-Vol 5: A New Life-

-Gaint’s Shadow!-

Now alone with only Suguro’s personal secretary accompanying him, Kenshin leaned back on the chair and opened his system. Just as he was about to click on the status screen, a notification popped up.

[Ding! After your first awakening, the system has detected multiple errors with attributes and skill level-ups that couldn’t be simply displayed with the current version. The system is currently undergoing a Complete Upgrade.]

[Total Time: 4D:22H:47M:23S]

[During this level up, the host can use his full stats and Skills. Status screen, Map, System Store will be inaccessible for the period. Only Inventory can be accessed by the host.]

[Although no new quests can be triggered, for the time being, the host should continue with the ongoing quests, if any.]

[Title effects and Equipment Bonuses will remain activated throughout the process of upgrade, but the host can’t change any.]

[Due to Host’s first awakening, a special reward is to be given after the upgrade, please look forward to it.]

“Neat!” Kenshin muttered when he saw it. That would explain why after his awakening, he didn’t get any congratulatory message from the system. Turns out the system itself also going through an awakening process.

Kenshin closed the system and leaned on his chair. Since he couldn’t access system right now, there was no need for him to waste his time staring at that blank screen. Pulling out his new mobile phone, he browsed through all the numbers before arriving at Akari’s number. A smile blossomed on his face. He hadn't talked to her for a few days, and now he was missing her very much. Thinking that her school must have already over for the day, he dialed her number. He had yet to surprise her with the car he had bought.

The call went through…

“Hey, big brother Kenshin!! you finally called me?” a very excited but a little bit tired voice came from the other side. The voice was definitely her, and that upbeat volume couldn’t be duplicated…but her tone was rather long as if she was very tired.

“Hey Akari…your tone! Why does it feels like you are trying your hard to speak normally? Did something happen?” Kenshin was a little worried now. He only has a little sister as his family, if anything happens to her, he couldn’t forgive himself. In the past, he couldn’t even endure a common cold of her, let alone something serious.

“I am alright, just sprained my leg yesterday and now feeling a little under the weather. Nothing to worry, I will recover.” Akari tried to hide at first but felt that with his brother so concerned, she shouldn’t hide it. Besides, with her friends glaring her at her side, how can she lie?

“What? Feeling under the weather? Little sister, can you hand over your phone to your friends, please?” Kenshin said with a worried frown. He wanted to have a little talk with her friends to know what was happening to her.

“Hello, brother Kenshin! I am Harumi, did you remember me?” The girl’s excited voice could be heard, bringing a smile on Kenshin’s face. Without delay, he replied, “Of course I remember you, how can I not? You are all my sister’s precious friends, …haha…”

“Wah! I am so happy. How are you, brother? Everything alright? I heard a huge incident occurred there, there is not much impact on the public right?” of course, such an incident couldn’t be hidden from the public. When Akari came to know this, she first tried Kenshi’s phone. Finding it switched off, she became worried and called Mrs. Yui instead. After confirming that he was not in Mito, she breathed in relief.

“Yeah. It didn’t cause any public unrest. You guys don’t have to worry about me, now please tell me, what happened to her?”

“Well, the day before yesterday, we dragged her to a water theme park. We played there all day before coming back at night. I think her health couldn’t handle it and she fell ill. The doctor diagnosed her to have a simple viral fever. She had taken her medications, she will be recovering back to health in a few days.” Harumi said everything without hiding anything. Laying on her bed, Akari was trying to signal her to hide this matter, but the girl didn’t get her signal at all.

“Haha! I see, so you guys are having fun. It's okay. You people should have fun every now and then. Please take care of my sister and also bring her to all the fun places you can think of. God knows how much that girl had suffered due to my incompetence all these years…” Kenshin became emotional towards the end. He knew how much Akari had been sacrificing since her childhood. She didn’t have parents like others, and her family wasn’t rich. Even with him working day and night, the amount of money he earned was barely enough for their daily necessities.

Hearing her having fun with her friends made him extremely happy. In this life for whom he should earn money if it weren’t for his family? What’s the use of money saved in the bank if no one was there to spend it?

“That’s not true! You are the most competent and caring brother I have ever seen… sometimes your care for Akari makes us two feel jealous, you know! The sacrifices you have made for her, I don’t think everyone could do that…” while Harumi said these, her tone cracked a little, making Kenshin confuse, but he didn’t point that out. He just smiled and said, “Thak you for the praise. Now please take care of yourself and her, okay? Be sure to have as much fun as possible… one shouldn’t waste their school years. Can you hand over the phone to Akari please?”

“We will brother…ah! Yes, here you go!” with that Harumi handed the phone back to Akari. Accepting it, she placed it on her ears and said, “You know what Big brother, you are starting to worry me. Since when did you learn to make little girls cry?”

“What? When did I? you are accusing me out of nothing now. It seems I must teach you a lesson or two.” Kenshin said with mock anger. As for making girls cry comment, he could guess about whom she was talking about.

“Haha…well, I will be waiting to see how you will teach me a lesson. Okay, that aside, brother, is there no problem on your area?”

“Well, it's not that there are no problems, it's just that the aftereffects are yet to be seen. The impacts it would bring yet to be confirmed. Its literally happened for the first time you see. Okay, leaving this aside, Akari, I am sending you some money, use it and have fun as much as you like and I am also sending you a little surprise, you will see it in your phone, hahaha!! Goodbye. Take care, okay.” Kenshin laughed and exchanged some brother-sister nothings with each other before hanging up his phone.

He saw the man beside him frowning, pocketing his mobile; he asked: “What happened?”

“Say, Kenshin, look at this video. It's taken a few kilometers away from here by a passerby…that vague shadow in the distance, doesn’t that look like a man holding a spear?” as he said so, he handed his phone to Kenshin to see the image. Its something currently circulating on the internet and had gone viral in just a few hours.

The image shows a blurry figure of a man holding a spear while sitting on a large rock. It's taken from an angle that makes the image appear unrecognizable between a real human shadow or just an angel of some other huge trees’ shadow.

Either way, it shouldn’t have been a problem if the shadow of the person wouldn’t appear to be as big as a skyscraper. Its as if a giant as sitting there.