The Idle System Box Set

by Pegaz

  John was now an expert at martial arts fighting. He could predict, for the most part, what any opponent would do in a combat situation. If John could not dodge, he would back off and try again. He didn't want to take any risks until his Defence was high enough.

  In the Time Pool, he’d accumulated a total of three years, three months and fifteen days’ worth of time from these monsters. John put it all into the Blood Capacity slot. With Maximum Idlers levelling up to level 57, he put all his Idlers into the skill too. Blood Capacity now sat at a Level 69. Once it hit Level 70, the time needed should drop again. He still had another thirty-three hours of waiting before that, though.

  He picked up the only buried treasure in this area, finding it was a Normal Blank Rune. At that point, John had also acquired twelve ‘???'s on the map, and he now had a small pile of glowing green rocks in his storage. He still had no idea what they were, or how they were used. He only continued collecting them because he had a strange gut feeling that they would be beneficial down the road in some inexplicable way.

  After killing this last batch of werewolves, John decided to go back to town. He would have enough money when he sold all of this loot! Strangely enough, he'd also been pretty lucky with the monster cores, around 70% of the wolves had one.

  He decided that when he got back, he would try to get in contact with Agent again. He wanted to see if his pair of gloves and the information was ready. If they were, John would suddenly have a busy night ahead of him.

  Taking in the scenery on his way to town, John wondered what it would be like to have a few days off. He was tempted to try it out. Maybe go to the library to learn a few more things.

  Three days later, he got back to town. He went to the Guild Hall and tossed the bag of goods from his hunt over onto the counter. The bag held 102,845 perfect werewolf hides, 72,405 werewolf monster cores and 205,690 werewolf fangs.

  Name: John.

  Age: 17.

  Rank: A.

  Quest's completed: 429,820

  Money: £29,846,225,000

  I might have overdone it a little. But at least, I've got the money for the gloves now.

  John walked to the house he met Agent at and left a note that read "contact me". The agent would know who it was from.

  With no other options, he went to the inn and threw himself onto his bed. This was the first time in months that he could sleep without one eye open. He soon fell asleep and dreamed soundly for sixteen hours straight.

  When John woke up, he felt refreshed. All of his stress was gone! He got out of bed and went down for breakfast. As he sat at the table, the inn manager walked over and handed John a note. With a word of thanks, John looked read what’s on the note.

  It was from Agent, saying to meet at the house around noon. John put the note inside his bag and carried on eating.

  At the designated time, he was at the house. The doorman from his first visit here was the one who invited him in. The agent was sitting at the table again, so John walked in and sat down opposite him.

  The agent placed a metal box roughly a foot squared directly in front of him. John smiled.

  It was his new gloves.

  The gloves were all black, besides around the knuckles and joints which were silver. John tried them on, stunned by their fit. The agent informed him that they were made with multiple layers of reinforced leather from SSS ranked monsters. The metal was also ranked SSS in strength and durability.

  "We had to use the best material we could to make them useful. These are good up until Immortal ranks, but because of that the cost skyrocketed to £900 million."

  "I can afford that. No problem,” John’s words both surprised and relieved the agent. “I got lucky on my hunts, so I have the funds for the price raise. But, tell me, what are Immortal ranks? I only know about ranks going up to SSS."

  "You don't know?” Agent quirked an eyebrow. “Alright then, it’s not too complex. After SSS Rank is Immortal Rank, which is stronger. Because the requirement to become an immortal is so high, there's not that many. Even with a population of 10 billion in the North Kingdom alone, maybe only one to ten become immortals in a lifetime." The agent’s eyes gleamed in admiration.

  "What's the requirement to become an immortal?" John's interest in immortals was now peaked.

  "What, you lived under a rock or something? Don't even know that? Fine since we're working together, I'll tell you. The only age you can be accepted to become an immortal is 21. Any younger and the human body and brain is not fully developed, any older and you've missed the perfect chance to leap in strength so it would be a waste of resources."

  "Is that all?" John had to ask.

  "Of course not, let me finish. When you're 21, you must be at a certain physical strength with strong life force. What the immortals' standards are nobody knows." The agent looked away and started shuffling through some paperwork.

  With the system, I can get to the physical peak easily, but if I want to get there within three and half years, I'm going to have to hunt almost non-stop! I’ll have to fight stronger and stronger enemies whenever I can. I also need to stop worrying about guild ranks, money, sleeping peacefully, or any other trivial things. They can all come after the ‘leap of strength’ mark that he mentioned.

  The first thing I need to raise is my Blood Capacity skill so I can get the max bonus. That will make it easier for a while. Then maybe Mind Strength, so I'll no longer have to sleep. If only I had enough stamina to hunt 24/7... that would improve my chances of success.

  For the first time in a good couple of minutes, John broke out of his deep thought and looked up at what Agent was doing. The man had just finished sorting out the paperwork and handed John a big folder.

