I Hate Systems

'Morning.'

Yecha's eyes lit up at the sound that resounded in her mind as she thought, 'How did it go, Dota?'

'I have managed to analyse seven-tenths of the Thorn Dungeon. As long as you raid it a couple more times, I'll be able to finish analysing it completely.' The one she addressed as Dota replied.

'Will I gain ownership of the Thorn Dungeon after that?' Yecha asked in excitement.

'No, the only thing that would change is where the Thorn Dungeon's entrance appears.' Dota said, 'You'll still need six people or more to actually clear it. I'll trigger too much danger if I steal ownership of the Thorn Dungeon. So, I can only sneak you its entrance.'

'That's still good enough.' Yecha said in excitement, 'It would mean that the Thorn Dungeon could be made into our private hunting grounds.'

'Yes, though you have yet to set up the means to take advantage of that.' Dota said, 'You neither have the necessary manpower to clear it nor the information network to sell the loot obtained from it.'

'Can't you help me with that?' Yecha said, expressing mild anger, 'Didn't you boast that you have a solid network throughout the world?'

'I was lying about that.' Dota replied shamelessly, 'There's barely ten people in my network, and three of them are from your party.'

'Dammit, dumbass!' Yecha groaned mentally.

'Buy hey, what I said would become the truth within a year. I just need to obtain enough data to support that. Isn't that why you're helping me? I can easily help you become an S-Rank hunter by then.' Dota replied, mildly offended.

Seated on the roof of the building was Domino Plottopia, silent as she observed the portal nearby, thinking of something.

Part of the Secret Society was owned by Dota, the Dragon of Systems. And hence, he took charge of all operations regarding Secret Society's internal affairs while Domino Plottopia focused on the external affairs alone.

To spread the influence of Secret Society, they had selected the Hunter genre where Secret Society could shine the most.

After all, the majority of worlds in this genre were basically carbon copies of one another. At first, Domino Plottopia planned to spread out Secret Society in cultivation worlds, for that was where Dota originated from.

But in the end, they chose the Hunter worlds, intending to take advantage of these young worlds.

Cultivation worlds each had a long spanning history of Clans, Sects, organisations, etc. So, it would take time for the Secret Society to make a foothold there. After all, if they weren't careful, the Secret Society members within the various Clans and Sects might become entangled in a conflict with one another.

Such things would collapse the foundation of Secret Society sooner or later as too many members would have their memories of Secret Society wiped out.

Therefore, due to the young nature of the Hunter Worlds, it was easier for them to plan the development and expansion of the Secret Society.

But, expansion was currently limited, for Hunters and the monsters invading their world both were Hosts to Grade 2 Systems.

The monsters were Host to the Dungeon Monster System while the humans were Host to the Hunter System.

Dota's current mission was to gradually steal the power of these two Grade 2 Systems. But, it was easier said than done, especially since they had to do everything without alerting the other party.

Currently, Yecha, Ruruka, and Ferohar were part of Secret Society nominally. Nominally in the sense, they were able to talk to Dota and exchange some benefits with it.

But anything beyond that wasn't possible since they had yet to become full-fledged members. Becoming one was only possible when Dota was able to substitute their power system.

As its growth had yet to accustom that, it had no other choice but to make do with nominal members.

The reason for this was simple. The powers of Hunters originated from the Hunter System. Without it, they were only normal humans.

In other worlds, the native races had a power system of their own while the Systems that selected Hosts only gave them benefits to make them better than the rest.

But in the Hunter World, without the power of the Hunter System, the Hunters would be reduced to normal humans.

This meant that if Dota made them members of Secret Society, they would lose all their Hunter powers, turning them into regular humans.

Therefore, Dota was accumulating data regarding the power system used in this world, hoping to find a way to supplement the power of the Hunter System.

Until then, it couldn't do anything significant in this world. That was why Dota was reliant on individuals like Yecha who were willing to help it in return for benefits.

Among the current ten nominal members, only the three of Yecha, Ruruka, and Ferohar made any contributions. The remaining seven were used as farms.

After all, a hunter can level up by killing monsters. In the background, this happened as by killing a monster, the Hunter System fragment in them absorbed the Dungeon Monster System fragment within the dead monster. And by devouring it, the Hunter System fragment in their body grew, which directly resulted in them levelling up.

So, the higher their level, the bigger the Hunger System fragment in their body. The same was true for the monsters too.

But, here was a small loophole.

What about the case when two people fought one another and ended up killing each other? The System fragment in both would just vanish, the same as what happened to a System whose Host was killed in a world.

Their System body would end up vaporising soon after. Only if they had more than a hundred thousand Mental Energy would they spend that amount to return to the System World.

Otherwise, they would die.

For regular Systems, such a death meant that their Coordinates were absorbed by the world where they died. It meant a permanent loss of power for the System World. Though, the death of a weak System wouldn't even be felt by the System World that had developed to a ginormous scale.

As for a Grade 2 System, the death of two Hosts like this was negligible, irrespective of the size of fragments in their bodies.

After all, the Coordinates of the Grade 2 System only resided within the strongest being. The fragments in the rest were basically similar to fragments of Grade 1 Systems that formed in the mind of anyone that came to know about them.

The only difference was that those fragments couldn't do anything until their quantity attained a certain level. For a Grade 2 System, such fragments were potent enough to have Hosts.

And by causing the death of such Hosts, Dota stole the fragments and poured them into the bodies of Yecha and the other two, causing them to level up faster. This was how it supported their growth while they did whatever it asked.