"So..." Nikolai looked intently at Kurt, analyzing all his expressions and gestures, but his friend didn't show any signs of lying. "When you went to take the test last month, you didn't awaken. It was this strange system that you acquired from dying and... Going back in time?"
"I know it sounds crazy, but it's what it is..."
"And according to you... I died because of you."
Kurt breathed in deeply and nodded. He already expected Nikolai to not believe him, but he was completely taken aback by what his young Russian friend did after.
Nikolai took a notebook, walked towards Kurt, and as he observed Nikolai's movements, his friend slightly smacked the notebook to the back of his head, smiling.
"That's for stealing from me." Nikolai laughed. "I don't like when people steal from me, even if I'm dead. But it doesn't sound crazy..." Nikolai gave it a brief pause. "It sounds 'bat shit lunatic', Kurt. But I believe you."
"You do?" Kurt's eyes lit up for a second, a faint glimpse of happiness crossing them.
"Yes, even more because I know what those bastards at the association are capable of. But you know..."
Nikolai paused for a moment, as if considering something, but dismissed the thought, immediately speaking.
"I know we know each other from school, but when I met you at the Association, I also understood, somehow, that you were different. Like I knew you from somewhere else. And what you just told me actually explains that feeling."
They kept talking, and Kurt kept telling Nikolai about the differences between the previous version of his world and the new one, and how guilty he felt about Rodrick's death.
The food arrived, they ate, and Nikolai told him to go to the penthouse.
"You'll be living here from today on. You need headquarters and I need more manpower, so let's go up together, and teach those Association 'suki' one lesson they will never forget, my friend!"
And so, Kurt spent the last three weeks honing the skills he had left, helping Nikolai to establish the Black market as a solid organization, without the need to worry about Quintus anymore.
However, he knew that the Association still presented a big threat, and needed to be dealt with.
***
Kurt woke up in the dim light of his room, with Nikolai at his door.
He focused his sight, still a bit groggy, and noticed Nikolai's hands moving, ever so slowly, as if trying not to draw someone's attention.
'H.I.D.E. Oh shit!' Kurt thought when he opened his mouth to speak.
He activated [SHADOW WALK] in no time, and when Nikolai saw Kurt turning invisible, he let out a sigh, and finally spoke.
"Come in, and see that I'm telling you the truth."
Nikolai stepped aside, and Leblanc entered the room.
He had a wicked grin on his face as he stepped in, but the grin slowly vanished, as he searched the room from side to side, finding nothing but a few second hand electronic devices.
He glared at Nikolai, who simply shrugged.
"I told you the man was lying." Nikolai said, performing nonchalance. "Why would I hide a wanted man here, when my business is blooming so beautifully?"
Leblanc grunted, but before he left, the chief looked dead in Nikolai's eyes, and said.
"You may be telling the truth, but you're still a regular, so you better behave. I'll be charging higher fees on your business from now on." He grinned. "And if you don't meet pay every single credit by the end of the month, you're going to know what happened to the guy who told me that Kurt was here."
He then turned around, and left the building.
Nikolai waited for a few minutes before speaking.
"Okay, Kurt, you can show yourself now. Kurt? Kurt...?"
But Kurt didn't answer. Only silence accompanied Nikolai in the room.
***
Kurt followed Leblanc until he left the building and went to the monitoring division squad car. There, he entered the car and prepared to take off.
There was a man with him, in the backseat, the man who threatened Nikolai with the firearm earlier in the day.
'So he did go to the association to rat me out, but how?'
And even before Kurt could think of an explanation, Leblanc got in the car, checked his holowatch, and when the screen appeared in front of the chief, there was a photo of Kurt, from his register.
And above the picture, the words WANTED blinked in red.
'Son of a...'
But the car sped off before Kurt could finish the thought.
He ran back inside and found Nikolai looking for him.
"Goodness, where were you?"
"No time to explain, Nikolai, I need your services!"
Nikolai immediately frowned and his expression became dark.
"What did Leblanc do...?"
"He's going to kill the man from earlier, and I need to record it. I have a plan."
Kurt told his plan to Nikolai, and he smirked.
"Consider it done, my friend! Go to the basement, I keep my secret stash there, you'll find everything you need-"
Before Nikolai was done speaking, Kurt ran off to the basement, and when he arrived, he remembered in the same instant everything about the place.
