06 | Killer

"No way! We're not going to help you bunch of sorry asses!"

"Please! We've been here for a while now. Even if it's just an energy bar, we'll share it amongst ourselves. We're so hungry."

"Elsa, we have more than enough. We could always—"

"Shut it, Lumina! Just because we have food doesn't mean we should give it out. We're wasting our time here, let's move on."

"Can we come with you?"

"We lost our sense of direction a while back and have been walking around in circles. Even if you can't give us anything, at least let us tag along with you guys till we get out of this area."

"I'm not so sure about that…"

"There isn't a rule about two different groups teaming up. Let us join, please."

"And does 'us' involve that guy?"

I finally glanced at the group who stumbled across this area and found my group. Unexpectedly, it was Lumina's group. What were the odds? I wasn't really familiar with the remaining three members of the group but it seemed like they knew me and did not like me.

Wouldn't be the first, second, or even third time something like this was happening.

"Uh… he's also part of our group so…" Buddy said to the female member of Lumina's group who had platinum blonde hair and icy blue eyes.

On her beautiful face was a fierce glare directed at me. Did I know her from somewhere? I couldn't seem to remember.

"If he's joining, then we're not helping you guys." Blondie said, crossing her arms.

"Elsa, don't you think that's too harsh?" One of the guys in the group said. He was tall, taller than everyone standing but he didn't seem to make good use of his height.

It was strange how he purposefully slouched his shoulders when he spoke to the blonde girl. But that wasn't the only strange thing about him.

"Please, tell her to help us." Amita quickly grabbed onto one of the tall guy's arms. She gestured at Jones to do the same and he clutched onto the tall guy's other arm.

The tall guy looked as though they were suffocating him and turned his head to Lumina and the other guy for them to do something.

"Just give them some energy bars or something like that," the other guy spoke with a disinterested tone.

"You heard him," the tall guy said to my group members and they disentangled from him so that he could pull out energy bars from his Interdimensional Space Ring.

He handed one bar each to Amita and Jones, and they tore off the wrapper and began eating the bars like starved monsters. The tall guy went over to Buddy and gave him one as well. He was slowly making his way toward me when blondie spoke up.

"Don't give him any!" she instructed.

"Wait what? Why?" Buddy questioned in my place, like he was my mouthpiece. So annoying.

"He doesn't deserve our help. Just look at him. He's—"

"Did I ask for your help?" I cut her off, standing up from the ground and pulling out my sword from where I had shoved it down earlier.

Everyone seemed taken aback after my words. I cocked my head to one side. "Did I? Did I ask you fools for anything?"

With each word I spoke, I took a step closer to Blondie. It was surprising how Lumina hadn't said anything to this point. Usually, he would've stepped up to act like some kind of mediator but he wasn't doing anything like that. I shot a quick glance at him and saw that he looked out of it. He was simply staring into space. Weird.

"Y-You didn't. B-But t-that doesn't mean—"

"Shut up," I lifted my Inquisitor Gun and she flinched.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! What are you doing?" Buddy almost jumped on me but I quickly swung my blade at his wrist, slicing his skin a bit. He hissed out loud as the sealed energy bar fell from his grasp.

"Stand back. Now."

He stared at me with deviant eyes and a trembling body before he moved away from me. In front of me was Blondie. Next to her was the tall guy with Amita and Jones surrounding him while their hands were trembling with the energy bars they were just eating. Lumina and the other guy were standing to my right and they both seemed shocked by my sudden action as well.

"W-Why are you p-pointing your gun at me?" Blondie asked. All that bravado from earlier had disappeared and she looked akin to a scared homeless kitten now.

"Where are you guys coming from?" I asked instead of answering her question.

"From there! You saw us coming from there, didn't you?" she answered quickly, scared that I would do something terrifying if she kept quiet.

"I think you should lower your gun. No one is corrupted here, you shouldn't—"

"Don't tell me what to do." I didn't wait to hear the rest of Lumina Voss's righteous reasoning before I cut him off. He was probably going to swear that their group was not corrupted but I knew better.

