Improvising the fighting style - Kai vs Demon Slayers! (I)

Kai did not leave the cave till the next day.

With his experience, he knew he could easily spend at least a week hiding in the cave without getting discovered, eventually.

But this would have gone against the plans that were riling up in his mind.

There were two reasons for Kai to not leave immediately after jumping to the different Timeline.

First, he needed to figure out a way to bridge the discrepancy between his Strength and Agility. Otherwise, he would be forced to run away like a chicken upon meeting a Demon Slayer or Demon next time as well.

Now, Kai was shameless enough to not mind being a chicken or running away, but if he were to gain something out of this Random World, then he couldn't afford to be so narrow-minded.

Not to mention, even though his Luck had been boosted by Novice Collector to 6 points, it was still horrible. When he would encounter something funny and unavoidable, Kai didn't know.

So, Kai spent an entire half-day creating a new fighting style for himself.

Given his Correspondence and the help of the Mana Realm inside his mind that let him give substance to his imagination, this was already saying too much, showing how serious Kai was about this new method.

Second, he needed to digest the story told to him by Aphrodite.

This digestion wasn't like making superfluous plans like a simpleton, thinking of wishful milestones. No. This digestion was like absorbing the crux of the matter, gaining the hidden meanings of the contents he had heard.

Without the story, Kai had no particular direction to face and had only one goal — To Survive.

But if that alone could have sufficed for those who had grand ambitions like him, then they wouldn't be worthy to be glance at by the likes of Kings and other Contestants of the 18th floor.

Even a cockroach survives, Kai had thought. Only those who survive attaining power and benefits along the way are worthy of stepping towards the Peak of Absolute Power.

So, an entire evening and half a night had gone before Kai finalized a basic outline of his plans.

This plan wasn't foolproof, as it was restricted by two things.

The first was that he couldn't use D-Mail again. No matter what.

It wasn't a Stats restriction, but a self-imposed one. After a calculated conversation with Meg, who knew the events of Steins;Gate Random World, and Rintaro Okabe, they concluded that using D-Mail in a single Random World more than once could cause severe Divergence.

As long as he was fine, Kai cared little about these Divergences.

But he wasn't, and this made him nod at their suggestion. Before upgrading the ACT, D-Mail, and having more mastery over it, Kai couldn't afford a high Divergence, bringing unknown and uncontrolled factors into his life.

The only reason Kai had used it so early in the 2nd Stage was because of the opportunity to learn everything about this Random World.

This thing had been of paramount importance to him.

Moreover, in the 1st Stage, he couldn't get a response from the high-floor Contestants who were watching him.

Yet, just before arriving here, the moment he had seen the 18th floor written against the Sponsors' Code Names in the White Hall, he had decided to show one Sponsor the runic scripts within the Book, in which case he would have to use D-Mail, anyway.

And sure enough, the very first Sponsor gave him the answer Kai had been searching for so long.

Ancient Magical Script!

Kai did not know what it meant, and he had never heard of it.

But now he knew what to look for at least, and that was a boon in itself.

If he hadn't gotten a reaction from Aphrodite, he would have not used D-Mail, and had rather moved on to another Sponsor before using D-Mail in the end, despite the results.

The second thing restricting the plan was that Kai could not afford to kill the Demon Slayers, or, as a matter of fact, any human whatsoever.

Killing without benefits had always gone against Kai's principles. But in this case, killing would not only give him zero benefits, but it would also cause him irreversible harm.

Sponsor Aphrodite had clearly told him that learning a Breathing Style was an impossibility for him in this mission.

However, Kai still wanted to try it. If he could, then he wanted to at least learn the principles behind it from the Demon Slayers themselves.

But if he were to kill one of them or an innocent human, then that chance was as good as lost for him.

Another way was to reincarnate into the world of Demon Slayers, Kai knew.

But Kai's future reincarnations had already been set by a combined effort of Meg, Petyr, Cersei, and him himself with a meticulous precision suited to his future progression.

Yes, Breathing Styles were like sweet wine, and it became sweeter the more Kai learned about it.

Yet, to change the Reincarnations Random Worlds just for it wasn't a possibility.

With these thoughts burdening his shoulders, and the headache pounding his head, Kai walked out of the cave about half an hour before dawn of the 2nd day.

Kai did not know where he was, other than that he was in the thick of the wilderness.

With the wooden case on his back, he chose a random direction and started running as though someone was chasing him.

Kai had not gone even a mile in the forest when he suddenly felt an odd prickly feeling passing by him.

It felt as though the wind itself had gained hands and was touching him all over.

Kai had been waiting for something like this to happen.

There was no way that he was out in the open and no Demon Slayer would find him.

If it was before, then Kai would have no way of knowing what this feeling was or from where it had come. But after knowing the story, and the extensive details that Aphrodite had shared with him, he knew its origin.

Beast Breathing - Seventh Form: Spatial Awareness!

The Demon Slayer, Inosuke Hashibira, had finally found him.

And if he was here, then surely there were others with him as well.

The only thing Kai was worried about was whether they had a Hashira with them. The moment he thought that, his Luck surfaced in his mind, and Kai cursed.

Suddenly, the cry of birds echoed in the wilderness.

Kai looked over his shoulder and saw the black silhouettes taking to the air, and he knew they had come.

The shouts reached him before he could even see them.

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