Ghost Ripper

After the birthday celebration has ended and everyone has returned to their respective homes except John, Gildarts, and all the janitors responsible for cleaning up after the party.

"So, why are you still here and not accompanying Cana home?" John asked Gildarts as he started to order his subordinates to bring the gifts to his apartment.

"Well, you see my gift is a little special so, I'm personally handling it for you lest you got into an accident and Cana will be sad." Gildarts said in a tipsy voice.

John nodded thinking that Gildarts' gift is indeed too special, it was a monster, he just didn't know what monster Gildarts prepared.

"Well, let's go to my apartment and see what kind of monster you captured for me." John said as he ordered his subordinates to put the cage into a small pull cart.

John then pulled the cart with Gildarts following right behind him, the monster inside the cage is still knocked out so the journey all the way is smooth.

Pulling the cart to a secret compartment in a corner of the apartment, John pulled a brick on the ground and then a series of mechanical sounds came from underneath them.

Then a hole emerged from the floor leaving a smooth hole that leads into a tunnel filled with lamps at the walls. Gildarts was surprised to see this hole and he was just about to ask what it was when he heard John explaining.

"It's a secret basement, it's the most popular thing to have when doing something shady such as experiments, magic research, and other crazy things that one dare not do on the surface."

After saying that he pulled the cart inside and slowly descended on the passage, and as they walked the lamps on the side will light up as they approached.

After reaching the end of the tunnel, a huge Iron door appeared at the end, the door is carved with a blood moon on the top with clouds surrounding it, on the clouds are several flying ravens, and underneath the clouds is a puppeteer.

This puppeteer's face is hidden in a dark robe as he stretched out his hand and manipulated the countries to wage war against each other.

This door was commissioned by John for a master craftsman to make, after all, secret basements needed badass doors.

John then took out a black key from his space and inserted it in between the hands of the puppeteer, and with a slight twist, a rumbling sound came from the door as it slowly opened.

And what appeared in front of them is a huge basement with different instruments and a bookshelf full of different books, and the title of all of these books are about monsters such as anatomy and types.

While on the side is a lounge, where John relaxed to read a book after he was done with his research, well, he usually only hangs out here and never done any research since he still hasn't decided on the new type of puppets he will make.

After pulling the cage into the prison cell especially made for containing the researched monsters, this prison cell is covered all over with Wyvern runes of toughness that will ensure that unless S-rank the monster won't be able to escape.

After that, he took off the coat covering the cage and what he saw inside made John gasp, inside the cage is a slender humanoid monster, with black skin and white hair covering all of its face, and has long sharp claws.

John was shocked to see this monster because when he was analyzing the monster to be used as materials for puppets, this one has been included due to its fighting style and suitability to his current set of skills.

This monster species is called - Ghost Ripper.

They got their name from their way of hunting with elusive and ghost-like movements and with their claws that are said to be able to rip apart most things under adamantine.

That's crazy since adamantine is the metal used to make Ezra's shield and that metal is just under maginium alloy that is used to make the eclipse gate that can nearly resist everything.

Despite so, Ghost Rippers are only High-A rank monsters since they are very fragile, and one can threaten a Ghost ripper with just a High-C rank magic attack.

But, with their fighting style of attacking in one shot to succeed, and if it fails it will flee, and Ghost Rippers are nocturnal meaning they only hunt at night, which makes their hunt always successful.

The good thing for people is that Ghost Rippers usually live in big forests with trees that had a huge canopy so that when night came it will be the perfect hunting ground for them.

This is a piece of bad news for John if he wanted Ghost Rippers to be the replacement for the Lynx and Tiger puppets, and the even worse news is that Ghost Rippers are rare and usually travel alone unless it's mating season.

After recalling all the data he remembered about Ghost Rippers, John went out of the prison cell and had Gildarts remove the Ghost Ripper from the cage as he saw that it was already worn out.

After removing the Ghost Ripper from the cage, Gildarts took a proper look inside the basement as he whistled in admiration while saying. "You sure know how to enjoy life kid, like a cool basement like this?"

"When did you even have time to build all of this, I'll like to know who built you one, I would like to hire them and build me one too."

"Hahahaha, I took advantage of the time that I was here a year ago and built this place by myself as I can't trust another person to build a secret basement for me."

"Anyway, it looks cool, right? This basement is my pride and if not for keeping it a secret I would brag about it all day long." John said with a prideful smile as he thought of the day when finally completed the building of this basement.

He was so excited and happy at that time, as he checked off another thing about a list that he wanted to do when he was rich, that being to build a secret basement like the Batcave is just one of them.

"You built it yourself?" A sad look flashed on Gildarts face as he heard John say that.

"How about this? I'll build you a secret basement to, because the monster you provided me is just way too in my style of fighting, treat it as my thanks." John said, which cause Gildarts to light up in joy.

"HAHAHA, Thank you, Kiddo, I especially chose this monster when I heard of your reputation when I was doing the decade quest. Tsk, Tsk, The Shadow Puppeteer under the bloody Moon with the title Hades!"

"Such an overbearing title is actually on the head of a brat, all that I can say is you kid did well in the past year or so." Gildarts said as he shook his head upon John's title.

"Hehehe, it was just those people from the outside that keep saying those, I'm still the same old John." John said while trying to be humble, but pride is evident in every word he says.

"Stop trying to be humble kid, your not made for it, and such attitude doesn't match your great title." Gildarts said exposing all of John's tricks.

John smiled as he stopped pretending to be humble and just laughed with Gildarts, after laughing, John asked Gildarts what does he want his secret cave to be.

After deliberating for a long time, Gildarts told John that he wanted his secret base, to be as cozy as possible, with wine cases in every corner of the room for storing wine and a circular bar counter in the middle, along with a shower in a small corner of the room.

John had a strange expression on his face as he listened to Gildarts' requirement, rather than a secret basement it looked like Gildarts wanted to build a cellar for strong wine instead, one where he can drink in.

But, he thought that it made sense, ever since Cana moved in Gildarts' house, she threw anything wine related outside saying that the house will stink if you keep drinking inside, and as a proper daughter control, Gildarts didn't say no.