Chapter 25

...

Huh? Did we fall asleep? The sky is so dark again suddenly

Oh yeah, we spent the entire last night fighting. No wonder we were so tired.

"Karma..."

Hmm?

Ika is sleeping on my shoulders and is talking in her sleep.

...

Oh right, the sandstorm is over. Let's see if I can contact the other two.

I hover through my navigator and check the message. That's when I realised I have 9 unread messages from Reina.

!!!

What?

I open the messages and read every one of them.

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"Karma!!! Is Ika with you? En and I have decided to rest at our base for the day and await your arrival. Ask Ika where it is, she will guide you there." 8:09 pm

-----------------

8:09 pm...that's yesterday, just after En left.

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"Karma, a sandstorm is brewing. We can feel waves of the wind coming by. A group of players needed to take shelter but En rejected them. They seem to have a grudge with us afterwards now." 1:01 am

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"Karma!! Someone bombed our shelter's entrance. Monsters are coming!" 5:29 am

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!!!!

I clench my fist as I read this message.

It is clear who bombed the entrance. I will find those little shits and kill them.

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"We decided to temporarily relocate our shelter to street 93, block 902, address 14-21. En managed to distract the carnivorous Cerberus by throwing meat at them." 6:02 am

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Cerberus?!!! There is a Cerberus in this city!!! Damn it!! They are about as big as two adults and their level is as high as 100 at night...

I need to be more careful...

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"Help" 7:38 am

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!!!!

...what?

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"They got us." 8:04 am

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"Save us, 1492" 8:05 am

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...

...tch

"Ika, wake up."

"...Hmm? What's wrong?"

I show Ika the message and she immediately becomes sober.

"They were captured?"

I nod. "I don't know where and what this 1492 means but it will be important."

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Task has been updated:

Find and save your teammates before anything happens to them.

Success: +100000 exp, all of the captor's assets

Fails: two team members will be eliminated from the game in the worst possible way.

---------------

Worst possible way huh...

... I don't want to think about it.

"Firstly, let's go to your original base first," I say.

"But they relocated, why?"

"Something might be important there that we need. And we should be careful, there is a Cerberus in this city and can kill both you and me instantly."

-----------

Ika bought me to their shelter which is now in an apartment. I assume this reinforced flat used to be their shelter.

They blew up the entire entrance...

"...What is there to search here." Says Ika.

Hmmm...

I look around and notice that almost everything is looted here. Probably by the captors...

Wait!

I see a small ripped off label on the floor.

This is the black bull logo from black clover...

...i see. There is only one person who would use this kind of copyrighted logo for their team.

I smirk.

"I know who captured them."

"You do!?"

"Yes...i do. Their leader is a man called Recardo."

And he...is a former member of Golden Eagle.

I can remember it clearly.

Although he was not the one stabbing me, he was smiling at my demise. Which means...

HE IS ON MY TERMINATION LIST.

"But, their base is in a high radiation area..." I say.

"What then is Reina and En safe?" Says Ika.

"Most likely for now. The truck they use has a radiation protection system in it. So the question is...how are we going to get in ourselves."

As I say that, a truck pulls up beside the apartment, the bull logo is spray-painted on the trailer.

Wow, speaking of the devil.

"There's our ride," I say.

--------

"Are you sure it's here?" Says one of them.

There are two people visible. There also seems to be no other people in the truck. Good.

"Yeah... I can't find the logo tho."

"What? It should be indestructible. If anyone finds that, they will know it's us and will come for us in the future!"

No wonder this slip of paper isn't destroyed. Too bad, we reached here first.

I sneak behind them and take out my poison injector.

When one of them bends down, I attack the one standing from behind and inject the poison straight into his neck.

!!!!!

"What-"

I covered his mouth as he struggles.

Finally, I let him go.

"Arghhhhhhh!!!!" He drops onto the ground and squeals like a pig.

"Hm? What's the fuss-"

I attack the other before he could react and injected it into his eyes.

"ARGHHHHHHH!!!!"

It's even worse and painful than the treatment I gave to the other guy but I don't care. Attacking this person's neck was an obstacle and going for the eyes is much easier since he is not wearing a spectacle.

Both of them drop onto the floor and rolls around, squealing constantly.

"W-What is this?!??? Ugh!!!! Who is there!!!!"

"Ahhhh!!! My body burns!!! It BURNS!!!! Something is piercing me and setting me on fire!!!! AHHHHHDUZHDJHUGSJ-??..."

The first person I attacked fainted within 5 seconds.

The second fainted within 8.

This was honestly the fastest time someone has fainted over being poisoned. I'm disappointed.

Ika and I both ride the truck.

"Can you drive...?"

"Yeah," I say. "Why?"

"Phew...that's a relief, I can't."

...

"How old are you again?"

"17!!!" Exclaims Ika.

...

"Oh okay."

Ika pouts at my response. She is similar to Reina, I understand why they are friends now.

We drive to the southwest of Polem.

The moon is oddly beautiful than the one in the real world.

While driving, I throw a glance at Ika.

She is staring out of the window and fidgeting with her fingers.

"Hmm...i suppose I will take this time to explain to you things related to this world then," I say.

"Hm? Oh! Okay."

"So firstly... Since this is a battle royale, they can't cram everyone in a single server so there will be duplicates of this world. Each world at least has 10000 people in it and the last team or person(if solo)standing will win this stage."

(Author's note: if every player is crammed into a single world: The only way to win is to kill everyone, so that means the upcoming stages, you will have to face it alone because all the other players are dead. And the developers also want to avoid too much elimination of players in such a short time.)

"Roughly how much are there?" Asks Ika.

"Check your menu," I say. "It's at the top right corner."

Ika fidgets with her menu and finally says "Ah! I found it, I just realised it's there."

"Don't worry, it's not that important anyway. There should be around 3000+ players left right?"

"Eh? Yeah, 3209 players left." Says Ika.

"At the sandstorm today, many people would have died because of blocked vision, sands going into their eyes, nose or mouth and stuff like that, making them very vulnerable to monsters. The only reason we haven't faced any is that we kept applying that scent lotion."

"Oh...then I have a question as well!" Says Ika.

"What is it?"

"D-Do you really not like En?"

I almost crash into something when she says that.

"K-Karma?!! You alright?"

"Yes yes!! I am!!! I do not like En!! She's only like what, 15!!! Come on!!"

!!!...

...oh shit.

"How do you know her age in real life?... Have you met her before, are you two going out?" Says Ika, changing her tone.

Oh no, she is emitting the same aura as the monsters now.

"I-I am only guessing!! Her in-game avatar is so small and short so I thought that she would be that young, that's all!! Besides, why do you girls care so much about this?" I ask.

Upon hearing that, Ika loosens up and sigh.

"Why huh...i see you are that kind of man..." Mumbles Ika.

"Huh?...what kind of man??"

"Nothing~"

...

I really don't get women.