Kairos tilted his head to the side and paced around on his four feet, thinking about how to answer his question about being able to merge with his avatar so early.
“I’m not sure, honestly. I guess it was the pressure or something? Speaking of black blood, I have the other eight orbs ready.”
He proceeded to vomit up eight black orbs from inside his body. This made all three of them widen their eyes considerably.
Nyoka sucked in a cold breath.
“How did you get so many?”
Kairos tilted his head the other way.
“The stomach that the guy gave me also lets me get more black blood from things I eat.”
Nyoka narrowed his eyes slightly, showing that he didn’t really believe that explanation. However, he dropped the topic. It seemed like he wasn’t the type to pursue an answer for everything right away.
“Alright then.”
Kairos began blinking erratically. His head drooped slightly while his vision began to blur. Though, from an outside perspective, it wasn’t all that noticeable, especially because Kairos was suppressing his reactions. However, Jeff still caught onto it and called out to him.
“Are you ok?”
Kairos sucked in a deep breath and nodded.
“Yeah, just feeling a little tired.”
That would be an understatement, to say the least. He originally thought he was fine after exiting his transformation, however, a sense of fatigue quickly caught up to him. As the seconds passed, he quickly realized it was getting far worse than it originally seemed.
It was almost like someone that had been burned, not thinking that pain was all that bad at first because the nerves themselves were damaged, but quickly succumbed to the pain that would come soon after.
Kairos lay on the ground, breathing heavily.
Sara scratched the side of her head cluelessly and took a few steps forward. From the expression on her face, it was clear she was concerned. The traces of fear that there used to be were gone. One of her hands reached out and lightly patted Kairos’ head.
“Why did you go and do all of that?”
Kairos didn’t resist being pet, though it really hurt his pride. Nonetheless, he couldn’t say that the sensation didn’t feel nice. It was gentle and even had a nice tingling feeling along with it. Though he still shook his head, getting her to let go.
“They were looking at me weirdly, so I wanted to take care of them.”
Nyoka smiled bitterly when he heard that. He put his hand on his side while a helpless expression formed on his face.
“They were looking at you because they thought we bought something precious from that place and gave it to you, the pet. Obviously, as the pet you would be weaker than the three of us, so they were observing your behavioral patterns.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“They were all just waiting for a moment for you to be separated from us, but you gave it to them so readily that it made them confused. They took the opportunity since they just wouldn’t let the others take the lead over them. But really, that was just a waste of time.”
Kairos blinked a few times, feeling a little indignant. He didn’t let those feelings show though and asked back.
“What do you mean? I was still able to kill one of them.”
Nyoka rolled his eyes. It was clear that he didn’t think of that as an achievement at all.
“Yes, and you’ve also exposed your strength to all of those people nearby. I can already tell that you didn’t get any cores from the person that you’ve killed either. Everyone down here is spiteful, and before they die they will destroy any cores in their hearts. Realistically, the only way to get those cores from people is to threaten them or kill them before they can even react to it.”
He sighed.
“But there’s really no point in doing that because monsters are just so much easier to deal with and they don’t usually destroy all of their cores even on the verge of death.”
Kairos gave a small nod. There were a lot of flaws with what he had decided to do. It was quite unnecessary, to say the least.
“That is true. At least I chased them away though.”
Nyoka smirked. For whatever reason, it appeared that what he just heard was the most foolish out of them all.
“Even if we take the ideal scenario where you’ve killed them all, there will just be more to take their place.”
Kairos furrowed his brow when he heard that. It didn’t make much sense at all to him.
“Wouldn’t they be scared off when countless were massacred? Why would there be more wanting to challenge that?”
Nyoka slowly shook his head.
“The people that have made their way down their layers have all taken considerable amounts of risk. Each and every day whether or not they survive is dependent on luck. That’s because if they depend on things that are stable, they will just end up dying anyway due to a lack of strength. There will always be more pests wanting to try their luck, even for small benefits. Killing a few won’t stop more from coming back.”
Kairos awkwardly used his paw to scratch the top of his head. It was a little harsh due to the sharp claws, though he was fine.
“I see. It appears there is still a lot for me to learn.”
