"I didn't get his name, but he's right. The portal might not stay for much longer. We might wanna hurry up." Aisha said. Ayuki looked at the newly formed team. The fact that we're all participating in this round would probably mean that all of us aren't aiming for the average job. I would say seventy percent of the people in round two went ahead to the fourth round. There must be around twenty people left now for this round. Aisha and Eran are aiming for the Order Elites just like me; I wonder if some of the rest are as well. "Vanessa, Irid, think you're okay to do this?" Aisha asked. Vanessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm not liking this, but I didn't come here to quit. I'm in!" Vanessa...not sure what to think of her yet. I noticed that she bites her long hair from time to time. I have a feeling she tends to overthink things or just doesn't usually observe the situation calmly. She seems to be an honest person though. Irid nodded. "I-I'll try!" Irid is the youngest of the team. The way she talks, move around, and always holds that staff as if her life depends on it; it's cute. It may be because she's small, but either way, cute is cute. Bayne walked to the portal and partly went inside it. After coming back, he looked at the rest. "Eran went inside the portal that didn't move, right? Which should we aim for?" Bayne is a dependable person. He doesn't have the smartest vibe around him, but he's strong and brave. He might be clumsy though. He's the only one of our team who failed the first mission based on the mud on his legs. The Fes he used before was for protection. He can harden his whole body or parts of it. I wonder if he could stop a steel sword with his bare hands. "Yes," Aisha replied, "he went into the easy one. Hmm, I will join up with stupid Eran. Glen, if you could try to land in the moving portal, and release another smoke signal in the air once you're there, that would be great." "Ah, right," Glen said. "That way, everyone can join up together at one location. Sounds good." Glen is the oldest of this group, bald but still in a very good shape. He seems to enjoy being helpful to other people, always smiling whatever he does. He's always calm too. Aisha gave him a thumbs-up. "Precisely. We need to know which way is better. If we can check both locations, we can compare." We just formed this team, but it's already looking good. We told our names to each other, though I don't expect them to remember it. Fortunately for me, that won't be a problem. The one thing I'm good at so far is memorizing things. I haven't forgotten much so far, I think. I can still recall everyone's Fes abilities that we decided to share with each other in the beginning. Name Fes ability Type Aisha Agility boost Enhancer Eran Movement reducement Manipulator Vanessa Sound reducement Manipulator Irid Healing regeneration boost Enhancer Bayne Body strengthening Attainer Glen Smoke creator Materializer

I told everyone about my possible Fes ability; the so-called premonition or predictive enhancement. Everyone seemed curious about it, so we decided to do the following: whenever we encounter an abnormal situation, I activate my ability and warn them if I sense something. I did activate it when this portal in front us appeared, but I didn't sense anything special. Nothing did happen, so I guess it worked? I should probably use it as much as I can. Since we're in a forest, where there's more Fes, it should increase the regeneration of our Fes usage. This place is actually the best environment to train your ability. Hmm, okay, let me use it now. "Huh," Aisha said, "is something up Ayuki? You're using your Fes now?" "Oh, it's nothing special. I'm just curious to see what I can sense at the moment since I still don't know how my ability exactly works. Perhaps I'll discover something." "Aha, I see." Aisha stared deeply into Ayuki's eyes. "I don't mind. White eyes do suit you somehow; much better than it does on me at least." Ayuki smiled. "Thanks. I'd like to see it on you too." Hmm? I'm feeling a lot happier than usual now. Is this related to my ability? When Ayuki switched her gaze to the rest, she did notice that her feelings slightly changed from person to person. She would feel more anxious looking at Vanessa, stronger motivated when seeing Irid, some confidence radiating from Bayne, and a soothing calmness from Glen. What does this mean? Are these my own feelings or am I experiencing theirs? I never noticed this before. Was it always like this? These feelings might perhaps be related to their future decisions. She looked at every member again. Not only did the feelings vary from person to person, it kept changing too. The more she watched, the more she got convinced that she was sensing their emotions. This isn't a coincidence, right? There should be something I can do with this, something future related. Let's see—if I had to guess which person would volunteer to go next through the portal—I would say it's going to be Glen. She reached her Fes limit and watched him from the side. He looked determined to go, Ayuki could already imagine him opening up his mouth and say: "I'm ready to go". "I'm ready to go." The words were actually spoken, but it came from Bayne's mouth. Ayuki wanted to object, but that would be selfish; not to mention cheating too if she claims to feel the future while forcing things to go that way. Bayne's muscular arms held on the edge of the portal. When he tried putting his feet on the edge, he slipped. It happened so fast, they only had enough time to listen to his low voice that came screaming from above as it quickly stopped. Looks like he is clumsy. "Wow. That was unexpected. Which portal did he fall in?" Glen started to walk forwards. "Nobody saw it, right? Okay, I'll go next," he said, scanning the sky through the portals. "I'll try to go for the moving one, mind helping me out with the timing?" Aisha, Ayuki, and Irid stuck their heads through the portal while Glen was holding on the edge, ready to let go on our sign. Irid however quickly retreated her head from shock; you don't normally see things that high from upside-down after all. Aisha and Ayuki looked at each other. "It's really hard to tell," Aisha said. "We don't how fast you will fall, but I'll try estimating