n

n

nIt didn’t seem like anything too special at first, but Kairos quickly realized the implications behind the announcement.

nFirst Ten To Multi-kill – Challenge Type (Tenth – by ID: 510923457834)

nThe first thing Kairos did was memorize this line of numbers.

n‘Five, one, zero, nine. Two thousand, three hundred and forty-five. Seventy-eight. Thirty-four.’

nHe repeated that in his mind several times until he was confident that it was in his memory.

nNicole turned around then looked at him strangely.

n“Are you ok? You’re just… staring into nothing.”

nKairos nodded.

n“Yeah, I’m fine.”

nHe recalled that he had gotten the same achievement as the one shown in the announcement. In other words, once somebody had gotten a ‘Top Ten’ achievement, anybody that had already gotten it would be notified.

nAnd they would see their ID.

nWhat that also meant, was nine people had seen his ID after he got the tenth challenge kill. After that, eight people had seen his ID after he got the ninth multi kill.

nThough there was probably some overlap from those nine and eight people, at the bare minimum, nine people were shown his ID. This could be seen as both a good thing or a bad thing.

nIf Kairos wanted to stay low, he had to make sure not to show his status panel to others, especially if they wanted to look at IDs. However, among these few people, having this ID was also proof of power in a certain sense.

nDepending on the mentality of the other people that saw his ID, it could be the basis of cooperation.

nHowever, Kairos wasn’t willing to trust random strangers. In fact, he wasn’t even willing to fully trust Nicole and her parents.

nAs such, this private announcement feature gave him a headache.

nKairos gave a quick glance at Nicole. After confirming she was looking towards the entrance, he closed the announcement and opened up his status panel.

nStatus

nID: 345315364923

nRank: F

nObjective: Touch Red Sunlight

nProof Of Perfection Points: 20.5

nStats –

nStrength – 2.0

nEndurance – 2.0

nAgility – 4.0

nWillpower – 2.3

nMana Capacity – 0.0

nMagic Affinity – 0.0

nSpecial Abilities: N

/A

nHide

nThe first thing that caught his attention was the staggering amount of points.

nTwenty and a half.

nThat was more than all of his current points combined and by a long shot too. It was then that Kairos thought that he could’ve added points while he was fighting. However, he soon came to the realization that it wasn’t that simple.

nFirst off, the sudden loss of energy from adding points couldn’t be good. On top of that, he would have to manually tap onto the status panel with his finger to add points, meaning that it would waste time.

n…However, there still might be a situation where adding points mid-fight could be useful.

nSuddenly, Nicole spoke, prompting Kairos to hastily close the status panel.

n“Hey.”

nKairos coughed.

n“Um, hi.”

nNicole took some time to respond.

n“It… really is real, isn’t it?”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“Well, of course.”

nNicole was still looking at the entrance, but shifted her gaze down ever so slightly.

n“I thought maybe if I went to bed, that all of this would turn out to be fake. That I would wake up in my warm bed once again.”

nKairos sighed.

n“Sometimes reality is more surprising than any lie.”

nNicole brought her legs up to her torso and hugged them.

n“Normally at this time, I would be in school. Probably complaining about some math concept that makes no sense.”

nShe shivered slightly.

n“But now…”

nKairos narrowed his eyes.

nIf Nicole’s mentality remained this way, she would probably become more of a liability than anything else. Not wanting that to happen, Kairos quickly tried to think of something and said the first idea that came to mind.

n“It doesn’t mean that it will be like this forever.”

nNicole turned to look at him.

n“What do you mean?”

nA small smile formed on Kairos’ face.

n“We can work towards a future where everything goes back to the way it is. Then you can complain about doing math again.”

nNicole blinked a few times.

n“Make everything back to the way it was…”

nA bitter smile formed on her face.

n“Maybe not exactly the way it was. We should get rid of math from school.”

nKairos rolled his eyes.

n“Then how am I supposed to make you do things for me in exchange for the test answers?”

nNicole stuck her tongue out.

n“You’ll just have to be more creative!”

nKairos scoffed.

n“That’s too much work.”

nNicole laughed and turned away.

nThere was a brief moment of silence.

nNicole’s voice was a little dreamy.

n“Do you really think everything can go back to the way it was?”

nKairos shrugged his shoulders.

n“Not anytime soon, that’s for sure.”

nThe corner of his lip turned up.

n“But one day. That’s for sure.”

nNicole shut her eyes.

n“I hope so…”

nAfter a minute or so, Kairos shifted his gaze towards his injured arm and lightly rubbed it. The wound was still a little sore still. However, for how long it had been, it had already healed considerably.

nKairos shook his head.

n“Anyways. It’s probably time for us to get going. We shouldn’t sleep more than needed.”

nNicole nodded.

n“Ok.”

nThe two of them woke up the others. Then, they agreed to begin moving towards their original destination, the wilderness.

nThe sun was getting close to setting. However, it was still quite high in the air. There were still a few hours of sunlight left.

nThey went back into the residential area, moving on through the alleyways. Though they traveled for nearly an hour, they only came across a single monster, which Harold took care of by charging forth.

nHe was probably feeling like he hadn’t been doing his part.

nBy now, they had reached an elementary school that just so happened to be along the way. It was made in a way where the first floor consisted of a fairly large square, while the second floor was a smaller square on top. Almost like a pyramid.

