Read I See One Second Into The Future: Loner In The Apocalypse Chapter 81 online for free - AllNovelFull

Unlike the last time, Kairos decided to take it slow, only cutting out a tiny incision before beginning to drink. From the tiny incision, liquid rushed out as though there was a leak in a major pipe.

The amount that came out was far less than when he experimented with his future vision. However, that overbearingly sweet taste remained the same. Though it wasn't nearly as bad as the first time he tried it, it had this same uncomfortable quality despite being in low doses.

The liquid almost felt like water, having little to no viscosity, letting it slip down rather easily.

Kairos was a little nervous when doing this, but there didn't seem to be any harmful effects yet. He thought about stopping at this point, but because the green orb would continue spewing out green liquid, he didn't really want to. It was probably somehow tied into his mentality of not wanting to waste food.

Kairos slowly but steadily drank more and more of it.

He found that despite entering his stomach, he wasn't feeling any more sated. It was almost as though it disappeared entirely by the time it had gotten there.

Another thing he noticed was that his leg began to feel a little numb, and so did the wound on his cheek. Though he couldn't directly see what his cheek looked like, he could do so for his leg.

As such, he observed it closely.

It did not take him long to notice what was happening. The bleeding in his leg was slowing to a stop, while the flesh on the wound was reddening slightly, and gradually closing up.

By the time he had finished drinking most of the liquid, the wound on his leg had sealed up, as was the one on his cheek. There were still nasty red scars left over, but at this rate, they would disappear immediately.

Another effect Kairos realized was that the strain in his mind was disappearing quickly. It was quite a refreshing feeling and one that he was not used to. He could definitely see that this could become addicting, as normally his mind was always a little stressed out from seeing things twice.

The only slight reprieve was when he went to sleep, but then he would have dreams to follow up right after.

And those weren't pleasant most of the time.

However, all of those things weren't the ones he cared most about.

Rather, he could tell that his mana was being refilled, and not to a small amount. Despite having next to no mana earlier, he was now nearly half full.

Eventually, Kairos finished all of it. The green orb had retained its general shape as a sphere, but had also shrunk considerably. Now it looked quite similar to a marble. Though it didn't look that useful, he decided to tuck it in his pocket.

Kairos looked down at where his leg wound used to be and saw that it had healed completely. He rubbed his chin.

"…Even if there are some unknown side effects, these are probably far too useful to just give up on."

Though they didn't turn out to be good explosives, this was actually better. Even if the only property was restoring mana, spells were far more effective than explosives anyway.

Kairos' gaze shifted towards the other tree monsters that were thrashing their black branches around violently.

"I will end your suffering, do not worry."

Though there were definitely some ulterior motives, he was going to help others out, so there was no reason to feel bad.

At least, that's what he told himself.

And so, Kairos picked up the spear before running over towards one of the trees. Unlike before, when he felt incredibly muddled, now he felt like he was truly alive.

A black branch burst out of the ground, but he sidestepped before it could land on him. Then, a couple more shot down from the sky, but only slammed into the dirt next to him as he twisted to the side.

Black branches continued to shoot out of the ground, come down from the sky, and also sweep towards him. Yet, he dodged all of them and didn't even have to rely on his future vision.

For the first time, he took in the effects of having high physical stat points and truly soaked it in. Before Kairos knew it, he was already next to one of the black trees. Without hesitation, his spear did a swift horizontal sweep.

A soft thunk rang out, and Kairos' spear had traveled straight through the tree.

Yet, it didn't seem as though the tree had been cut.

Nonetheless, Kairos pushed on the top of the trunk and caused it to slide over and expose another green orb. The tree seemed to notice what he was doing as it cried out in intense agony. Numerous black branches shot toward Kairos, very clearly targeted.

Unfortunately for the tree, Kairos fearlessly slammed his spear into the side of the green orb before tilting like a lever, causing it to pop out. He caught it with one hand.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

All of the black branches shooting towards him suddenly fell limp.

Only pausing to tuck the green orb away, Kairos continued towards other trees. It was rather simple for him to go through each and every one of them.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

With every kill, the pressure he faced only decreased even further. The black trees could only watch in horror as all of their efforts to prevent their death were completely futile.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 5

It soon became a little difficult for Kairos to hold onto all of the green orbs. He decided to pause his deforestation plans for a second and got next to Ling, who was sitting on the ground and keeping his head down.

Kairos tossed the green orbs next to his feet.

"Hold on to these for now."

Ling looked up nervously.

"Um, alright."

He picked a few of them up, but quickly found himself unable to hold them.

Kairos did not bother with it any longer and began to get rid of the rest of the trees still standing in the area. On the other hand, the black trees could do nothing but watch as they were helplessly slaughtered. While their roots were mobile, it seemed as though they couldn't just uproot themselves and begin walking.

Such was the sad fate of a plant, unable to run from its predators.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded] x 8

Kairos suddenly found the place to be rather quiet, All of the thrashing had stopped, while stumps with their trunks next to them littered the place. Along with that, many limp black branches were scattered all over.

In all honesty, he found that there were fewer trees than he had originally thought there were. Though, now that he took a look at everything around him, it might've just been that he had killed them all too quickly.

He walked back over to Ling, carrying the green orbs.

As for Ling, he huddled with the green orbs almost like he was a hen with a bunch of eggs.

Kairos let out a soft sigh.

"We don't have our backpacks with us right now. Do you see anything to make a makeshift bag out of?"

Ling looked around and scratched the back of his head.

"Uh, no."

Kairos dropped the green orbs to the ground.

"Hm… I'm going to try and make one."

He looked around the place and considered his options. His first instinct was to use his clothes, but he didn't really want to strip. There were also Ling's clothes, but he also really didn't want to look at a shirtless Ling.

Kairos definitely wasn't going to give up on the green orbs, so the only option left was to try and make something.

He picked up one of the black branches but found that they withered and broke apart as he did so. Despite being so tough earlier, now they were essentially a pile of ash.

Kairos clicked his tongue and moved on.

As he walked through the remains, he realized that the thin red leaves of the trees began dissipating, turning into a dark red liquid. As a smell permeated the air, he was able to figure out that the liquid was blood.

It was a scent Kairos was awfully familiar with.

Eventually, he came across a table.

Kairos didn't really know how he didn't see it earlier. Perhaps he had been too caught up in the moment.

Regardless, there was a rather large satchel of something on the table, with a piece of twine wrapped around the opening.

Kairos blinked.

"That's convenient."

After a second of thought, Kairos unwrapped it.

Skulls spilled out onto the table. They were all filled with dirt, while the nose and eye holes were covered with what looked like a black blindfold, but seemed a little too smooth to be fabric.

Kairos' eyebrow twitched.

"…Huh."

While he was wondering what these were for, Kairos had noticed that a tiny sapling came out from one of the skulls. And when he looked closer at the others, he found that they also had saplings within them.

Kairos decided to not think about it any longer, letting the contents spill out on the table while he took the satchel. The skulls rolled onto the table while the dirt inside spilled out. However, the saplings remained inside.

Kairos hesitated, wondering if he should get rid of these saplings. But at the same time, he didn't care that much. And so, he left.

Once he got back to Ling, he stuffed all the green orbs into the satchel. As he was doing so, he posed a question.

"Hey, do you see any other bright blue lights?"

Ling scratched the back of his head.

"Um, there's a lot in the air, but most of it is coming from those green things."

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"Other than these green orbs, what other high concentration of mana do you see?"

Ling surveyed the area before pointing to a place next to him.

"Um, right over there is quite a bit, but it is a bit scattered."

Kairos wrapped the twine around the satchel that now had fifteen green orbs inside. As he picked it up, Ling reached out with his hand.

Kairos looked at him with a bit of confusion.

"What is it?"

Ling blinked a few times.

"Do you not want me to hold it?"

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, I can hold on to it fine."

Ling scratched the back of his head.

"Ah, ok."

Kairos shook his head before walking over to where Ling had pointed.

After walking over dead branches, he found himself standing over the corpse of the strange creature from earlier. Its bright green eyes and pale face remained, while its lanky black body seemed to become one with all the dead branches on the ground.

Kairos pointed towards it.

"Is the bright light right here?"

Ling nodded.

"Um, yeah."

Kairos looked down at the corpse and hesitated. He felt it would feel pretty disgusting to try and pry away at the corpse below him. Yet, at the same time, he didn't care enough to hold back.

Using his spear, he pushed away at the black branches connected to the lanky black body. With soft cracking sounds, they were disconnected from its body. Then, he peeled away at the skin.

But to his surprise, there was nothing there.

It was a hollow shell.

Kairos furrowed his brows before moving on to the creature's head, prying away that as well. Green liquid splashed out from here, and once it cleared, it revealed a tiny green orb. It looked exactly like the one Kairos had used up.

He sighed.

"Well, whatever."

Kairos shifted his gaze away, but as he did, he saw a paper buried underneath the black branches.

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"What is this?"

Kairos pushed away the black branches with his spear so that he could get to the paper buried underneath. After picking it up, he shook the dirt that covered it to reveal its contents.

'Commands

1 – Collect living creatures with medium or above mana amounts and transform them into living oaks.

2 – Tend to any existing living oaks and nurture them.

3 – Await my arrival'

Kairos furrowed his brows.

Ling also took a peek at the paper.

"What…"

Kairos sighed.

"It looks like these are orders for this weird plant thing."

He furrowed his brows.

"In other words, there is someone controlling these things somehow."

Ling let out a small gasp.

"They can… control them?"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"It basically means that this person is probably much stronger than these creatures and we are now sitting in his trashed-up garden."

Ling scratched the back of his head.

"Will the person forgive us?"

Kairos shook his head.

"Would you forgive someone that destroyed your garden that you spent lots of time on?"

Ling blinked a few times.

"Well… I wouldn't feel that good about the person."

He seemed a little scared.

"Does that mean we have to fix this place before the person comes back?"

Kairos frowned.

"It means we have to get the hell out of here before that person finds out."

Ling looked rather awkward.

"Ah, right!"

Kairos looked around the place.

Past all the trees that he had destroyed earlier, there were actually just more trees. Except those were actually normal, unlike the moving trees, or as the person who created them put it, 'living oaks'.

Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger.

"Looks like we are just going to have to pick a direction."

Ling looked around.

"Where do we go then?"

Kairos put a finger on his chin.

"You pick a direction."

Ling seemed surprised.

"Eh? Why me?"

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"You have far better luck than me. Don't you remember how I had to dodge all of those branches and roots while you just stood still?"

Ling pouted.

"…But I think you are luckier because you can do so many things."

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"If I didn't put in the effort, I wouldn't be able to do the things that I can."

He narrowed his eyes as he thought of the times he had stuck a knife into his body to increase his pain endurance.

"It wasn't always easy, but I still tried my hardest."

Ling tilted his head to the side.

"But… I'm also trying."

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"You know, you're the kind of person I hate the most. The one that always says they were never lucky, or they've been doing all they could. Yet, in reality, it's just handed to them every time."

Ling looked down to the ground.

"…Am I really that kind of person?"

Kairos paused for a moment, before letting out a sigh.

"Well, I don't really know. It's just a feeling, I guess."

Ling scratched the back of his head. He didn't answer for a while, but instead pointed in a direction.