  "We've managed to confirm that there are 165 guards employed at the count's mansion. He has maids and butlers too, but none of them is very loyal to the count,” he said. "Out of the 165, 154 are with the count, and the 11 guards that do not have anything to do with him are newbies who've been on the job less than four months. The count doesn't trust them as much, needless to say.

  "His bodyguard is Rank B retired adventurer Joseph Erin, who happens to be Count Erin's adopted son." Agent continued through the basic summary and John took a mental note of every bit of information. When all had been said, Agent stood up to leave. On his way out, he put a second metal box on the table.

  John was reading through the documents with a fierce concentration. By the time he looked up at the table, his Night vision had activated earlier due to the lack of sunlight. His eye caught the metal box that Agent had left for him. He picked it up and looked all over before opening it. There was a note inside on top.

  "A gift to commemorate our partnership," was all the note said. John put it down on the table and looked at the object. It was a mask, black with silver patterns on it. However, there were no eye, nose, or mouth holes. John used his Analyser eye on the mask, but the only thing it showed was the rainbow colour.

  It was a Mythical piece of equipment.

  He put the mask on, and to his surprise it didn't block his vision or his breath. It felt like he wasn't even wearing it, the material was so light. Looking around, he couldn't find a mirror so he used the metal box to see his reflection.

  It was just a mask on his face, nothing particularly special about its appearance.

  John picked up all the leather parchments and used the house's open fireplace to start a fire to burn them. He left the house as the parchments were burned, heading for the mansion.

  The last piece of leather started burning in the fire, it was a sketch of the Count, and at the bottom, it read:

  Crimes- Forcing women into prostitution.

  Chapter 31

  The Overzealous Assassin

  On the way to the mansion, John turned Life vision on but told the system to only turn it on in his right eye. He kept his left eye for Night vision. While at first, this disorientated him, he adjusted. It was kind of like looking at a 3D TV without the glasses, you
could see the red and blue version at the same time.

  John looked around town, getting more comfortable with the 3D-like vision. He eventually arrived near one of the watchtowers around the count's mansion. Looking up, he saw the whole tower as if it was daytime; it was all wood, and in the middle, behind the floor of the tower, he could see two guards. They were sitting down, perhaps on their break.

  He looked around, and no one else was near this tower. Taking a deep breath, he took his boots off and reached out towards the towers leg. Using the Crush Grip skill, he was able to get a good grip to climb up. Halfway up the tower, he held his breath. With his Lung Capacity at Level 25, he was able to do this for 75 minutes.

  John was now dangling just below the railing on the other side. His fingers ripped into the wood for better grip. He could see what was in the tower now. There were a few monster-core-powered lanterns that were hanging around the tower, the light was dim but the guards could see inside well-enough. There was a big bell on the other side of the tower from where John was hanging. Two guards were playing a card game on a table.

  John could see the one guard's face. He's one of the targets. However, he couldn’t see the face of the guy towards his left. He would have to knock him out before checking his identity and deciding whether to kill him. Just as John was about to leap over the railing to get onto the tower's floor, the guard on his right stood up and walked to the left.

  The guard was looking into the distance, trying to find something. Taking advantage of the distraction, John leapt over the railing and ran toward the left guy. He grabbed the back of his neck with his left hand and used Crush Grip while kicking his right foot towards the remaining guard's head.

  Congratulations for getting your first Human kill with the system in place! We have given you a onetime reward of 5 skill points to place anywhere you choose.

  Congratulations for getting your first rank D monster kill with the system in place! We have given you a reward of 1 skill point to place anywhere you choose.

  Congratulations for getting your first rank C monster kill with the system in place! We have given you a reward of 1 skill point to place anywhere you choose.

  Congratulations for getting your first rank B monster kill with the system in place! We have given you a reward of 1 skill point to place anywhere you choose.

  John ignored the system for now and checked the ID of the guard he knocked out. He was one of the targets, so he crushed his windpipe too. He got one day's worth of Time Pool for each of them, much to his disbelief. That was the same time that an SSS monster would give! He had over 150 targets to kill here. Suddenly, he became even more motivated to slaughter.

  He first took care of all the guards on the outskirts of the mansion and in the other three towers. With his Life vision, he could pick them off one by one without any mistakes. After a mere twenty minutes, only three people were left alive in this whole mansion. John had managed to convince the innocent staff-members to evacuate quietly.

  The assassin peered into the room where Life's Vision was picking up a signal. Within the room there were three people. Two of them were the count and his bodyguard, this John knew, but who was the third person? He’d better wait, just in case.

  While waiting, John noticed a few life signs underground. Maybe those were the girls? He'd have to go free them once the count was dead. Hopefully, they will run to the guild or somewhere that could help them.

  Still biding his time, he opened the system up. With the new skill points, he loaded up the Maximum Idlers slots and then put the eight new Idlers into Blood's Capacity.

  The third person walked out the door soon after. John used Analyser on him, but the system only showed a ‘???’ symbol for his name. John couldn’t recognise his face either. He could be innocent, so John let him go.

  John approached the doorway and concentrated on listening in. His Third Senses skill kicked in, and his Hearing became hyper-focused.

