I Was Just a Cleaner... Until I Got the Demon Extraction System-Chapter 74: Becoming the Predator

Damian had no idea if the examiner would fight or do something else. That part of the test remained a mystery. He did his best to appear clueless.

"Who are you?" he said.

The examiner didn't answer. Instead, he dashed toward Damian, gripping a dagger resembling a ritual blade.

At that moment, Damian knew that he would have to fight against the examiner. Certainly, the examiner wouldn't go all out. A hunter like him was way stronger than Damian and any other participant. The fight would be one-sided.

But it was still a test. Damian had to do something. He had to demonstrate his capabilities. He used his water skills once again, but this time, instead of throwing a water wall, Damian shaped it into a spear.

It had a lesser brute power, but although it lost some of the power, it gained speed. The examiner was also moving toward Damian, so with those two factors working together, the spear reached the examiner relatively quickly.

Even the examiner didn't believe the attack would reach him so soon. The examiner didn't dodge. He got hit right in the chest. But right before the spear reached his body, he activated a protection skill, reducing the damage he received from that attack. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

In the end, the examiner didn't even suffer any damage. He was fine, as if nothing had hit him. Damian was shocked to see it.

"He's much stronger than I am," he thought.

The test could be about anything, but at that moment, Damian took the chance to run away. That attack granted him a few seconds of advantage, and with his decent speed, that was more than enough to cover a good distance.

Damian had no idea where to run. That place was unknown to him, and that made it a maze. But any place was better than fighting against that examiner.

He ran through the corridors, finding a few locked doors on the way. Damian looked behind his shoulder a few times, and at a distance, he saw the examiner chasing after him.

The speed of the examiner wasn't that impressive. Damian analyzed it for a second and realized that the examiner always kept the same distance, regardless of how fast Damian went.

"Is he trying to tire me?" Damian thought.

That was the first thing that came to his mind. The examiners weren't there to fight against the participants with everything they had, as that would mean a total defeat for any of the participants. So, it was only right for them to have something else in mind for the test.

After realizing that, Damian reduced his speed. There was no benefit in going fast if the examiner would always keep the same distance between them. It was better to go slower and not waste energy.

But what could Damian do? If they kept going like that, Damian would eventually get tired, and the examiner might catch up to him. What if that meant he would fail the test?

Damian knew he had to find a way to hide from that examiner. And that wasn't problematic at all. With that powerful skill he got from the demon, Damian could alter his appearance and hide his aura too.

All he required was that the examiner miss him for a moment, and that was enough for him to hide his aura and basically turn invisible.

"Is it a good idea, though? They are watching me right now..."

That type of skill, or rather, that level of skill, was uncommon even for powerful hunters. So, if a participant like Damian used it, someone who was not yet a hunter, that would raise suspicion.

After some thought, Damian decided to use it anyway. His plan was to leave the continent after obtaining his hunter ID, so if that brought him consequences, he would consider them in the future.

While running, Damian found a door that he could enter. He opened the door, and then he closed it right afterward. At the very end of the room, there was another door. Damian ran toward it, opened it, and then returned to the room.

Inside the room, he saw some furniture, wooden crates, and other stuff, all piled up. It was easy to find a decent hiding spot. Damian crawled and used his skill to hide his aura from the examiner.

The examiner opened the door and saw that the other door was also open.

"Did he go that way?" the examiner thought.

He stopped for a moment. Damian was hiding and watching his next moves. The examiner frowned. He was not sensing Damian's aura anymore, and that was strange.

The examiner said it aloud, "Did he go so fast that I cannot sense him anymore?"

The only explanation the examiner could think of was that Damian covered a large distance in a matter of seconds, and that made him unable to sense his aura anymore. Of course, that was not the case. Damian didn't have that kind of speed.

But it was easier for the examiner to think that was the case. Never would he think that Damian had a powerful skill capable of hiding his aura from someone like him. That just didn't make any sense.

The examiner moved forward, going toward the open door. He continued down the corridor and vanished after a while.

Damian took the opportunity to leave his hiding spot and return to his original location. He moved quickly, fearing that the examiner might return at any moment.

The other hunters who were watching it from the cameras couldn't believe their eyes.

"How did he miss him? What the fuck is going on?"

"I have no idea. We might have to ask him."

"No way that guy managed to hide so easily from a hunter, right?"

They were chatting inside a room where they could see all the cameras. Everyone was basically focused on Damian because the other participants had yet to wake up from their sleep.

Damian had no idea where to go next. He didn't know if another examiner would come and try to chase him again, or if he had passed that part of the test.

Anyway, while he was walking through the corridors, trying to find the right place to go, the other participants woke up. No one knew what the hell was going on. All of them had confused looks.

"Where are we?"

While they were trying to understand what was going on, Damian discovered something. It was a ritual room.

The place was creepy. It had a stone altar in the middle, with a ritual knife next to it, and numerous animal heads and blood, as well. Damian knew the blood was real. He knew how it smelled and looked.

"This is demon's blood," he muttered.

On the altar, he saw a note. It was a yellow paper with some tints of blood in it. The handwriting was pretty, elegant.

Damian grabbed it and read it. He got excited when he finished it. Apparently, there were four rooms like that one scattered throughout that dungeon, and all participants who managed to find it would have a different test.

While the other participants had to hide from the examiners and also fight the demons, Damian now had another mission: chase the participants.

There was an animal costume inside the room, the same one the examiners were using. Damian's new mission was to find one participant — or a group of them- and chase them. He couldn't let them hide from him, as that would make him fail the test.

However, unlike the examiners who were only chasing and not going all out when fighting the participants, Damian could fight them effectively. In fact, that was his primary goal.

"I need to knock down at least one participant and bring him here to his room, and lock him up. After that, I need to prove my worth by killing demons..."

It was like a hide-and-seek. Damian was now one of the four new chasers. He grabbed the fur attire with the animal head and put it on. After that, his gaze fell on the chains attached to the wall. That was where he would lock one of the participants, someone who would fail the test.

"Let the hunt begin, then," Damian said.

*

Inside the camera room, the hunters were quite pleased by the outcome.

"Now that he has found the ritual room, we will be able to see him fight the participants. I really want to see how strong this guy is," one of them said.

"Right? He managed to hide from Pete, and he looked decent when fighting that first demon."

Out of everyone there, one man stood out as the apparent leader. It was the main examiner.

"After the other three participants find the ritual rooms, then we will release all the demons. It will be interesting to see them chase the participants and have to fight the demons at the same time."

*

Damian walked through the corridors like a predator. The examiners also turned off all the lights inside the dungeon after he found that room.

"They are helping me now, it seems," he thought.

The vibe was completely different from when he first woke up. It was darker, and now instead of running away, Damian was the one chasing.

He found the initial room. The participants were still there, locked behind those bars. Damian watched them from the darkness, a smirk on his face.