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 gap in their

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

to take

was of the

backup, then the situation would truly start to become

for the normal gates, it would reduce

of the sword, slowly unsheathing the

—Click!

movement of the [Keiki style] :

of the male individual standing in front of Matthew.

—Spurt!

he had no time to react before the sword quickly

"Huek!"

a body fell on the ground. If one looked carefully, they'd see a small hole in the middle of

the

weapon, she quickly

What are you doing!?" Matthew shouted as he watched Alisa dash in my direction. His face was incomparably white. Almost as though he had seen a ghost. Apathetically glancing at Matthew,

first movement of the

—Click!

a subtle clicking sound rang in the

around and coldly glanced in Matthew's direction. "I'm sure you've already figured everything

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

***

Empty.

Ren getting engulfed by the flames on live television,

and goal to strive for power disappeared right before

in getting stronger? What do I do? What am

was nothing but emptiness. Matthew's purpose for strength was gone

all alone inside of the Monolith, scraping for merit

became apparent when during the battle arena matches he almost came close to

empty, alone,

to just give up

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

Xavier Pearce.

the name of the person who gave him a second

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

finally shed his old naive self whose only purpose for growth was

only after he had gone through a reformation that he realized

looking back, Matthew grew at an astonishing rate. During the period he was under Xavier,

no longer

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

want to dwell in the past.

...Or so he thought.

"H-how?"

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

"Yo—"

"Ezra!!"

she watched her companion, Ezra, die right before

"How dare you!"

Ren, Alisa raised her sword and

no! What

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

"It's too late."

—Click!

it was

out, and a

all happened in a

Too fast.

it was almost impossible for him to keep up. Gazing at Alisa's

Ren slowly

you've already figured

'That familiar voice.'

figuring out his opponent, Matthew was unable to make the connection until just now.

he was

calmed himself down. After that,

you supposed to

much more than an explosion

a couple of meters away from him,

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."