The Author's POV

"pfff, you can't even remember the faces of your own teammates?"

Smirking, Jin mockingly looked at Kevin.

"Oh? so you're telling me that you remember the face of all your teammates?"

Raising his brow, Kevin turned around and skeptically looked at Jin.

"..."

Turning around, Jin pretended to have not heard Kevin and walked away.

Dumbfounded, Kevin helplessly looked in Emma and Amanda's direction, only to be left even more speechless.

Swiftly moving around the trees, Emma was currently being chased by Amanda whose face remained expressionless.

-Swish!

-Swish!

-Swish

Taking out her bow. At an inhuman speed, Amanda's fingers danced between the bow and the quiver. Soon, three arrows flew in Emma's direction at a speed that couldn't be seen by the naked eye.

-Thud! -Thud! -Thud!

"Stop! Stop! Stop! I give up!"

Taking cover behind a tree, Emma raised her hands in defeat as she fearfully looked at the arrows that were imbued on the tree she was hiding. Each arrow perfectly penetrated the hard outer shell of the tree. Looking closely, the tip of each arrow was only a few centimeters from Emma's face, sending cold shivers down her spine. If it weren't for the fact that Amanda restrained herself, Emma might've actually died.

Shaking his head, Kevin turned his attention back to the young girl, not before letting out a long sigh. He was starting to doubt whether grouping with them was the right thing to do.

'Maybe if Melissa was here things wouldn't have been as bad...'

Thought Kevin for a moment before shaking his head.

Knowing Melissa's personality, things might've actually turned out for the worse.

Sighing once again, and ignoring the commotion that Amanda and Emma were causing, Kevin squinted his eyes and took a good look at the girl before him.

She was a beautiful, light-skinned young girl with a petite yet curvaceous frame and below-average height. She had long, slightly curly black hair that reached all the way to her back. Her large crystal eyes were slightly covered by short square bangs. She had plump rosy cheeks which accompanied by her short figure made one want to tightly squeeze them.

"Did you come to me to ask me to protect you?"

"N-no!"

Quickly shaking her head, the young girl timidly pointed towards another group of people in the distance.

"They sa-id that they know where the hidden task was..."

"...oh?"

Taking one good look at the members in the distance, Kevin was reminded of the people he had previously seen in the waiting room.

Although he did not remember the young girl, he did remember two out of the four individuals gathered.

They were the most arrogant and prideful of the bunch, so of course, he knew about them.

If he didn't remember wrong, they should've been ranked around the hundreds and were extremely prideful of their ranking. They were so proud and arrogant that they thought that they could fight Kevin on equal terms.

Like they all say...

Powerful people often grew confident, and confident people were often conceited.

Power gets in the head of everyone. Kevin was no better, but because he had a clear goal, he managed to suppress his inner desires.

Shaking his head, he walked towards them

interest in interacting with them, since they knew where the location of the hidden task was, it was only

way

"Ehm.."

girl avoided Kevin's eyes and swiped her

screen appeared in

ID :

Age : 16

Picture : (Holographic image)

: Hero program Year

School Rank : 1078/2055

Potential : Unranked

Profession : Monster tamer

"..Ava? Monster tamer?"

Kevin looked at the information

once again,

thought was the strongest in the

most people would regard things such as swordsmanship, or fancy professions that were flashy and pleasing to the eye as the strongest

Kevin begged to

opinion, the most fearsome out of all the professions was the

person was born with a

a set limit that could never be changed no matter what someone

unless you were Ren

talent was ranked D, then the best you could achieve

you reached your talent limit, no matter how much extra time you

all too familiar with the despair that stemmed

It was so bad that throughout his whole childhood he was bullied for it. While everyone around him showed incredible talent that made them stand above their peers, Kevin was born with a mediocre E-rank talent. The worst possible talent that

the time, his parents who also had low talents blamed themselves for his poor

he was never saddened by his

that was until

to infiltrate his hometown, and

away from any major city, no rescue came until dawn, five hours after the massacre

lives in

you live should be enough to atone

faces, those were the last words his parents had said to him before closing the trapdoor that led to

the immune system. It was almost like a seed had been implanted inside of him, slowly eroding his state of mind. Kevin couldn't remember how many times he had woken up because of the nightmares, only to find

before him when he was in his most dire state, he would've never been able to survive, grow strong enough to rank first in the school

owed everything to

to the system he managed to completely change himself, his body, his talent,

Everything about him changed.

SSS-rank talent over the course of a few months due

But, what determined talent?

was a measure

talent was assed in regards to the profession

was something that could

were able to access mana, strange status windows similar to the ones that appear in

'awakened' happened. Slowly people started familiarizing themselves with mana through which they gained access to supernatural powers. Powers

closely to their status window they would notice that, right below their

your natural

meant that your aptitude towards spearmanship was amplified naturally

in spear arts trained in sword arts, their comprehension would be nowhere near as fast as their spear arts comprehension which was amplified by

different levels of talent in regards to their natural talent. Meaning that even if someone was talented in spear arts, their talent cap was still there. So if your talent cap was D-rank, then in your lifetime you could only be a D-rank Hero who

case of Ava, the reason why Kevin believed her talent was the best, was because

cap

was the monsters, not the

tamer to

could tame an unlimited number of beasts regardless of their potential. Making monster tamers some of the

as a lot of complicated steps were required. Moreover, the financial burden one would incur just to raise a monster could even cause some of

an S-rank pet was

they were fully grown, their daily food consumption alone could

It was just inefficient.

to Kevin, this