-Vol 6: Dusk of An Era-

-Doom Fest(4)-

“Brother, I want that.” Akari acted spoiled, pointing towards a huge ice-cream displayed on the counter. They have traveled around everywhere they could, moving from places to places in Tokyo that looked like warzones, enjoying a family time since long ago. During this time, she had revealed many things about her life in the academy, sharing her funny moments, sad ones, and many more.

She especially stated her frustrations about how she couldn't beat a senior of her’s, but it was just that, a frustration. She seemed to have become a very good friend of that senior who also helps her with her control over wind skills. Knowing all this made Kenshin know about the life her sister was living, far away from the comfort of her home and the shadow of her brother.

In return, Kenshin also told her about various adventures he had and even about the fight other creatures before fighting with those dragon wannabes. Brother and sister also recalled many old tales, funny ones, heartwarming ones about their lives together, and that’s how their afternoon has gone bye. It was going to be late, and Kenshin wanted to return to Mito that night. Although Akari was reluctant to let her brother go, she knew she has to.

“Hey, why the sad face? It's not like I am living in another country. If you want to meet me, you can always give me a call. I will come to you as soon as I can. I would have loved to spend some more time with you, but Mito’s situation was similar to here, though nothing collateral was harmed.” Kenshin smiled, rubbing her head affectionately.

“Alright. You must come to visit me every now and then, brother.” She sniffled, wiping the corner of her eyes before going with the dorm mother who stood at a distance, there to take her to their new but temporary residence.

“Will do, don’t worry.” Said Kenshin as he saw her off before letting out a long and heavy sigh, “now let’s see what’s the commotion is all about.”

He opened the system and selected on the notification panel to see all the notifications that he had snoozed to spent some time with his sister.

[Warning! Please Co-op with other hosts to tackle the crisis.]

[Warning! The situation has escalated to Level 2 Danger scale.]

[Danger scale]

Level 1 will only affect a short region, the damage wouldn’t be of any significance. Level 2 will affect the scale of a small town. Level 3 will affect the scale of several towns to a province. Level 4 will affect several provinces to the scale of one country. Level 5 will affect on a planetary scale.

These three notifications had popped up many times after that.

“What? Level 2?” as he saw the explanations of the danger scale, Kenshin became worried. Currently, this exact mission was being displayed or done by almost all system users in Japan or probably the world. If even with all of their interference, the situation had escalated to level 2, there was a solid reason for him to be more than a little wary… especially when he had just cleaned up that mess of black greasy beings.

Now he fell into a dilemma of whether he should go and join or not, leaving everything at the hands of others. It was a pretty important decision as once he shows in there, he would forever be exposed to those like him, it might be a good thing in the long run, or it might not be. Whatever the outcome might be in the future, he has to live with it.

While thinking of this, his foot carried him to the nearest station. The time was 6 PM, he can still board a train home, or he could accept the mission, switch on the Co-op, and follow the map with his Burrow. What path he should follow… this became his current plight. Landing his ass on a nearby bench, he started to ponder over how he should handle it.

While he was deep in his thoughts, his phone vibrated. He absentmindedly picked it up, “hello?”

“Oh, it’s Mr. Kenshin. Do you remember me?” the voice belonged to a very familiar young lady, someone he just recently had a deal with. He came to his senses and replied, “why did you call me? Haven’t we made a deal that we would never have contact with each other?”

“That we had, but I’m not calling you because I want something. I am here to warn you about something very important.” The young voice was still crispy as ever as if the owner of the said voice was very relaxed despite the content of her words.

“Go on.” Kenshin narrowed his eyes, listening attentively to what she had to say.

“The people you have killed that day, I mean those four people and the lady of the house, they all belonged to a very distinctive guild and a huge one at that. Since you have nearly wiped out the whole of the Kawakuchi family, they have lost a very important source of income and their roots in Ibaraki. Needless to say, you already know what their business is, right? So, you should be careful. That guild has sent a few assassins to find out your identity and kill you, along with everyone related to that incident.” The young woman on the other side’s voice didn’t change even the slightest bit, even though she was talking about assassins here.

“Which guild?” asked Kenshin while narrowing his eyes.

“It’s named The Trifecta, made of three huge terrorist organizations before the catastrophe… well, at least that’s what they claim anyway. Be careful, alright? With this, I think the debt I owed you have been fully paid. We will no longer have any contact after this.” The young lady was just about to cut off the call when Kenshin stopped her with a calm but deep, “wait.”

“What do you want?” it’s only now that the voice on the other side showed a change in her expression. The earlier easygoingness had already vanished as it mildly became defensive from just a single word from Kenshin.

“Living in Saku must have been very hard, right? Especially when you were living in a very high paying job as the PA of the lady of the house of Kawakuchi, don’t you think so Trixie?” Kenshin said mildly as if he was talking to a subordinate.

“You, how did you know where am I?” Trixi became agitated after hearing Kenshin correctly deducing her current location. She lost her earlier cool and became flurried.

Of course, Kenshin knew by scanning her marker on the map. Luckily she was barely within the range of his Map’s AOE. He was currently standing at the station of Tokyo, which was just barely 160 kilometers from where she was at the moment. Kenshin realized that he can even use his Map to mental manipulate someone in ways like these.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. I will always know where you are no matter where you hide in the world. Anyway, don’t worry, I have no other intention… and definitely not anything bad. On the contrary, I have a proposition for you, a deal I am sure you can’t and will not refuse.” A smirk appeared on his face as he made a victory face. The fact that she had yet to cut off the call was meant that she was willing to listen to him.

“How are you so sure that I will not refuse? You sound awfully confident.”

“Hehe, can you say ‘no’ to money and I mean millions here. Of course, equipment of your desire, or unique drops that sometimes I score from my hunts… can you say ‘no’ to these?”

“… what do you want me to do?”

Kenshin’s smirk widened a lot, as his creased brows finally relaxed.