The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

Chapter 32: Acknowledgement

"Lies. Yuki lost? And she.. she's not even registered as a Hunter??" Hana covered her mouth, widening her eyes in disbelief over what unfolded before her.

She knew Yuki the best. The woman was an expert at fighting, her style was much more refined than hers.

Unlike regular people who became strong after obtaining a Main, Yuki belonged to the category of people who had refined themselves way before the world changed.

She was talented in martial arts and close combat fighting. In some ways, Yuki also taught Yoo Jin some of her skills in the past, which was what led the kid to be able to form his foundation early on after becoming a <Player>.

It was all because Yuki taught the kid before he even got the System to recognize him.

But now, the woman was beaten in her own area of expertise?

Surely, her pride would be scarred.

"You-" Yuki bit her lips, glaring at Aria.

"No rules attached," Aria repeated again, shrugging as she extended an arm to help pull up the woman who was now slumped over the floor.

"...I know! I'm not someone who would go back on my words. It's your win," Yuki snorted, taking the hand and getting up with a little bit of difficulty. She then dusted her clothes before scanning Aria once more.

"You... who are you exactly? Even Blythe would struggle to fight against me in terms of pure skill..." Yuki furrowed her brows.

Aria's face was foreign. If such a great fighter with this high of a battle sense while still being a newbie existed, surely her name would be renowned to some extent.

For example, like herself, who held several winning titles from martial arts championships of all scales.

After recalling the fight, Yuki calmed herself down. It seemed like she was still a step faster than Aria in terms of pure martial arts skill.

It was just that, the woman had more assets to her that allowed her to bypass this gap of skill.

"My name is Uemura Yuki," Yuki introduced herself, raising her hand to initiate a handshake.

Although she hated to lose, Yuki had to admit that Aria had skills. It wasn't embarrassing to lose against her.

Registered or not, it didn't matter. Hunters came from different backgrounds. Someone like Aria, who was already talented in fighting right off the bat was a rare case, but it didn't mean that her power was out of the world.

Oh, if Yuki knew about her past. Knew that her current showcase was not even a tenth of what she could do at her peak.

Note that she had a range of enchantment spells that could intensify her combative abilities. Aria could've used the enchantments when she fought against Yuki, but chose not to. She wanted to gauge her own ability since chances to fight against fellow Hunters were not that common,

"Aria Schreiner," Aria returned the handshake, firmly interlocking her palm with the other.

The two approved of each other and knew that they were both of equal standing.

"You were recruited into [Golden Insignia], right? Rather than flocking with that grumpy guy, why not spend quality time with us women?" Yuki offered.

She has always had a peculiar beef with Sung-ha. The man was temperamental and did not know how to treat someone with good countenance. A rash, despicable individual. That was all Sung-ha was in Yuki's eyes.

"[Magnolia] is a guild I built. When the world changed, I was in South Korea with these girls. Who knew that our lineup would all get powers? We immediately formed a group, and that was how [Magnolia] came to life. We are one of the first teams to be established, and that's why..." Yuki averted her gaze to Arin.

"..We are able to send an application to the Association and possibly get you in," Finishing her words, Yuki cracked her knuckles and stretched her body. The fight tired her out.

In a sense, she was being handicapped. Aria was allowed external magic assistance, but Yuki refrained from doing so because she was the senior in this matter.

However, if she knew that she'd lose like this, she would've thrown out all senses of pride to salvage her victory.

Alas, what had been done could not be reverted unless she had a time traveling skill, which she didn't.

The test was meant to confirm Aria's qualification, so the topic quickly turned back to the A-ranked dungeon.

"A promise is a promise. You beat me, so I will give the direct stamp of approval as the former leader," Yuki gave Aria a confident thumbs up.

"Eh? Are you not the leader?" Aria tilted her head. She thought that, with how Hana acted around Yuki and taking Yuki's power into account, she would be [Magnolia]'s leader.

But turns out, she was the former leader?

"I am based in Japan, [Magnolia] operates in South Korea," Yuki explained. "[Magnolia] was built because of the situation. I have another team back in Japan, I only came her to visit the girls who decided to stay here after the commotion died down," Yuki went over to Hana's side and patted her head.

They were just like blood-related sisters, very affectionate to one another.

"What is it that the A-ranked dungeon holds anyway? You seem to be very expectant to get in. Is there something special about this gate?" Hana crossed her arms and asked. She couldn't understand Aria's reaction.

