-Vol 4: To The North Pole!-

-Meeting Natasha again-

In the morning after Vera reported everything to the Divison commander of DCB, she immediately left for another mission, that was to lead a group of soldiers to retrieve all the low levelled hunters scattered around the north for the earlier mission. The situation had deteriorated really fast, and there was no way to warn them due to network jamming fog. In front of powers that Vera had reported, these hunters would be like lambs waiting to be slaughtered. The DCB couldn’t afford to sacrifice their lives for nothing.

In the end, as much as she wanted to follow Kenshin, she couldn’t just disobey higher up orders.

This, in turn, worked in favor of Kenshin. Without Vera, he could exert his system to fullest and complete the mission. Although she knew about his Burrow skill, there were many other skills that he didn’t want others to find out. It's not like he didn’t trust Vera, but the world was vast, and there might be someone with a skill to read others memories. He couldn’t take the risk. The existence of the system was his biggest secret, one that could change many things in his life if others find out.

As of right now, he was running at his top speed towards the next location pointed on the map. It was approximately 8 Km away from the underground research centre he had gone earlier with Vera.

With his completely unsealed body, his running speed was so fast that it started to create air rings around him whenever he runs. Together with his Highspeed Movements, it was like giving tiger wings. It's because of this skill that he was able to offset some of the serious air pressures around him when he runs fast, or else at the speed he was running, his body should have suffered severe internal injuries.

As he was running at his top speed, he faintly noticed a few white as well as two blue dots in his map ahead. A frown appeared on his face as he saw it, the blue dots were those who he had marked as his temporary allies back inside the DCB tent. As for white, it should be other humans, because monsters always appear as green or purple coloured dots depending on their alignment.

According to his map, five white dots were surrounding the two blue dots. From one look, anyone can deduce that it was not a friendly situation. Seeing this Kenshin slowed down his speed and decided to not intervene. He would have prefered to avoid them if possible, but they were kind of in his way. And he didn’t feel like moving around all the way just so he could avoid them. In the end, he decided to just go through it, if they were really in trouble, then he would help them.

With this, Kenshin doubled his speed and ran towards them.

XXX

“Oi, you dogs of government, how dare you to steal our kill?” a blond haired man screamed as he pointed his sword towards two people who were kneeling on the ground. One man and one girl, the man was bleeding heavily from his stomach while the girl, was too exhausted to stand up. There were many scratches and bruises all over her body. Those wounds didn't look like it was done by a human, it was clearly done by a monster.

Not far from them lay a polar-bear look-like monster with a huge wound in the shape of a concentric circle on its head. It was apparently done by something that was rotating at a very high speed.

“Your kill? Hmph! You cowards ran away the moment you saw that bear, now that we kill it at a heavy price, you claim it belongs to you? So shameless! Are all members of Gilgamesh Guild were like this?” the girl dressed like a punk teenager screamed while panting with exhaustion. She was none other than Natasha, the refreshing lady that Kenshin had met back in DCB tent.

Hearing her words, the five men and one woman bristled in anger and a little shame. It was all true what the girl had said. They had indeed run away when they encountered this bear. If it wasn’t for these two people’s timely appearance, some people of their group might even have died.

Although they knew to accuse them of Kill steal was bad, how could they leave such an enticing monster to them? The world runs around benefits, not humanity. As long as there was some benefit, even long-time enemies could be bosom friends. Besides, these two were clearly wounded so snatching the prey from their hands should be very easy for them, that was what they had thought before cornering them.

But this girl’s words were pretty sharp, reminding them of their guilt over and over again. Actually, it was a taboo to lie and cheat others in their guild as it would affect their reputation as a whole. Although it was an iron-clad rule in the guild, except for higher officials and a few people, not many follow that rule.

“Shut up girl! How dare you call us liers? We are just having a strategic retreat, but it's you who killed that bear and stole our prize. Besides, it’s definitely us who had weakened it.” One of the male hunters in white outfit shouted while others nodded in agreement.

“Shameless!! You guys were really shameless.” Natasha greeted her teeth and said in rightful anger.

“Why are we even talking with her? Let's just kill her and that man and, be on our way.” Another man proposed while leering towards Natasha.

Hering his words, not only Natasha, even other five hunters looked at him in astonishment.

“What are you guys looking at me for? She had already seen us like this, just think what would happen if she has to spread this after returning. Not only the guild’s reputation would be ruined, but our lives would be miserable. We might even face a death sentence.” Seeing that everyone looking at him like he was a lunatic, the man tried to explain himself hastily.

After hearing his words, a realization dawned upon everyone. They realized what kind of mistake they had nearly committed, had they left this girl to go alive today. After taking a deep breath, they nodded at each other as a look of resolution flashed through their eyes.

They were no stranger to killing humans, it wasn’t their first time to commit such atrocious acts. They did it many times in past and had always killed the eyewitness. It was only because of the strength of the couple that they decided to negotiate instead. Had the man didn’t remind them, their judgement would have been still clouded, and they nearly committed a serious mistake.

Looking at the current situation, they realized there was nothing to fear. The had already lost his conscious from excessive bleeding and was halfway through to the death. As for the girl, she was too exhausted to even speak, let alone fight them.

Looking at their changed expression, Natasha couldn’t help but shake a little in fear. As fearless and punk-ish as she was, they were talking about their death after all. Not to mention her, even old men were afraid of being killed untimely.

“That’s right, there’s nothing to fear! We can just kill her, and the man and everything would be solved.” The only woman in the group spoke excitedly.

Hearing their conversation, Natasha realized that she was really going to die today. As such, she closed her eyes and waited for the cold embrace of death to claim him.

“I don’t think so!” at that exact time a very masculine voice tore through the gloomy atmosphere, startling all seven conscious people. As for Natasha, she couldn’t help but open her eyes in hope when she heard a familiar voice reverberating through her ears.

There, in front of her was standing none other than the man whom she had dreamed of all this time, with his hands in pocket and looking at them in a cold and emotionless face.

Kenshin finally made his entrance.