Since they haven’t paid the loan, we can make use of them. We can task them with finding and killing those hunters.”

“Oh... That is a great plan, but will they agree?”

The captain’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Rowan.

“You heard what she said she did, right? Would you disagree if that happened to you?”

Rowan slowly shook his head. The memory of what the assassin woman had said returned to him, and his expression tightened as he recalled the way she had gleefully described the horrible things she had done.

“No, I don’t think so. How can I forget?”

“Good. We’ve already given them a couple of days to bring back the gold, but they can do this instead.”

The vice-captain nodded. “Yes, I’ll tell Gary to go there first thing in the morning.”

“All right, tell the others.”

The captain turned and began walking away. He had only gone a short distance down the hallway when Rowan suddenly spoke again.

“But where is she exactly?”

The captain stopped and turned to look at Rowan.

“I don’t know. She’s probably accepted a contract and is causing chaos somewhere, enjoying herself. You know she comes back when she wants to. It can be tomorrow, a week from now, a year, who knows?”

“What if you contact her?” Rowan asked. “She always comes when you do that. We could send her after them.”

The captain turned toward Rowan so quickly that the armor around his shoulders shifted with the sudden movement. The disbelief on his face was quickly replaced by anger, his brows drawing together as he stared at Rowan as though he couldn't believe what he had just suggested.

“Never say that about her. She is not a member of this guild. She’s not someone we can send anywhere. She does things when she wants to.”

Rowan remained quiet, watching the captain's expression. There was a clear warning in his voice, and it was obvious that he wasn't willing to entertain the idea any further.

The captain held his gaze for a moment longer before looking away. He turned his head toward the hallway and began walking again, his footsteps echoing against the stone floor.

“And remember,” he said without looking back. “She’s barely human anymore. She’s unpredictable.”