Kairos followed his finger, to see that it just led to an arbitrary part of the forest.

"Hm?"

Ling blinked a few times.

"You wanted me to pick a direction, right?"

Kairos nodded.

"Ah, yeah."

Ling pressed his lips together.

"I choose this direction."

Kairos cracked his neck.

"Then let's go."

He began jogging in that direction and Ling followed from behind.

The forest consisted mostly of tall and narrow trees. The ground was rather bumpy. If a car had to traverse this kind of trail, then it would give hell to the people riding it.

Twigs, leaves, and rocks littered the area, all of various sizes.

Each time they stepped was usually accompanied by a crunch of some sort. Kairos was able to navigate it rather easily. As for Ling, his stats made him on par with professionals in physical aspects, yet he still ended up stumbling on things, tripping on rocks, and other such things.

Kairos couldn't help but feel a little baffled that was even possible, wondering if he was faking it.

Nonetheless, he didn't care enough to ask, opting to slow down so that Ling could keep up.

Though, that didn't mean he wasn't going to ask about anything.

"Hey, if you see a noticeably bright blue light, or one that looks suspicious, tell me."

Ling nodded.

"Um, ok."

They continued to run through the forest for quite a while, making it seem endless. Kairos was wondering if there was any way he could get back with the others. The easiest way would be to get back to the city that Tiana was in since he believed that they would surely come back to that place at some point.

However, he also had no idea how to get there.

Ling stammered and tripped over a rock.

"U-Um… when are we going to see the others again?"

Kairos ducked under a branch.

"Once we find them, what else?"

Ling scratched the back of his head.

"A-Ah, ok."

Kairos began wondering if Ling was naturally born this way, or if he was somehow raised to become like this. Either way, he didn't really like him.

Though considering that Ling had pulled him out of the ground, basically saving his life, he would bear with him.

After traveling for about thirty or so minutes, Ling was panting heavily. Kairos wanted to go faster, but held back anyways.

As for Ling, he couldn't help but speak up.

"U-Um!"

Kairos slowed to a stop and sighed.

"Do you need to take a break?"

To his surprise, Ling shook his head.

"Er, no. I saw a really bright blue thing."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, where is it?"

Ling pointed slightly off track from the direction they were already running.

"Over there, it feels really far away though."

Kairos nodded.

"Alright, thanks for remembering that."

Ling kept his head down and scratched the back of his head. As for Kairos, he did not wait up or ask for a 'you're welcome'.

He would rather not waste time anyway, and ran towards the new place with mana.

As for Ling, he broke out of his stupor once Kairos had gone off before hurriedly chasing after him.

When Ling had said that it was far away, he wasn't exaggerating. In fact, he might've even made an understatement. After they ran for a few minutes or so, Kairos turned to Ling who was tripping over himself to follow.

"Hey, did we pass it yet?"

Ling gasped for air.

"Um… no… but we are a bit closer."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Is it truly that big?"

Ling put his hands on his knees.

"I… I'm not sure. But I think that it should be getting closer."

They continued to run for ten minutes. Though Kairos wasn't running full speed to let Ling follow, that didn't change the fact that they had covered quite the distance.

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"Are you sure that this is a bright blue light?"

Ling gasped for air.

"Y-Yes…"

Kairos let out a soft sigh.

"Alright."

They continued to run through the forest for another fifteen or so minutes, and that was when Ling suddenly stopped running. Kairos turned around to look at him.

"Are we here?"

Ling shook his head. He had both hands covering his eye with partial heterochromia and seemed to be in pain.

"It's… so bright."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"That bad?"

Ling nodded and hunched over. It was fairly clear that he couldn't take it anymore.

Kairos couldn't help but grow even more curious about whatever was emitted such strong mana fluctuations that someone ended up being blinded by it. When he stopped to really focus on his sensations, he could just barely tell that the air felt different.

It was as though the air was slightly heavier than usual.

Kairos looked at Ling.

"From the time you originally pointed us in this direction, how much further do you think this bright blue light is?"

Ling was panting slightly, but still answered.

"It… it should be really close."

He shook his head.

"But getting any closer hurts too much for me."

Kairos nodded.

"Do you think that you can survive by yourself?"

Ling blinked a few times.

"Um… I…"

Kairos cracked his neck.

"To be frank, I'm too curious to ignore whatever this thing emitting so much mana is, and I don't really care about you."

Ling looked down to the floor.

"O-Oh."

Kairos paused before letting out a sigh.

"Are you not confident in surviving by yourself?"

Ling scratched the back of his head.

"I don't know."

Kairos crouched down and looked at him.

"Then how about you find out?"

Ling looked taken aback.

"Huh?"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"I genuinely believe that everyone can be a strong person, but sometimes they just need the right opportunity to become one."

Ling furrowed his brows.

"You think… I can become strong?"

Kairos chuckled.

"Well, no."

Ling looked a little sad when he heard that, but Kairos quickly followed up.

"I know that you can become strong. That's just how people are."

Ling opened his mouth slightly.

"Then… I want to try."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"It won't be easy, you know?"

Ling nodded.

Kairos let out a soft sigh.

"Honestly, the objective probability of you surviving is low, but with how you are right now…"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I feel like you will be able to defy all odds and do it."

Ling pressed his lips together.

"R-Really?"

Kairos chuckled.

"I mean, I don't really know. I'm still a firm believer in probability in the end."

He then untied the sack with the green orbs and pulled one out. In one smooth motion, he held it out towards Ling.

As for Ling, he seemed confused.

"Um, what are you doing?"

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"It's a gift. If you ever need to recover badly, whether it be injuries, mana, or even stress, you can break this open and drink it."

Ling's lips parted slightly.

"A… gift?"

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"It's not that big of a deal, alright? I still have fourteen of these."

Ling reached out for it with a trembling hand, almost like he had just won the lottery. And when he grabbed onto it, he had conviction.

"T-Thank you."

Kairos waved his hand dismissively.

"It's whatever."

Ling looked down at the green orb while holding onto it with both hands.

"It's… my birthday today."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, then happy birthday."

He stood up.

"Anyways, I'm going to go now, stay safe."

Ling nodded, remaining silent.

Kairos began walking away, but turned around after a few steps.

"Hey, thanks again for saving me from that tree thing. And… sorry for being a little rude to you."

Ling did not respond, but Kairos was not waiting for a response. He continued to make his way toward whatever was emitting tremendous amounts of mana.

And once he left, Ling was left alone, still holding onto the green orb. For quite a while, he just stood there without moving.

Then, he abruptly burst out in tears.

Ling muttered to himself.

"It's also the first time I've gotten a gift…"

Kairos began running through the forest. At first, he was taking it slow, but then realized that he didn't have to wait up for Ling, so he nearly began running at full speed. Feeling the wind rush past him was quite cooling.

He wished that he had his glasses though, so that it could block the wind from his eyes.

Nonetheless, Kairos could still see, but he couldn't help but wonder if he missed it.

Yet, right as he was thinking that, he cast away those thoughts.

Kairos had come across a clearing in the forest, where there were no trees for hundreds of meters. Instead, there was a giant blue crystal, emitting a faint glow.

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Kairos couldn't help but approach the giant blue crystal out of curiosity.

"…Woah."

It was shaped like a pillar, with many jagged points along its sides as it continued up into the air. It was probably at least five hundred meters wide considering how large it was, while Kairos couldn't determine the height.

Because he couldn't make out where the top was from here.

It simply seemed to disappear into the clouds.

He had already felt a slight bit of pressure from quite far away, but now, he could tell that it wasn't an illusion. Kairos really was feeling an air that was heavier than usual.

He couldn't help but wonder how such a thing was created.

An educated guess, given what it looked like as well as what Ling saw, was that this thing was a mana crystal.

Kairos walked closer to it, wondering if he could possibly use it for something.

However, he couldn't help but freeze in his steps as he walked over the crest of a small hill.

Because once he did, the sight of countless dead bodies greeted him.

Their deaths came in countless forms, such as being burnt, cut up, and some even seemed poisoned. However, the grand majority of them were nothing but bones.

From the corpses, Kairos could make out animals, humans, and monsters. It was a little hard to tell what some of the bones were, other than them being humanoid, but from how many there were, it was not hard to tell.

One thing to note was that the number of corpses was far greater the closer one got to the crystal. And on top of that, most of the bony corpses were the ones that were right next to it as well.

In fact, there wasn't a single corpse that hadn't become a skeleton within a hundred meters of the crystal.

The hairs on Kairos' neck stood up.

It was pretty obvious to him that this thing was dangerous. All previous thoughts of exploring or trying to find out what this thing was had been cast out of his mind.

He turned around and began walking away. Yet, as he did so, he couldn't help but wonder what caused so many things to be attracted and killed by the crystal.

Though Kairos could accept that many animals and monsters had been killed, there were far too many human corpses.

He couldn't feel any force tempting him to get closer to the crystal other than curiosity.

And logically, all humans should've turned away once they saw so many corpses like him.

Yet, before Kairos could wonder any further, he found his answer.

Upon trying to escape back into the trees, he found that his foot was stopped like it hit some sort of wall. Kairos wasn't just going to give up like that and reached out with his hand.

Just like his foot, it was blocked.

That was when the status panel opened on its own.

[Congratulations for finding one of the few dungeons on Earth!]

[Please enter the dungeon, indicated by the large mana crystal!]

Kairos sharply clicked his tongue.

It sounded just like one of those internet scams. The only thing that would've made it more complete is if it said that he had won a million dollars in some sort of obscure sounding raffle.

Kairos took a deep breath.

He didn't even slightly believe that he was lucky, or that this should be congratulated. After all, there were far too many other 'lucky' people that died before him.

Not wanting to participate, Kairos wondered if he could brute force himself out of this situation.

After putting down the sack of green orbs, he took out the thin spear he had, holding it horizontally with both hands.

After sucking in a sharp breath, Kairos shot forth, scattering the dirt underneath him.

A loud bang resounded.

Kairos had hit the invisible barrier with the tip of his spear. Both of his hands clenched tightly onto it, and the force of the impact was quite impressive.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

In fact, both of Kairos' hands were trembling. He was pretty sure that this barrier was stronger than diamond. And far stronger than that as well.

Kairos expected this outcome. After all, he was sure that many others would've tried to do the same thing.

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Kairos picked the sack back up and looked towards the mana crystal in the center.

[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]

He did not move.

[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]

Kairos furrowed his brows, taking a few steps forward. The messages temporarily stopped appearing, though he was definitely moving at a slow pace.

Upon reaching the crest of the small hill, he stopped.

[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]

Kairos' eyebrow twitched.

[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]

[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]

[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]

With every system message that appeared, Kairos couldn't help but feel more unsettled. However, it was when they abruptly stopped, that he felt far worse.

A minute passed, before a standalone message appeared.

[Toxic gas released. Please approach the large mana crystal to avoid death!]

Kairos cursed under his breath before running towards the mana crystal.

He saw in his future vision that the toxic gas had appeared, but not the system message.

As such, when he saw that it said to get to the mana crystal, he did not wait.

Kairos covered his nose and shut his mouth tightly while a light green mist appeared in the air. The color didn't look foreboding, but the effects were definitely not light.

Unfortunately, while Kairos was not breathing, this seemed to be a poison that would seep in through the skin.

