n

n

nKairos stopped in place and looked up with wide eyes.

n“…What?”

nThey were still in the city, but there was a wall far up ahead in sight. It was a mixture of gray and brown while the wall itself was incomparably smooth. The walls encapsulated quite a large area, so much so that Kairos couldn’t actually make out the end of the walls easily. As for the height, it should’ve been at the very least thirty meters high.

nSurrounding these walls were various collapsed buildings. This created quite a large clearing surrounding the place, which made it stand out even more than it already did.

nIn a certain sense, it appeared as though it had just plopped itself down, and destroyed everything nearby. Basically, it just felt unnatural.

nThis made Kairos feel a little strange about this place.

nHe couldn’t help but think this wasn’t something humans constructed, thus he thought that it may have been some sort of natural phenomenon that was potentially dangerous.

nOn the other hand, Eric didn’t seem to share the same sentiment.

n“Woah! I didn’t think we would get to a settlement already!”

nHe snapped before pointing a finger gun towards Sam.

n“You really are good at finding things!”

nIn response, Sam chuckled.

n“It was just a coincidence. I’m not actually that good.”

nNick shrugged his shoulders with a smirk.

n“Well, you are a hell of a lot better than us.”

nJenny began walking up with her arms outstretched, not even slightly concerned about what it could have been.

n“Helloooooo~”

nShe did not hold back, casting her voice loud enough so that it could be heard to anyone inside.

nAfter a few moments, the top of a man’s head appeared from the wall. He held a pair of binoculars and looked down at them. Though it wasn’t visible to Kairos and the others, a small frown formed on the person’s face when he saw that the voice was coming from a teenager, and even deepened when he further scanned to see many more kids.

n“Get out of here! This is not a place for people like you!”

nAfter declaring that, the person stopped poking their head out.

nJenny put her hands on her hips and pouted when she saw the person’s attitude.

n“People like us? How can you assume that you know everything just when you take a look at a person?”

nThe person at the top didn’t bother poking their head out again, but still rebutted.

n“So many of you are just useless kids! We don’t need any more people like you in here!”

nJenny narrowed her eyes as her frown deepened.

n“Why don’t you come down here and see how useless we are for yourself?”

nThe person at the top was rather dismissive.

n“Not going to waste my time!”

nKairos walked up and adjusted his glasses. From the sound of things, it really was a settlement. However, there wasn’t any clear entrance, unless climbing up the wall was considered one.

n“May I ask how this place was formed?”

nThe person at the top scoffed.

n“It was created by an angel that is far out of your reach!”

nRight after that was said, another voice came from the top of the walls. However, it was far more feminine and young.

n“And yet you consider this angel a useless teenager?”

nThe person seemed rather panicked.

n“Ah, no! I-”

nAnother person walked up from the ledge, revealing themselves. It was a girl with violet hair, with two cute unbraided pigtails on the side of her head. Her eyes were light blue, and even from so far away seemed to gleam slightly.

nThe girl was wearing a school uniform, and other than being slightly ruffled up, it was fine.

nThere was a calm smile on her face, one that spoke of confidence over the situation.

nShe waved her hand leisurely.

n“Ah, Kairos! I thought I recognized that voice.”

nKairos blinked a few times with confusion.

n“You know me?”

nThe girl laughed.

n“Yes, yes. It is expected you have no idea who I am. After all, we never spoke!”

nKairos furrowed his brows, then gradually thought of this one person. It was a classmate he had shared a few classes with, Tiana. The impression of her wasn’t too strong, but there were a few things that made him remember her.

nFirst off, was her violet hair. It stood out a fair amount because of how different it was, but also wasn’t too flashy because it could almost be black. It was a pretty big contrast compared to Eric and his friends who all basically had neon colors for hair.

nThe second thing was that she was always a little strange. Gym class was separated by gender, so the guys and girls would both have their own separate periods. Yet, for some reason Tiana would always show up for the guy’s gym class. The teacher had expressed that she shouldn’t be doing so, but was quickly shut up after a simple threat.

nKairos gathered that she was either from a rather influential family, or had a relative in the higher ranks of the school.

nAnd so, Tiana would always watch whenever they played sports. It was rumored that she liked Chad, and that was why she decided to cut in gym class all the time.

nKairos was actually quite surprised that Tiana even knew his name, much less recognize him by voice. After all, she never really looked at him.

nHe paused for a moment.

n“Tiana?”

nTiana laughed.

n“Wow, I’m really surprised you actually remember me!”

nNicole couldn’t help but flinch before looking between the two.

nKairos simply sighed.

n“Of course, it’s not too hard to remember the only person who dyed their hair in class.”

nTiana tilted her head to the side and smiled.

n“Haha, and what if I were to tell you that it was natural?”

nKairos raised an eyebrow.

n“Why does that even matter?”

nTiana brushed aside her bangs.

n“Ah, you are right! I got off topic a little here. Anyway, why don’t you all come in?”

nBefore any of them had the chance to ask how exactly they were supposed to get inside, part of the walls began to shift. Part of the wall began sinking into the ground, creating a small pathway near the bottom.

