-Vol 6: Dusk of An Era-

-Doom Fest(9)-

After that initial warning, Kenshin hadn’t received any further notification about the situation escalation. Therefore, it was understandable that he considered this matter closed, thinking that some other hunters managed to take care of it. He, therefore, concentrated on the assassins coming after him. After exiting the train, he didn’t waste time on booking a taxi, opting to run to his home, which was obviously faster.

‘Joy should have already relocated them somewhere else, that’s good. The next phase of my plan will start now.’ He thought up a good plan to trap the assassins. According to Trixie, three should be coming to Mito, as for the two in Tokyo, she didn’t know about them. Recognizing that man in the train was all thanks to a combination of his dragon sense and Map function.

He discovered another interesting function, a way to use the system’s original function in the conjugation of his skills. His map had a default function to label people and objects depending on their alignment towards him. If they are good then green. If they are neutral, then yellow. If they have some hostile thoughts and exposed it even once, it will be red. But, the limitation was that the opponent has to show some sort of hostile intention before the map could identify it.

By involving dragon sense, this limitation of the map was removed. Even now, he still wasn’t sure how this exact skill works, but it could warn him when there’s something dangerous, even though the thing not yet happened. The Map somehow depends on that exact skill effet to warn him of the situation. On the train, the same thing happened as well. Even before he boarded the train, his map warned him of the danger and even pinpointing the source. If he wanted, he could have got rid of that man in Tokyo alone. This was very useful as well as interesting discovery, making Kenshin think what else can he do with the system or how he could incorporate other functions of the system with his skills.

“Joy, where are you?” Kenshin called Joy, asking him about the situation while running at full speed.

“I am in Mrs. Yui’s house. I have left them somewhere else.” Joy’s calm and collected voice came from another side.

“Good, I will reach there in a few minutes max.” after cutting off the call, Kenshin increased his speed, jumping over walls as he did so. His high agility not only increases his body's basic speed but also the processing speed of his brain, thus even while he was running so fast, a situation like ‘tunnel vision’ didn’t occur.

Even before a clock’s second hand could finish its fifth round, Kenshin already arrived at the front gate of his house. Silently he entered the premise and saw everywhere was dark and desolate. He entered Mrs. Yui’s estate because there’s where Joy and Chiba were at.

As soon as Kenshin opened the gate, a punch came out of nowhere, heading toward's his face. This punch was quick, efficient, and didn’t make any sound. Raising his left hand, Kenshin lightly pushed Joy’s approaching fist sideways. From his experience, he knew how hard Joy’s punches were… avoiding was the way to counter it.

“It’s me, calm down,” Kenshin said, only then the punches were stopped. Then he looked towards Chiba, who was ready to cast a skill towards the unknown infiltrator and couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t say anything to her to dissuade her discission, but gave a piece of advice instead, “Chiba, no matter what happens, keep as much distance as possible from your enemies. Your job is to support us, got it?”

“Yes.” She smiled briefly, feeling like finally acknowledged. Actually, Kenshin wouldn’t have allowed her to fight if he wasn’t confident in her abilities. Also, aside from Joy and him, he will have a few helpers to protect her and become her meat shield.

After that, he switched on the lights, “these are powerful hunter assassins. Lights are off or on, it doesn’t matter much.”

Then he called all his zombies, Z1, Z2, Ena, K1, and K2. Then he touched each of their shoulders and used [Shapeshift] skill and changed their appearances to each member of the family. Z1 turned into Miss. Yui and Z2 turned into Ellie. K1 turned into Axel, Kenshin, then looked at the Ena and K2 and fell into a thoughtful stance.

Meanwhile, Joy and Chiba fell into a trance after seeing each zombies changing their shapes and figures. Their resemblance was so uncanny to the people they changed into that if not for the cold look on their faces, they both would never be able to tell apart between real and fakes.

“You all have observed how the people of the house behaved, right? Good, each of you should behave exactly or similarly. If you are unable to do it, simply go and pretend to sleep. In case of a hostage situation, behave like how they do… you have already seen it on TVs, right?” Kenshin started barking orders, giving each of them a task depending upon the person they changed into.

For example, Z2 and K1, who were turned into Ellie and Axel respectively, were ordered to be in their room and play dress up. Ellie often does that with Axel when they were alone. Z1, who transformed into Miss. Yui has to clean the already washed utensils and fiddle around in the kitchen.

Then he looked at Ena and K1, “Ena, your identity’s already been exposed as a hunter. So, I can’t give you a task like them. Therefore, you are to protect Chiba at all costs. K1, your job is to keep an eye on the battlefield as a whole. Whenever you find an enemy distracted or weakened, kill then in one stroke.” After saying so, he touched K1, taking away his earlier skill and gave him [Greater concealment]. Then he used his [Shapeshift] to change K1’s appearance to a random unrecognizable person.

Dusting his hands, he nodded in satisfaction. Now the second part of his plan was also done. All that left was for the assassins to pop in and jump into the traps. Even though it’s not 100%, Kenshin was still 98% sure his plan would work. Many reasons backed his belief, starting from the fact that the assassins only came that morning and not a few days earlier, to observe their target. Second, Kenshin became aware of the situation a bit too early due to Trixie, prompting him to take action almost immediately by coming up with a counter-strategy. Third, it was due to him possessing all kinds of situation savvy skills at his disposal.

A skill to summon intelligent zombies, a skill to change appearance, a skill to give skills to said zombies… all these contributed to formulating this foolproof plan. The poor assassins won't even be able to tell what hit them before they lose their life. If they come to Kenshin directly, they will die faster than they could spell ‘die.’ If they decide to kidnap his family, they would still die at his hands, although a little slower than the first time.

There only death waiting for these guys no matter who they attack first or try to trap him.