He quickly found that his eyes began burning up like they had been lit aflame, thus he closed them tightly. As for his skin, it began aching badly, but more than that was a strange itchy feeling.

To top everything off, his entire body was in pain.

Though his eyes were closed, Kairos quickly found out that his skin was peeling off, falling to the ground. He couldn't help but go even faster despite already not holding back.

But it was then Kairos saw himself tripping in his future vision.

He had stepped on one of the dead bodies.

Kairos quickly changed his footing, stepping over it. Then, the realization that he would have to walk over the mountain of corpses came to his mind. Though he would have a second, it might not even be enough.

Without hesitation, Kairos forced his future vision to extend to two seconds.

He saw himself tripping over a body, thus he quickly corrected it. However, that correction made him trip over another body.

Naturally, he tried something else but suddenly found himself slipping in a puddle of something wet.

Once again, he tried somewhere else, and this time he landed on something fleshy. However, it worked, so he went with it.

Like this, Kairos rushed through using his future vision to just barely stay afloat.

It did not take long for him to feel the outer layer of his body become numb. And soon, he couldn't feel it at all.

Because it had decayed off of his body.

Kairos could feel his muscles begin to weaken under the poison, decaying as well. His body began aching and begging for him to rest.

However, Kairos was not going to listen to it. Especially not right now.

Though that didn't change the fact it was getting harder for him to move forwards.

Kairos thought about consuming one of the green orbs right now, but that it would take too much time. It would only be roughly a second to unwrap the satchel, open a hole, and start drinking it. However, the actual drinking process itself would be five seconds at the fastest.

He didn't think that even if he could constantly drink from the green orb that it could outpace the damage he was taking from the poison.

And so, he decided to continue pushing on, focusing on his steps to walk over the corpses.

As Kairos' body continued to weaken, doubts suddenly began appearing in his mind. The pain was numbing his senses greatly, to the point it was beginning to get really hard to navigate based on his sense of feeling. Yet, even with his eyes closed and covered, they were still burning in pain.

The sense of weakness in his muscles spread further.

Then, some thoughts appeared in his mind.

Thoughts of just… giving up.

What was the point in trying anyway?

Even if he did get over this, his chances of surviving were so low anyway. All of the dead bodies were a testament to this fact.

And even if by some miracle he was saved from here, then he would just be thrust back into the apocalypse. That wasn't the kind of life that was enjoyable anyway. It would be better to just die now and prevent the suffering that would obviously happen.

Kairos couldn't help but be reminded of some memories.

There was only one other time in his entire life that he had these same thoughts, so his thoughts naturally diverged to them.

"Why did you hurt Elliot, apologize now!"

Kairos saw himself facing the principal of the school.

"I already apologized, and I wasn't even trying to hurt him, he just pushed me and I fell on him!"

Another kid standing next to him crossed his arms.

"Hmph! All of my friends saw it, you purposely tried to do that! Now look at the rash I have on my arm!"

That was Elliot, and he exaggeratedly waved his arm around that had a scratch mark on it.

The principal sighed.

"Kairos, you will be expelled right now, if you don't apologize. He has the testimonies of the entire class, they saw everything! I will be notifying your parents."

It was at this point Kairos began despairing.

Because he knew that his parents wouldn't believe him and only scold him more. After all, they had never believed him before.

No, that wasn't fair to say.

After all, nobody believed him.

Ever.

Kairos felt like the entire world around him was disappearing, that he was caught in a vortex of darkness. His being seemed to be slowly fading out of existence.

But that was when something in him had awoken.

It was not a sense of hope, that would let him push forth no matter what.

Nor was it a sense of courage that would let him endlessly charge into the battlefield.

No, it was something far uglier.

Something… cynical.

Perhaps the best way to describe it was schadenfreude. Deriving pleasure from the suffering of others.

Kairos became strangely silent, but bowed sincerely at the principal's office.

"I'm gravely sorry, Elliot."

Elliot seemed surprised, but smiled soon after.

"Glad you can at least recognize you're an asshole."

The principal sighed.

"Kairos, you are suspended for two weeks."

He did not even rebuke Elliot for his words, but Kairos didn't mind.

Two weeks had passed, and he was soon back in school.

Elliot had come to him on the very first day, at the first period.

"Hey, missed me? I need to make up for how long we've been apart."

A strange smile formed on Kairos' face.

"Yes, yes, I did miss you."

Elliot laughed before walking up and reaching out to grab him.

But the moment he was touched, Kairos exaggeratedly fell backwards, and grabbed onto Elliot's arm.

"Ah, help, I'm falling!"

There was one thing he learned as a kid when he broke the three kid's arms from elementary school.

That arms were hard to break, but if one moved the bone covering the joint…

A nasty crack rang out, along with an ear-piercing scream.

…it became pretty easy.

Kairos remembered when he had broken Elliot's arm over the back of his chair.

He apologized furtively afterwards, and when the principal found out, he was both humble in apologizing and even self-demeaning while he did so.

In the end, the principal was convinced that it was an accident, but because Elliot was complaining Kairos still received a light punishment.

Most of the people in class thought it was an accident as well, and became afraid of the fragility of their own bodies considering how easy it looked like one could break their arm.

Elliot was definitely pissed off, but also had to deal with his broken arm. Though he tried to egg on his other friends to harass Kairos, there was something about the way that Kairos had smiled all the time that made the others avoid him.

And the entire time, though he had a distraught expression on his face, he was desperately trying to hold back his laughter, lest he let it out and expose himself.

This side of Kairos wasn't created by his environment. Rather, it was something that always existed within him, but just not far deep below. The only thing that his situation did was wake it out of him.

And it was that very side of him that had come out just now.

As he ran through the toxic gas, feeling his body withering away, there was not even a slight sensation of pain.

Instead, there was a feeling of rage.

Kairos had gotten angry not at the fact his situation was dire, and not at how people had treated him in the past.

Instead, he was angry at himself for having such negative thoughts.

Kairos never really knew why, but whenever he felt that he was slipping down to the bottom of the abyss, it was his anger that would force him out, almost like magma rising from an active volcano.

His entire body was filled with extremely large amounts of adrenaline and began to heat up on its own.

He began running even though it was painful.

He began running even when his body shouldn't have been able to.

He began running to prove to himself that he was greater than this, that he could overcome it.

It was a rather arrogant mentality, but Kairos was never a humble person.

And soon enough, his shoulder hit the mana crystal, after climbing up the bones that littered the ground.

Almost immediately, mana began surging around him, coating him entirely.

Then before he knew it, he had vanished from his original position.

Once Kairos reappeared, he had found himself in a rather dark and dingy room. Considering how large the crystal was on the outside, it was surprisingly cramped in here.

Though, Kairos couldn't really be focused on all that.

Because his body was still in a terrible state right now. In fact, while the toxic gas had disappeared, the poison was still running rampant within his flesh.

Kairos immediately opened up the sack. He took out the green orb and sliced it as he was bringing it up to his face.

Without delay, he began drinking the healing liquid.

The effects were immediately apparent as Kairos could feel the decay slow down tremendously. By the time he finished drinking the entirety of the contents, the poison had disappeared entirely.

Kairos noted that one of the uses of this green orb was to nullify the effects of poison. And right after that, he took out another one and sliced it open as well.

Though the poison was gone, his injuries were still bad. The effects of the green orb only slightly healed his injuries after dealing with the poison.

As Kairos drank the healing liquid once more, he could feel his aching body be soothed.

Blackened parts of his body began shedding. As for whether it was flesh or skin, Kairos could not tell. Weakened hairs also began falling out of his head while new ones came to replace it.

Kairos felt the stress he had from abusing his future vision also melt away, like ice cream on a sunny day.

His bright red muscles reappeared, while skin coated over them soon after.

Kairos didn't have much fat before, but a lot of it had disappeared from the decay. As such, his muscles were now very sharply defined.

Because he was relatively lanky beforehand, he didn't look that bulky, but still looked like a professional bodybuilder nonetheless.

It did not take long for his entire body to be restored to functioning condition.

Kairos let out a soft sigh, staring at the two tiny green marbles that were on the cold stone floor next to him. He picked them up and pocketed them without too much hesitation, now having three of these marbles.

Kairos did a quick count of the green orbs he had and counted twelve in total.

As he wondered what would've happened if he didn't collect these green orbs, he couldn't help but shudder.

His death would've been inevitable, because the system was so unforgiving that it wouldn't even get rid of the poison after he had obeyed its command.

[Entered Dungeon – 1.0 points awarded]

Kairos raised an eyebrow after seeing those rewards. Although it wasn't an exaggerated amount of points, it was still a healthy amount. He could only imagine each point would matter far more once one rose in grade.

He cracked his neck and opened his status panel to get a grasp over his situation.

[Status]

[ID: 345315364923]

[Rank: 467/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]

[Objective: Clear Dungeon]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 3.0]

[Stats –

Strength – 11.0

Endurance – 10.0

Agility – 11.6

Willpower – 4.9

Mana Capacity – 9.0

Magic Affinity – 7.2]

[Special Abilities: Fire Spell (F), Pulse Spell (F)]

[Inborn Abilities: Shattered Truth (F)]

[Hide]

Kairos noticed the objective changed to clear the dungeon, but didn't place too much emphasis on it.

Instead, he began thinking about what he should invest his points into.

His first instinct was to put more into his mana capacity, as having more magic seemed to be quite beneficial to him. However, he also thought about where he was.

Wasn't this the interior of a mana crystal?

Logically, there should be at least some source of mana somewhere.

With those thoughts in mind, Kairos stood up and observed his surroundings a little more closely.

The room was just a tad larger than the room in his own house. It was in the shape of a square and made out of gray stone. Embedded in the roof was a small blue crystal that emitted a strong light that lit up the room. Despite being blue itself, the light that it emitted was white.

Unlike a normal room, there wasn't a single piece of furniture, almost making it as bad as the average college dorm.

Almost.

On the other hand, there was a rather foreboding-looking cased opening that led into a giant swirl of misty blue mana. The mana was so dense that Kairos couldn't see further behind it.

On the opposite side, was… what looked like a reception area.

There was a square hole carved out in the middle of the wall to reveal another room, and behind it was what looked like a person. It appeared to be a blonde-haired and blue-eyed woman that was wearing a suit for whatever reason.

She had a cordial smile on her face while both hands were clasped together and at her waist.

In just a second, Kairos was able to tell that it wasn't a real person. That was because he immediately realized that shadows on her body didn't make any sense given the lighting in the room.

He walked closer to it and was even more convinced.

His depth perception told him that it was actually completely flat, instead of an actual projection. Once Kairos was next to the image of the person, it began to talk rather robotically.

"Hello! Welcome to the dungeon!"

The mouth of the image shifted between an open mouth and closed mouth sporadically to imitate talking. It was almost like Kairos was watching an unbelievably low-budget anime that couldn't bother using more than two frames for any form of speech.

Kairos walked to the side and saw that the person really was two-dimensional. He concluded that it was a holographic projection, then posed a question.

"How do I leave this place?"

The projection replied immediately.

"Just leave that hallway, and you will be taken to the first floor! You can view your floor progress and currency just by asking me!"

A status panel appeared next to the projection.

[Floor Level: 0]

[Dungeon Currency: 1]

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"What can the currency be used for?"

The projection replied curtly.

