Unlimited Power 02 - The Ranger's Domain
Chapter 322 - Black Beard

                                    Ryan already imagined that since Gustavo and his friends had tanned skins, but their base really was at Rio de Janeiro. Although in the U.S. at that time of the year, things were pretty cold in some regions, that city was as hot as hell. That being said, people were living their lives normally. Some were even taking sunbaths at the beach. Obviously, a good part of the city was walled and was protected by many survivors…

"Things are much better here than I thought…" Ryan frowned.

"Well, we worked pretty hard to save as many people as we could when the monsters appeared," Gustavo explained. "After that, we stole all the weapons of the militiamen and gave them to the survivors. One of those tier three dungeons that you mentioned, we got control over one of them pretty early thanks to it. Those classes are amazing, so it helped us a lot."

                      For the better or the worse, Gustavo was a chatterbox, and since Ryan gave him some useful pieces of information, he gladly told Ryan the location of the tier three dungeons in Brazil. They had three of them… no wonder they had so many survivors and walled cities.

"Wouldn't it be more convenient to move all your survivors to a single city?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah, but many of us don't want to abandon our hometowns," Gustavo replied. "Besides, we need to keep some advanced posts to keep an eye on things. There are too many dungeons in our country, and we are having a hard time monitoring them and relaying information across the country thanks to it."

                      Despite that, things were much better in there than in comparison to things back home. Ryan never stopped the number of survivors working with Mark and the others, but they probably didn't have more than five thousand. Moreover, only one-fifth of them could properly fight.

                      A few hundreds of meters away from the beach, Gustavo and his friends had built their headquarters. It was a place in which the soldiers could sleep in and even communicate with the other camps. Since they had the backing of some dragons, they had several tricks to communicate and move around. When Gustavo tried to explain how they worked, the blonde girl, Fernanda, kicked his right leg.

"Ouch… Sorry about that. The people here don't like to talk about these," Gustavo said. "I don't understand the reason why we should hide this from you, though. You are going to make a pact with a dragon, right eventually?"

"I won't," Ryan replied.

"You won't?" Gustavo frowned. "Why? I only see advantages."

"I want to follow my own goals and make my own decisions," Ryan said. "Besides, I don't want power for free."

"Well, that is admirable… and quite reckless," Gustavo said. "You would be able to help a lot of people with the backing of a dragon. I know that some of them destroyed our society, but we can't show prejudice to all of them."

"I think I have been doing well, so far," Ryan said.

"I see," Gustavo said. "You really are the exact archetype of a lone wolf. It is weird to say that when you have a wolf as your partner."

                              Although Gustavo could understand the reason behind Ryan's actions to some extent, accept them so readily was another matter. He was someone who survived thus far by fighting alongside others, after all. Fernanda and Bianca were his friends from college. Paulo was his cousin, and Carlos had once been his P.E. teacher. Now they are his brother in arms that he could trust with his life.

                              When they arrived at their headquarters' meeting room, Gustavo asked everyone to sit down while he grabbed a single map. Things weren't that high-tech like it was in the secret base, but it was good enough.

"The dungeons that you are looking for can be found here, here, and the closest is the center of this city," Gustavo explained. "You will have to travel for quite a bit since the other two are near our old capital, and the other is in the center of the Amazon forest."

                            Ryan nodded when he saw the marks on the map. He would have to travel for a few days, but the real problem was to replace the dungeon in the forest. Even if he flies high and has some directions, Ryan's chances of replaceing it easily would be pretty low.

"We can offer you some assistance in getting a class in the dungeon that we have here," Gustavo added. "Although only a certain number of people can obtain classes every day, we can help you with that since you are going to give us some information as well. We can even help you get a class in the dungeon near Brasilia, but we can only do that much. As of late, we are facing some problems with some individuals, so we can't leave our HQ often."

"I can clear the dungeons on my own," Ryan said. "Still, despite saying that didn't you left behind this city to replace me?"

"Yes, and that was a mistake on our part. We thought you were one of them," Gustavo said. "Your presence is weird since you have a dragon inside you, but you didn't make a pact. Adding to the fact that you are pretty strong considering human's standards."

"Who are they?" Ryan asked. "Dragons, megalodons?"

"It is no surprise you didn't meet them until now, but they will eventually start to hunt you since you smell like the dragons now," Gustavo said. "We call them the 'Dragon Slayers'… they are the main reason why the number of dragons decreased in the last few months. They are like dungeon bosses, but most of them are humans… to some extent, more or less."

"Humans? Aren't you talking about Cerberus and other creatures like them?" Ryan frowned in confusion. 

"So, those are back too, huh…" Gustavo sighed. "I imagined that… no, I wasn't talking about them. I talked about this guy that now and then approaches our coast in a ship and attacks us with some weird magic… he is a pirate very famous in the past. His name is Edward Teach… the black beard."