The Undead Blacksmith's daily life (Solo leveling/Dark Souls SI) Chapter 20

Norma Selner tried her best to calm down, drinking her tea and trying to project her usual stoic look in front of the agents from both the CIA and the FBH.

However, the worried looks on the agents and the way her hand shook as she gripped the teacup showed that she was failing spectacularly.

“….Ms. Selner, are you truly alright? Should we bring in a healer?”

Norma shook her head at those words and sighed deeply, leaning back into her chair and putting the cup down.

Now that the façade had been seen through, there was no need for her to try and maintain that look of stoicism.

Especially after the horrifying being she had interacted with just a few hours ago.

“If you are alright, can we go forward with the discussion?”

Norma knew that it was not the agent’s fault for being hasty. It was his duty to find powerful hunters and recruit them for his country.

After all, she was just as dedicated to strengthening their country as these agents were. That is why she was using her gifts in such a way, after all.

With her nod, the Agent started going over the file of one James Hudson.

A former resident of California who had disappeared into one of the very first gates that ever opened on Earth more than fifteen years ago. Later on, his family also died along with the rest of the west coast when the Kamish gate opened.

Now, this man that had disappeared as a young man of 25 years had returned to American soil as a National rank Hunter, and possibly, an adversary of the country, thanks to the actions of one of their own.

When the FBH and the CIA had learned about all of this, they could not help but curse up a storm, realizing after all this time that the data breach in their citizenship records all those years ago by the Korean Hunters Association was because they were searching for information on James.

Unfortunately, there is no use crying over spilled milk, so they could only deal with this incident quietly and try to recruit James Hudson back into the United States.

That was why they arranged a meeting for him with Norma, trying to entice him with the prospect of increasing his power even more through her Upgrading ability in exchange for his change in citizenship.

Norma could still see the amused but empty smile on the man’s face when he heard those words, and his subsequent speech left her confounded.

‘Power, huh? I don’t need more power. What I already have is more than enough for me to achieve my goals. Besides, power gained through external means is either not permanent or has a price that needs to be paid.’

Norma had never seen a hunter who did not want more power than they already had. From her experience, it was human nature to crave more, more than they already had, and spend their entire lives chasing after such goals.

This was the first time she had run into a hunter who went against that logic, and that fascinated her a lot.

That was why, despite his clear rejection of their offer, she still offered to see his future and give him some advice for free.

Of course, she knew that she would be rejected if she gave a prediction for free, which is why she framed it as compensation for the trouble that Hwang Dongsoo had caused the man and his family.

Her ploy had worked, for better or for worse.

“Ms. Selner, what do you think? Should we try to send our agents over to Korea?. From what we managed to find, he is currently registered as a Guardian for a teenager and young adult from the Sung family. We could offer him to pay for the girl’s full education all the way to whatever she wants to study and secure a high position in one of our top guilds for the boy.”

The FBH agent nodded at the words of the CIA agent and forwarded another file.

“Apparently, he is also looking after the mother of those two kids. She is in Eternal Slumber and is being taken care of by a relatively good hospital in Korea. We could offer to have her treated at a state-of-the-art facility in exchange for his commitment to our country.”

Norma just listened to the two agents discuss with amusement, knowing that all of their efforts would be futile.

Men like James were never swayed by such things. That is something she knew, thanks to her life experience. The only way for someone like that to lose their loyalty is for the other side to break their trust, which was nearly impossible in this case, given what she knew of Go Gunhee.

Besides, there was something else that cemented her beliefs about James Hudson.

“It is useless. Unless he comes to us voluntarily, we should not disturb him or his family, especially since we don’t want him as an enemy of our country.”

Her words caused the two agents to stop discussing and look at her with worry.

She saw the silent question in their eyes and sighed before speaking up.

“When I tried to look into his future, do you know what I saw?”

The two agents looked worriedly at each other before leaning forward with interest.

“I saw an abyss of blackness. Not darkness, not the absence of light. Just blackness, as if it were nothingness personified. But that was not all.”

Norma shuddered as chills shot up her body at just the memory of what she saw.

“Beyond the Abyss, I saw an inferno so vast and powerful that I can’t even put it into words. Flames so powerful and ancient that they felt as if they were there at the beginning of the world, and they will be there even after the end of it.”

“And even beyond that inferno, I saw Power!”

Power the likes of which Norma had never even dreamed of.

Normally, whenever Norma upgraded the mana and skills of a Hunter, she establishes a connection between the hunter and the source of her power, bestowing a fragment of Light that only she can see and access, on the Hunter, dramatically increasing their powers and skills along with giving them a new skill that has come to be known as ‘Spiritual Body Manifestation’

For this upgrading method to work, Norma needs to see the very soul of the Hunter she interacts with.

Most of the time, the soul of a person is represented in the form of a glowing orb, the intensity of the glow reflecting the strength of a Hunter.

However, instead of a glowing orb, what she saw within James was not something that she could even imagine or comprehend.

For a second, she even thought that James might be a monster in disguise.

However, her power quickly confirmed that this was no monster. She did not know how her power knew that James was not a monster, but she had come to trust her instincts and the strange knowledge given to her by her power over the years.

Shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts, she focused back on reality.

“Putting that aside, take my official statement to your heads. James Hudson is not to be offended in any way. We truly cannot afford to make an enemy out of him.”

The two agents nodded their heads at her words, knowing that her words are always true and not something to be taken lightly.

With her work done, Norma closed her eyes and lost herself in her power, trying to decipher the mystery that was James Hudson.

While the Americans were having a serious debate about their next course of action, the man who was the subject of this discussion was currently teasing the hell out of his niece at her school.

Truly, the world of Hunters was a strange place.