Get Ready

It didn't seem like anything too special at first, but Kairos quickly realized the implications behind the announcement.

[First Ten To Multi-kill - Challenge Type (Tenth - by ID: 510923457834)]

The first thing Kairos did was memorize this line of numbers.

'Five, one, zero, nine. Two thousand, three hundred and forty-five. Seventy-eight. Thirty-four.'

He repeated that in his mind several times until he was confident that it was in his memory.

Nicole turned around then looked at him strangely.

"Are you ok? You're just... staring into nothing."

Kairos nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

He recalled that he had gotten the same achievement as the one shown in the announcement. In other words, once somebody had gotten a 'Top Ten' achievement, anybody that had already gotten it would be notified.

And they would see their ID.

What that also meant, was nine people had seen his ID after he got the tenth challenge kill. After that, eight people had seen his ID after he got the ninth multi kill.

Though there was probably some overlap from those nine and eight people, at the bare minimum, nine people were shown his ID. This could be seen as both a good thing or a bad thing.

If Kairos wanted to stay low, he had to make sure not to show his status panel to others, especially if they wanted to look at IDs. However, among these few people, having this ID was also proof of power in a certain sense.

Depending on the mentality of the other people that saw his ID, it could be the basis of cooperation.

However, Kairos wasn't willing to trust random strangers. In fact, he wasn't even willing to fully trust Nicole and her parents.

As such, this private announcement feature gave him a headache.

Kairos gave a quick glance at Nicole. After confirming she was looking towards the entrance, he closed the announcement and opened up his status panel.

[Status]

[ID: 345315364923]

[Rank: F+]

[Objective: Touch Red Sunlight]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 20.5]

[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]

The first thing that caught his attention was the staggering amount of points.

Twenty and a half.

That was more than all of his current points combined and by a long shot too. It was then that Kairos thought that he could've added points while he was fighting. However, he soon came to the realization that it wasn't that simple.

First off, the sudden loss of energy from adding points couldn't be good. On top of that, he would have to manually tap onto the status panel with his finger to add points, meaning that it would waste time.

...However, there still might be a situation where adding points mid-fight could be useful.

Suddenly, Nicole spoke, prompting Kairos to hastily close the status panel.

"Hey."

Kairos coughed.

"Um, hi."

Nicole took some time to respond.

"It... really is real, isn't it?"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Well, of course."

Nicole was still looking at the entrance, but shifted her gaze down ever so slightly.

"I thought maybe if I went to bed, that all of this would turn out to be fake. That I would wake up in my warm bed once again."

Kairos sighed.

"Sometimes reality is more surprising than any lie."

Nicole brought her legs up to her torso and hugged them.

"Normally at this time, I would be in school. Probably complaining about some math concept that makes no sense."

She shivered slightly.

"But now..."

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

If Nicole's mentality remained this way, she would probably become more of a liability than anything else. Not wanting that to happen, Kairos quickly tried to think of something and said the first idea that came to mind.

"It doesn't mean that it will be like this forever."

Nicole turned to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

A small smile formed on Kairos' face.

"We can work towards a future where everything goes back to the way it is. Then you can complain about doing math again."

Nicole blinked a few times.

"Make everything back to the way it was..."

A bitter smile formed on her face.

"Maybe not exactly the way it was. We should get rid of math from school."

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"Then how am I supposed to make you do things for me in exchange for the test answers?"

Nicole stuck her tongue out.

"You'll just have to be more creative!"

Kairos scoffed.

"That's too much work."

Nicole laughed and turned away.

There was a brief moment of silence.

Nicole's voice was a little dreamy.

"Do you really think everything can go back to the way it was?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"Not anytime soon, that's for sure."

The corner of his lip turned up.

"But one day. That's for sure."

Nicole shut her eyes.

"I hope so..."

After a minute or so, Kairos shifted his gaze towards his injured arm and lightly rubbed it. The wound was still a little sore still. However, for how long it had been, it had already healed considerably.

Kairos shook his head.

"Anyways. It's probably time for us to get going. We shouldn't sleep more than needed."

Nicole nodded.

"Ok."

The two of them woke up the others. Then, they agreed to begin moving towards their original destination, the wilderness.

The sun was getting close to setting. However, it was still quite high in the air. There were still a few hours of sunlight left.

They went back into the residential area, moving on through the alleyways. Though they traveled for nearly an hour, they only came across a single monster, which Harold took care of by charging forth.

He was probably feeling like he hadn't been doing his part.

By now, they had reached an elementary school that just so happened to be along the way. It was made in a way where the first floor consisted of a fairly large square, while the second floor was a smaller square on top. Almost like a pyramid.

Kairos was leading the way and looked up to the sun.

"I doubt it will be easy to navigate during the night. I imagine the school wouldn't be a bad place to stay, so let's go there."

