The Author's POV

"Wow, that's a lot of stuff."

Staring at the commander's dimensional storage, I was amazed by the things he had inside of it. From potions to artifacts, he was loaded.

'Ah, I should check that stuff later, my priority should be the card.'

There was a time and place for everything.

Now was not the time for me to get distracted by the things inside of his dimensional storage.

My priority should be the card. Without it, my escape route was blocked.

"Here."

Thankfully, it didn't take long for me to find it as a black card quickly appeared on the palm of my hands.

Staring at the card, I put it back in my dimensional space and headed for the door.

"...I better hurry out of this place."

The hardest task was completed. All I needed to do now was rush all the way towards the gates at the first level.

"Commander, is everything alright?"

However, just as I was about to leave the place, someone else entered the room. The moment the individual entered and my eyes landed on him, my pupils dilated and my body froze.

"...What are you doing here?"

I muttered out loud.

"Hm? You know me?" Gazing in my direction for a brief moment, Matthew's eyes paused towards a certain corpse behind me. "Commander?"

Upon spotting the commander's dead body, instead of panicking, a wild yellow hue started revolving around his body. With his eyes focused on me, he commanded.

"Ezra! Alisa!"

"You called?"

"What's going on leader?"

At his call, two more people showed up. A wild aura revolved around their body.

"!"

Making eye contact with Matthew who nudged his head in my direction, they immediately got the gist of the situation and got into battle positions.

"You." Unsheathing his saber, Matthew didn't immediately attack. Pointing it in my direction, he said. "From your previous words, it seems as though you know me." Staring at my face for a couple of seconds, a trace of disgust flashed across his eyes. "...but I don't ever recall meeting someone like you. Especially with a face as memorable as yous."

Listening to his words, a light sigh escaped from my lips as I quickly regained my calm.

"Haaa..."

Scratching the back of my head, I muttered out loud. "Your attempt at trying to buy time is honestly pathetic." A green hue suddenly enveloped my body as I placed my hand on the grip of the sword. "Oh, and about what you said before, I don't actually know you, I was just expecting Luther to come by himself."

This part wasn't a lie.

I had originally expected Luther to try to accomplish this mission by himself with the goal of taking the mask for himself in mind. Never did I expect Matthew to show up.

But it didn't matter.

Gazing at Matthew and the three people behind me, neither one of us moved. We were both trying our best to waste time. Him for getting a better understanding of the situation and getting in battle formation with his members, and me for my mana.

'I need to finish this quick.'

I thought to myself, as my eyes peered through the gap of the door behind Matthew and his two companions.

Making sure that there was no one else, I once again looked at them and analyzed their strength.

'Judging from the mana revolving around them, all of them are ranked, with Matthew being slightly stronger at rank.'

This wasn't strange though. For the longest time, Matthew had always been stronger than me.

However, ever since last meeting him, I had finally caught up with him.

Currently, standing opposite to me in a triangular formation with Matthew at the back, they were glaring at me with unprecedented calmness.

It became evident to me that they were extremely experienced individuals.

I was standing, I could see no

worse, Matthew was standing more than ten meters away from me. This was outside of the range of the third movement, thus

to take the

of

called for backup, then the situation would truly start to

think that I was going for the normal gates, it would reduce the chances of me escaping by a certain degree. This,

of the sword, slowly unsheathing the

—Click!

the [Keiki style] :

vision darkened and I appeared in front of the male individual standing in front of Matthew.

—Spurt!

no time

"Huek!"

one looked carefully, they'd

the

quickly dashed

shouted as he watched Alisa dash in my direction. His face was incomparably white. Almost as though he had seen a ghost.

first movement of the

—Click!

rang in the room and another

I turned around and coldly glanced in Matthew's

eyes wide open, raising his hands and pointing towards my direction, trembling he

***

Empty.

Ren getting engulfed by the flames on

disappeared right before his eyes. For

in getting stronger? What do I do? What am

losing what was once his goal, all that was left was nothing but emptiness. Matthew's purpose for strength was gone and

him all alone inside of the Monolith, scraping for merit points by risking his life

state became apparent when during the battle arena matches he

felt empty,

times he wanted to just give

point. However, just when he was about to lose for good, a

Xavier Pearce.

the person who gave him a second

broken self and instilling new ideas and ideals inside of his head, Matthew managed to move on and create new goals for

a while, he had finally shed his old naive self whose only

a reformation that he realized how naive and stupid he

rate. During the

no longer

hell hole, Matthew did whatever he could to survive. He couldn't care less about

want to dwell in the past. He

...Or so he thought.

"H-how?"

half-burned person standing before him, Matthew's hand trembled as

"Yo—"

"Ezra!!"

off was Alisa who screamed as she watched her companion, Ezra, die

"How dare you!"

at Ren, Alisa raised her sword and dashed in his

What are

Matthew shouted as he stared at Alisa. She was no match for

"It's too late."

—Click!

it was too

sound rang out, and a

happened

Too fast.

to keep up. Gazing at Alisa's lifeless

above Alisa, Ren slowly turned

sure you've already figured everything out,

'That familiar voice.'

unable to make the connection

he was

himself down. After that, opening his eyes, he calmly looked

supposed to be

an explosion of that degree

a couple of meters away from him, Ren coldly

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."