Insufficent

Kairos felt an immense pain fill his head from his future vision. However, strangely enough, it didn't feel like the sensation of having one's neck cut through as he would've expected.

After all, there was currently a katana moments away from reaching his neck.

Rather, it was a fairly familiar sensation, like his skull was going to burst. Though it was still extremely painful.

Kairos instinctively tilted his head to the side.

And right when he did, a blue arrow shot right past.

The lady's eyes widened tremendously. However, right after Kairos tilted his head, she did as well. The blue arrow grazed against her cheek, ripping open a long line of blood.

However, she was still alive.

Kairos grit his teeth, awaiting the sensation of pain. However, it never came.

Chase had let go of the arrow. However, even when the arrow shot right past its target, he still kept eye all the way open, staring calmly. A deep frown was on his face as blue veins began bulging out from his skin.

The blue arrow that had shot past suddenly reversed its direction, shooting straight towards the lady's head.

There should've been no way for her to know.

But she stopped her attack and brought the katana behind her head.

An ear-piercing bang rang out.

The mana arrow crashed against the katana hard. That much was clear from the blood now seeping from the lady's hand. However, she was still standing.

Kairos was shocked by the turn of events. However, he already saw it happen a second in the future, so he was only stunned for a short moment. Kairos' eyes had become bloodshot as he desperately tried to take advantage of this opportunity, mercilessly swinging his fire axe towards her skull.

Another clash rang out.

The lady was able to defend against it, but she quickly backed up with a fearful expression.

"I give up! I give up, so stop attacking! You can have whatever you want from the damn grocery store."

Chase immediately spoke up.

"Haha, it is only natural to spare such a pretty little flower."

Kairos turned back to look at Chase with a little bit of incredulity. He opened his mouth to chastise him, but suddenly stopped.

Chase was holding onto the bow with a confident smile. However, there was something slightly off about him. Though it was extremely hard to tell, the hands holding onto the bow were trembling slightly.

The only reason Kairos could even tell was because of the contrast between the images of his future vision and the current one. From what he could tell, Chase couldn't shoot any more arrows.

Given that Nicole had been knocked out as well, he was on his own.

Kairos slowly turned around back to look at the lady.

She definitely seemed afraid. However, her hand was still tightly wrapped around the hilt of the katana.

Although he could be fairly confident in taking down this woman now, he was also fairly confident that his body would be heavily injured from her death throes.

And so, he took a deep breath and accepted that this was the best case scenario.

"If you surrender, drop your katana."

The lady furrowed her brows.

"Ok."

However, instead of dropping it she continued to walk backwards. Kairos furrowed his brows.

"What are you doing?"

The lady kept her eyes trained forwards.

"Getting another weapon."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Is this how you surrender?"

The lady clicked her tongue.

"You have to at least give me a weapon to defend myself in the case you attack me anyway!"

The corner of Kairos' lip twitched.

"...Alright."

With that, the lady eventually picked up a metal pipe from the floor and dropped her katana.

Kairos stared right at her.

"Kick the katana over."

After a second of hesitation, the lady kicked the katana over as instructed. It slid across the ground with a scraping sound, eventually slowing down right next to his feet. Kairos promptly picked it up and stowed it away as the burning sensation came from his hands.

Chase lowered the bow he was holding with a calm smile.

"Now go on, pretty flower. We will take care of your store well!"

The lady slowly walked backwards. However, she suddenly lunged towards Nicole's unconscious body, hoisting her up with one hand and raising the metal pipe with the other.

Harold took a step forward.

"Hey! Stop it!"

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"What are you doing?"

The lady's breathing was unsteady.

"Look, the deal stands, but I need insurance. You can have her back after I leave."

Kairos furrowed his brows.

"You can't just... leave now?"

The lady grit her teeth.

"And then get shot in the back with one of those arrows?"

The corner of Kairos' lip twitched.

"So when are you going to let her go?"

The lady blinked a few times.

"...When I feel safe."

Kairos sighed.

"If my friend here puts down his bow, would you feel safe?"

The lady opened her mouth, but quickly closed it right after, thinking to herself.

"No!"

Kairos' eyebrow twitched. He took a deep breath.

"Then what is required for you to feel at home, princess?"

The lady took several deep breaths.

"I... I don't know. I've never been in this kind of position."

Chase rubbed his chin.

"What if we trade hostages? We give you someone else and you release the girl?"

Kairos furrowed his brows and turned to look at him.

"...What exactly are you trying to do?"

Chase raised up his hands as though trying to show he was innocent.

"Just offering a suggestion!"

Kairos felt like Chase was trying to get rid of either Harold or Sydney, and it was relatively understandable. After all, they hadn't contributed to the fight. However, Kairos was also unsure if that was truly his objective.

In the end, he just dropped the subject.

Kairos looked at the lady with a little bit of frustration.

"Look, we aren't going to get anywhere if you just continue holding onto her, alright?"

