“Seriously, for how much longer do we have to wait?” Yuri sighed, “We would have probably found the key already by now…”
Kokoro taped letters on her tablet, and after a few seconds a blue panel appeared, displaying what she wrote, “Risking our lives for no reason is useless, even more so now that we are only six,” at this point, Leader hadn’t died, him and Stark were still fighting.
“…” the white-haired lady kept inspecting her slender hands, unbothered by the presence of the others.
“Come on, people,” Akira clapped his hands as he smiled, “I already told you, but I got the [Instant Use Key] from killing one of the other ANNOYING players… so all you need to do is wait for everyone to enter this level so that we can head toward the final one together…”
As Akira said, he had been the first to enter this sublevel, and so whenever someone went up the flight of stairs, he would show them the key and advise them to stay here, in exchange he promised that he would open the door to the next sublevel once everyone reached this floor.
He even went as far as showing his second item, which was the [Healing Spring], to prove that he wasn’t trying to ambush them all then use his perk item to kill them all.
And in the end, surprisingly, all of them sat down beside the entrance of the second sublevel, just waiting for the final participants that were still down to show up.
But after less than five minutes…
[A participant has been slain by another player!]
“…!”
The four people that had been previously silent read the message and figured out why it had taken the other people so long to come here.
“They were busy fighting, huh,” Yuri shrugged, “I guess only five of us left…”
“Hm…” Akira scratched his chin, “But I do have a question now…”
“What is it?” a blue panel appeared above Kokoro’s tablet.
“I mean… if only five of us remain, and there are four of us here, it means that only one person among Chosen, Officer and Leader survived, right?” Akira had a big smile on his face as he revealed that fact to the others.
And it was undeniably true: all those alive were obviously present, and the only other three they knew were still alive were those three he cited.
Which meant… one among them was a monster that had essentially killed another monster, or one monster that killed two people: people who kill must be truly confident in their strength, and so if someone killed another participant, it would undeniably mean that they are strong, enough to be called a monster at least.
“I don’t wanna seem biased, but Leader probably killed Chosen, then killed Officer, it seems the most logical since he is the strongest among them,” Akira shrugged, it was completely logical thinking, Officer didn’t seem that strong with his guns, especially against a legitimate sect-leader with no mercy in his eyes, and Stark… well… wasn’t he the weakest among them all?
“What if Leader killed someone, then got killed by the other one?” Yuri proposed.
~TAP, TAP, TAP~
Kokoro’s expression became more serious as she mercilessly taped words on her tablet, her eyes darting everywhere as if she was analyzing something.
And so…
“Impossible, I have already analyzed all three of them, and by far there is no chance Leader would die to any of them, Chosen was probably the first to die, then Officer followed!” Kokoro had a skill called [Tablet Analysis], allowing her to analyse things at incredible speed, and most times her predictions were right, making her someone incredibly useful in terms of gathering information.
And so with that, everyone nodded: they were already ready to see Leader come out of the door, his usual neutral expression visible on his face.
“How are you so sure?” Yuri asked, he had a feeling this was wrong.
~TAP, TAP~
“As I said, I gathered information about their powers, we obviously saw Chosen fighting, and as for Leader… well… I knew about him from real life,” Kokoro revealed as she continued taping, “He is a powerful sect-leader, feared by thousands of people, and I know about some of his skills, but one thing is for sure: they are terrifyingly powerful, so it isn’t likely he would die to Chosen based on the skills he showed to us!”
“Interesting,” Akira nodded.
“…” the white haired lady was looking at Kokoro.
And to add to that… Kokoro continued taping and gave her final statement.
“There is a 0.4% chance that Chosen won against Leader, that is all I know, so Leader definitely won,” Kokoro sighed, it was her skill that told her everything, but she truly believed in its analysis powers.
But… she continued taping regardless.
“But…” Kokoro’s expression darkened, “If by some miracle, the person we see coming out of this door is Chosen… then… please be wary of him.”
Her aura sent chills down the spine of them all, even the white-haired lady, although none showed it on their faces.
“Let’s just wait for Leader then, doesn’t matter if he killed two people as long as he doesn’t try it on us,” Akira shrugged, seemingly ready to kill the sect-leader if he tried anything.
With those words, it seemed everyone had already considered the fact Chosen and Officer died to be the truth.
Everyone except… for the white haired woman, who knew that something was up.
And so… after around ten minutes…
~THUMP, THUMP~
They heard noise coming from the beyond the darkness of the door, precisely the sound of someone climbing up the stairs.
“It’s him,” Akira sighed.
“Fucking finally,” Yuri rolled his eyes.
~THUMP, THUMP~
The sound of footsteps in the hallway leading to the door were heard getting closer and closer.
And once the sole survivor of the ‘Sublevel 3 Incident’ appeared…
“Leader, finally you are here, dear friend!” Akira laughed while pointing the key toward the door to show it to him.
But…
“Leader…?” Stark smiled as he looked at the four people sitting around the entrance, “I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to find him anytime soon.”
All participants had faces full of disbelief and shock, except for the white-haired lady who actually let a small smirk once seeing Stark emerge from the entrance.
“What are you all doing here?” he asked, acting as if nothing was wrong.
“You… are… alive?” Akira asked, he was the first to be surprised: Leader was powerful, just like Kokoro said, and he TRULY expected him to be the one to emerge victorious.
And yet… Stark won?
“If by some miracle, the person we see coming out of this door is Chosen… then… please be wary of him,” the last words Kokoro said rang in the ears of everyone as they looked at the boy.
“So… Leader and Officer are…?” Yuri hinted, trying to get the answer out of Stark.
“Yeah, dead, Leader killed Officer then he tried to kill me,” Stark shrugged, he didn’t really care to reveal anything as it was already pretty damn obvious he was the one who killed if he was the last person to come out of the third sublevel, “And of course, the moment he tried to kill me… I just HAD to end his life, didn’t I =),” Stark smiled as coldly as his clone.
And with that… all people present realized two things: Stark hid most of his skills from them during the fight against Soulayer, yet still won, and… he was an extremely dangerous person.
“Well, anyway,” Akira retrieved his composure, “I got an [Instant Use Key] as a reward and plan to use it on this level.”
“That’s good, then let’s get going,” Stark began to head in a random direction, of course he planned to take the exit, but not with any of these people as it would be too dangerous.