"Oh, yeah. I'll need these later." He grinned, looking at the boxes filled with various dried herbs.
But in the meantime, he just took a smart recorder, a microphone, and an oni mask he found lying around, running off to the street, while activating [SHADOW WALK] again.
'I'll need some mana potions if I keep spending mana like this, while I'm not able to level my intelligence up.' He smiled at the thought.
It had been a while since he felt the thrill of a mission, and the way the adrenaline coursed through his veins made him feel good for the first time in a long month.
Kurt focused his senses, to be able to feel Leblanc's mana signature. After a few seconds of concentration, he could find the chief's trace.
And he was moving towards the docks where Quintus had thrown Kurt down the water in a barrel.
A grin sprouted through Kurt's lips.
"Hunter becomes prey..."
Leblanc stopped the car on the farthest side of the docs, and the middle-aged man cried out for help as he was dragged out of the car by the chief's telekinesis.
"Don't even bother screaming, there's no one around here to help you. Also, why would someone help a filthy regular like you?"
"W-why are you doing this?" The man cried, trying to crawl out of Leblanc's grasp.
"I won't waste my breath on a maggot, so just die, will you?"
Leblanc tightened his invisible grip around the man's head, but before he could finish the job, he heard a loud CLANK near him. His eyes went wide as he turned around to check his surroundings.
"Who's there?" He narrowed his eyes and tried to focus, searching for any trace of a presence, wielder or regular's, but couldn't find any.
He looked at the man again, sighed and threw him back in the car, locking him in with his ability.
"So you want to play, huh?" The chief snorted, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't hide the slight shaking in his voice that almost made him stutter.
***
Kurt looked at Leblanc from a distance, smirking.
'So this is what fear looks like on the outside?' Kurt smirked, approaching Leblanc and not saying a word.
The leader of the monitoring division looked around, inhaled deeply, and calmed down.
"It must've just been a bird or something." He laughed nervously.
Suddenly, then, a dagger flew towards the concrete floor, between his feet.
He staggered backwards with a loud shriek and raising his guard.
"SHOW YOURSELF! AND I WON'T HURT YOU!"
'Look who's all high and mighty now...'
Kurt kept silent, deciding that it was now time to wait.
Leblanc turned around, his hands glimmering with a faint yellowish energy.
'Hum... Something new?' Kurt thought to himself, activating [PRYING EYES]
[NAME: Laurent Leblanc
RANK: B+
AGE: 30
CLASS: Brawler Knight
STAMINA: 280/280
HP: 600/600
MP: 1/1]
[BASIC STATS
Strength: 140
Dexterity: 130
Agility: 150
Perception: 150
Intelligence: 10
Vigor: 50]
[ABILITIES
Telekinesis LVL 15
Dissociation LVL 5
Singularity LVL ???]
Kurt raised his brow at the Leblanc's info.
'Only one mana point?'
But then he focused on Leblanc's abilities. He already knew Telekinesis very well, but the other two felt quite unfamiliar to him.
[Dissociation LVL 5
DESCRIPTION: Allows the user to forget certain events, keeping them safe from any lie detection ability.]
[Singularity LVL ???
DESCRIPTION: UNIQUE ABILITY – Allows the user to focus all mana particles around him in a radius of 20 meters in a small single point at the palm of his hand. Anything that this concentrated energy touches turns to nothing.
COST: 1MP]
'This makes a lot more sense now. [SINGULARITY] is a very dangerous ability, but [DISASSOCIATION] must have some kind of trick, or else he wouldn't be able to remember being a member of the New Dawn Guild or anything... Anyways, no time to think about it now, let's just see if he goes according to my plan...'
"Oh, so you're just here to watch, and want me to use this dagger to finish the job?" Leblanc asked out loud, his voice shaking less than a few seconds before.
But as he tried to reach for the dagger, it disappeared, going back to Kurt's inventory.
'Not so fast, dirty fingers.'
"Okay, then, I'll just do it the way it has to be done." Leblanc almost stuttered again.
He took the middle-aged man from the car with his telekinetic ability, and brought him to his knees.
"No, please, don't kill me! What did I do to you?" He begged.