The others were in agreement, thus they walked towards the school, constantly looking around. Once they reached the wall, Kairos led the way around the wall, searching for an openable door.

As they approached a corner, there was a faint sound of mumbling.

This made Kairos furrow his brows.

Was there some drunk or heavily traumatized person here?

He tightened the grip on his fire axe and continued forward. The sound of the mumbling got a little louder.

"Three, six, forty-nine, twenty-three."

For a split second, Kairos couldn't understand why that person was saying those numbers, but suddenly remembered that was the exact thing he did earlier.

It wasn't common sense, but there were a fairly large number of people that knew a certain strategy about memorizing a long string of numbers.

Saying each number one by one would make one easily mix them up. However, if they mixed it up slightly, treating them as two-digit numbers or higher. The only real reason there was to be memorizing numbers was if they had also seen the private announcement.

This made Kairos immediately realize the person up ahead was not only someone that completed some sort of first ten achievement, but ranked at least ninth.

He froze and turned around hurriedly, putting up a finger on his lips. There was a very serious glare on his face, prompting the others to also be as quiet as they could.

Kairos gestured for them to go backwards. And so, they started to do exactly that.

But that was when a voice came from above them.

"Why are you so afraid of me?"

Though Kairos heard it beforehand, it was already too late. He looked upwards to see a man with blonde hair that reached his shoulders looking down at them with a confident smile. His clothes didn't look like anything special, but they were free from blood. Though that was probably more of a bad sign in this case.

Nicole and her parents froze up in fear, unable to speak.

Kairos internally cursed, but he kept a shocked expression on his face.

"Woah!... Should we be afraid of you?"

The man rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"Well, if you are strong enough to warrant being allies, then there won't be anything to be afraid of."

Kairos' eyebrow twitched.

"And how strong exactly do you need us to be?"

The man chuckled.

"Why don't you show me your status panels? That will make it pretty clear"

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"That is way too personal, we can't do that."

Nicole tensed up and whispered into his ear.

"What? Why are you-"

Kairos raised a finger right next to her mouth, shushing her.

The man with blonde hair raised an eyebrow.

"Is it really such a big deal to show me your status panels?"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"Yes, it is. Our status panels essentially show a breakdown of our strengths and weaknesses. That is simply giving too much information to someone we can't trust."

The man with blonde hair narrowed his eyes.

"So you don't want to be allies?"

Kairos looked back up.

"Do you really want to be allies with someone that shows off that information willy nilly?"

The man with blonde hair chuckled. He reached to his back and pulled off a fairly large recurve bow. There were a few things about this bow that made it stand out and less normal.

The most notable feature was its blood red color. Like the red sun, or even Nicole's watch. It was also quite long. The man wasn't short, but the bow seemed to span nearly two-thirds of his height. As for the part the man was holding, it seemed to be meticulously decorated with various wind-like patterns.

However, there was no bowstring.

Nonetheless, the man smirked confidently when he pulled it out.

"If you aren't going to show me your status panels, there aren't many other ways to prove your strength."

Kairos smiled.

"It seems you have something in mind?"

The man nodded.

"If you can dodge my attack, then I will consider you strong enough to be my ally."

Kairos tilted his head to the side.

"So if I can dodge your attack, we all team up."

The man raised an eyebrow.

"I will team up with you, yes."

Kairos shook his head.

"Either all of us or none."

The man seemed slightly displeased. He fell silent, making the atmosphere feel a little dangerous. However, Kairos fearlessly looked at him the entire time.

And eventually, the man nodded.

"Alright. If you can dodge my attack, then we can all be friends."

Nicole seemed rather nervous, but eventually stuck up her hand.

"I-I should be the one to do it instead!"

The man raised an eyebrow with interest.

"Oh, now you want to try?"

Kairos nudged Nicole.

"Come on, don't you trust me?"

Nicole pressed her lips together.

"But... I can move really fast, especially with that-"

"It will be fine."

Kairos quickly cut her off.

The man rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"Haha, so you aren't even the fastest in the group, but want to be the one tested anyway?"

Kairos smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

"Pretty much."

The man smiled.

"I like you already, kid."

A gleam flashed by his eyes.

"But that doesn't mean I'm going to take it easy on you."

Kairos waved his hand dismissively.

"Alright, alright. Are you going to start now?"

The man laughed.

"Since you are so eager, of course."

He reached out towards one end as though there was a string to be pulled for the bow. Harold and Sydney could not help but think that this man had no idea what he was doing.

However, that was when a blue stream of translucent blue light appeared in the form of a string, starting from his fingers. From the hand that was holding the bow, an arrowhead formed which grew to become a fully fledged out arrow.

The man closed one eye.

"Get ready."