"Project maximum reward, no credit begins now."
Rean began reassessing his plan.
'I have to first go ahead and clear as many of these goblins as I can. I can't fight in the same field as they would, to avoid any possible suspicion.
I also have to get back before they do, so they don't suspect anything's up.
I might have to clear all the goblins I slay to avoid stray thoughts or further suspicion. Man, this might be harder than I thought,' Rean whined.
'Since "man not main" allows me and my actions to be invisible to the naked eye, why doesn't it allow the same to happen to things affected by me? I guess that's asking too much, huh.'
Rean thought he might be reaching at this point. He figured there was a loophole, or at the very least, there was something he didn't understand.
'If my skill force-evolves and assimilates skills, then why does "man not main" have limitations?
Why can't I use my invisibility at will? Something's not right.'
Immediately, a notification popped up. He opened it. It held a simple message: "Answers to be obtained when user leaves the current gate."
The system interface closed.
'I don't get it. No point delaying right now. I ought to have already started like minutes ago.'
Rean rushed on. Not too long after, he encountered Zeta and the others fighting some goblins.
Rean looked at how easily Zeta was taking their heads off. A thought immediately sprang up, unannounced.
'Why don't you head over to the dungeon boss and slay that one as well?'
Rean entertained the thought only for a moment before he declined the prospect. He had his reasons.
'I'll go to the farthest possible area from here. If Zeta was left alone, she could probably make it to where I'll be. However, she's with those two—they'll definitely slow her down. Especially Lin,' Rean thought as he zipped to said farthest area.
He made it there. The goblins didn't react to his presence. Rean was surprised only for a moment before he realized that he was invisible. Before long, the hunt began.
12, dead.
Then another 10.
Then 12.
Then 5.
Before long, Rean was closing in on forty kills.
The goblins just kept coming. Rean wasn't impressed, but he knew he had to kill as many as possible if he wanted to grow his stats.
In ten minutes, Rean had slain just about three hundred.
He heard footsteps making their way to where he was. Rean looked just ahead and saw the pile of monsters he had just stacked up.
He had no explanation for what Zeta and the others were about to see. He panicked. In that moment, the walls and ceiling began rumbling. Rean knew this meant the dungeon boss was killed.
He sighed in relief.
Zeta and the others never made the final step that would reveal the room of Rean's kills.
Zeta immediately said they had done enough and needed to make it back safely.
She held Lin and Rose, and the three hunters ran towards the gate and their survival.
Busy taking in his relief, Rean hadn't realized that he needed to make it back to his body before the others to avoid any unwanted eyes looking his way.
He immediately thought of deactivating the spell, as that should send him back to his body. That didn't work.
"Damn it. The spell must have some kind of range to deactivate it," he said.
He took off. He couldn't even see the others. He dashed through room after room, but all he saw were footsteps—no actual people. Rean continued on ahead. He didn't want to entertain the thought of being found out.
He eventually started hearing footsteps, and in no time, he saw the others.
Zeta and the others had just one more turn to make it into the room they left Rean in.
"Hey, look ahead, I see Rean," Rose said.
"He looks like he's sleeping," she added.
"Rean, wake up," Rose shouted. "Come on, wake up."
'How could he be fast asleep in a dungeon like that?' Zeta thought. 'There's no way a hunter hoping to become elite would act that way. In fact, no hunter, regardless of status, could be so flawed,' Zeta continued in thought.
They had stopped. Zeta aggressively shook Rean. There was no response. She shook him again, and immediately he awoke.
"Ohh, hey guys, you're back. What's that rumbling?" he said.
Rose grabbed Rean by his left and Lin by his right. They dragged him all the way to the gate. Rean knew he had to keep up his weakened state to keep his actions consistent.
2 minutes earlier.
"Deactivate, deactivate," Rean shouted over and over again. He was nearing closer to his body, but the skill was still active.
'They are already attempting to wake me up. Why won't you "deactivate"?'
Immediately after he said that, he got pulled right into his body.
They made it out of the gate—all seven of them. Michael looked to Rean. He noticed he was injured. Porter noticed as well.
Something Michael noticed that no one else did was that the injury on Rean only looked fatal, but it wasn't. The cuts even looked deliberate.
"Ok, let's talk about this raid before Shom gets back, and let's talk about how the captain reacted earlier," Michael said.
After a while of talking, the bus arrived. Shom was back.
Things got really heated.
He told them to get in, and they'd be heading to the base for the report on the situation.
The bus made it to the base. They were greeted by a hunter who came running towards the bus on arrival. It was Tylan. He was alerted that the division had just cleared two B-rank gates.
Tylan was worried about Rean.
Tylan opened the doors and shouted, "Hey, is Rean ok?"
Everyone looked at Rean.
He was definitely embarrassed, but he looked to Michael and noticed he wasn't smiling. The others found it cute—everyone but Michael.