Chapter 123 - Initializing!

Zion was already taking shallow breaths and was on the verge of losing consciousness when he heard a beep sound coming off in his mind. At first, he thought it was perhaps his imagination that had gone wild because of such an intense and numbing pain. But as he continued to stare blankly with half-closed eyes, the beep sounded again for the second time before a phrase appeared in front of his eyes written in pinkish neon design.

[Initializing….]

[Installing 007….Please wait a moment….]

[Installation complete….Downloading the package….]

[Downloading complete….Decompressing the package….]

[Decompressing complete….]

[Opening the client….]

These statements appeared in front of his eyes one after another like a flash within a second. The speed was so fast that he couldn't even tell what was written through his blurry vision. After that, a screen popped up in front of his eyes. It was blank before a while light shone on the surface, and then the screen became transparent.

When it was all done, a familiar chibi Methu man's cartoon body flashed on the screen, and this time, he was wearing a pirate's dress. Just as 007 appeared, he said in a cheerful voice, "Host, did you miss me~"

By this time, the 'host' had already exhaled his last breath and closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped and body went cold as if his soul had left the body.

When the system didn't hear a familiar scowling sound, he frowned and looked over only to be horrified. His face was covered with sweat drops, and he stammered. "....Host?"

After watching the human's body getting colder and colder, the system finally couldn't handle it anymore. He stammered and stuttered before accepting the reality. His host unfortunately died right as 007 revived.

Why was his fate so damn terrible?!

He cursed under his breath, but didn't leave his cool. For some reason, he was still calm and collected as if he knew how to deal with this current situation very well. He took a deep breath and opened the menu section as he clicked the lifeline option. Three hearts appeared on the screen, and 007 dully clicked on one of them. Then he glanced at his host before cursing the man a thousand times in his heart.

He just got back from a crazy upgrade only to find that his host died just a second ago! The new update was so good that his host would have started dancing already! But contrary to that, Zion gave him a heart attack! What kind of sh*tty luck was that?!

While the revival pill worked, 007 took his time to see what actually happened to push his host to this kind of critical condition. He opened the recordings of the past month and sat on the screen before opening a small TV that appeared out of nowhere.

After half an hour, when Zion's fingers finally moved, the system was done with his work. Although he didn't watch the entire thing, the fast forwarded it and could still tell what had happened in his absence. For the first time in his life, he felt a wave of anger flashing in his heart.

Even though it was true that this was one of the cases that Zion had to do, it didn't mean that the human could seek an early death by getting involved in such a dangerous mission without the system's presence! What the heck was Zion thinking? Did he think he was an all-rounder with such a weak body?

A lot of cursed words erupted in his mind, but just as they made it to 007's mouth, Zion's eyes opened, and the system swallowed those curses.

In any case, it didn't matter. His host only lost one life, and it could be earned in the future. He should just let it be for now.

When Zion finally woke up and saw what was in front of his eyes, he thought he was dreaming. He blinked multiple times and pinched himself before coming to a conclusion: "You're really here?"

The system scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Otherwise? Did you expect me to be gone forever? If it weren't for me, you would have gone to reincarnate already!"

Even though Zion didn't want to admit this, he was glad that 007 came at the right time and saved himself. A sigh escaped his lips as he smiled faintly. "Thanks."

"What thanks?! Do you know what you have lost? You would get only three lifelines for free, and the rest, you would have to earn it yourself! The cost of lifelines is also higher than anything else! It's equal to spending ten milestones for powering up! What the heck were you thinking?! Huh? That's it! I'm going to report this to my boss and show you in a bad light! Let's see how you can escape at that time. Humph!" The system turned his face away and scoffed. "I won't talk to you until you apologize and find a way to deal with this situation!"

Zion said nothing and stared continuously at the system for a long time as if he were watching a fool talking loudly for a long time. Then he took a deep breath as if he were suppressing his emotions and spoke through his gritted teeth. "Can you explain everything to me before saying foreign words like milestones and powering up?"

That was when the system remembered that he still hadn't explained the features that were added to him after the upgrade. Of course, the security was high, and even great demons wouldn't be able to get a hint of his presence, but it didn't mean that Zion could still handle critical situations without prior information.

So the system resigned to his fate and started explaining everything to Zion. "Boss actually feared that my security wasn't updated, and especially got anxious after listening to how there's an imposter who kept increasing the intensity of your cases without any knowledge, so he called me and made frantic changes." Then he pointed to the bar at the top, especially at the right corner. "Look there. You'll see three lines: the red one is your HP. If it's zero, you'll die. Below that, you'll find another bar that shows how powerful you are, and as you can see, it's currently at zero. And the last one is the mission progress bar. I had originally expected it to be zero, but since you had accepted this mission even before I could come, the progress recorded automatically within me-"

"Wait"