Though it pained me to go with this guy, I had to. I had no choice. More like he didn't give me a choice. Just how much of a stalker was he?

Should I have just fried his Excalibur and called it a day? Seemed like a rather nice option at this point.

​​

'Is it me, or am I getting more and more violent thoughts?'

"So, when is he going to show up?" The guy squirmed.

I didn't have any interest in all that. "Probably never." But I was definitely getting more and more violent thoughts, at least towards this guy.

He frowned and we just moved on.

But now that I was inside the city, I got a bad case of nostalgia. 'What if-'What if she was still here, waiting for me?

Though I really liked my long-lost crush, I might have gotten on her bad side with that stupid comment. So, I kind of didn't want to meet her anymore.

With a gulp, I proceeded with caution. But I remembered something else too. "Hey, would my core work I mean-"

"Don't worry. It should work. Though fragments, your core is pretty rare and should work wonders."

"Tell me, how'd you know I got fragments?"

"Umm… Yeah." He walked faster. And went inside the tall building at the center just as quickly.

With a sigh, I followed him.

***

All the elevators were working. But I couldn't let my guard down.

Who knew what could have happened.

"Let's take that one. It's always the less crowded." He pointed at the slowest one. The same one I'd been in the last time. I had a lot of memories, and I didn't want to relieve any of them.

I had a bad feeling about this. "Let's not push our luck."

"Nah, it'll be fine."

He walked on anyway. With a sigh, I followed. He knew this place better than me, so I didn't bother asking too much.

I definitely didn't want to though.

"So, 99th floor, right?" I was about to press on the 99th.

"No, let's give mom a visit first."

"Pass." I pressed 99 anyway.

I did not want to meet that tentacle lady of all things.

He frowned but didn't make a scene. What was he, a girl?

Only two people got in by the fiftieth floor and it took only ten minutes. So far, it wasn't so bad.

And then floor 69 happened.

With a loud noise, one of the strings snapped and the whole compartment shook like crazy. It was unstable if nothing else.

We were stuck exactly halfway between floor 69 and 70. I kind of wanted to punch someone right now.

I pressed the emergency button but nothing happened. And judging from the swaying, we didn't have much time.

"He he." Johnathan ruffled his hair and let out nervous chuckles. Yup, I definitely wanted to punch him.

The two people in here were an old couple and they had basically no expression. I guess they didn't care if they were dying or not. Or maybe they'd just accepted their fate?

I sighed and pulled out my saber. But the moment they saw my black scythe, both of them hugged each other and let out shrieks. They were praying and saying stuff like they were exorcising demons or something.

'Well, what do you know, old people are afraid of the reaper too.'

I didn't know why but I kind of smiled like a maniac.

I controlled it with a 'clear of the throat' and sliced the door open. If anyone said anything, I'd just give them a scare too. I looked up and we were basically hanging by a thread. "I hate to break it to you, but we'd have to jump if we want to live. This'll break down any moment."

The club leader grabbed the old couple and came to the door. "We'll go first."

I wanted to jump first, but I didn't argue. "Go on." I could always jump right after them anyway.

The 69th floor was just a meter away and it only had a glass door, meaning if one had enough force, they could just break their way through, albeit only after suffering through adequate injuries.

The old couple was freaking out but Johnathan jumped anyway. And the moment he jumped, the string got snapped.

'Oh shit.'

Should have seen this coming, I suppose.

Oh shit, indeed.

With a sound that could shred eardrums, the lift started falling: metallic clangs reverberated in the air and it was nauseating. I started floating.

We were high, very high. If I fell from this place, even I wasn't going to come out unscathed even with the barriers. I still formed a round one over myself. I had to create four separate barriers to do this since I couldn't make a spherical one yet. But what about the impact? What if the barriers crack or worse, what if they act as walls and I get smashed?

No matter what I thought about this, I was going to break some bones, there was no doubt about it.

"Flying!" I released my breath. I didn't even realize that I was holding my breath till now. "Whoo!" This was a great time to learn flying, and not die.

But I was definitely just distracting myself from the reality anyway.

Because no matter how I looked at it, just coming out of this while breaking a few bones seemed like the best-case scenario.

I didn't know how I could fly, or more importantly, what flying even was, but sure enough, I didn't want to break my body.

I was inside the barrier, so nothing stopped me from firing off radiation. I got a bit slower and my barrier touched the top wall of the elevator: meaning it was working, kind of. I sliced the elevator through. It seemed my saber could go through the barrier without any fusses. Well, that was handy if nothing else.

My fall slowed down. But I was still falling to my death. So the fundamental problem of my impending doom remained.

Deep breaths weren't helping and I felt more and more breathless by the second.

"Calm down!" Screaming wasn't helping either.

Firing off more radiation was only getting diminishing returns. I had to do something else. But what?

'How about decreasing your density, increasing the density of your surrounding air and using heat radiation as thrust?'

The calm thoughts surfaced on my mind. "I can do that!? Since when?"

There was no answer.

But there was no time either. The bottom floor and the elevator just crashed, giving me roughly five seconds.

Alright! I knew what to do, just not how to do it.

I tried what my thoughts told me: more like I just forced my body to come up with something, and sure enough, it didn't work. I did slow down considerably, but not enough to escape certain bone breakage.

So as a last resort, I shoved my scythe in a nearby wall, cut through two floors, and didn't fall to my death. I really didn't want to do this, as this without a doubt, damaged the building, putting everyone at risk. I'd learned my lesson the last time I tried: I still did this anyway. But oh well, my life was definitely more important to me.

"WHOOH!" I was hanging with one hand while just twenty meters below, there was fire and all sorts of debris. 'Why didn't these morons decommissioned this thing already?'

I really wanted to have a good talk with the manager of this place.

***

Help did come a few minutes later. They all apologized to me and even thanked me for saving the couple. I had no idea what they were talking about though. When the hell did I save anyone other than me?

I didn't know, I didn't care. So instead, I just pretended to be innocent here and cover up the fact that I might or might not have damaged a whole wall while trying not to fall to my death.

It was their fault this happened in the first place, so I didn't have any reason to even attempt to apologize. Nope, I was not the one at fault.

Definitely not.

And I was turning into more and more of a villain.

With a sigh, I just went over to the other elevator. "When will my climbing days be over?"

But before actually going in, I recalled what I thought before. 'Where those the thoughts of the shadow?'

Now that I thought about this, the shadow was helping me more than necessary. Maybe me getting hurt would have been bad for him too, as we were in the same body, after all?

But I did try it out. 'How do you decrease your own density?' I tried to make myself lighter. I didn't know how but I just focused.

I felt heavier instead. My body felt a bit stronger but that was all. I guess this was what I always did before a fight, albeit subconsciously. 'What about the opposite.' I was rather intuitive. But learning things were easy because of that. More like I never paid attention to the small details and guessed my way anyway. And because of that, I often made hundreds of mistakes.

But when I tried the opposite I felt weak and I also had trouble standing up. But I did feel a lot lighter. I covered myself in a barrier and released a bit of infrared radiation. I felt lift, but it wasn't enough to sustain flight.

The guy did mention I've to increase the density of my surroundings too. Then how about- within the barrier, I turned the whole place into a mini nuclear plant. It was awfully dangerous, but I was too absorbed at this point: the barriers kind of spoiled me. But again, I didn't know how to do things, and the air just ended up burning up. I almost burned my lungs in the process. Gosh, I was stupid.

'I guess, I'll just stop for the time being.'

So as a good little boy, which I definitely wasn't, I just took the elevator and hoped for the best. 'Please just work for once.'

Cause I really didn't want to climb more stairs.