Nicole looked rather confused. She didn’t exactly understand what Kairos meant by liking killing too much. From her perspective, it didn’t really make sense.
After all, she had never seen Kairos act up all that much.
If it was supposed to mean that he was some sort of psychopath, then she felt Kairos must’ve been overexaggerating. If he meant that he enjoyed fighting things, she didn’t see a problem with that either. It wasn’t as though they could just stop fighting while in the middle of an apocalypse.
Nicole felt like the whole thing was blown out of proportion when really the problem was small.
She reached over to grab onto Kairos’ hand before bringing it close.
“I don’t think… it’s nearly as bad as you think it is.”
Kairos looked her straight in the eye.
“Maybe. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, I guess.”
Nicole held his arm a little closer and said nothing more. Kairos looked at her for a few moments before looking at Edward.
“Uh… so would you like to finish what you were saying earlier?”
Edward slowly nodded.
“Yeah, I would like to have an alliance with you, Kairos.”
He slowly reached out one hand towards him. Kairos shifted Nicole to the side a little before grabbing his hand as well. They shook hands, though Kairos noted Edward was quite tense as he did so.
Kairos let out a dry chuckle.
“Guess we are on the same team then. Hello, Edward.”
Edward gave a small nod as he retracted his hand.
“Hello, Kairos.”
He took out the black rock from his pocket before putting it into Kairos’ hand.
“The offering we were going to give. I’m sure you can tell that it works, right?”
Kairos nodded.
“Yeah, it definitely does.”
As he held the stone in his hand, he could feel the mana in that hand rumble violently. There was no way he would be able to cast a spell in that condition. Not to mention all of the mana around them was distorted significantly.
Edward fished out another stone, but this time it was blue.
“We can use this as a method of contact. It’s linked to another stone and will work as long as the mana around it isn’t disturbed, so it has to be out of the radius of that black stone.”
Kairos gave another nod.
“Alright then, thanks. Now that we are on the same side once more, is there anything that you want to do?”
Edward shrugged his shoulders.
“I suppose we could do a trade. Is there anything you are looking for?”
Kairos looked at the stones he was just given.
“It seems like you have a lot of these strange, but useful rocks. Are there any other variations you have?”
Edward spent a few seconds thinking.
“We do have a few others, but those are too much of a limited quality right now. In the future, we may have those to offer. As for the ones we just gave you, we could provide more if needed.”
Kairos gave a small nod.
“Alright then. Is there anything in particular you need?”
Edward paused for a few more seconds before turning to Nola and Collin.
“Do you still plan on requesting that thing?”
Collin had his weapon raised, but then slowly lowered it.
“It’s not urgent. We can wait.”
Nola also had her weapon raised, simply out of instinct, then let it fall to her side. Though, she was still holding onto it tightly.
“…It does appear that our food supply has suddenly gotten fairly low, but I imagine that’s the case for everyone.”
Kairos tilted his head to the side.
“It isn’t as though we have that much, but it isn’t like we don’t have anything to spare.”
Nola furrowed her brow.
“…I’m not counting the food that has become inedible due to the red light.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“From what we’ve tried, it isn’t as though the food is completely unsalvageable.”
Nola’s eyes suddenly widened ever so slightly, almost like they twitched.
“What is that supposed to mean? Have you already tried eating them?”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“…We made other people eat them.”
Nola’s expression contorted slightly, though Collin spoke up with a bit of enthusiasm.
“And you found something out?”
Kairos slowly nodded.
“I suppose you can consider this information a return gift. With the potatoes that we grew, after freezing it in ice and boiling it in a considerable amount of water, it becomes relatively safe to eat. Most of the evolution energy disperses into the water when boiling, and it seems freezing also does something else to it.”
Collin furrowed his brow while rubbing his chin with great interest.
“And how exactly do we know that’s true?”
Kairos chuckled.
“To be honest, not even we know if it’s true or not. There may be latent long-term effects we aren’t aware of. But at the very least, it seems to work for the short term. It’s not as though there are going to be many alternative options.”
Nola shook her head.
“…How cold does it have to be? Also, how long do you have to cook it for?”
Kairos cleared his throat.
“I used the frost spell for the sake of freezing them. After that, I just boiled it for about fifteen minutes. Most of the evolution energy will go into the water assuming you put in enough. The water won’t be safe to drink, but you’ll at least be able to eat it. As for other foods, we haven’t tested it yet.”
Nola slowly nodded.
“I see… It sounds like you have a team behind this with how quickly you figured it out.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“I wouldn’t call it a team, but I suppose it does work out.”
Nola and Collin gave each other glances and seemed to be communicating through them.
Collin cleared his throat.
“We will ask for some sort of trade offer later. For now, we will be going back to our place to think over things.”
Nola glanced at Nicole, before turning back to Kairos to give a small bow.
