Through the Houses

Nicole had stopped opening the window initially, but hurried back to it after Kairos sounded so anxious.

"Why?"

Kairos sighed.

"They are attracted to sound and blood. Look at our situation. There has been far too much sound and blood. Just us talking was enough to attract one of them, so there should be more coming now."

Hearing this, Nicole anxiously sped up.

As for Sydney, she was still holding onto the bloody wooden bat with trembling hands.

"Oh... god."

Kairos looked at her.

"Calm yourself down quickly, we don't have much time to lose."

Sydney nodded and took deep breaths.

"Yes... There was a message saying that I got some sort of point for killing this creature."

Harold raised an eyebrow.

"Like the one about surviving the red sun?"

Sydney nodded.

"Yes, it gave me 0.3 points."

Kairos was about to ask a question, but then Nicole spoke up.

"I got it open! Let's go."

She hopped on through, landing on the roof of the house.

Kairos whispered, but did so a bit loudly.

"Make sure to be quiet, we don't want to attract any monsters."

With that, the four of them got onto the roof. Despite seeing a gory mess just now in the room, once the three saw what was outside, they paled in fear.

The amount of blood and mangled parts on the streets was simply too much. Coupled with the bloody smell, it was no wonder that it unsettled them. In the distance, there were several of these monsters fighting against each other.

Kairos looked around the roof while the others were still in a daze. He saw the top of a dumpster at the back of the house. He turned to the others and gestured with his hand, like he wanted to pull them in.

The others seemed to get the message and broke out of their stupors. Kairos sat down on the ledge and put the lamp on his lap. Then, he slipped down onto the top of the dumpster, only making a soft sound upon hitting it. The other three followed the same example. They weren't perfect, but were still quite quiet.

There was a faint sound of gurgling coming from within the house. It seemed another monster was already inside, but that was no longer their problem.

Kairos turned to the others and whispered.

"The closest place that I remember should be... less than ten kilometers away."

He sighed.

"If we didn't have to take any detours, the bread on me should just barely be enough. However, we will have to do this slowly. That means we are going to have to hope a grocery store is still packed somewhere along the way, or we stop to cook some of the rice."

Nicole nodded.

"That makes sense..."

They were currently in the alleyways of the houses. Kairos led the way, navigating through them. He did not want to go onto the open streets, but they eventually came to a point where they had to do so in order to go forward.

Kairos turned to the others.

"We will have to get on the other side of this road. Our main priority is to do it quietly, and the second is quickly. There's no point in going fast if we alert anything that can hear us."

They nodded in agreement.

With that, Kairos took a deep breath.

"On the count of three. One... Two... Three."

The group began to shuffle out onto the streets. It was as though they were children that really needed to go to the washroom, but were following the no running in the halls policy.

Out on the street was one of the monsters, however, it was not facing in their direction. They shuffled past anxiously, watching as it surveyed the area.

By the time they got close to the other end of the street. Nicole didn't realize it, but she had sped up considerably. Her eyes were focused behind her.

Suddenly, Kairos grabbed onto her arm and whispered aggressively.

"Stop!"

Nicole jolted. She stopped, but turned to him with a confused look.

"What's wrong?"

Kairos frowned, but let out a sigh of relief. He actually saw a monster lunge out from behind the house, sinking its teeth into Nicole's neck. The moment that image appeared, he began pulling her back.

Kairos clicked his tongue quietly.

"We don't know if the front is safe, you can't just charge in all like that."

Nicole smiled.

"Oh come on, you're overexaggerating it."

Kairos did not say any more. Instead, he slowly walked forward while raising his lamp. His steps were especially slow, but also quiet. His grip on the lamp was tightening considerably.

By the time he reached the corner, there was no monster there. In his future vision, he saw himself peek over the corner.

And there were three monsters there, all with their backs against the wall.

Kairos immediately stopped trying to go forwards, causing his future vision to distort before becoming normal again. He furrowed his brows.

...This was the only way forward if they didn't want to go back out onto the streets.

He turned back and placed a finger on his lips, mentioning to be quiet. Then, he made a gesture as though he wanted to pull them in.

The other three were confused at first, but gradually realized that Kairos seemed to be preparing to fight. They pulled out their bats.

Kairos grit his teeth, took a step forward, and swung his lamp with full force. It whipped through the air, giving the monster no time to react.

A deafening bang rang out while the skull of that monster directly caved in.

[Killed Creature (Challenge Kill - One Rank Superior to Killer) - 0.3 points awarded]

The other two monsters nearby immediately acted up, lunging towards Kairos. However, they didn't roar like the others.

Sydney was the first to react, perhaps because she had the experience of killing one before.

Kairos saw the monster swing its claw at his chest, thus took a step backward and leaned back. Then, the monster's attack missed.

Right after, Sydney brought her bat down onto the monster's head.

A loud bang rang out.