"For buying products from the shop! Do you want to be redirected to the shop page?"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Um, ok?"

The status panel changed.

[Shop]

[Bread and Water – 1 point]

[Fried Rice and Milk – 3 points]

[Steak and Wine – 5 points]

[Blanket – 4 points]

[Bed – 10 points]

[More]

Kairos' eyelid twitched. It was becoming quite clear to him that this was more of a prison compared to anything else. Now, it seemed like he was going to have to pay for his own basic necessities.

His only hope was that he would be able to acquire them anyway through other methods, but decided not to think about it too much.

Out of curiosity, he tapped on the more option.

[Insufficient Floor Level]

Kairos cracked his neck.

"…So, how do I get points?"

The projection eagerly spoke up.

"Clearing floors will award points!"

Kairos blinked a few times.

"…How many?"

The projection paused for a moment.

"Different amounts depending on the difficulty!"

Kairos took a deep breath.

"How do I leave this dungeon? Not just going to a different floor."

The projection did not respond for thirty seconds, just standing there awkwardly. Then, it responded.

"Upon clearing all floors, the participant will naturally be granted leave from the dungeon!"

Kairos pressed his lips together.

"And how many floors are there?"

The projection did not respond. Kairos waited for a while, but it didn't seem to want to give an answer any time soon.

He was beginning to realize what this place meant by dungeon. It wasn't the video game definition, a place to get loot.

Instead, it was the literal definition, a prison cell.

After letting out a soft sigh Kairos walked away from the projection and had another look at his status panel. He currently had three points to work with.

His physical stats were the highest right now, with magic lagging behind slightly. His willpower was the lowest, but Kairos felt that the willpower stat seemed to be rather low performance compared to the others.

Kairos guessed that it might become useful later on, but as of right now, he couldn't be bothered to increase it.

Once again, he naturally gravitated towards increasing his magical stats, in particular the mana capacity.

But then he remembered that the green orbs were able to restore mana. Though Kairos was definitely concerned about his limited supply of green orbs, it would probably be inevitable that he was going to use them.

As such, mana would naturally come with it.

That left increasing his magic affinity, or more into his physical stats.

Kairos thought back to when he charged his pulse spell nearly to its limits. The sheer force of it was able to essentially blow away the walls of a building like it was made out of sand.

…And that discouraged him from putting more points into magic affinity.

Because wasn't that already powerful enough?

With those thoughts in mind, Kairos found himself eyeing his physical stats, even when he never really valued them before.

With a sigh, he put in those points.

[Strength: 11.0 – 12.0 3.0 – 2.0]

[Endurance: 10.0 – 11.0 2.0 – 1.0]

[Agility: 11.6 – 12.6 1.0 – 0]

And so, Kairos began walking towards the foreboding door, on his way to the first floor.

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Something that surprised Kairos slightly was that even after he had added three total points to his overall status, he didn't feel hungry afterwards. Though he could definitely tell that the evolution was still consuming the energy in his body, the aftereffects were not felt.

After a moment of deliberation, he realized that it must've been because of the liquid he drank from the green orbs. Other than the healing, mana restoration, and stress relief, there was also a property that made it quite nutritional.

Kairos reminded himself once more to be smart about how he used the green orbs considering how many things they could do.

And with that, he set foot into the dense misty mana.

It felt as though his leg was pushing through water, but that water didn't provide all that much resistance and wasn't wet. There didn't seem to be any solid surface for his foot to be placed on, but it was held up nonetheless. It gave his body the instinctive feeling that he was falling, though logically he knew that he wasn't.

Kairos decided not to think about it too much and continue to push through, stepping forth with his other leg as well. He closed his eyes, but the bright blue light that came from the mana seeped past his eyelids to blind him anyway.

Kairos felt as though he was falling through the air for a few moments. It wasn't the most comfortable feeling, especially with the glaring bright light that assaulted his eyes. However, it soon came to an end, as Kairos found himself once again in a dark and dingy stone room.

Except this time, it was far smaller, and only had one hallway up ahead.

[Advance to the next floor to clear this level]

Kairos blinked a few times, wondering why the system couldn't be just a little bit more detailed, perhaps describing the situation he was in or the obstacles he had to face.

However, he didn't harp on it.

With nowhere else to go, Kairos began walking down the corridor with his spear in one hand and bag of green orbs in the other.

As he was advancing down the hallway, he suddenly took a step back.

Though nothing happened in reality.

Kairos saw in his future vision that if he took a step forward, then a spear would suddenly shoot out of the wall. His reaction time was enough to dodge it, though he ended up dodging a little too early, as it hadn't actually happened yet.

He realized that this seemed to be because of his heightened agility stat. The fact that his reaction time was so quick now wasn't something that he was used to.

Though, it seemed that this hallway was filled with traps, and would thus give him a great opportunity to get used to it.

Kairos massaged his temple with the tip of his finger before taking a step forth. He saw a spear shoot out of the wall and held back the urge to immediately dodge. Then once the spear came out in reality, Kairos took a step back.

With a bang, a stone spear shot out and hit the other side of the wall. There were no cracks in the wall where it hit despite hitting with quite the heavy impact. As for the spear, it remained attached to the wall, the length spanning the entirety of the hallway.

After a second or so, it began to slowly retract back into the wall, almost like a viper.

Kairos waited for it to go halfway before putting his foot back in the place that activated the trap last. However, nothing happened.

He then waited for the trap to retract completely, disappearing into the wall like it was never there. From there, he placed his foot at that place once more, before retracting it.

The spear shot out and hit the opposite wall with a bang, an awfully familiar scene.

Kairos rubbed his chin. It seemed that these traps could continually activate, making them renewable in a sense. However, there was also a cooldown of sorts while the trap was retracting back into the wall.

In other words, he wouldn't be able to slowly trigger traps one by one to make it through, as they would eventually reset.

Though, that wasn't too big of a deal to him.

Kairos bent his knees slightly and hunched over. Then, after tensing up one foot, he abruptly bolted forwards.

Several spears shot out of the wall, from every angle. However, they were unable to touch Kairos before he shot past him. For a second, he thought that this was going to be quite easy as he just had to be fast enough.

However, he was quickly proven wrong, as he saw a spear shoot towards where he would've been. Nonetheless, Kairos was easily able to dodge it by twisting his body slightly, not needing to rely on his future vision.

As he continued forth, the spears seemed to be able to predict where he would be based on his speed. Considering there were at least two spears that shot out from varying angles for every step he took, Kairos had to slow down significantly to dodge.

As a spear shot out from the side and towards his head, he leaned back, letting it pass by his face. A spear then shot out of the ground, forcing him to slide to the side. While they were retracting, Kairos continued to go forth.

A spear shot out from each side of the wall, forcing him to take another step back.

It was then Kairos felt a strong pain in his foot from his future vision.

He grit his teeth and moved his foot out of the way. Right when he did, a spear shot up out of the ground.

A bit of sweat came down from his forehead.

The spears seemed to be able to predict his movements, like they were learning his patterns. Kairos clicked his tongue and continued while the spears were retracting.

This time, he decided to move more erratically, opting to pause randomly. Spears ended up launching out of the wall before he had even stepped there. From there, he slowly walked past the spears before suddenly bolting forth.

By the time the spears shot out, Kairos had already been gone.

It was almost like whatever was controlling the spears was getting confused. The spears continued to shoot out, but they had become far more random. Though, because it was much more random, it had become far easier for Kairos to dodge.

It seemed that his movements were still trying to be predicted, but weren't able to do so.

Kairos was moving randomly and doing a good job at it. One thing that he had learned from probability was that people tended to believe one possibility was more likely to happen if another one had happened first. However, this was false.

An example would be that most people would think flipping heads on a coin four times in a row would almost never happen. But in reality, it was actually relatively common, assuming that there were enough trials.

As such, Kairos would frequently repeat the same action several times over before randomly switching to another one. The spears that were initially trying to predict his movements seemed to give up altogether after just a minute had passed, opting to randomly shoot out.

Unfortunately, because Kairos could see them all happening, it wasn't really random to him.

He got by quite easily.

And before he knew it, he found himself in another room.

Upon stepping inside, both of his feet were tensed, ready to make a sudden movement to dodge. However, nothing happened.

The spears in the corridor behind him gradually retracted.

Kairos surveyed the new room he found himself in. It was quite similar to what he had seen before, made out of stone and being rather dark and dingy. There was only a weak blue light coming from the ceiling. Unlike the last time, where he only had one path to go, there were now three other paths for him to travel through.

One of them was an incredibly wide hallway, where five people could comfortably walk side by side in. Another was a medium hallway, that would just be slightly larger if Kairos stretched out both arms. The last one was very thin, to the point that a person could only fit if they walked sideways through it.

Though, those paths weren't the things that he had first noticed.

"A… a person!"

Rather, it was a man that was inside the room. He looked to be in bad condition, with his skin wrapping around his bones, and frazzled black hair. Ah, and he was also missing a foot.

There was a rather clean cut just above where his ankle should've been.

There was also a steel sword lying next to the man.

When Kairos looked at him, he saw a blurry status panel appear next to the man, making him quite surprised.

The man was cringed in a corner on the opposite side of the room, but he crawled over to Kairos.

"Hello? Could you please give me some food?… Please respond!"

Kairos snapped out of his stupor, ignoring the blurry status panel for now.

"Sorry, I didn't bring any food."

The man blinked a few times.

"What? Then how have you survived here? That bag must be full of food, you liar!"

Kairos shook his head.

"I only got here a few minutes ago. This bag is full of explosives, not food."

He casually unraveled the bag he had, revealing the green orbs. Though Kairos knew that they could double as a food source, and a good one at that, he was unwilling to reveal that information.

The man furrowed his brows.

"No… no… maybe it is edible?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"If you want to explode into tiny little pieces, sure."

The man shuddered.

"But… but… you should have one point from entering the dungeon, right?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"I didn't use it."

The man seemed to be in shock, frozen up in fear.

Silence fell.

Kairos used this time to try and get a better look at the blurry status panel. That was when an idea formed in his mind.

He extended his future vision to be two seconds long.

And then the status panel cleared up.

[Status]

[ID: 064245313420]

[Floor Level: 0]

[Dungeon Currency: 11]

Kairos stopped extending his future vision and massaged his temple. He only saw the information briefly, but got the gist of it. It wasn't the status panel he was used to seeing, but he seemed to be able to see the information of others anyway. The eleven dungeon currency surprised him slightly, but for some reason, he couldn't help but feel strange.

It was unrelated to the currency, but there was just this weird sense like something was familiar, but also not.

Kairos sighed and arbitrarily opened his status panel.

[Private announcement]

[First Ten To Daring Kill (Tenth – by ID: 721432546245)]

[Hide]

It was then that Kairos had a sudden enlightenment. After seeing the announcement, he realized what that ID was. The man starving next to him was the ninth in the world to perform a Daring Kill.

Kairos looked at the man once more, reevaluating him.

He cracked his neck.

"How about this, I can help you get some food after we clear this floor. I should have some points to spare, and I can even get you the steak and wine, if I have enough."

The man's eyes suddenly lit up, however, they turned dull soon after.

"But… it's far too hard. The traps are impossible to cross!"

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Surely you are exaggerating, what do you mean?"

