n

n

nA bitter smile formed on Kairos’ face.

n“Sorry, I’ll be more careful from now on.”

nNicole let out a relieved and defeated sigh.

n“…You better.”

nKairos sat up and began wondering what kind of change warranted such a large side effect.

nThe most obvious thing there was to do was try extending his future vision. He attempted to extend his future vision as far as possible. Pain quickly festered in his mind, but since he was only doing it for a moment, he just pushed through it.

nIt went from two seconds, to three seconds, then suddenly jumped to five seconds.

nAt this point, Kairos could intently feel a burning sensation in his head like it was on fire. He could tell that this was the farthest it would go.

nHe was about to cancel it, but then caught onto something he didn’t expect.

nStatus

nID: 934783245676

nRank: E-

nObjective: Survive

nProof Of Perfection Points: 82.1

nStrength – 14.9

nAgility – 14.9

nEndurance – 14.9

nWillpower – 14.9

nMana Capacity – 14.9

nMagic Affinity – 14.9

nSpecial Abilities: Afraid Spell (F), Frost Spell (F)

nHide

nHe could see Nicole’s status panel. Once he stopped extending his future vision, the status panel soon disappeared. Kairos held onto the side of his head, but instead of focusing on the pain, he had to confirm something.

n“Did you open your status panel just now?”

nNicole rubbed her eyes.

n“Eh? You told me to do that before I fell asleep…”

nKairos nodded.

n“I see.”

nHe then tried to get up, but Nicole pushed him back down. She looked a bit angry.

n“You just did something so dangerous, and you already want to push yourself, don’t you?”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“What? Since when was I pushing myself?”

nNicole pouted.

n“You stopped breathing for at least ten minutes! If that isn’t pushing yourself, then I don’t know what is!”

nKairos’ eyelid twitched.

n“I suppose that is true.”

nNicole grabbed onto his hand.

n“At least go to bed and take a nap.”

nKairos’ lip twitched. He was clearly a bit reluctant.

nNicole then gave him a glare.

n“You’re going to take a nap.”

nKairos sighed.

n“Alright, just let me get up then.”

nNicole got off of him before helping him up. From there, she dragged Kairos, not letting him go anywhere else. They eventually reached the bedroom, and Nicole pushed him onto the clean bed.

nFrom there, she casually slipped in as well.

nKairos rolled his eyes.

n“Was this your plan all along?”

nNicole pressed her lips together.

n“Regardless of my plans, you should be resting!”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“…I suppose I am a bit tired.”

nUpon laying his head down on the pillow, he actually did feel quite tired. On the other hand, Nicole had taken a nap not too long ago, so she couldn’t sleep even if she wanted to.

nKairos’ eyes gradually closed shut as he fell asleep almost immediately.

nAs for Nicole, she was a little surprised he fell asleep so quickly.

n“Kairos?”

nHe was already unconscious, thus didn’t respond.

nNicole pouted.

n“…You already fell asleep?”

nShe looked a little annoyed.

n“U-Um, this is what I wanted. Yeah, I just wanted you to have some rest.”

nKairos began snoring.

nNicole looked a little despondent.

n“…You’re really asleep.”

nShe puffed her cheeks up.

n“That’s unfair.”

nShe then looked around the room, as though making sure nobody was peeking.

n“Well if you’re asleep…”

n…

nWhen Kairos fell asleep, he suddenly found himself having a dream. However, it was an extremely strange dream. For starters, he could very clearly tell that it was a dream as he remembered falling asleep. Another thing was that the sensations were very realistic, to the point he almost thought it wasn’t a dream.

nAs for what was happening, he was simply sitting at the top of a building, with his legs hanging off the ledge. He was watching over Chase, Tori, Sydney, and Nicole all killing monsters below during the night. There was only the faint glow of moonlight, but it was still enough for him to see everything fairly clearly.

nIt was a rather uneventful dream.

nHe also didn’t feel that in control of his actions. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t move himself, but if he tried to do so, there was a clear feeling of resistance. Simply out of curiosity, he decided to force himself to move.

nThen, all of the resistance suddenly disappeared.

nHe jumped off the top of the building before slamming into the ground. Several monsters rushed to him, but with a simple swing of the spear, he was able to kill all of the nearby ones.

nKairos arbitrarily went through the monsters killing them.

nEventually, he made it next to Nicole, who looked at him in surprise. She raised an eyebrow.

n“Eh? Didn’t you say you were just going to watch? I thought you said you almost get no points from killing the monsters.”

nKairos furrowed his brow.

n“…Did I say that?”

nNicole slashed with her axe, killing a monster that was jumping toward her.

n“Um, I think so. Are you ok?”

nKairos blinked a few times as he continued to fight off the nearby monsters.

n“Could you tell me everything that has happened today since I woke up?”

nNicole blushed slightly, but didn’t stop fighting off the monsters next to her.

n“Erm, you gave me an angry look when I woke up.”

nKairos stared at her blankly.

n“What did you do?”

nNicole coughed.

n“Hehe… I might’ve been groping you.”

nKairos didn’t respond immediately.

n“…what happened after that?”

nNicole’s expression relaxed a little.

n“Um, it was almost night time, so I told you to come with us since the monsters would all be coming out soon.”

