The Masked

It didn't take long for Arial to strike us with a nuke again, at random, I repeat, at random, "Xter, Dantes, quick! 30 pull-ups on those two trees!" Then he quickly glanced at Ella and said, "Ella, let's run! Fast!" His little farces were getting even to her, "huh… why… uhh…" "No questions! Let's hurry!" They sped off…

Xter slowly walked up to the trees and began staring at them from below. "One is tall and the other one is short—let's do rock-paper-scissors for which one we get." Unexpected declaration, honestly, my expectations for him were him just speedrunning the exercise again. "Sure, why not."

"I lost…" in defeat, I whimpered. "In that case, Dantes, I'll take the tall one," that hurt even more—he decided to go with the mercy route… What an asshole!! "Hah, so nice of you to give me mercy… thank you, I guess." He smirked and replied, "don't think about it too much."

As Xter was almost done with the pull-ups, suddenly he stopped and shouted, "wait, pause!! Be quiet!!" Not like I was speaking to begin with—what's up? "Huh…" He had his eyes closed, appearing like he was trying to listen to something.

"Look out, Dantes!!" I didn't look below, but I felt something coming from behind—instinctually, I performed a muscle-up and stood up on the branch. Subsequently, in panic, I glanced at the bottom and there was a guy in rags and a mask holding a blade. "Who are you?!" Screamed Xter at the man while holding out his hand and materializing his shadow scythe; seeing that, I also took out my blade.

Instead of answering, the man jumped straight at me. "Dantes!!" Xter panicked seeing him leap towards me. I swung the blade hoping to parry him off… "aaaaahh!!" Instead, I cut straight through the man's blade, cutting him straight through his neck. Xter stared in confusion and disbelief. I fell from the branch with the man on me—blood began pouring out of his mouth, getting my whole face covered in it. "H— huh?" I was in even more confusion than Xter.

Right after, two more men with the same masks appeared from both sides—Xter was at the bottom at this point, taking a defensive position. In spite of the disarray and confusion, Xter chose to put everything aside and focus on the issue at hand—the men trying to attack us for unclear reasons. Xter subsequently lowered himself a little, preparing to leap forward like earlier—murder was in his eyes.

I blinked and… a head was flying—Xter had cut the man's head off in the blink of a second. "W— what the fuck?!" Shouted the man in panic; he immediately went from an offensive position to a defensive one. Xter subsequently started grinning, "you're next." Felt like he went on autopilot out of adrenaline. "You're a System user?! I'm s—" his head was instantly cut off as well. This couldn't be named as anything but an execution.

Right after the two men were beheaded, Xter's eyes went from being blank to regaining their humanity. His scythe evaporated and he just stared at their corpses without saying anything; I pushed away the creation of my blade as well, the corpse of the man whose neck I had cut wide open, and did nothing but glare at it in contemplation—we had just murdered 3 people without thinking about anything, entirely by going on autopilot and allegedly trying to defend ourselves. "H— hey Xter, was this your first time taking someone's life?" I had asked without thinking, purely out of instinct. "No, I've killed people before," he replied after just a couple of seconds. "I… see," I didn't dare ask anything else; that was as far as my curiosity was willing to go. This was the first time I've ever taken the life of anyone; probably not the last one, however, given that I'm now a Player.

Xter then took a deep breath and stated, "let's go finish our pull-ups, we don't have the time to mope around—we need to hurry and report this to Arial." Pull-ups?! He wants to finish them?! "A— are you sure we shouldn't just… go to Arial right away?" With slight anger in his tone, he answered, "do the pull-ups, Dantes." I complied without having the room to breathe; the situation clearly got to him, I wasn't going to disrespect his emotions. 

We finished our exercise in silence. "Let's go," said Xter. We quickly catched up to Arial and Ella. "H— hey…" I greeted them, in anxiety. "We have something important to tell you, Arial," Xter's voice on the other hand, was serious and calculated—emotions such as anxiety didn't smolder him whatsoever. "Dantes, w— what happened?! You're covered in blood!!" Shouted Ella in realization. "Xter, what's up?" Arial instantly got serious.

"We got attacked by what seemed like bandits," Xter glared at the ground as he was saying that in a surprisingly despondent voice; the seriousness he had just a second ago had withered away, somehow, "we killed all of them; they were really weak, even Dantes cut one like paper." The way he described it gave me chills, "y— yeah… I cut straight through the guy's blade as well… What's up with that? H— how am I so strong?" It was self-depreciating to ask that, but it was the truth—I'm Level 1 and 2 ELO, I'm not supposed to be this strong. "Hmm…" Arial put his finger on his mouth, "you're not strong, Dantes," he said in a calm and emotionless tone, then added, "it's just that the tools provided by the Association are that strong—some bandits wouldn't stand a chance even to an evaluated citizen." Hearing that instantly aroused a hundred questions, "what do you mean?! Does that mean the evaluation is like… uhh… an awakening or something?!" He stared at me without answering for a bit, then made a faint sigh like an adult tired of babysitting, "you can put it like that—it's not all that complicated or interesting, really."

He's definitely trying to dodge the question—sure, you could say he gave an answer, but the whole Association is so unclear with how it does things. I was prompted to ask, "also, Xter, they didn't even try to rob us!! They straight up attacked us with the intention of killing us!! What do you mean by calling them bandits?!" He gave annoyance in return, "does it seem like I have a better idea than you? Yeah, hate to break it to you, but I'm as clueless as you." 

Ella subsequently cut in, "calm down you two… let's just… not think about it too much yet." While I commend Ella for trying to be the voice of reason, she wasn't right in this situation—getting attacked has serious implications, someone could be targeting us for whatever reason—this was a matter that was in need of urgent resolution.

"Well… okay… first, what kind of clothes did they wear?" Inquired Arial; I was too busy processing, so Xter took the lead, "grey raggy clothes with white masks that only covered the upper face—we could go back so you can take a look at them yourself." He instantaneously declined Xter's proposal, "there's no need—I have a good idea of what's this about already." Subsequently, Arial let out another exhausted sigh—his expression got slightly more serious. "Listen, everyone…"