nKairos was rather surprised how easily she came to that decision.

nAs for Eric, he didn’t really care. Instead, he flashed Kairos a smile.

n“Sick! You know the people of this place? What other connections do you have?”

nThe man at the top of the wall seemed rather concerned as well.

n“Wait! We can’t take any more baggage in!”

nTiana turned to the man and raised an eyebrow.

n“Are you questioning my decision?”

nThe man seemed rather afraid, but was still insistent.

n“There are too many burdens on us already! We should minimize them if we want those that matter to survive!”

nA strange smile formed on Tiana’s lips.

n“You’re right, we should discard the burdens.”

nThe man sounded a bit relieved.

n“Thank you for under-”

nYet, before he could finish his sentence, Tiana had grabbed onto his shoulder. Then, she picked him up by one hand and cast him over the edge, almost like he really was just a piece of trash.

nFor the first second, the man didn’t seem to process what happened.

nBut right afterwards…

n“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

nKairos and most of the others looked above with incredulity. The only person that acted differently was Chase, whose smile deepened slightly as he held onto his chin with his hand.

nJenny was originally leisurely walking towards the small pathway, but frowned when she saw the man falling from the sky. She immediately pulled back her paddle before slamming on the spiked ball hard.

nAs it traveled, it quickly expanded to a diameter of five meters. The man saw this as he was going down, but to him, it didn’t seem like good news, only making him scream even louder.

n“WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

nHowever before he was skewered by those spikes, the ends had become soft pads, which caught onto the man.

nFrom there, the ball began falling down at a relatively fast speed, but one that was still safe. The man grit his teeth until eventually hitting the floor, bouncing up a little from the ball.

nHe rolled down onto the ground while clutching his chest, seemingly trying to calm his beating heart. His breaths were heavy, while sweat began pouring down from his brows.

nThe man was in camouflage clothing along with an assault rifle strapped onto his back, indicating that he was probably from the military.

nAfter shaking his head, he slowly got up to his feet, albeit trembling. He noticed pretty easily that it was Jenny that saved him and bowed to her.

n“Th-Thank you for saving my life.”

nJenny rolled her eyes.

n“Not so useless now, huh?”

nThe man hurriedly shook his head.

n“No, no!”

nJenny then lost interest, instead opting to look up towards Tiana with a frown.

n“Hey, you can’t just throw people off buildings! That’s rude!”

nTiana looked down silently for a few moments before sighing.

n“If people aren’t punished, then they will only get more out of hand.”

nNick pointed a finger at her accusingly.

n“Yo, even if you want to punish someone, it doesn’t have to be killing them!”

nTiana took a deep breath.

n“…Whatever.”

nThe man couldn’t bring himself to look up at her, and simply began shivering without knowing what to do.

nTiana clicked her tongue.

n“Hey, useless. Since these guys want to give you a second chance, you got yourself one. But next time, I won’t give you another chance no matter who vouches for you.”

nThe man looked up and blinked nervously before pointing at himself.

n“M-Me?”

nTiana smirked.

n“Yeah you. Isn’t useless a perfect name for you? You use it so much after all. From now on your name will be useless.”

nThe man’s face twitched. He first looked out towards the surroundings, as though contemplating whether or not he should leave. But he almost immediately gave up on that notion, bowing towards Tiana.

n“O-Ok. Useless thanks the angel for her benevolence!”

nKairos decided to tune out that conversation.

nAs for Sam, he was frowning deeply.

n“…I’m not sure if we want anything to do with someone willing to cast aside a human life so easily.”

nJenny walked forth, taking exaggerated steps.

n“I don’t care about all that, I’m going up there to give that girl an earful!”

nEric shrugged his shoulders as he walked up, twirling the red ball.

n“I’m up for that. That Tiana girl needs to know that’s really uncool, yo.”

nWith that, Eric, Nick, and Jenny began walking in through the pathway, while the man from before kept his head down and hurriedly followed after.

nKairos turned to the others that were still in place.

n“We can at least check the place out, right?”

nNicole pressed her lips together as conflicting emotions arose within her. But to Kairos’ surprise, she seemed to have come to a decision.

n“Yeah, we should.”

nShe began walking forth, prompting Kairos to follow. Sam sighed and shook his head, but still followed as well.

nIn the end, the group walked through that small pathway.

nKairos noted that the length was about five meters. In other words, the walls were five meters thick, which definitely wasn’t anything to scoff at.

nAnd once they did walk past, they were greeted with a rather giant space. At the center, there were still a few tall residential buildings, but all around them was large amounts of overturned earth.

nThere were currently numerous people of all kinds working on that earth, tilling it with things like metal poles, baseball bats, or wrenches.

nNicole’s eyes widened in excitement.

n“…Wow.”

nFrom the corner, Tiana peeked her head out, already down from the wall that was thirty meters high.

n“Hey!”

nJenny was about to speak, but Kairos did first.

n“Why did you let us in?”

nTiana giggled with her hand over her mouth.

n“You see, I have been watching you for a while…”

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