Upon being hit, the monster stumbled to the side a few steps, clearly losing its bearings. As for the last monster, it didn't stop and lunged forth towards Kairos.

Unfortunately, Kairos was still regaining his footing and didn't have the lamp raised. He internally cursed at himself for not increasing his agility a little more.

However, he was not concerned, as he already saw what would happen.

Nicole sucked in a cold breath and pulled her metal bat back. As for her pupils, they were clearly trembling from fear, but she didn't back down because of it.

Nicole imagined that it was a baseball coming towards her. She took on the proper stance and swung with all her might.

A clear metallic bang rang out, which resounded in the air for a few seconds afterwards.

The last standing monster was struck across the face and slammed into the nearby wall. They were both still alive, but now disabled.

Kairos immediately lifted up his lamp before slamming it back down on the monster that tried to get up.

A violent bang resounded as the creature's skull was obliterated.

Harold attempted to contribute, but since these were the alleyways, it was quite cramped. He couldn't even fit within.

As for Nicole, it seemed she gained a lot of confidence after that first hit, rushing in with the bat raised high. Sydney was about to act, but decided to move aside instead.

Another fresh bang resounded.

The monster could hardly do anything before its head was split into a few chunks. The scene was rather gory, causing Nicole to go pale, but she seemed rather proud.

After taking a few deep breaths, she smiled.

"I... I did it!"

Kairos chuckled.

"Yes you did. But you also would've died if I didn't pull you back there."

Nicole scratched the back of her head.

"Ah, haha..."

She cleared her throat.

"But what are these points?"

Suddenly, a status panel appeared in front of her. Kairos immediately raised an eyebrow, realizing that he could see her status while it was open.

Several dots connected within his head before he realized that he didn't want to show his status. He thought of an excuse.

Sydney looked over Nicole's shoulder.

"Hm... maybe you can fix that low willpower you have with these points?"

Nicole puffed her cheeks up.

"I'm brave! Didn't you see me just now? This system is clearly lying by saying it's only zero point five."

Kairos cleared his throat.

"To be fair, you did seem really afraid. However, you were indeed brave enough to face it. Perhaps the system's calculation of things doesn't account for bravery."

Nicole smiled brightly.

"Hehe, I don't need to put any points into willpower then. I can just be brave!"

Kairos used this time to peek at Nicole's stats and was immediately shocked.

[Strength: 1.1

Endurance: 1.2

Agility: 1.0]

Although they looked pretty small, Kairos was pretty sure a stat at one was far above the average human's capability. He rubbed his chin.

...It appeared Nicole really did hold back whenever she tackled him.

Nicole pouted when she looked at her stats.

"Why are they all so low..."

Then, she turned to Kairos.

"Hey, what do you think I should increase?"

In response, Kairos just shrugged his shoulders.

"Well think back to the fight you just had. Were you lacking in anything?"

Nicole looked up slightly in thought.

"Ah, I felt that I was a little slower than I'd like, so agility!"

Her agility stat went from 1.0 to 1.4.

Kairos' eyebrow twitched.

"You used every point?"

Nicole tilted her head to the side.

"Eh? The numbers are so small anyway. Does it even really matter?"

Her hand swished through the air like a bullet and landed on Kairos' shoulder. Nicole's jaw dropped when she noticed this.

"What? I'm so fast!"

Nicole then began twirling her arm around in the air, making several whooshing sounds as she did so.

Kairos pinched the bridge of his nose.

"That's why you should put more care into spending them..."

Nicole stuck out her tongue.

"Hehe."

One thing that made Kairos feel a bit confused was Nicole's rank. It stated 'F-'. This confused him mostly because their stats were quite similar, yet the ranks were still that far apart. This hardened his resolve to not share his own screen.

Sydney pulled up her own status.

"I have some points too, maybe I should use them too?"

Kairos looked over at the rank, which was F.

He then saw the stats.

[Strength: 1.0

Endurance: 1.0

Agility: 1.0

Willpower: 0.7]

Somehow, Sydney had lower overall stats than Nicole, but still a higher rank. It seemed it was calculated based on things more than just stats...

Sydney tapped her chin before speaking up.

"Maybe I could just add a little bit to everything."

Then, she used 0.4 points to raise everything by 0.1.

"Oh... it feels warm."

Harold scratched the back of his head.

"I didn't get any takedowns yet, so there's not much point for me to look."

Nicole looked at Kairos with excited eyes.

"Let me see your status too!"

In response, he shook his head.

"We have spent too much time doing miscellaneous things. Our opportunities shrink the more we stay put."

Without waiting, Kairos turned around and began walking through the houses.

Nicole couldn't help but pout.

"Ok..."

She tried not to look at the corpses on the ground but took peeks so as to not step on them.

And so, they traveled through the alleyways once more. Kairos would occasionally take a glimpse on the outside to make sure he was going the right way and sometimes make adjustments based on that.

At one point, Sydney frowned and spoke up.

"Wait... I think my bat has cracked already."