Whenever Kairos had been picked on by other kids, he always found that they were quite relentless. It seemed that they saw his lack of resistance as weakness, thus found it only natural to bully him even further.
It took Kairos quite a long time to realize that he had to fight back in order to prevent people from trying things on him.
Though, his first experience in doing so wasn’t too pretty.
He had broken the arms of three kids and had gotten himself expelled. Naturally, this made him get an earful from his parents who then told him he was supposed to avoid conflict like that.
Because it was quite the serious matter, he was even forced to go through ‘homeschooling’ by his parents, who forced him to write down the various things he wasn’t supposed to do countless times.
And for Kairos, it was an extremely confusing experience.
He was supposed to defend himself if he wanted people to stop bullying him, but he also wasn’t allowed to.
It was then he eventually learned that what he was allowed to do was notify the teachers, and so that’s exactly what he did during middle school.
Yet, most of the time the teachers couldn’t care less.
And even the ones that did, barely did anything other than giving a few words to the people in question.
Kairos eventually learned that there usually wasn’t a clear cut answer.
And that was the case for nearly everything in life.
Even in school, people were considered to be at different statuses based on their connections with other people. Though there was no true power over others, whether that was through their position or assets, that still didn’t change this difference in status.
And frankly, Kairos didn’t like making friends.
As such, it was quite natural for him to suddenly find himself at the bottom of the social ladder. Then it led to him being bullied by others at school.
When Kairos had ‘accidentally’ broken someone’s arm before, he still couldn’t help but feel he needed to go further. That if he didn’t, then he would end up being bullied once more.
Though Kairos wasn’t sure if that was the case, he decided he wasn’t going to relent.
And so, he found various ways to hurt the person that already had a broken arm even further, trying to make it so that he wasn’t responsible. One thing Kairos had learned was that if he dropped his pride and apologized profusely, while it wouldn’t do anything for the person he wronged, it would make other people think that he was being genuine.
He abused both that, and also sneakily used more discreet ways as well.
Such as… sneaking things into their lunches.
Before Kairos knew it, he was essentially being the bully. Though, he never really cared about all that.
Eventually, the person he was harassing all of the time transferred schools. Though, that still didn’t change the fact Kairos was at the bottom. If it wasn’t for the little trick he did with Chad, nearly every bully in the school would have tried to pick on him.
As for his parents, they ended up hearing about some of the things that Kairos did, and although he proclaimed it was an accident, they didn’t believe him. Perhaps it was because of his track record of violently hurting others before, which made ones that appeared later seem like a pattern.
Unfortunately, he was unable to convince his parents, forcing him to listen to more of their lecturing. Though, after experiencing it for years on end, all of their words went in one ear and out the other.
He could no longer care about what his parents told him.
Regardless, he spent all of his time just harassing that one person. That led to being isolated even further, as instead of talking to others he was just plotting various little inconveniences and injuries. It soon came to the point that Kairos could no longer make any new friends even if he wanted to.
The only person that was actually willing to be friends with him was Nicole.
Kairos let out a sigh and massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.
“I suppose always getting rid of every single enemy isn’t the best solution, especially when nearly everyone wants to become your enemy.”
Oliver smirked, which ticked Kairos off a little bit.
“Ha, exactly. It’s just a waste of time.”
Lucy put a finger on her chin.
“If we had to get rid of every enemy we had made… there would be no time for ourselves.”
Kairos gradually stood up and waved his hand weakly.
“…Whatever.”
Lucy clicked her tongue and rested the handle of her hammer on her shoulder.
“You should at least thank us for saving you the time to find these guys.”
Kairos spared a glance back.
“Thanks… Oliver.”
Lucy’s eyebrow twitched, but she didn’t say anything.
Oliver chuckled.
“You are now in our debt, alright?”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“Sure. I can buy you a soda later.”
Oliver didn’t seem overly concerned with his response, letting him go.
Kairos didn’t want to waste time, but he also found that his body could barely even walk in the first place. There was a rather ghastly bite mark on his arm that was still bleeding fairly heavily.
Yet, despite looking fairly bad, it wasn’t nearly as close as the damage the lightning had done internally to him. While it wasn’t too easy to see directly, it wasn’t too hard to tell from how he moved.
Nonetheless, Kairos pushed on.
He wanted to quickly make his way to the place with all the doors before consuming one of the green orbs to fix his condition. The biggest reason was because it seemed that the twins were able to easily see through the mist, meaning doing it in this place would just reveal that fact to them.
Since going to the place with doors was a sort of taboo, he figured that it would be fine to go there.
And so, like that, he began limping.
He didn’t exactly make his way towards the entrance, but it was close enough so that it didn’t take too long. Nonetheless, it still took him roughly thirty minutes.