Nyoka gave a quick nod before moving forth once more.
“Come on, we still haven’t shown you the rest of the city.”
Kairos still felt really tired, but he could still manage to walk and visit the nearby places. Nyoka seemed to have completely forgotten about the previous events as he casually showed off various shops to Kairos.
There were a few practical ones, like kinds that sold weapons, various consumables, and even what appeared to be tamed pets, though those were far rarer. Though Kairos wished to buy some, he quickly realized that the nature core outclassed them in value. The only way he could buy them as if he used that nature core to convert them into black orbs.
Not to mention, it would look even more suspicious to Nyoka and the others if he were to do that.
Nyoka was also offering to lend him some more black orbs, but Kairos didn’t want to go into any debt for now.
He decided to make a mental note of the various places and maybe come back later.
It was at this point that Nyoka began showing him off to various places for entertainment, such as places that had “luxury” kinds of foods and drinks. There were also more questionable places like brothels.
As they continued to walk across the city, Kairos gave Nyoka a weird look, but instead of complaining he instead asked a question.
“Aren’t people desperately trying to survive? Why would there be things like restaurants?”
Nyoka let out a soft sigh after hearing that.
“It is true that most people don’t go to those kinds of places. However, there are a couple extremely strong people that frequent those. They are comfortable with the strength they have, and can easily get black blood. As such, despite the low volume of patrons, those stores still earn a sizable amount.”
Kairos didn’t respond immediately. After a bit of thought, he shot back another question.
“Are you considered one of those people?”
Nyoka rubbed his chin, clearly thinking over it.
“I myself haven’t really gone to those places much. Though, I would say I am one of the targets for those shops… albeit I am on the weaker side. You don’t have interest in any of those places?”
Kairos promptly shook his head.
“I could care less.”
Nyoka narrowed his eyes slightly after hearing that. His smile also deepened somewhat.
“Don’t be so hasty to forget about them. If you think about it another way, it’s a place to get in contact with people on the more powerful side. Though, their attitudes may not be the best.”
Kairos blinked a few times before slowly nodding.
“That makes sense.”
Jeff put a hand on the back of his head before letting out a sigh.
“It looks like our marks are going to fade soon. We gotta leave soon.”
Nyoka gave a curt nod before turning to Kairos.
“Would you like to come with us to do a dungeon?”
Kairos thought about it for a little while.
“…Ok. I assume that we are going as equals, not as a favor for one or the other.”
Hearing that made Nyoka laugh.
“Of course. There might even be a situation where we can ask you to repay that favor.”
Kairos blinked a few times after hearing that.
“…What are dungeons like?”
Instead of responding, Nyoka instead briefly brought his finger to his lips signaling to be quiet in one fluid motion.
“We can talk about the dungeon after we leave.”
Kairos didn’t respond, instead letting out a faint growl.
Leaving the city was rather simple. Once they got closer to the walls, hands came out of them and directly threw them all out almost like they were tossing out the trash. Though the marks they had on the backs of their heads should’ve still been intact. They were erased.
Kairos took note of that. He shouldn’t be frequently entering and exiting the place.
He then opened his status panel to see how much time had passed.
[Time Left Before Teleportation: 28 days, 22 hours, 11 minutes, and 54 seconds remaining]
A little over a day had gone by since he got here. There were no real dangers, though he did end up using one of his nature cores. But since that was for increasing his strength, it didn’t feel like a waste.
After getting a little further, was when Nyoka spoke up.
“To continue our earlier conversation, dungeons are a wild breed. They don’t make much sense at all, but there is one thing common among them. There’s usually some sort of reward for completing it. As for whether or not that reward was worth it… is another story.”
Kairos tapped his chin a few times after hearing that. He thought that the dungeons down here might’ve been quite similar to the ones above the surface, but from the sound of things they were quite different.
Although the two dungeons he had been to before weren’t exactly the same, there were quite a few commonalities and a basic pattern to them. On the other hand, it seemed that the dungeons down here sounded more like the kinds that would be found in video games.
And apparently, the reward wasn’t guaranteed.
Kairos was quite curious. He speculated what it would be like, but the only real way was to find out for himself.