The man shook his head fervently, like he was recalling his trauma and desperately trying to deny it.

"The traps were never made to be cleared in the first place. Surely, you understand that, right?"

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Kairos massaged his temple using the tip of his finger.

"I don't understand, like I told you, I just came here. What do you mean by they were never meant to be cleared?"

The man closed his eyes.

"…I came from a different place, traversing down a hallway where countless swords swung through the air, nearly taking my life on countless occasions. I had just barely made it past, though I had strained my muscles badly in the process."

He then took a deep breath while trembling slightly.

"Then, I found myself in a room. After taking a break, I then went down one of the pathways. There were more traps just like last time. Soon, I found myself in another room with three more paths."

The man looked down to the floor.

"I continued to try going down these paths, but some of them were dead ends while others simply led to another room. And eventually, while trying to make my way through a hallway, my leg was cut off."

Kairos rubbed his chin.

"In other words, it appears to be in the structure of a labyrinth."

The man frowned.

"…It's more like a cage!"

Kairos sighed.

"There are still many paths you haven't traveled to yet, right?"

The man opened and closed his mouth.

"But who's to say there will be an exit on the other side?"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"You don't need anyone to say it, you just have to find out. Have you gone down this thin path?"

The man furrowed his brows.

"N-No, but you really shouldn't go down that one, it will be far too hard to dodge."

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"I'm going to do it. If you want to follow, you can."

The man reached out, while his eyes bulged slightly.

"No, no! You can't!"

His breathing became heavy.

"If you going to just kill yourself, you might as well die here, so I can have something to eat."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"You plan on eating me?"

The man looked at him strangely, with eyes that had become bloodshot.

"If you are going to die anyway, then what's the problem?"

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"…You really think I'm going to die just like that?"

The man scratched his scalp.

"Of course! There's no other way!"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"I just went through that previous hallway without so much as a scratch or even being winded. Do you really think it will be that hard for me?"

The man slammed his fist against the floor.

"That's because it was an easy one!"

Kairos chuckled.

"Well if it's so easy, then why don't you just go and do it?"

The man pointed towards his missing foot.

"How am I supposed to when I'm literally a cripple?"

He shook his head.

"You know what, I don't need to convince you."

Strangely enough, it was then Kairos had the exact same thoughts. Though the man before him probably possessed a certain commendable amount of strength for being one of the people to perform a Daring Kill, his will was too weak, and his character was bad too.

Not to mention, Kairos would also have to invest in him by helping him regenerate his foot, which meant giving up a green orb as well as his secret.

He was fairly sure if he gave one, this would be the type of man to ask for another.

In other words, the man was worthless to Kairos.

The man swiftly reached for the steel sword next to him, showing none of the previous fragility he had before.

Kairos thrust his spear towards the man, but he seemed to be quite capable as he brought the sword to block without even looking.

A clang resounded within the room.

The man immediately retreated and took on a stance, holding the sword with one hand, while the other held out like a claw. He was standing on his stump of a foot without nearly as much trouble as one might expect.

Kairos decided to wait, as he imagined he would win the war of attrition. The man was starving, after all, so he must've been desperate. There was the consideration that his mind was slowly being stressed out but his future vision, but the man didn't know that.

And as such, he rushed forth.

Kairos watched him swing his sword in his future vision. He stepped out of the way and thrust his spear forth.

However, the man reacted promptly, also moving out of the way and shifting the trajectory of his attack.

Kairos gave up on his initial attack and brought the spear up to block.

A loud bang resounded, echoing off of the walls.

Though his initial attack was blocked, the man continued to press down with his sword, forcing a clash. Kairos pushed back, using both hands. Yet, despite the fact the man was only using one hand and was supposedly starving, Kairos felt himself slowly being pushed back.

He was quite surprised, as his strength was twelve points but still on the losing end. The man probably had fifteen points in strength and also knew some techniques that increased his application of force.

Because he was on the losing end, Kairos had the intention of backing off. However, he saw that the moment his foot moved in his future vision, the man would grab his spear.

While furrowing his brows, Kairos let one hand go from the spear. Almost immediately, he began losing the confrontation.

As for the man, he saw this as an opportunity and reached for the spear.

However, Kairos had channeled the fire spell with the minimum mana required for activation, creating a tiny fireball in the palm of his hand. Using his future vision, he cut off the man's hand.

A miniature explosion occurred, followed by the sound of searing flesh.

The fireball had hit right in the center of the opposing palm. With a cry of pain, the man backed off while shaking his free hand. Black smoke was coming out of his palm, along with the smell of cooked meat.

The man seemed to get hungrier because of it. He grit his teeth in anger before rushing forth again.

Kairos kept all of his attention on the man, but in his future vision, he suddenly saw himself get rocked off balance, the floor underneath one of his feet shooting up all of a sudden.

Without questioning it, Kairos preemptively moved to the side.

As he did, a block of earth shot up from the ground. The man's eyes widened in shock, but he did not slow down in his charge.

Kairos saw in his future vision that the ground underneath him would rise once more, disturbing his footing. As such, he decided to move forwards, not wanting to be caught in between the two blocks of earth.

The man furrowed his brows as he slashed. Kairos swung his spear like a sword.

With a bang, they collided.

However, Kairos had no intention of keeping up this confrontation, with the intention of stepping to the side and sliding the spear up the side of the sword to parry it. Yet, the moment he moved his foot, he saw that a block of earth would rise underneath that place, thus he changed his direction midway through.

The man narrowed his eyes as he watched Kairos step away.

He seemed to realize that it was not a fluke that Kairos could predict where the blocks of earth would appear. Though, that didn't mean he had given up on using the earth spell.

The man took a step toward Kairos with an overhead strike. As he did so, the ground underneath him rose at an angle, so that he was on a slope and partly sliding towards Kairos, while his stump of a foot was securely put in place within.

As Kairos had just dodged out of the way, he did not have much time to do so again. Though his agility was his highest stat, it seemed that the man's was even higher. He intended to block, but saw in his future that he would be unable to keep his stance. In fact, even standing up would be a challenge.

If that happened, he would be completely open for the next strike.

As such, he decided to make a rather dangerous move.

Kairos felt the blood rush through his head as he neglected the man's sword entirely while thrusting his spear towards the heart.

Seeing this, the man seemed to be in disbelief. Though he saw this coming, he had already put everything he had into this strike, and thus could not back out now. In fact, the man couldn't even dodge in time.

In the end, he decided to use his free hand to block.

This time, a bang did not resound. Instead, the piercing sound of flesh filled the air.

The sword slammed into Kairos' shoulder, sinking deep into the collarbone and causing a concerning crack to ring out.

On the other hand, the spear pierced through the man's hand messily, and into the chest. Unfortunately, it just barely missed the heart, but was still able to puncture the lung.

The man had purposely held his hand at an angle, thus the spear did not pierce through cleanly, but was instead caught in the bones and forcefully diverted.

Kairos did not wait up and attempted to pull the spear back. Unfortunately, because of how tangled up they were in the bones and flesh, it wasn't that easy.

The man similarly tried to pull out his sword, not falling into a daze despite the pain he was experiencing.

However, Kairos steeled his will and compressed the muscles in his shoulder. It magnified the pain several times over, but it similarly made it difficult for the man to retrieve his weapon.

The moment Kairos had pulled out his spear, he fully intended to thrust it again, but before he could do so, the man jumped back, immediately fleeing. Kairos considered chasing, but the man was faster than him, so he didn't bother.

Instead, he shifted his grip and held it with one hand, leaving his other free.

Once the man had reached the other side of the room, he pressed his forearm against his chest to slow the bleeding. Unfortunately for him, there was nothing he could do to stop his hand from profusely doing so.

His breathing was ragged and clearly painful. Nonetheless, he still found it in himself to spit out words.

"You… don't even care about your own life?"

Kairos chuckled as he tensed up his shoulder muscles to slow the bleeding.

"I do care about my own life. That's why I decided to take a trade when the other options were worse."

The man remained still, staring at Kairos with a new type of gaze. His breathing was still ragged. He created a small block of earth to support his stump of a foot and seemed to be trying to stabilize his condition before moving forth.

As for Kairos, he didn't mind waiting, thus just stood in place.

His injury wasn't by any means light, but he was confident that it was nowhere near the man's. The internal bleeding from his lungs should have put the man on a clock.

Though he would've been confident that it was lethal for the average person, Kairos couldn't say anything with how much people have evolved. Perhaps just five points in endurance were enough for a person to heal from that given enough time.

But still, Kairos was making that assumption in the consideration that the person had the nutrition in their body to support it. Though the man wasn't moving like it, Kairos was still pretty sure he was starving.

After a few minutes, the man seemed to get desperate. His eyes had concerningly large bulging red veins within.

The man took a deep breath.

"You… You were the one that forced me to do this."

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Kairos really wanted to call the man a dumbass for implying that it somehow wasn't his own fault that he was in that situation. Nonetheless, he doubted the man would listen.

If anything, he had probably just blamed Kairos in order to delude himself.

And once a person says something like that, there is no point in trying to convince them.

Kairos could tell that the situation had become dangerous, thus he extended his future vision to two seconds despite the strain. The man's hair rapidly transformed to become gray and feeble. As for the sword, some sort of purple energy began coalescing around it.

Kairos decided not to wait around, and charge up a pulse spell.

A light blue mist began forming around his hand. On the other hand, the man's sword had completely changed, appearing to be nearly black with purple energy festering around it. One side of the blade had become jagged while the tip of the blade curved upwards.

Kairos continued to watch intently, and he suddenly felt a strange cold pain in his heart.

He suddenly realized that the man had shot forth at unbelievably high speeds, to the point that he didn't even register him moving. However, while he didn't catch the movement, his future vision was still enough to tell him when to dodge.

And so he did, abruptly stepping to the side.

A deafening bang shook the room right as he did so.

The man shot forth like a lightning bolt, but his purple sword only ended up hitting the wall. However, he was not discouraged despite the fact he had missed, instead opting to try and slash Kairos once more.

However, before he could do so, Kairos had retaliated with his own spell.

The pulse spell released, making only a soft swish at first.

Before becoming an ear-piercing boom.

The man was blasted back, spitting out blood as he slammed into the wall. His purple sword shot off into the distance before gradually turning back into the normal steel sword.

The man slid down, where his feet hit the ground first, before landing on his rear. A messy bloodstain appeared on the wall where he had slid, but it disappeared rather quickly.

Kairos walked a little closer and let out a soft sigh.

"You really couldn't have just tried to clear the floor with me, huh?"

The man tried to speak but only coughed up blood in the process. Though that was fair enough given his ribcage didn't even hold up its original shape, clearly broken, and giving his torso a strange overall shape.

Kairos held his spear at his side and pulled it back slightly.

The man choked out more blood before raising a hand.

"W-Wait, I'll clear the floor!"

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"And how are you going to clear it like that? You're literally a cripple."

The man cringed.

"No, no, I swear I can!"

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"Well, I don't want you to."

He saw in his future vision that the man would lunge out toward him in a last desperate attempt. Kairos decided to wait for that.

And once the man did lunge out, Kairos' spear whipped through the air.

A disturbing fleshy sound filled the room.

The man's head was torn off of his body, landing to the side. As for his body, it collapsed and slid on the floor for a few centimeters.