To her, an A-ranked dungeon was just an A-ranked dungeon. With higher yields, came higher danger.

She herself has never gone into one, but she did experience the terror of a High B-ranked dungeon. It was a bloody massacre.

[Magnolia] partnered up with another team at that time. There were three joint teams. In the end, out of the thirty people they went in with, there were only twenty one people that came out.

That was why, to Hana, what Aria's desires were did not make sense. It was basically suicide. Or at least, it would bring her massive trauma.

Although the Association will bring high-classed people, including Blythe, that wouldn't be enough to fully contain the dungeon without any casualty.

Aria was not registered, so Hana assumed that she was new. Inside the dungeon, Aria would definitely bear witness to a death.

Or even worse, she would lose her own life.

Sighing, Hana lamented at the young woman's excitement.

"I know about the dungeon's terror, but I have a task to do. This task would bring me great benefits," Aria gave vague answers that would not give out her identity as a <Player>.

"Hmm... Alright, since you did prove yourself, I will lend you our name, as the current leader of [Magnolia]!!" Hana proclaimed with great spirit, pointing her index finger at the sky as a pose.

Aria smiled in approval. She told both of her spirits to retract back to her contracted space.

"By the way, your Main is...?" Yuki noticed a slight abnormity.

Aria was talented in close combat and had quite the power, but she also had strong spirits accompanying her. Truly, it was a miracle how she hasn't been poached by someone yet.

How did [Golden Insignia] manage to snatch her?

"Trade secret," Arin stepped in front of Aria, giving a polite chuckle as she put her hands on Aria's shoulder. "Now, we have other things to attend to. I'm afraid that we must go now,"

Hana pouted and made eye contact with Yuki. They had similar wavelengths, so they knew that they were both thinking about the same thing.

How to find out about this 'trade secret'?

"That's unfair! You used Yuki-nee as a testing object, but you won't even tell us anything~" Hana complained.

"First of all, it was Yuki-nee who offered to duel. Second.. I will let you know this: even Lein isn't completely clear about her capability yet, or where it came from," Arin objected, raising her two fingers and shoving it to Hana's face.

"Lein? That gloomy guy couldn't find out about Aria?" Yuki frowned.

As a close partner to [Golden Insignia], she learned about Lein's abilities after a long period of intermingling and getting to know each other better.

If Lein tried his best and wasn't able to get the information, they'd rather forget about trying to find out the 'secret'.

"Mhm," Hana hummed in agreement.

"Well," Yuki huffed. "That tells me all I need to know. At least this way we didn't waste any time trying to pointlessly search. Go, go," Waving her hand, Yuki told them to depart.

"It was nice seeing you after so long," Arin made a small bow to Yuki.

"..Nice seeing you two," Yuki replied. "Ah, right,"

The call made Aria and Arin, who were originally already walking towards the door to leave, turn back and shift their attention to Yuki once again.

Yuki shrugged. The matter she was about to bring up was not so pleasant.

"Your little sister.. The one in Germany. Apparently she awakened her Hunter powers, but something is off about it,"

"..." Arin tightened her lips upon hearing the words 'little sister'.

Yuki studied Arin's response before carefully continuing. This was a sensitive topic to all parties involved, particularly Arin.

"According to the intel, she asked her subordinates for corpses. All sorts of corpses. If it was monsters only, I could understand, but..."

"Whatever happens to her isn't under my jurisdiction anymore. I couldn't care less. When I left that family, I broke all my ties with it," Arin snapped her head to the side, unwilling to pursue the matter.

Her gaze chilled as she stared at the floor.

Aria wanted to ask about this little sister at first, but after seeing Arin's reaction, she decided not to.

'Corpses.. Necromancy? Or Puppetry.' Aria thought.

Those were the two main branches that collected corpses. Outside from that, there were some 'abnormal' people who sucked parts of carcasses to be then turned into energy for them to consume, but those people were scarce and obscure.

'Necromancy is a bit unlikely if they asked for corpses..'

Necromancers' summons normally came from their own yield. Those that they have killed, or severely injured prior to their deaths. This was because of the low success rate in extracting the soul. If they killed it themselves, this chance would be heightened, although not by a large amount.

Not to mention, if the proprietor did not immediately extract the soul, the success rate would be lowered down even more with each passing second.

Puppeteers also had similar drawbacks, but the effects were lower than that of necromancers.

'Then, a Puppeteer?' Aria theorized, but kept her thoughts to herself.

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