“Thank you for accepting. We will now leave.”
Kairos gave a small nod.
“Alright.”
Nicole went back to holding onto Kairos by the arm and was still staring at Edward with hostility. It seemed like she still didn’t accept the reason why Edward had left Kairos for so long. Nonetheless, it was still quite the improvement considering she was about to kill him beforehand.
Kairos and Edward silently stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments. Then, Edward turned away and slowly left without looking back.
The five people left, already gone.
Kairos couldn’t help but ruminate over how much control Edward seemed to have over the others. He guessed that there were other people considered the leaders, but what Edward said had considerable sway.
He took one last look at the stones before putting them in his pocket.
As for Nicole, the hand she was using to hold onto his arm began to tremble. She seemed to weaken to the point that a gust of wind could just blow her over. Her eyes were completely glazed over, and her mouth hung open slightly.
“K-Kairos…”
Kairos let out a small sigh.
“It looks like you overdid it with your ability.”
Nicole reached out towards his face weakly, almost like she was drunk.
“My head… hurts…”
Kairos grabbed onto her hand and slung it over his shoulder like how she would normally do it.
“Come on, let’s go back.”
Nicole blinked lazily, almost like blinking was actually something complicated and difficult.
“O-Ok…”
Kairos helped Nicole walk back into the city. Tiana watched over them and remained silent. She hadn’t even moved during the entire negotiation process that occurred between them. And from the way she looked, it seemed as though her thoughts were on something else.
To put it plainly, she felt a little hurt that Kairos took the black stone, which meant she wouldn’t be able to suddenly kill Kairos. She felt that she had done enough at this point to be at least a little trustworthy. Logically speaking, Tiana understood that there probably wasn’t enough trust between the two of them for her to just have something that could end Kairos’ life immediately.
In fact, with what she could glean from Kairos’ character, it was probably almost impossible to gain enough trust for such a thing.
She understood it all. But understanding something didn’t mean she wouldn’t feel a little hurt.
Kairos went into the city with the help of Tiana lifting the walls, all the while carrying Nicole in. Although Nicole was walking with him, she was also mumbling incoherent nonsense as they went.
“Mm… do you think… what do you think?”
Kairos smiled bitterly.
“I think you need some rest.”
Nicole let out an annoyed mumble, trying to shake Kairos, but only shaking herself.
“Noooooo!… Not about… I mean Edward!”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“We can talk about this after you get some rest, alright?”
He was a little surprised this was how Nicole got after using her inborn ability. From what Kairos could gather, it seemed that using one’s inborn ability was quite taxing on one’s mind. She had used it to both strangle Edward, but also let all the attacks that were thrown at her pass right through.
It was quite an unfair ability, to say the least. But at the same time, it wasn’t like his ability was the fairest either.
Nicole had hardly shown any reaction after she let go of Edward, leading Kairos to believe that perhaps Nicole actually had an ability that made her near invincible. But it would turn out to have similar limitations to his own.
Nicole hung her head low and fell silent for a moment.
“…Edward…do you still think about him?”
Kairos sighed.
“Well it’s a little hard not to when you bring him up.”
Nicole grumbled like a little kid.
“You know what I mean! Like… do you think about him more than me?”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“Why would I think about him more when you’re right here next to me.”
Nicole pouted angrily.
“Mmmh! You’re thinking about him, aren’t you! You are! You are! You are!”
She began flailing her limbs around like a spoiled child, with the exception of the arm slung around his shoulder, which grabbed on tighter instead. It was as though she was afraid Kairos was somehow going to slip out of her grasp. Kairos let out another sigh.
“Ok, ok, I’m not thinking about him!”
Nicole rubbed her face against his shoulder.
“Lyingggg! You’re lyinggggg!”
Kairos pinched the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb.
“Ok, I’m lying, but isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”
Nicole suddenly quieted down.
“…I don’t know.”
Although the farmers didn’t want to disrespect Kairos and rather mind their own business, they couldn’t help but look because of how Nicole was acting. Though, right after they looked, they quickly turned away and focused back on harvesting their potatoes.
It took a little while, but Kairos was eventually able to get back to the center building. He thought of bringing her up to her own room, but decided to just go into his and let her rest there.
Once they finally got next to the bed, Nicole sheepishly whispered to him.
“Would you have wanted Edward to be the one that stayed with you instead?”
Kairos looked at her silently for a few moments.
“…No. This is just the way that things turned out, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Nicole pouted.
“But if you could have whatever you wanted, then you would want him, wouldn’t you?”
Kairos took a deep breath.
“There was a time… when I thought that.”
A small smile formed on his face.
“But now, I can say that it would be you.”
Nicole fidgeted awkwardly for a few moments.
“Really?”
Kairos let her down on the bed.
“Really.”