[Killed Creature – 0.1 points awarded]

[Dungeon Kill Bonus – 0.4 points awarded]

[Dungeon Currency Transfer – 11 currency added]

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"…It is quite rewarding to kill people, it seems. And now I should have at least twelve of that currency too."

After taking that into consideration, he once again took a closer look at the pathways around him.

He obviously wasn't going to go down the one with spears, as he knew that would be a dead end. However, he wasn't entirely sure which of the other ones he should try. From what the man had said earlier, it sounded like he did not go through the incredibly thin pathway, where one would have to walk sideways to fit through.

After a bit of consideration, Kairos picked up the decapitated head from the floor and shoved it into the thin pathway.

After gaining some distance inside, a dagger suddenly shot out of the wall, piercing the head. Afterwards, the head blackened significantly. The flesh quickly rotted before falling off.

Kairos let go, and by the time the head hit the ground, the only thing left was a skull. After a few moments, that skull was swallowed up by the floor underneath. Any trace of the head was now gone in its entirety.

Kairos furrowed his brows before turning to the body of the man.

It had not begun rotting, but all of the blood around it had disappeared. Kairos picked up the body by the collar bone, trying to ignore the spine that was jutting out awkwardly.

He then took a look at the side that was on the floor.

He was greeted with a fleshy layer. Kairos furrowed his brows. The reason why he knew that was strange was that the organs of the body were gone. It seemed that the dungeon had already consumed them.

Kairos found out the reason why there were so many bones resting just outside of this place.

It was because after their dead bodies were consumed, the dungeon would spit out the bones left over.

After a bit of hesitation, Kairos tried throwing the body into the largest pathway. A fireball suddenly shot out and exploded onto it, torching the body and burning it to ash.

The residual fire quickly died off, and in just a few seconds only bones were left of that corpse as well. They began sinking into the ground just like the skull before disappearing entirely.

And just like that, all traces of the man were gone.

Their fight from earlier didn't even cause a crack in the wall, so the only proof that he actually existed was the steel sword laying on the floor.

Kairos thought about taking the sword, but he frankly didn't think that it would outperform his spear.

For a few minutes, he took several deep breaths while his eyes were tightly shut. He underestimated the effects of how bad using his future vision was.

He didn't even feel slightly hungry even now. The wound on his shoulder had already stopped bleeding and even sealed up.

But the stress his mind was facing was like a nightmare haunting him in reality.

That didn't mean Kairos was going to use one of the green orbs. He waited for the stress to subside while his eyes were closed before moving on. After all, nearly starving to death wasn't his plan. It clearly didn't work out for the last person.

He then tightened his grip on the bag of green orbs before turning sideways into the thin hall. Almost immediately, Kairos realized that the bag wouldn't fit. After a bit of deliberation, he tried to bunch them up so that they would get through. With a quick yank, so that the green orbs wouldn't become a pile again, he pulled it into the thin hallway.

Almost immediately in his future vision, he felt something pierce through his knee. Kairos quickly shifted the position of his leg, letting the dagger hit air. It was then he thought of how the bag might get stabbed open by the daggers.

The hallway of spears had far more space compared to this. It made it so that there weren't actually many occasions at all where he had to reposition the bag so it wasn't stabbed by the spear.

On the other hand, the bag here was spread out, meaning it would easily be pierced by the daggers

Kairos furrowed his brows.

He definitely wasn't willing to give up one of the green orbs just like that.

Kairos spent a few seconds thinking. He realized that he would have to go fast enough so that the daggers wouldn't shoot out again to hit the bag, but slow enough so that they didn't tear through the bag while they were retracting.

…It would be far easier if he extended his future vision to be two seconds long.

Kairos frowned.

But then, he came to a sudden enlightenment.

There was literally no reason to keep his eyes open when the only thing he could see was a small part of the wall. He could extend his future vision while keeping his eyes closed, and the effects of stress should be very small.

And so, that was what Kairos did.

He saw in his future vision that his leg was pierced by the dagger, and quickly moved it. After that, he dragged his bag with him.

Suddenly, he felt a strong pain in his head, prompting him to tilt his head to the side to avoid it. At the same time, he felt the bag get caught by the dagger. Kairos stopped himself from pulling the bag, waiting a little longer.

Yet, he saw that once he tried pulling the bag once more in his future vision, it had already gotten pierced by a dagger.

Kairos grit his teeth and pulled earlier, just barely getting it out of the way.

That was when he felt sharp pains in his chest and arms.

Kairos quickly repositioned them so that they wouldn't get hurt.

Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. It was far harder to do this than expected, but the important point was that he was doing it successfully.

Kairos honed his focus as he gradually dragged the bag of green orbs with him. He was forced to split his concentration into both dodging the daggers but also maintaining the integrity of the bag.

It was quite difficult, to say the least.

In fact, he was quickly finding this to be nearly impossible. Though closing his eyes reduced his stress, he could still feel his head burning in pain. It was getting harder to tell which sensation was his future vision and which was reality. With his focus spread so thin, he was forgetting to even breathe multiple times now.

This reminded Kairos of one time when he tried to write with both hands at the same time. It was just like this time, very difficult. Many times he found himself just not writing with one hand, unable to do the same for the other.

However, he was quite bored at the time, so he decided to stick with trying it. As he continued to try, he was able to write the same letter and the same time fairly quickly and neatly.

Then, as quite a bit more time passed, he was able to write a word with both pencils writing a different half of the word.

After a few days of just doing so, he was able to write two different words at the same time.

It was quite the useless skill, as he could essentially match the same speed with just one hand and also put less focus into it. However, Kairos also remembered reading that a scientific article said it was impossible to multitask.

He didn't actually read the article itself, but he definitely remembered seeing that.

After doing some more research, he realized that the article was actually a very poorly conducted experiment, where just a few people were told to try doing two things at once.

And with one trial, that was it.

Kairos searched through more articles and eventually found that it was found certain people can multitask better than others. And for people with split brains, doing two things at the same time was actually completely natural, though there were many other negative effects of having split brains.

It was then Kairos realized he shouldn't stick to the knowledge that he knew, as countless times it could very well be false.

Which is why he decided never to believe something was impossible.

And so, he decided he was going to overcome this and keep his bag intact, even if the logical odds were almost zero.

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At some point, Kairos no longer thought of himself going down a pathway filled with poisonous daggers. Instead, he began to see everything as a set of patterns and conditions. If he felt pain, he would retract his body. If he felt the bag get caught by the dagger, he would pull a bit faster.

Kairos kept his arm close to his side so that he wouldn't trigger daggers that were far away, thus avoiding a situation where he couldn't pull his bag in time.

It was almost like he had become a machine.

Move now.

Stop then.

Speed up soon.

Kairos wasn't truly thinking anymore. Other than thoughts of performing the task before him, all other thoughts avoided him.

It was to the point that when he felt that the daggers had stopped coming for him, he was confused. Kairos continued to try to move like he did before, but there was no feedback. Eventually, he snapped out of his stupor and opened his eyes.

He was in another room.

Except this one was different. Instead of there being other pathways, it was just one giant room. Kairos would've considered it a dead end if it wasn't for the glowing misty blue pillar in the middle.

After a bit of hesitation, he walked towards the pillar and touched it.

His hand phased through and a familiar water-like sensation came back to Kairos. A possibility formed in his mind, but he was partly in disbelief.

He walked into the blue pillar and had a strange sensation of falling, but not really falling. The misty blue mana wrapped around his body.

Until eventually, he found himself back in his room.

[1st Dungeon Floor Cleared – 50 Dungeon Currency awarded]

[First 25 To Clear First Floor of Dungeon 0032 (25th – by ID: 345315364923) – 5 points awarded]

Kairos blinked a few times, looking at the system notifications.

He was honestly surprised that he had actually gotten a decently large amount of dungeon currency. Though, maybe that was actually just his misconception with his lacking understanding.

Another thing he was surprised about was that he had gotten a top twenty-five achievement as opposed to the traditional top ten. On top of that, it meant that only twenty-four other people had actually been able to pass the first floor of this particular dungeon.

When Kairos recalled all the dead bodies he saw outside he couldn't help but suck in a cold breath. It was almost like one of those post-secondary schools that had an unbelievably low acceptance rate.

Though, when Kairos thought about it, that was pretty reasonable given the difficulty. After all, even just the hallway with spears was hard enough, then you would have to get lucky that one of the paths was actually the correct one.

If it wasn't for the man that had indicated that he cleared most of the other labyrinth, Kairos wouldn't have had such an easy time finding the right path.

He looked over to the holographic projections, standing there completely still with the same smile it always had. After walking a little closer, it began to talk.

"Congratulations on clearing the first floor! Your room will be merged with the dungeon lobby within the next few hours."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Dungeon lobby?"

The projection quickly responded.

"You will join the others that have also cleared the floor! It's a privilege for all those that have worked hard to climb the dungeon."

Kairos' eyelid twitched.

"Can I be excluded from this privilege?"

The projection immediately spoke.

"No."

Kairos blinked a few times before letting out a sigh.

"Can I see my status panel?"

Once he said that a panel appeared next to the projection.

[Status]

[Floor Level: 1]

[Dungeon Currency: 64]

Kairos rubbed his chin.

"Hm… I only remember gaining enough points to have sixty-two."

The projection spoke up.

"That is because certain actions within the floors can also give points, such as passing through hallways. The dungeon is very generous!"

Kairos sighed.

"Sure… could you open the store page?"

The projection complied.

"Of course!"

[Shop]

[Bread and Water – 1 point]

[Fried Rice and Milk – 3 points]

[Steak and Wine – 5 points]

[Blanket – 4 points]

[Bed – 10 points]

[More]

Kairos clicked on the tab that said more, and several other options popped up.

[Proof of Perfection Point – 1 point]

[Random Elemental Spell (1 Available per Participant) – 10 points]

Kairos' eyes widened considerably once he saw what was available.

His fingers immediately began itching to spend his points, but he stopped himself from hastily doing anything. Kairos definitely planned on taking the elemental spell, as he had never seen a way to gain a spell like this elsewhere. With how the conversion system worked, it was basically ten points he could use for evolution, when he spent only five last time.

But although it was overpriced, he still didn't have a shadow of a doubt that he wanted it.

Something so limited was just too valuable, even if its price was normally lower.

Kairos was also very tempted to spend all of the other points on evolution points. After all, the fifty-four points were more than all of his current status points added together.

Nonetheless, he couldn't help but feel there was some sort of caveat.

There was no way that this place was going to be that generous given how stingy it was earlier. Nonetheless, Kairos couldn't see a world where he didn't buy the spell.

And so, he tapped on it.

His mind suddenly felt strangely clear as information became infused in his mind. It almost felt as though he had suddenly grown another limb, but he was able to use it as though he had been born with it.

After a minute or so, Kairos muttered to himself.

"Gale spell?"

He opened up his status panel and saw that there was a new addition to his special abilities.

[Gale Spell (F)]

The first thought that came to mind was that this spell sounded similar to Tori's wind spell. Kairos' impression of the spell was that it was fairly underwhelming compared to the power of the other elemental spells.

However, his spell seemed to be different, for better or for worse.

He was almost full on mana, thus he wasn't too concerned about conserving it. And so, he tested out casting the spell at its minimum mana requirement.