Thankfully, it seemed his condition had actually improved during that time. He was no longer bleeding, though his entire body was still aching in pain.
With labored breaths, he stepped out of the bloody pathway, taking care not to fall down the spiral staircase.
Kairos took a peek at the completely dark pathway, and didn’t see anything, which wasn’t the craziest thing. He then slowly made his way to the hallway filled with doors, which was also his initial goal in the first place.
Yet, before he could make it there, he saw someone’s head poke out from the dark pathway in his future vision.
Kairos pretended he didn’t notice, instead opting to straighten his posture and pretend he was casually walking on ahead. His speed had noticeably increased.
Once the person’s head poked out once more, he was able to catch that it was Alice.
She didn’t call out to him, despite very clearly noticing him.
And Kairos continued to walk into the hallway with doors.
He felt a little anxious, but nothing ended up happening.
Upon making it to the hallway with the doors, he didn’t feel reassured whatsoever, especially since the others had seen him enter this place.
Kairos continued to hurriedly walk through various hallways, taking various turns to try and get himself deeper inside.
After traveling for roughly ten minutes, Kairos truly couldn’t take it anymore, slamming his shoulder against a wall before slowly sliding down.
His eyes were tightly shut, trying to subdue the pain that his future vision gave him.
From there, he pulled out one of the green orbs from the bag before cutting it open with his spear. Kairos chugged it harder than someone shotgunning a beer.
The sweet liquid rushed down quickly, and Kairos could feel the various pains of his body begin melting away. His injuries rapidly healed, while his mental fatigue had disappeared as well. His mana had restored fully and on top of that, he now felt quite full.
One of the side benefits was that the taste of flesh and blood was overpowered by its strong taste.
Kairos immediately opened up his status panel, now ready to put in points.
[Status]
[ID: 345315364923]
[Rank: 492/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]
[Objective: Clear Dungeon]
[Proof Of Perfection Points: 51.4]
[Stats –
Strength – 14.9
Endurance – 14.9
Agility – 14.9
Willpower – 4.9
Mana Capacity – 9.0
Magic Affinity – 7.2]
[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)]
[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]
[Hide]
Though Kairos had expected it, he was still quite surprised by how many points he had.
Nonetheless, he quickly diverted his attention to adding status points.
After a small period of deliberation, he decided willpower was more important, as his mana capacity and magic affinity should be too big of an issue for now. Though he still didn’t really understand the benefit, he figured it wouldn’t be too bad.
[Willpower – 4.9 – 14.9 | Points – 51.4 – 41.4]
He felt his body heat up like before, except most of the heat was radiating out of his head. As the changes continued to happen, Kairos suddenly felt that his mind felt somewhat lighter than usual.
He blinked a few times, getting used to the new change.
Then, let out a small gasp.
“…It no longer hurts to keep my eyes open.”
After thirty or more seconds, Kairos eventually felt slightly taxed from using his future vision, but it was nothing compared to before. At this rate, he predicted that he could last roughly five hours before feeling too tired to continue.
Though if he extended his future vision, it would probably be far less.
He wished he added more points earlier, but it was too late to consider that now.
Kairos wanted to continue adding points considering he already had so many, but found that increasing his willpower made him feel quite hungry again. He was slightly tempted to use another green orb to add more points, but decided against it.
Kairos let out a soft sigh before standing up once more, now feeling refreshed, despite being covered in blood.
He opened up the closest door to him before entering it.
Kairos quickly closed the door in his future vision before examining what would happen in his future vision.
He saw a couple arrows shoot towards him.
Thinking that wasn’t too much to deal with, he committed to closing the door before dodging to the side.
Several clear thwacks resounded as the arrows hit the wall. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all, as more mana coalesced, forming arrows that continue to shoot towards Kairos.
He continued to dodge them fairly easily, considering that the arrows were mostly just pointed straight at him. However, as time passed, the arrows began to shift their trajectories.
Now, they weren’t directly aimed at him, but instead predicting the path that he would dodge.
Kairos furrowed his brows. While the arrows were much faster than he could move, he was still able to dodge with the help of his future vision.
He saw an arrow shoot towards his left, thus went right. Upon hitting a wall, he was about to dash away from it, but waited just a moment for an arrow to hit where he was about to go, then flew out of the way when another shot straight towards him.
Kairos had held back his instinct to block using his spear several times. As much as he wanted to use it, the spear was simply far too thin. He had actually tried to block an arrow with his spear, but saw in his future vision that the arrow would only have its trajectory slightly shifted before continuing towards him.
It wasn’t enough to warrant using it.
And sooner than he expected… the arrows stopped shooting.
[Dungeon Currency Transfer – 1 added]
Kairos rubbed his chin.
It was easier than he expected, though…
He began wondering over the purpose of this place.