  "Cancel all orders and bring our people back in, we've got to shut it down." The voice sounded a bit panicky and quite low, almost a murmur.

  "Father, why should we? The third prince said that the Sider isn't anywhere strong enough to start wiping families out yet." John was stunned from hearing this. That guy was royalty?! And they’d been talking about him, too!

  "It doesn't matter! We have to clean up our acts now before anyone gets wind of it. If the Sider hears of it, it’ll all be over anyway. The whole operation has to shut down, NOW!"

  "Very well, I'll shut it down. Hopefully, this Sider becomes a Demon. Maybe then he could actually join us..."

  "WATCH YOUR MOUTH!” The man boomed, “No one in this whole damn world wants another Sider becoming a Demon! A Saint would kill off our operation and family, but a Demon would kill off the whole town if someone sneezed out of tune!"

  Hmm, so the only difference is the amount of people Siders kill? Well, I get time for every kill, so I want to kill as many people as I can... but only those who have crossed my bottom line. It's not like I'm going to go round killing off towns if a shop didn't cook a steak the way I like it.

  "What of the girls?"

  "Kill them and dispose of the bodies."

  Knock, knock.

  John needed to stop them. Now.

  "Come in." John smiled, he opened the door and then sprinted at the bodyguard whose back was facing him. However, the man’s reflexes were lightning-quick, and he instantly turned around to meet John’s attack.

  John threw a very weak left punch towards the bodyguards face. By instinct, the bodyguard put both of his hands up to block him. That's when John's left punch halted mid-strike. He twisted his body and let loose a whirling kick that slammed into the bodyguard's stomach.

  The man was launched across the room. He hit the wall but the force carried him further, leaving a man-sized hole. John double-checked the Time Pool. The time had increased. The man was dead.

  John turned around and looked at the count.

  "Hello, count, I'm sorry about my rude entrance, but I had to get rid of the idiot so that we could chat. You understand, right?"

  "Who are you?" The count was pale and sweating, and he’d fallen onto the floor in his panic. His legs trembling too much to work, he was backing up as fast as he could on his hands. All the count could see was a black and silver mask staring down at him.

  "Doesn't matter because you're going to die tonight. Nothing can change that. I'm just giving you a bit of time first. Got any last confessions you want to get off your chest? We already know about the girls, though, so don't try to use them as leverage."

  John stared down at the count. However, the man had nothing to say. With a tired sigh, John reached down and picked him up by his neck.

  "Which way to the girls? I know they're underground but not the way down, if you tell me, then I'll grant you a quick death."

  The count pointed at a bookcase, and John dragged him to it. He tried opening the bookshelf but it wouldn't budge. Slightly pissed off, John punched the bookshelf and it crumbled to pieces, revealing a flight of stairs behind the bookcase leading down.

  John killed the count, leaving his bloody corpse sprawled across the office carpet. Resolve burning, he headed down the stairs.

  What he saw shook him to his core.

  There was an array of cages, each full of tattered and sorry-looking women. Most showed signs of abuse, bruises and scratches marking their exposed skin. In the cages were piles of hay, assumedly to stand in for beds. There were also tin bowls for their water and food, resembling the kind you would leave out for a house pet. The girls looked up at John, eyes trembling with fear.

  John clenched both fists tightly and the thought of destroying the kingdom and all its corruption crossed his mind for a brief second.

  Chapter 32

  Going Back

  John walked to each cage and used Crush Grip to break the locks on them, opening the cages.

  "You're all free now! Don't worry about anyone in this mansion,
and if you see anyone on the streets then ignore them! Run to the guild and tell them what happened. Hurry! Get to the guild, and you live. I can’t stay to protect you."

  The women, though somewhat dazed, understood the urgency of their situation. Those who could walk, fled the cave with no reservations. Those who could not walk were aided by a few of the stronger ones in the group. Together they raced toward freedom, quickening their pace as they went along.

  John waited until they were quite a distance away. He then returned to the count’s office, stepping over the battered corpse and making his way to another bookcase. Eager to find any useful information, he started looking through some of the documents. Maybe he could find the people who helped the count kidnap the girls.

  Eventually, he just threw everything into his bag. He decided to give it all to Agent and ask for a summary; he didn’t have time to read it now. With a light step, John fled the scene. He thought about pursuing the mentioned prince, but figured the trail had gone cold at that point.

  Approaching Agent’s meeting point, he removed his mask and put his boots back on. With the Colour-changing Rune, his attire switched from the deepest black to a feathery white. He was ready to reunite with his Agent.

  Through the doors, Agent was waiting for him with a smile on his face.

  "All dead?"

  John nodded, "All accounted for. The only surprise was that some ‘prince’ guy showed up. No news on him, though. Trail went cold."

  The Agent's smile seemed to disappear. "A prince? Was it the third prince, perhaps? We've had suspicions about his involvement, but it was never confirmed… Why he was there?"

  "He told the count to stop activities because a Sider had shown up. He didn't want the whole family to be wiped out, or something."