Chapter 208: Controversial

"I don’t know why I feel so worn out, it felt like I lost a ton of energy when I won," Aria remarked as she set the controller down and stretched her arms up."Yeah, you were pretty locked in and focused. Wanna go again?" I suggested with a smile.

"Nah, I think I could use a break from the game, at least for a bit. Let’s watch a movie or something instead, something dumb and fun, I wanna just shut off my brain and enjoy something simple," She replied, as she slumped back in the beanbag she was sitting on.


She’s been coming over at least once a week at this point, and she’s also been thinking of buying one of the apartments in this building.

There’s a vacant one right next to my place, and it’s pretty much identical to mine, and she’s seriously considering getting it for herself.

It’d be pretty cool to have her as a neighbor, I’d get to see her a lot more often, which I’ve definitely got no objections to.

She’s been training pretty hard lately, determined to keep up with me as closely as possible. I mean, at full power, she’s still more powerful than I am, but she isn’t satisfied with that.

I think mastering Blaze Ignition: Flare has helped accelerate her progress, because she’s improved pretty rapidly over this last month.

Her growth has been almost unnaturally fast, the rate of increase to her Power Level is the highest ever recorded, not counting me since my case isn’t exactly natural. She’d literally have set the record if it wasn’t for me.

Her current stats are pretty damn impressive, I updated her details in Appraisal today, for the first time since the tournament, and she’s made some serious progress:

HP: 486 -> 670

MP: 470

Strength: 491 -> 675

Agility: 602 -> 900

Vitality: 481 -> 665

Perception: 586 -> 922

Power Level: 519,300 -> 717,000

Potential: 945,000

While my base stats are a lot higher than hers are now, it’s a different story when she uses Blaze Ignition: Flare, she’s faster and stronger than I am when in that state, I’m a step behind her even when I use Enrage.

And there’s also the fact that she has no way to increase her MP, which restricts how much her Power Level can grow.

The way Power Level is measured is by adding the HP, MP and four physical stats, dividing them by six and then multiplying by a thousand.

Basically, it takes the average of the six stats and multiplies it a thousandfold.

So, the higher her physical stats and HP rise, the more significantly her MP brings down her stat-point average, and thus her Power Level.

HP always increases in conjunction with Strength and Vitality, it’s literally both those stats added up and divided by two. Of course, back when her other stats were lower than her MP, her MP was boosting her Power Level.

"Hey, check it out, Kai, looks like another Ace Hunter has gone missing. What is happening?" Frowned Aria, as she showed me her I-Watch display.

"Another one? Huh, wait, I recognize this guy...wasn’t he in the news a while back for sexually harassment?" I recalled as I skimmed through the article.

"Oh, yeah, that’s right, I remember that. Kinda the same as that Trent asshole," Mused Aria in response, before adding, "I wonder what happened to him? Sera told me he was hanging out with her brother the day before he disappeared, and he was gone the next day, without a trace."

"I mean, who cares? He was a piece of shit. Well, that’s what I’d say under normal circumstances, anyway...but all these disappearances are definitely connected in some way, and it’s gotta be that Archdemon.

There’s nothing more terrifying that a power we don’t understand, and I have no idea what kind of ability this could possibly be," I replied with a grimace.

Teleportation is definitely a part of it, but it can’t be that simple, there’s almost certainly more to it. This Archdemon likely has multiple powerful Demonic Arts.

"Yeah, agreed. I wonder why the first disappearance was so different, the Teleporter kid? His house was all torn apart and his family was brutally killed, but all the other disappearances happened without a trace."

"I’ve been wondering that too. Most of those disappearances probably wouldn’t even have been noticed right away if the victims hadn’t been Aces," I pointed out.

"True, and it doesn’t make sense. You’d think it’d be tougher to abduct Aces so easily, I would assume that at least a few of them would put up a fight and cause some commotion," She reasoned objectively.

"Fourteen Hunters have disappeared so far, right? No, fifteen if we count the Teleporter too."

"Yeah, that’s a lot...though, I’ve seen some people on social media celebrating some of the disappearances, with the Hunters who were controversial and-...hm? Wait, hold on a sec...," She muttered as her eyes widened slightly, tapping away on her I-Watch.

"What’s up? Did you realize something?" I asked her curiously.

"I might have...here, check it out. All the Hunters who disappeared have been involved in controversy in one way or another, they weren’t exactly the most popular figures. Sexual harrassment, blackmailing, bullying, and so on, they’re all shitty people," She remarked, an intrigued gleam in her eyes.

Now that she mentions it...I do remember seeing a lot of mixed reactions over the disappearances, it never really clicked that that was the case with all of them, I didn’t dig too deeply into the reactions, so I assumed it was just that some of those Hunters were problematic.

But if that’s the case with all of them, then...

"I seriously doubt this is a coincidence. I’ll message the Chairwoman and let her know," I muttered, as I brought up my display.

"So, this means these Hunters are specifically being targeted, it isn’t random," She nodded, as I sent the message to Charlotte.

"Yeah, it must be-...," I began.

<Luxuria seems to have realized something, I’ve been relaying this conversation to her>

For real? Alright, then...

"<Emerge, Apostle of Lust: Luxuria>."