"What did you do?" Leblanc snorted. "Do you have to do anything other than being a regular? You 'all' must die or surrender to the pure ones! Now let your blood become one more piece of the pavement for the new era!"
Leblanc raised his hand towards the man, ready to squeeze his head, but right the next second, a black flash crossed the air, and he recoiled his hand, grunting painfully.
"WHAT THE FUCK!? I THOUGHT YOU JUST WANTED TO WATCH!"
Only then, Kurt decided it was time to show himself. He wore the oni mask, put on the hood of his black leather jacket, a gift from Nikolai, and turned [SHADOW WALK] off, carrying both [MIDNIGHT SISTERS] in his hands as he slowly walked towards Leblanc.
"WHO ARE YOU!?" Leblanc shrieked, holding his arm.
His hand had been cleanly severed from the arm, lying on the concrete floor, like a dead animal.
"IF YOU DON'T SAY ANYTHING, YOU WILL BE CHARGED WITH GRAVE ASSAULT AGAINST A LAW-ENFORCING AGENT OF THE WIELDERS ASSOCIATION!"
But Kurt didn't answer. He just walked towards Leblanc, looking at him through the eyes of the oni mask, when he noticed the faint yellow glimmer in the chief's hand.
He also felt the mana around him fading, noticing that Leblanc was really going to go all out, using [SINGULARITY] against him.
'Better to not get hit by that thing...'
He started to run, almost vanishing from Leblanc's field of view.
Kurt sped up towards the middle-aged man, grabbing his collar and preparing to run away, when Leblanc shouted.
"NO, YOU WON'T!"
Suddenly, Kurt felt an enormous weight over his whole body, making even walking very difficult.
'Shit!'
In that split second, Leblanc switched from using [SINGULARITY] to exerting all his control over the mana around him, to make a gravity mass over Kurt and his victim.
Kurt covered the man using his body, trying to shield him from the mana's weight as he walked.
He put one foot in front of the other, the gravity over him somehow unbearable, when a thought crossed his mind.
'Wait! I can feel the mana overwhelming me, even though it's just my raw strength supporting my body... What if I...'
He focused on the mana above him, and for a fleeting second, he felt it as he saw Leblanc walking towards him.
He felt the sensation of the invisible grip he used to have around the mana.
Kurt focused more and more as he walked, one step after the other.
[THE PLAYER SHOULD NOT EXERT EXTERNAL FORCE INTO THE SYSTEM]
[SYSTEM INITIATING COUNTERMEASURES]
[PLAYER WILL BE-]
'Shut the fuck up!' Kurt thought, gritting his teeth and holding on to the fleeting sensation of the mana around him.
He felt a little blood dripping from his nose, but ignored it, focusing his senses more and more.
The more he focused, the more he felt the warmth of his awakening spreading through his body, to the point that he finally managed to force a little bit of the mana overwhelming him, to work in his favor, shielding him from Leblanc's oppression.
It allowed him to break free from the mana's weight, and run with Leblanc's target from the docks.
In the little distance, he heard the chief screaming in utter rage.
After a few kilometers, he dropped the man down, looked in his eyes, and gestured with his head.
'Run, you punk!' Kurt thought, turning his back on the man, and running back to the Black Market.
When he arrived, Nikolai looked at him and his eyes went wide.
"Dear God, what happened, my friend?"
"Long story short, Leblanc tried to kill the man from before, but I was able to stop him, and now I have a recording of him announcing his true intentions towards the regulars. And by unmasking the monitoring division, we'll have the upper hand against them."
Nikolai's jaw dropped at Kurt's explanation.
"Okay, I get your point, but what's up with the mask?"
"I couldn't have Leblanc see my face, or else he would issue an execution order and 'you' wouldn't be safe. I won't let that happen again."
"Hum... Fair point, but do you have a name for this 'character' you're playing the role of?"
Kurt thought for a while, remembering that he didn't say a word while fighting Leblanc and smirked.
"Silence."
Komentar Paragraf
Fitur komentar paragraf sekarang ada di Web! Arahkan kursor ke atas paragraf apa pun dan klik ikon untuk menambahkan komentar Anda.
Selain itu, Anda selalu dapat menonaktifkannya atau mengaktifkannya di Pengaturan.
MENGERTI