"You fools fought with corrupted entities, didn't you?" They didn't answer my question because they knew I was right. "For extra points, no? You idiots must have thought there was no reason to struggle with monsters for one point each when you could get three points just for one corrupted entity."

"What are you talking about…?" Buddy asked quietly, clearly confused at the ongoing situation.

"These fools here tangled with corrupted entities and got themselves corrupted. But now, I'm going to purify this place."

"You can't—"

"Ahhhhh!"

"Please!"

Tuning out their voices, I turned off the safety of my Inquisitor Gun and fired three shots at three different targets in two seconds. An Inquisitor Gun was special in three ways.

Number one, it was silent. Number two, there was no need to load actual bullets into it because the gun was made with Purification Power which could form into bullets on their own accord. Number three, it had an immediate Purification effect.

Once a target was shot, the bullet would extract the [Corruption] from the body. The bullet which extracted [Corruption] will condense into a white mist, reverse back into the gun and be recycled into Purification Power.

All this happened in five seconds. The three bodies dropped and my Inquisitor Gun did its work well. From the three bodies did white mist escape and seep back into my gun.

"Haha, this never gets old," I spun my gun around my finger before I turned my back to everyone and went back to sit in front of that boulder.

"You just… killed them," Buddy was the first to speak. His eyes held pure horror behind them.

Hm, should I have taken note not to kill corrupted entities in front of them? Nah, if these students here wanted to become real and active Hunters, they would come to see worse things in the future.

"You cold-blooded killer!" It seemed like Blondie's fair-weather courage had returned as she screeched at me. "How could you do such a thing? They are students just like you! Were! And you just killed them!"

"They were not students, they were corrupted entities." I stabbed the ground with my sword.

"Killer." The other guy, who was standing beside Lumina, muttered as he glared daggers at me.

"I didn't kill them. I just purified a couple of corrupted entities."

Why was I even defending my actions to them? It was a bother.

"You just called a member of my group and two members of your group a couple of corrupted entities! How could you do such a thing? How were you even sure they were corrupted?" Blondie screamed at me as she marched to stand in front of me.

I could explain to them that it was their fault. They were the fools who went ahead to hunt corrupted entities without being certified Inquisitors and got that tall guy corrupted. My dumb group members were also foolish to accept food from a corrupted entity and get themselves corrupted.

I could say that I had just saved their lives because before they would get to clear this Tower, all of them would have gotten corrupted first. They had just narrowly escaped being hunted and killed like the same monsters they were hunting and killing.

But I didn't say any of that. Instead, I said, "Get away from me before I put a bullet into each of your heads for obstructing the work of an Inquisitor."

Blondie took a step back from me after I said those words but she was still fuming with anger and hatred.

"You cold, heartless bastard. You're going to get what's coming to you one day. I promise you."

I looked at her through my lashes. "Don't go quoting the line of some tragic, fallen hero."

"Why you—"

[Congratulations! This floor's Boss has been defeated.]

[You have gained one point for participation.]

[You can now move on to the next floor through the portal that will soon be available in your area.]

The message windows which appeared in front of everyone's faces put an end to the ongoing conversation. Aha, so someone beat the Boss of this level.

No one spoke a word after that as we waited for a portal to open up. Even though no words were said, I could still feel the accusatory glares Blondie and the other guy were shooting my way. Lumina has just been quiet ever since I shut him up. Meanwhile Buddy still looked horrified. I probably traumatized him.

As soon as the portal arrived, Lumina went into it first, followed by Blondie, and then their last group member. I shot a glance at Buddy before he stepped through the portal.

"Pull yourself together. If you had eaten that energy bar, you would have been among the people I shot. Be grateful you're still alive and use that chance wisely." I said to him.

He didn't say anything. He was still looking shaken up when he stepped into the portal. I didn't really care for his mental health but since we were the only two people remaining in our group, conversation would unfortunately be necessary.

I stepped through the portal thinking about how I never got to know if in the reality TV show I was watching before I got materialized into this Tower, whether fighting lightning with lightning truly worked.