She grit her teeth and began sweating. It seemed like she was getting quite desperate for whatever reason. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, almost like she had been enlightened.

"Wh-What if we become allies?"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Huh?"

The lady cleared her throat.

"There is no true enmity with us, right? We both just wanted the food from the grocery store, that's all! We can just... share it. It's not like any of us are weak and will hold the other down."

Kairos looked at the bandit corpses littered across the ground.

"You really don't care about all of the people on your side we just killed?"

The lady shrugged her shoulders.

"Not really. I hardly even knew them for a day. They only listened to me because I easily killed their previous leader and forced them to work under me."

Kairos lowered his head down slightly and thought about it.

"...And how are we supposed to believe you aren't going to backstab us?"

Chase nodded.

"Exactly. So we can't take you."

Kairos looked over at Chase with a bit of confusion.

"Isn't that how we teamed up?"

The corner of Chase's lip twitched.

"This is different!"

Kairos couldn't understand at first, but eventually realized. Chase wanted to team up with people because he couldn't handle everything on his own with his limited arrow supply. However, he also didn't want to team up with anybody too strong, so that he didn't have to be that concerned about someone attempting to kill him.

The lady frowned, taking this the wrong way.

"What? Because you think of me as some pretty flower? What about those other people you are with? I can hold my own weight unlike them!"

Chase frowned.

"This is an issue of trust, little flower."

The lady screamed out.

"My name is Tori!"

Chase sighed.

"Well, alright Tori. This is an issue of trust. Like how you can't trust us, we can't trust you."

Tori proceeded to frown.

"...Then that can be developed over time, right?"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Perhaps, but we aren't willing to give you that time."

Tori looked between the two of us.

"Then... Then I will just hold this girl until you decide to trust me!"

Harold frowned.

"No way!"

Tori clicked her tongue.

"Well this is how I'm doing it!"

Kairos frowned. He really couldn't understand why this woman was being so stubborn as to follow them. Nonetheless, there really was no time to waste.

"So you don't mind us going into the grocery store and you waiting out here?"

Tori blinked a few times.

"...No, of course not."

Kairos sighed.

"Alright. Then we will be doing that."

There were a few whimpering sounds being made. He looked over to them and noticed a mother that was now sitting on her rear along with two children behind her back.

Kairos waved.

"Ah, do you want to-"

The woman cringed in fear while the two children also began to shiver.

Kairos wondered why, then remembered he was soaked in blood. It probably wasn't the prettiest of sights. He sighed, then turned to Harold and Sydney.

"We should take the supplies in the grocery store first."

Harold frowned.

"But that woman is still holding onto Nicole!"

Kairos shook his head.

"She isn't going to let go of her any time soon. We can't waste so much time right now. Let's just loot the place before trying to talk to her again."

Sydney looked a little distraught.

"But what if she takes Nicole away?"

Kairos frowned.

"She has no reason to do such a thing, alright?"

The two seemed displeased, but eventually caved in. Chase waved to the mother and her two kids on the floor.

"You can have whatever you find still in the place after we are done. Does that sound good?"

The mother was still obviously afraid of Chase, but was still able to work up the courage to talk.

"R-Really?"

Chase shrugged his shoulders.

"We won't be using them."

The mother bowed.

"Th-Thank you!"

With that, the group of four entered the store.

Surprisingly the place was really tidy. There was still quite a bit of food left all over the place and it wasn't damaged or covered in blood. It seemed that the group beforehand did a good job of defending this place.

Kairos even opened up the freezer of this place and found that it was devoid of a single monster. Like the last one, there was a fire axe. He decided to take it.

While in the freezer, there was nobody else around.

Despite that, he still took a look around the place, almost like he suspected the others had some sort of ability that let them phase through walls.

After double checking, Kairos opened his status panel once more.

[Status]

[ID: 345315364923]

[Rank: F+]

[Objective: Touch Red Sunlight]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 21.1]

[Stats -

Strength - 2.0

Endurance - 2.0

Agility - 4.0

Willpower - 2.3

Mana Capacity - 0.0

Magic Affinity - 0.0]

[Special Abilities: N/A]

[Hide]

Though he did gain a few points from that fight, it was really nothing compared to the points provided by killing monsters.

Kairos sighed.

One thing he realized in the last fight, was that he couldn't really be holding onto his points this much in case of some emergency situation. However, he also couldn't be spending too much, as he might starve to death.

Considering the amount of food in here, it was a good opportunity to increase his stats and have the food ready to not suffer consequences from his decision.

[Strength 2.0 -> 4.0 | Points 21.1 -> 19.1]

[Endurance 2.0 -> 4.0 | Points 19.1 -> 17.1]

[Agility 4.0 -> 4.9 | Points 17.1 -> 16.2]

Kairos valued agility, especially because of that last fight. As such, he intended on increasing this stat the most. However, once he wanted to push it past five, the option to increase it suddenly grayed out.

[Insufficient Evolution Rank]