nKairos was leading the way and looked up to the sun.

n“I doubt it will be easy to navigate during the night. I imagine the school wouldn’t be a bad place to stay, so let’s go there.”

nThe others were in agreement, thus they walked towards the school, constantly looking around. Once they reached the wall, Kairos led the way around the wall, searching for an openable door.

nAs they approached a corner, there was a faint sound of mumbling.

nThis made Kairos furrow his brows.

nWas there some drunk or heavily traumatized person here?

nHe tightened the grip on his fire axe and continued forward. The sound of the mumbling got a little louder.

n“Three, six, forty-nine, twenty-three.”

nFor a split second, Kairos couldn’t understand why that person was saying those numbers, but suddenly remembered that was the exact thing he did earlier.

nIt wasn’t common sense, but there were a fairly large number of people that knew a certain strategy about memorizing a long string of numbers.

nSaying each number one by one would make one easily mix them up. However, if they mixed it up slightly, treating them as two-digit numbers or higher. The only real reason there was to be memorizing numbers was if they had also seen the private announcement.

nThis made Kairos immediately realize the person up ahead was not only someone that completed some sort of first ten achievement, but ranked at least ninth.

nHe froze and turned around hurriedly, putting up a finger on his lips. There was a very serious glare on his face, prompting the others to also be as quiet as they could.

nKairos gestured for them to go backwards. And so, they started to do exactly that.

nBut that was when a voice came from above them.

n“Why are you so afraid of me?”

nThough Kairos heard it beforehand, it was already too late. He looked upwards to see a man with blonde hair that reached his shoulders looking down at them with a confident smile. His clothes didn’t look like anything special, but they were free from blood. Though that was probably more of a bad sign in this case.

nNicole and her parents froze up in fear, unable to speak.

nKairos internally cursed, but he kept a shocked expression on his face.

n“Woah!… Should we be afraid of you?”

nThe man rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

n“Well, if you are strong enough to warrant being allies, then there won’t be anything to be afraid of.”

nKairos’ eyebrow twitched.

n“And how strong exactly do you need us to be?”

nThe man chuckled.

n“Why don’t you show me your status panels? That will make it pretty clear”

nKairos narrowed his eyes.

n“That is way too personal, we can’t do that.”

nNicole tensed up and whispered into his ear.

n“What? Why are you-”

nKairos raised a finger right next to her mouth, shushing her.

nThe man with blonde hair raised an eyebrow.

n“Is it really such a big deal to show me your status panels?”

nKairos clicked his tongue.

n“Yes, it is. Our status panels essentially show a breakdown of our strengths and weaknesses. That is simply giving too much information to someone we can’t trust.”

nThe man with blonde hair narrowed his eyes.

n“So you don’t want to be allies?”

nKairos looked back up.

n“Do you really want to be allies with someone that shows off that information willy nilly?”

nThe man with blonde hair chuckled. He reached to his back and pulled off a fairly large recurve bow. There were a few things about this bow that made it stand out and less normal.

nThe most notable feature was its blood red color. Like the red sun, or even Nicole’s watch. It was also quite long. The man wasn’t short, but the bow seemed to span nearly two-thirds of his height. As for the part the man was holding, it seemed to be meticulously decorated with various wind-like patterns.

nHowever, there was no bowstring.

nNonetheless, the man smirked confidently when he pulled it out.

n“If you aren’t going to show me your status panels, there aren’t many other ways to prove your strength.”

nKairos smiled.

n“It seems you have something in mind?”

nThe man nodded.

n“If you can dodge my attack, then I will consider you strong enough to be my ally.”

nKairos tilted his head to the side.

n“So if I can dodge your attack, we all team up.”

nThe man raised an eyebrow.

n“I will team up with you, yes.”

nKairos shook his head.

n“Either all of us or none.”

nThe man seemed slightly displeased. He fell silent, making the atmosphere feel a little dangerous. However, Kairos fearlessly looked at him the entire time.

nAnd eventually, the man nodded.

n“Alright. If you can dodge my attack, then we can all be friends.”

nNicole seemed rather nervous, but eventually stuck up her hand.

n“I-I should be the one to do it instead!”

nThe man raised an eyebrow with interest.

n“Oh, now you want to try?”

nKairos nudged Nicole.

n“Come on, don’t you trust me?”

nNicole pressed her lips together.

n“But… I can move really fast, especially with that-”

n“It will be fine.”

nKairos quickly cut her off.

nThe man rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

n“Haha, so you aren’t even the fastest in the group, but want to be the one tested anyway?”

nKairos smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

n“Pretty much.”

nThe man smiled.

n“I like you already, kid.”

nA gleam flashed by his eyes.

n“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to take it easy on you.”

nKairos waved his hand dismissively.

n“Alright, alright. Are you going to start now?”

nThe man laughed.

n“Since you are so eager, of course.”

nHe reached out towards one end as though there was a string to be pulled for the bow. Harold and Sydney could not help but think that this man had no idea what he was doing.

nHowever, that was when a blue stream of translucent blue light appeared in the form of a string, starting from his fingers. From the hand that was holding the bow, an arrowhead formed which grew to become a fully fledged out arrow.

nThe man closed one eye.

n“Get ready.”

n