Kairos could tell something had formed just above his four fingers, but he couldn't see it. After a moment of contemplation, he held his fingers out straight and pointed towards a wall.

Suddenly, a whipping sound filled the air before a clear smack.

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

It seemed that this spell conjured a wind blade. He decided to pour more mana into it, enough to form a fireball that was a meter wide.

Faint blue mist had formed around his hand, but other than that, there was nothing showing. Nonetheless, Kairos felt the tip of his fingers get a little heavier as the air around it became quite dense.

The charging time was roughly the same as the fire spell, a couple of seconds.

He then let it loose.

A subtle whistling sound filled the air before a loud bang resounded. His wind blade had collided with the wall, but it was still intact. Kairos closed his eyes and pondered over the power of the spell.

It definitely paled in comparison with the giant explosion the fireball had as well as the flames that came afterward. However, sometimes the flames were undesirable as they could cause some friendly fire.

The gale spell also had the advantage of being invisible. While the pulse spell also had this property, its damage dropped off significantly past a few meters while the gale spell did not have this problem.

Kairos was satisfied with the spell. Though it wasn't anything too different from his current skill set, it helped tie up loose ends.

He then took another look at his status panel.

[Status]

[ID: 345315364923]

[Rank: 471/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup]

[Objective: Clear Dungeon]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 5.5]

[Stats –

Strength – 12.0

Endurance – 11.0

Agility – 12.6

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]

Kairos thought about the projection's words earlier, that his room would be merged with the lobby. That meant he would be placed with other similarly powerful people, thus it was probably best his stats were a little higher.

One thing he could assume was that they had gotten the top 25 achievement, and at a higher rank than him. In other words, they would have far more points. Those that were near the top should have countless points from the achievement alone.

Though Kairos wasn't sure, if there was an increment of 5 points for each rise in rank, that meant the first person to clear the dungeon got 125 points.

Which was quite a terrifying amount.

Kairos thought about evolving, but did not actually have enough evolution energy to do so. The only thing he could hope for was that the others weren't able to evolve either.

With narrowed eyes, he clicked on the option in the shop to buy evolution points.

[Points: 5.5 – 9.5 Dungeon Currency: 54 – 50]

Then, Kairos maxed out his physical stats.

[Strength: 12.0 – 14.9 Points: 9.5 – 6.6]

[Endurance: 11.0 – 14.9 Points: 6.6 – 2.7]

[Agility: 12.6 – 14.9 Points: 2.7 – 0.4]

Kairos took several deep breaths as his body began heating up tremendously. He began sweating fairly badly, but it wasn't too bad overall.

The only slight issue was that he had begun to feel hungry.

It wasn't the kind he normally got from spending so many points, where he couldn't stop himself from tearing through everything around him. However, it would definitely affect him as he moved on.

Though the effects of the green orb were strong, they weren't omnipotent.

Kairos frowned.

He didn't want to spend points on bread and water, especially considering that they had the value of an entire evolution point. Yet, at the same time, he didn't want to consume one of the green orbs just yet.

In the end, Kairos decided to wait and see.

The hallway in his room that used to lead to a glowing blue mist of mana was now blocked off by stone. As such, there was nothing to do for now.

Kairos laid down on the ground and closed his eyes. His shoulder still ached slightly, but it was mostly his head that was hurting. His hunger couldn't compare either, as it wasn't nearly as bad.

He passed time with regulated breathing, deliberately taking air in before expelling it out.

The stress in Kairos' mind gradually lowered, becoming far less painful.

This was actually something he was quite used to doing, as he would frequently have to deal with excessive amounts of stress. This was something that persisted even after he had gotten his glasses.

Only after several years from then, did it calm down by quite a bit.

Kairos sometimes found it a little crazy when he thought back to how bad it was when he didn't have glasses. Most of his days were spent with closed eyes and regulating his breathing to try and lower his stress, just like now.

He honestly had no idea how he had dealt with it before.

Though, it seemed like he would have to learn soon, unless he could get some replacement for his glasses.

Kairos remembered another small issue.

It was almost impossible for him to sleep before he got his glasses, and even if he could, it would be for a few hours at most. The nightmares didn't help either.

And that was something he was experiencing right now.

Though his stress dipped, it still stayed above a certain threshold and made it difficult to feel sleepy.

Nonetheless, he wasn't aiming to sleep right now.

After all, he was going to meet his fellow dungeoneers.

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Kairos was slightly concerned that he would suddenly end up near other people, and be in a position that could entice others to attack. From how rewarding killing the other person was earlier, he was fairly sure that anybody he met would be tempted.

However, it seemed those worries were unnecessary.

A bang abruptly resounded within the room as it jostled violently.

Kairos' eyes flew open as he stumbled up to his feet.

He looked around, but his room looked like it did as before, despite such a huge impact. The projection was still smiling casually as it always did. However, the doorway that was originally blocked off was now open.

Kairos walked over, placing one hand on the side of the doorway before taking in the sight before him.

He didn't really know what he expected, but it looked far more desolate than expected. A massive cavernous expanse was laid out before him, just as dark and dingy as his own room. At the very top, was a giant blue crystal that gave off a white light, making everything more or less visible.

Kairos almost thought that it was just an expanded version of his room, but there were a few differences. He could make out a stone spiral staircase off in the distance that didn't seem to have a structural integrity that made sense.

There were no railings or support beams to keep it up, just stone that kept going upwards.

And to his left, he saw that there were several other empty doorways, just like the one to his own room. Kairos could presume that they were the rooms of the others.

And as expected, there were twenty-four of them off in the distance.

From what Kairos could tell, the vastness of this place was far larger than the mana crystal he had seen before. He wondered if it was actually just an illusion, but not actually that large.

"Hey, Twenty-Five is over here!"

While Kairos was caught up in his own thoughts, he heard the voices of others.

Three people had approached him. He was somewhat expecting people that looked like gangsters or hoodlums, but it seemed he was wrong.

There was a little girl, probably at a similar age as Ling. She had casual wear that was somehow not ragged or dirtied. Her hair was bright blonde while her eyes were sky blue. In her hand was a red karambit knife that seemed a little too big for her, but she still held it rather easily.

Kairos felt a little unsettled by the girl, and it wasn't because of the weapon. Rather, it was because of how her eyes looked. They were slightly wider than normal, making her look quite innocent and curious. However, Kairos could tell that it was fake.

He could only tell because he had learned before that keeping his eyes open at a certain level would make people think you were innocent. Though Kairos usually didn't like doing it because it stressed his head out a little bit, he still did so.

Sometimes he would even practice doing it in the mirror to fool others.

Kairos just had a feeling that the girl was putting on a facade, as opposed to actually being innocent. The difference was so small, that he couldn't even really say what exactly made him think this way.

His best description would be that there was some sort of discordance between the eyes and mouth.

Another person was surprisingly an old man, using a cane to walk. From what Kairos could tell, while the old man did not have to use the cane, it helped him do so faster. He made the assumption that his leg was some sort of prosthetic because it didn't seem to evolve to have the same strength as the rest of his body.

The old man wasn't exaggeratedly old, to the point that he seemed to be on his deathbed, but in modern times he would be considered someone at the age where they were quite vulnerable and could use some help.

He had relatively long hair for a man, with most of them grayed out though the occasional strand was still black. His eyes were only barely open, revealing small slits. As such, it was very difficult to tell what his eye color was. His face wasn't too wrinkled, just bunched up in certain sections.

The overall vibe Kairos got from the old man wasn't a pleasant one either. For some reason, the way he stood almost made him seem like the type that would scream, 'Get off my lawn!'.

Except instead of waving a cane, he would bring out a shotgun and cock it.

Kairos didn't really know why he thought that way, but he did.

As for the last person, this was the one that had called out earlier. It was a young woman fitted in a suit that was quite tidy. From the way she looked, it almost made it feel as though there wasn't actually an apocalypse, but rather just any other workday.

She had long brown hair that was slightly wavy that had reached her waist. Her eyes were bright green, comparable to emeralds.

It almost seemed like she was wearing some sort of lipstick, but that was actually just how it naturally looked. There were two swords resting on her belt, both in sheathes as of now.

The woman had her arms crossed and looked toward Kairos with a bit of curiosity as well as confidence. Though one thing that he had noticed was that there seemed to be vigilance in her eyes.

Kairos was about to speak, but suddenly saw something in his future vision.

Out of nowhere, the woman had drawn her sword and slashed toward him in one swift motion. He had prepared himself to dodge it, but suddenly found that his future vision warped to see that she didn't actually do anything.

It seemed she noticed that he had figured out her intentions.

Kairos narrowed his eyes.

"That's not the nicest way to greet someone."

The woman laughed.

"Oh come on, I haven't actually done anything yet."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"You might as well have."

The woman rubbed her chin with interest, indicated clearly by her smile.

"Why do you seem so scared of us? We are just a humble trio trying to get by."

The little girl looked up to Kairos and slightly parted her lips as though trying to prove her innocence, while the old man looked down at the floor.

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"I would prefer that a group of gangsters rolled up on me."

The woman made an overly shocked expression.

"Eh? Why is that?"

Kairos narrowed his eyes and held his spear out to the side.

"At least then I wouldn't be judged for attacking a woman, an old man, and a kid all at once."

The woman casually raised her hands up in the air and laughed.

"Hey, hey, no need to be hostile…"

She tilted her head to the side slightly.

"How about we start over, my name is Aria, also known as Nineteen."

The girl stammered.

"U-Um, my name is Alice, and some people call me twenty-four."

As for the old man, he spoke rather bluntly and forcefully.

"…I'm Kyle, and I'm the twenty-third person to clear the first floor."

Kairos raised an eyebrow before letting out a soft sigh.

"People usually call me Kairos, but I guess you can call me twenty-five as well, since you guys seem to care about the order that we cleared the floor in."

Aria clapped her hands.

"Haha, that's great, hello Kairos! I hope you enjoy your stay here."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"…Since you're so hospitable, do you mind giving me a quick rundown of this place?"

Aria chuckled.

"Of course, of course. This is the place where most of us spend our time, casually talking to one another just like we are right now."

She then pointed towards the spiral staircase far off in the distance.

"After you climb up that staircase, you can get to the second floor where you can earn points to buy food. Speaking of, how many points do you have?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"I think three? I used most of them to buy steak and wine, I've never had something like it before."

Aria kept a cordial smile on her face, but her body still flinched when she heard what Kairos had 'spent' his points on.

"Ah, you must be joking, right?"

Kairos looked at her with a straight face.

"What do you mean? Is it funny or something?"

Aria let out a soft laugh.

"Well… if you want to gather more points for more, you will have to climb up that spiral staircase and get to work."

Kairos looked at it.

"Guess I should go there after I get a little hungry. Speaking of, do you know how to get to the next floor?"

Aria smiled bitterly.

"Ah, we are trying to figure that out."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Nobody has done it before?"

Aria blinked a few times.

"Well, there might be. None of the top ten are here, so they either died or advanced to a higher floor."

Kairos nodded.

"Well alright, thanks."

Aria tilted her head to the side.

"Say, what is in that bag you are carrying around."

Kairos responded without a second thought.

"Explosives."

Aria was speechless for a few seconds.

"Explosives?"

Kairos nodded.

"Never know when you need to blow something up."

Aria slowly nodded.