nKairos slowly nodded.

n“Then what happened after that?”

nNicole blinked a few times.

n“Um… we just got here and started to kill the monsters. Did you want more details?”

nKairos shook his head.

n“It’s alright. I’m pretty sure that I’m dreaming right now.”

nNicole looked at him strangely.

n“Eh? B-But it doesn’t feel like a dream.”

nKairos nodded.

n“Yes, it really doesn’t.”

nHis eyes narrowed.

n“If my guess is correct, then I’m actually dreaming of the future.”

nNicole looked quite confused.

n“Huh?”

nKairos shook his head.

n“Don’t worry about it. Just focus on what you’re doing right now.”

nNicole stammered.

n“O-Ok.”

nHe rubbed his chin with interest before leaping up towards one of the buildings. He climbed up to the top and began channeling mana for one of his spells.

nUnfortunately, his dream ended right there.

nUpon waking up, he felt a familiar strange sensation. And just as expected, Nicole was feeling him up.

nKairos spoke up immediately.

n“You gotta stop doing that.”

nNicole flinched.

n“A-Ah, you’re awake!”

nKairos sighed.

n“…Why do you have to do that?”

nNicole averted her gaze.

n“But if you’re asleep, then you don’t feel it!”

nKairos clicked his tongue.

n“But I still end up feeling it when I wake up. At least restrain yourself a little bit.”

nNicole coughed.

n“A-Alright.”

nShe then got out and looked at the window.

n“Ah, it’s getting a little dark! We should go meet with the others. It’s about time for us to go kill the monsters.”

nKairos nodded.

n“Yeah.”

nThings were happening just as the Nicole in his dream had said. Though, he still wasn’t sure if his prediction was correct. After all, he could’ve just had a dream about what he thought was going to happen. He waited to see if they would go to the same place.

nThe group gathered together and headed out of the city. They seemed to already have a location in mind as they headed in that direction.

nThey took care of the monsters along the way and eventually reached a spot that was quite familiar to Kairos.

nHe looked at one of the buildings and scaled up. It was the one that he was sitting on in his dream. Once he got into the same position, he saw nearly the exact same thing in his dream. The only thing was that the lighting was a little bit off. But as the sun gradually set, and the moon rose, it became practically identical.

nKairos’ eyes narrowed slightly.

n“…It seems my inborn ability is strongest while sleeping. That’s a little annoying.”

nHe shook his head as he came to the realization. It seemed that he gained three main things from increasing the rank of his ability. The first was the ability to extend his future vision to five seconds. The second was the ability to forcibly see someone’s status panel if he did fully extend his future vision. And the final one seemed to be the ability to have dreams of the near future.

nKairos didn’t really know what he was expecting, but he wouldn’t have been able to guess that this was what he got out of it. Regardless, it was still quite useful, though it may not be the most reliable as it seemed to just give him a random snapshot of the events.

nKairos cast his gaze downwards.

nThe monsters were beginning to flood the streets. From his observation, most of them were coming out of the buildings. From the number that was coming out, it seemed like the monsters must’ve crammed themselves in there.

nHe then put his focus on his own group, observing how they killed the monsters.

nNicole had the red watch around her wrist, and was going off on her own, but was still within sight of the others. Although she was basically only slashing through the monsters normally, she was still able to kill them with relative ease.

nAs for Sydney, she stood her ground as the monsters rushed over to her. She had given up on using a weapon, instead using her hands and teeth like the other monsters, trading blow for blow.

nThe monsters would rip her apart, but her body would quickly regenerate that damage right after.

nBehind her, were both Chase and Tori.

nThough Sydney wasn’t holding back, there truly were too many monsters, so many slipped by. Tori was the one that took care of those. As for Chase, he would pull back a mana arrow and release it into the horde, killing countless monsters. Though he wasn’t able to do so frequently, it was enough so that they wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the sheer amount.

nWhat interested Kairos the most, was Chase. Because of his ability to see mana, he could generally gauge the amount of mana in everyone’s body. Tori, Sydney, and Nicole weren’t using any of their spells, thus weren’t consuming mana.

nOn the other hand, Chase was using it quite recklessly.

nFrom What Kairos could tell, he was using roughly a third of his mana with every arrow shot, but did so with confidence. Then, the mana around him would begin funneling towards him at an unnatural speed.

nIn roughly a minute, all the mana he used would be restored, and he would be drawing back another arrow.

nKairos dug to the depths of his memories and remembered Chase got the ability called “Crystal Heart”. It seemed that it was a passive one that rapidly sped up his mana regeneration.

nAnother thing that he saw was how the mana flowed in Chase’s body and bow.

nThe mana would come out of one of his hands to make an arrow, but it was also coming out of the other hand, funneling into the bow.

nThe bow would automatically compress mana and seemed to be casting some sort of spell that was also discharged when the arrow was released. In other words, the bow was essentially taking on the burden of the spell for him.

nIn that respect, Chase could freely increase his magical stats, without worrying about his physical ones. After all, if he didn’t face any backlash, then the durability of his own body didn’t matter much.

nHis potential was high.

nThough, Kairos wasn’t sure how strong his allegiance to them was. He began thinking of a test to see if Chase would really be an ally in tough times.

n