-Prelude(2)-

Now left alone, Joy felt lost. The old man’s parting words left him with much to think about, at the same time, the sense of utter uselessness and defeat started to eat him from inside. Even with both of them working together, they couldn’t even manage to bend a single hair on that kid’s body. This was a huge blow to both his pride and confidence.

But, with his pride wound and confidence diminished, a fire that long extinguished reignited in his heart. The fire that pushed him this far, the fire he used to have during his youth. Joy wasn’t a weak-willed individual or overly prideful with his abilities. He always remembered a line that his mom used to say, ‘confidence thrills, but overconfidence kills.’

He remembered it and even tattooed it to his chest so that he would never forget the most important lesson of his life. It was because of this, he quickly recovered from his slump and even managed to reignite the passion for getting stronger.

The total annihilation of a city did cause some ripples in his heart and mind, but he remembered Kenshin saying one thing. They weren't the only ones living in this world. Also, there was no need for them to stick their nose into every matter. Although the slaughter of a whole town had made him very sad and desperate, ultimately he couldn’t do anything about it. Moreover, even if he was here before, he couldn't stop what was bound to happen. Not only the enemy was strong, but he was also overwhelmingly strong, to the point that they couldn’t take a stand against him. Even while the enemy was extremely weakened, they were still defeated in the end without managing to wound him. Had it not for the timely arrival of the old man, they might have already fallen to the enemy.

“I need-no…” Joy stopped midway as he looked at the sleeping Kenshin and said, “We need to get strong together. No matter what, we will never face the same defeat again in the future. Not again! We will grow stronger to the point of standing with our heads held high even against opponents like this kid.” Towards the end, he looked up and shouted at the top of his lungs. It was like a howl of a wild beast that just tasted a defeat.

“Shut up, idiot! I am trying to sleep here, and I also have a splitting headache!! Your howls aren’t helping me a bit, and this isn't the jungle where one can howl at random times.” Kenshin’s shouted angrily and kicked Joy out, before holding his head in pain. He was indeed awake the whole time but was too much in pain to make any movements. Even though he wanted to ask many things to the old man, he couldn’t move his body. And when things calmed down a little, he thought of taking a few seconds rest, but Joy’s howls, which sounded like a monkey’s mating call, increased his pain.

“Oh! You are awake. Kenshin, let’s go and see if we can find any survivors.” Joy stood up as if nothing happened, dusting his pants. Hearing him, Kenshin's return to the ground and facing up. Closing his eyes, he sighed contently, “I am still feeling the aftereffects of using so many skills so instantaneously. You go and scout out the place, I am just taking a quick nap here.”

“Okay.” After that, Joy jumped out of carter and boosted all his senses maximum. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with the foul stench of blood and burning skin and hairs. He nearly vomited at the smell. Covering his mouth, he canceled his skill hastily.

“Shit! It looks like my skill has increased in its power again, the effect nearly made me unable to hold on for a second there…even so, this place, just how many people died here? Did none of the residents managed to flee?” while mumbling, he stepped looked around carefully, this time only using [Boost] on his eyes, that too mildly. Now with his vision enhanced by a few times, he could see everything clearly. But even so, as far as his eyes could see, all he could see was destroyed buildings and carters huge enough to hold a truck, and blood. The roads were either covered with dents or holes or splattered in blood, that’s all he could see of what once a beautiful town with many hot springs and buzzing guests.

“Shit!” seeing this, anger boiled in his heart once again. But he doused those fires again, once again. Being angry won't help him much when the enemy was captured and taken into custody. All he can do was to see if he can find any survivors. As he did so, he came across a huge carter with an old man in the center. This old man was fully charred with his skin burnt off, showing everything below. He was also bleeding profusely from all over his body.

“A survivor?” Joy hastily ran near him and leaned closer to see if the man was really alive, or he was hallucinating. Thankfully he could hear the faint beating of the heart by boosting his hearing to a certain degree. “Thank god, I managed to find a survivor!!” cheering happily, he whipped out a red potion from his pocket and doused it above the old man’s charred body, one drop in each spot. The HP potion did its job as Joy could see them healing at a visible speed. The charred and burnt off skin started to heal as new, pinkish skin grew from them. At the same time, he placed his hand on the old man’s chest and used skill [Boost] to boost the old man’s natural healing abilities.

“My skill definitely grew stronger, this speed of healing! It was impossible before today…” as he saw the old man’s pale complexion becoming rosey, Joy mumbled to himself once again. The effects of his skill had definitely grown stronger as even the healing effect had gotten powerful.

“Cough!! Cough!!” soon, the old man regained his senses as he started to cough violently. After that, he spat out pitch black phlegm to the ground. Then he dry coughed a few more times before wiping out his mouth and looked at the man crouching near him. His eyes flashed as he saw the desolate surrounding, then he tried to stand up, but his legs slipped as he began to fall down, thankfully joy was there.

“Careful, old man.” Joy helped him to sit down on the ground again and handed him the vail of HP potion for him to drink. The old man hesitated to take the bottle, after all, he knew how valuable this thing was. Seeing his hesitation, Joy smiled, “Old man don’t think about the bottle. I have already used a little of it to cure you to this stage, you need this at the moment.”

The old man understood what Joy meant to say and nodded gratefully, then he uncorked the small vial and downed it in one go. The moment he did so, he began feeling hot all over as he broke into another fit of cough. Soon, he coughed out black blood as it splotched into the ground after the last bit of cough had ended. The blood was the same as his phlegm earlier. It was pitch black and highly viscous. After the old man coughed out a few more mouthful of the black blood, he wiped the corner of his mouth and sighed. Facing Joy, he smiled gratefully and said: “Thank you, young man, because of you, this old man was saved from taking a dip in the River Styx.”

“Don’t mention it. I was looking for any survivors, except for you, I find no one…” Joy sadly looked around the destruction. The old man also sighed together with Joy, he also felt down after seeing the town in this state.

“I have also tried to find some survivors before coming here. Unfortunately, no one survived. That damn tiger slaughtered everyone, sigh, as expected of a beast. Ah, yes, I am Takeda, can I know your name, young man.” The old man asked as he introduced himself, turns out he was the same old man who sacrificed his life to open an escape path for Aoi and Co. Unexpectedly he survived until Joy’s lucky arrival.

“I am Joy, nice to meet you. I am here with my friend to observe the situation after we heard the emergency high alert. You must also be a powerful hunter, right old man?”

“Haha, That’s… indeed I am. More specifically, I am a long-ranged Magic skill user.”