"I see."

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

Alice walked up.

"Um, big brother, could I have some bread and water? I'm a little hungry."

She pouted slightly and put her hands behind her back, hiding the knife.

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"Big brother?"

Alice nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes! I'm sure big brother is a generous and kind person."

Kairos nodded to himself.

"Ah, it must be nice to have a big brother like that."

Alice looked slightly confused.

"Um, yes?"

Kairos waved his hand.

"You should introduce me to him sometime."

With that, he began walking towards the spiral staircase while the others looked a little dumbfounded.

His footsteps reverberated within the large cavernous expanse.

Kairos had underestimated how far away the staircase actually was, despite traveling for a few minutes, he was still relatively far away.

Aria caught up with him, along with Alice and Kyle following close behind.

"Hey, wait, wouldn't you like a rundown on how to get points?"

Kairos turned around.

"Uh, I guess?"

Aria smiled as she had before.

"Why don't we make an alliance?"

Kairos let his spear rest against his shoulder.

"Is that the only way you would give me that information?"

Aria laughed.

"Well, it would just make me feel more reassured to share with a person I can call a friend."

Kairos thought about it for a moment.

As much as he didn't like the three, he was sure that the others probably wouldn't be much better. Even if the alliance would be rather fragile.

"…Clearly outline the terms of the alliance and I will consider it."

Aria smiled.

"Oh, it's nothing big. We will just sleep in the same room and keep watch for each other, just so that nobody… disturbs our rest."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"…That's it?"

Aria nodded.

"Yeah."

Kairos couldn't find fault with it.

"Alright then. Could you explain how I can get points then?"

Aria smiled brightly.

"Yes, yes. Once you climb up the staircase, you will find three pathways. You will see one with lots of blood, that's where you could find monsters to kill and earn points. Another one is pitch black, and once you go inside, you won't be able to see at all. There are red crystals that if collected will get you a point."

Kairos nodded.

"And the last pathway?"

Aria pressed her lips together.

"It looks like the hallway of an ordinary house."

She muttered under her breath.

"Never go in there."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"Why shouldn't I go in there?"

Aria's eyelid twitched slightly.

"It's just… not good."

Kairos sighed.

"I believe you, but could you tell me why it's so dangerous? Like some sort of monster roaming the place?"

Aria looked at him for a little while.

"Well, there are doors on both sides of the hallways. I believe the requirement to get a point is by entering a room and then closing the door while inside."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"…Sounds like a game of chance?"

Aria shrugged her shoulders.

"While none of us know what happened to the first ten, five people have died. And four of them died because of those rooms."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"I see. Thanks for the information."

Aria smiled.

"Haha, alright, have a safe trip!"

Kairos turned around and continued to walk away. Though as he did so, he couldn't help but feel as though the gazes of hyenas were stuck to his back. He was deliberating over the situation as he got closer to the stairs.

Aria was definitely hostile, and chances are, the other two were too. That was evident from how she almost attacked him, but stopped once she realized Kairos could tell.

Yet, she suddenly shifted her stance.

Kairos didn't think that it was a shift of heart. She definitely seemed anxious that he might end up dying, showing genuine concern.

He began thinking of what reasons there could be.

Then he remembered that killing someone would allow one to take all of their points. On top of that, there were a decent amount of evolution points that came with it.

Perhaps that was the reason she proposed the alliance earlier. So that they would have access to when he was most vulnerable.

Once he eventually got a large number of points, they would probably kill him. Maybe they wouldn't have been able to hold back if Kairos told the truth, that he actually had fifty points on him.

Kairos clicked his tongue.

He had to get out of this floor.

And out of this dungeon as well.

The smell of desperation in the air was too much for him.

He soon came across the spiral staircase. It was far larger up close. The simple width of the steps was enough to have two cars drive beside each other with plenty of space in between.

Kairos looked upwards, where the spiral staircase seemed to go up into a black void.

"…This may take a little while."

With a sigh, he began running. Kairos found himself quite surprised at his own speed, which was on the same level as a car.

The tapping sounds of his footsteps reverberated in his ears, while the wind blew past his hair. For a brief moment, Kairos forgot about everything else.

The wide staircase was quite convenient for the sake of running fast, giving him lots of room to go.

His surroundings gradually became darker and darker, until he eventually found himself at the top.

Kairos panted slightly, then looked down the spiral staircase.

A sense of dread immediately filled him as he saw how high up he was. It wasn't a fall that he could survive, that much was for sure.

…Maybe he should've taken greater care in climbing up the steps.

Nonetheless, Kairos decided to focus on other things.

As said, there were three 'hallways'. Though the only issue was that they were more like cavernous expanses. One path had dried blood and seemed to be a vast expanse of emptiness. Another was just pure black.

And the last one consisted of several hallways and doors. The wallpaper had flowers on it and looked rather nice, while the doors were an unassuming brown. They appeared to form some sort of infinite maze, as even from here Kairos could see countless branching paths that seemed to go everywhere.

Though on paper, it sounded a little ridiculous that the most dangerous place wasn't the one that was pitch black or the one that had dried blood littered over it. Yet, when Kairos looked at all the hallways, he couldn't help but feel weirded out.

Even if Aria didn't mention it, Kairos probably wouldn't have taken that place lightly.

It was simply too out of place, like a trap.

With consideration of the other two paths, the one that was pure black was still fairly off-putting to Kairos. Considering that he had no idea what was really inside there, he felt that was fair enough.

And so, he began walking down the bloody path, which was rather large and empty.

Yet, before he had even traveled for a minute, a person suddenly jumped out in front of him.

"Stop right there."

It was a young man, with short black hair like Kairos, except styled. He held out one hand, while the other was in his pocket.

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

The man paused for a second.

"So, you're the new guy, huh?"

Kairos sighed.

"So what if I am?"

The man snuck glances at the bag Kairos was holding as well as the spear.

"Well, if you want to pass, there's a fee. You have to trade in five points for bread and water before giving it to me."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"And if I don't pay?"

The man smiled.

"Then you aren't passing."

Kairos tilted his head to the side slightly.

"And how sure are you of that?"

The man's eyes widened slightly. It was at this point Kairos realized they were bloodshot. He was smiling strangely.

"…I'm willing to bet my life on it, so I'm pretty sure."

Kairos furrowed his brows. He stood still, observing the man for a few more moments. It took a little while, but he noticed that there was actually little to no fat on the man's body.

His muscles were clearly defined and were large enough to make it seem like he was normally built. If the lighting was a bit better, Kairos would've noticed this immediately.

Especially because it couldn't help but remind him of the man on the first floor, who was starving.

At the time, the man also had a decent amount of muscle on him.

In fact, Kairos actually thought he was faking it once the man began fighting. Logically, it made no sense that someone starving could fight that hard.

But now, he reevaluated that opinion.

There was something about the young man in front of him that seemed a bit different. Kairos had experience dealing with bullies, but none of the ones he dealt with before gave the same vibe as the man in front of him.

After a few moments, Kairos sighed.

"To get the bread needed, I will have to go all the way back down. How about you first let me in-"

"No."

The man was shaking slightly.

"No way in hell. You have to pay first."

Kairos found himself unable to speak for a little while.

"…Why aren't you trying to gain points yourself?"

The man did not speak for a while.

"You don't need to know that. Either come back with food, or don't come back at all."

Kairos raised his hands.

"Alright, alright."

He backed off, walking back to the center.

Kairos rubbed his chin before sighing.

"If only there was some way to get a straight answer from people."

He then set his sights on the pitch-black hallway. After a moment of hesitation, he walked inside.

Just as Kairos was told, his vision was abruptly cut off, leaving him in total darkness. He found it oddly comforting, soon realizing that it reduced his stress considerably.

And so, Kairos began walking as though it wasn't actually pitch black, but a beautiful field of flowers.

But he was abruptly taken out of his delusion when he heard some muffled sniffling in the distance.

"Why… why…"

The sounds of messy eating filled the air, like the sound of a pig eating.

"Why…"

Kairos paused, keeping himself as silent as possible. He decided to listen in on the ramblings.

"I… I already ate so much…"

The person in question began hyperventilating.

"Why is it still like this? This is impossible… it has to be. Just one bread was enough for an entire day before! I must be dreaming… yes… dreaming."

A soft laugh resounded.

"My body will be so plump, and all of these useless muscles will all disappear. When I wake up… everything will be different. Yes, I will be living a better life…"

Kairos furrowed his brows. This person sounded just like the man he saw earlier, sounding both dangerous and desperate.

While Kairos wondered how he should get past, strange gurgling sounds filled the air.

Muffled groans of pain soon filled the air as well, along with the sound of some liquid splattering on the ground.

A few moments later, a dull thump along with a clatter rang out.

Kairos felt something roll over and touch his foot.

He decided to forget about what just happened, and kick away the thing that rolled next to him. He put his focus on what the person said.

It sounded like the food that was being provided by the dungeon wasn't enough after a while. Perhaps the food somehow lost effectiveness as a source of nutrition.

Kairos also focused on how the person in question held resentment for their own muscles. Relating to the previous statement, it seemed that they had contributed to his starvation.

Yet, he knew that the human body should've converted muscle into energy once it needed to. So there shouldn't have been a problem…

Unless that mechanism was taken away.

Kairos couldn't help but recollect his own experience with rationing food with the others. It only took them a few days to completely break down, despite having a decently large amount of food.

It seemed that muscles now remained on the body forever.

Kairos' eyebrow couldn't help but twitch, considering he had maxed out his physical stats not too long ago.

He shook his head and decided to try and walk further into the pitch-black hallway.

For the most part, it was silent. Yet, out of nowhere, he began hearing a whispering. Kairos could tell that he wasn't imagining it because he heard it twice.

After a bit of hesitation, he walked towards the whispering.

And it became a little clearer.

"…I will never stop…"

"…die…die…die…"

"…never forgive…"

Kairos furrowed his brows and decided to extend his future vision before walking closer. A strange humming sound filled the air, along with a faint vibration. As Kairos continued to walk closer, he found that the sounds were coming from the ground.

He held his spear with his armpit then reached out towards it, ready to retract if he felt something wrong in his future vision. Though, he only ended up grabbing onto some sort of cube.

Whispers continued to emanate from that cube, making his hand vibrate uncomfortably.

After a few moments of hesitation, he walked out while holding onto it.

Soon, Kairos suddenly found himself back in the light. He looked down at his hand and saw what he expected.

It was a red crystal, like Aria had mentioned earlier.

Murderous mentions continued to emanate from the crystal, but Kairos didn't feel afraid. He could feel that they weren't targeted at him. As for what it was targeted at, he didn't know.

The red crystal gradually began disappearing from his hand, almost like it was dissolving into air.

[Dungeon Currency Transferred – 1 point added]

Kairos blinked a few times.

"That was easy enough."

He decided to go back in, and try for some more. After all, it seemed rather easy the first time.

He scoured for a few minutes.

Then for thirty minutes.

Kairos wanted to go further, thinking he might have gotten unlucky. However, he also considered it would be a little difficult to find his way back if he continued like this. As such, he made his way back.

He ended up spending nearly an hour backtracking as he didn't go the exact right path, but he found himself back in the light soon enough.

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"…It seems that getting this currency is quite difficult."

His gaze then shifted to the hallway with doors.

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