it based on the speed that I saw Eran fall." Her eyes were now white. Will an increased agility help her eye coordination? She followed the speed of the circulating portal with her hand. "Three, two, one, go!" Glen released his grip and he fell straight down. The timing looked great. "Ah!" Aisha said enthusiastically. "Will he make it? Ah, noooo!" He missed the portal and fell into the lowest one. Well, there goes our signaling plan. Ayuki sighed and grabbed the edge of the portal. "Let's just go in quickly, before we miss our chance. I'm just going to aim for the simple one. Hopefully, everyone is together." Aisha and the rest agreed to the quick proposal. Once in position, Ayuki stared down at a height that would surely be her death, would she hit the ground. She gulped. Don't think, don't think, don't think. The distance to the portal below wasn't, fortunately, that big. As she let go of her position, she closed her eyes and awaited her fate. She felt the gravity pulling her down—until it completely changed—and she couldn't tell anymore what was happening. The moment she regained her senses, she was lying on something soft. She opened her eyes. What just happened? Am I safe? She looked a bit around; this was still the forest area, but nobody else was there. "Damn, I shouldn't have closed my eyes. Now I don't know in which portal I—" In front of her on the ground was a big pile of hooks; all the same size. What are these hooks for? She decided to just wait a bit for the other team members to appear, but nobody did come. When she looked around, it looked there were only two directions to choose from: forwards or backward. I guess I should just go then. The moment she picked up one hook, a noise of someone approaching came from her right. "Oh." It was hoody walking her direction. "Hey, what's going on?" He even looked more agitated than before. "Nothing. I'm just trying to finish this damn annoying mission and I ran against another dead-end." "I see... Any idea what these hooks are for?" "The hell should I know. Catching a big fish perhaps. Later." What's his problem? He's always so pissed off and annoyed. It was a kind of awkward, but she still walked behind him since he was most likely going in the right direction. Hoody eventually slowed down and turned around. "Could you not follow me? It's annoying." "I'm not following you. There are only two directions to go. Since you came from a dead-end, that makes this way the only other option..." "Ugh...fine...do what you want." Do what you want? "What's your problem? Why do you have to keep acting so unsociable? Don't you see that this mission is meant to be cooperative?" He didn't respond to her and just kept walking forward. Calm down...calm down... I had trouble getting along with people too so I can relate to him just a bit. I hated it to be treated differently, people talking behind my back all the time, being judged by other people without them trying to know you. It felt a bit like suffocating. There was nobody who could understand me, myself included. The only option I had was not to be a nuisance to others. Things started to change though based on the different encounters I had with people. "There are nice people here you know. People that don't behave like trash. Once you get to know them—" "What does it matter!? Don't you know what happens next? You know what's outside, right? It only has one goal and it doesn't stop until we're all dead. What's the point of having good relationships when you have a high chance of losing them?..." That outburst was unexpected... Isn't the Order making sure that won't happen? Everyone here is doing their best. "Aren't we all preparing ourselves to prevent that from happening? To save this city from destruction?" "This? Preparation? What part of this is helping us to survive? If you ask me, the Order is trying to get as many volunteers as possible, making everything look like it's so fun to do. If that's what you call saving this city, then I don't care about it." He's starting to really piss me off again. "Why do you want to join the Order then!? Why go for it if you don't even care about saving this city?" "I...just want answers. That's all..." Damn, I don't know what to say to him. Will my ability help me to understand him? She decided to activate her ability and looked at him from the back. There was this huge feeling of sorrow perhaps? It wasn't necessarily a hateful thing that Ayuki felt, it was pain. It made her think of a moment that recently helped herself. "You know, for some time I focused on trying to gain people's trust. I focused so much on gaining trust that it almost became my reason for living. Someone had to say it to my face before I realized it myself. This General Assessment made me realize what I really needed. It wasn't the trust that I was looking for, it was myself." "What the hell are you say—?" Ayuki interrupted him. "Have you heard about the recent intruder?" "Yeah." Here goes nothing. "Well, that intruder is me... I have no memories of my past, no family that I know of, no relationship with this city at all. I'm basically a nobody. I initially wanted to join the Order Elites so that I could gain the trust from the Observers and the Order too; they don't like me you see. Some of them think I'm a huge threat to the city and stuff. So far, it didn't occur to me that I had no real personal reason to be here. Why? Because I don't know much about me. But lately, just lately, I'm starting to understand the purpose of this General Assessment. It's not about proving yourself to others. It's about finding who you are as a person, finding out what really thrives you to go forward. For me, it's learning more about myself." Did I talk too much? Did he even listen to what I said? He's been quite for a while now... "What if..." Hoody said, "what if finding out who you are isn't what you hoped it would be?" "Hmm, then I finally know what I need to change, right?" Hoody stopped walking and stood still for a while. "I guess so," he replied. "Thanks...sixty-one." Ayuki snickered. "Pfff...sixty-one? It's Ayuki for your information. What's your name? I don't want to call you hoody anymore." "Hoody? Oh...I see. Hmm, my name..." He took his time as if he never told anyone his name before. "It's Ryuzo."