The Earth After Rebirth

If Kiro didn't already know that this was a game he would've mistaken it for the real world. Truly, the head gear's hardware couldn't have hoped keep up with the game's software.

The added updates seemed to have been too heavy for it.

The new pod made everything cleaner and much more realistic than they could've ever imagined. He never had a problem controlling his avatar before, but the transition from the old to the new was clear as day — it was seamless.

"Your dad is pretty amazing." Nikolai complimented.

"Yeah, I wonder if he could take me under his wing?" Hiro asked, a little ashamed.

"I'm sure he'd be happy to have another protégé." Kiro shrugged. "Most importantly, where the hell are we holding this tournament?"

They looked at each other, unbelieving that none of them thought of a possible venue. Kiro thought the system would help him by giving them access to the arena but no answer came from it.

"I have land, just outside the capital. I bought it before joining you guys, I've been letting another guild rent there, I could kick them out." Felix offered them a solution.

"Please do." Kiro pleaded.

While he felt sorry for those who would be displaced with no land available for miles. What they were doing was much more important, they could always rent them back the land after the tournaments are done.

Hiro had the job of building a fighting stage for them. His friend originally wanted to push the tournament back, not wanting to burden his friend.

But Hiro disagreed.

"It'll take me three hours at most." He bragged taking off with Felix to do just that.

Kiro excused himself to go on a dungeon run, he had to test run the new equipment. It felt such a long time since he fought off monsters, the last thing he needed was getting rusty.

"I want to go with." Nikolai told him.

He only planned to take a beast and his spectres but going with someone he could fight the harbingers with wasn't such a bad idea.

So he shrugged in response, telling him to come if he wanted to. But Ishaan chose to stay behind, he'd been in an adventure with just Kiro before and he didn't a repeat. He found himself feeling sorry for Nikolai.

"Which level are you by the way?"

"Level 105, you?"

"109. I guess, I think we can take on a high level dungeon just the two of us."

"Tsk. Of course you're many levels above me. Levelling up seems impossible now. Where are we going anyway?"

"It's a surprise."

It hadn't been long since they stepped out of the capital and Kiro saw him. He was amongst his guild members, chatting happily. Like he didn't do anything wrong.

Nikolai looked him up and down, "can you believe the nerve of that guy?" He said not having intended to walk towards him but his legs did anyway.

Kiro held him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him away towards their goal. They didn't have much time to fool around right now.

"Kiro! Hey! It worked! It worked!"

It was already too late, he'd already seen them.
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He let go of Nikolai, turning his eyes to the voice with nothing but killing intent. Viktor felt it too, that's why his ego shrivelled into nothingness.

But he'd already walked towards them, the smile on his face faded with each step he took towards the man who looked like he wanted to tear him from limb to limb.

Viktor's mouth opened, closed, then opened again. He couldn't exactly find the words. There was no excuse for what he did and he knew it.

"I should beat you into a pulp right now but I don't have the time." He said coldly turning away.

"Look Kiro, I know I messed up but Gilbert threatened me. I had no choice, I would've gone to jail. Blakeson, he has something over me. My daughter, she can't..." He trailed off the words choking him.

"So we can never trust you." He said not having turned to face him still.

"You can, the thing he had is now destroyed. Look, I didn't tell him about you going back, I didn't reveal the details only that the game is real."

Kiro could only scoff at his naivety, of course the Blakeson he knew would never relinquish the power to control others so easily. He was sure he'd made a copy and lied that it was the original.

"The thing that I did—"

"I don't need to know." He cut him off, walking forward, telling him that the conversation was over.

But Viktor was a stubborn one, he chased after them.

"I stole some things back when I didn't have means to provide for my family and Blakeson caught me. We made the deal that he wouldn't tell, he'd just ask for a favour in future."

Kiro stopped on his tracks, that caught his attention.

"Did he ask you to get close to me?" It was an answer he was dreading but he needed to know.

"No. I didn't even know you guys were at odds."

"I'm not gonna tell you what to do. You're older and I'm sure you know this, Blakeson still has the evidence to use against you. You'll forever be his lapdog unless you do something about it."

With that, his strides were faster. This time though, Viktor stood there dumbfounded unable to follow, he knew the kid was right but he didn't know how to deal with someone so powerful. He'd hoped for a relationship to build with Kiro but it was proving to be difficult.

"Weren't you too harsh?" Nikolai now felt sorry for the man.

"If anything, I was too lenient. At least he betrayed us for his daughter, I wouldn't have accepted any answer otherwise." He said with finality.

They didn't walk that far but Kiro made them walk in circles. Nikolai was about to ask what they were doing having gone around three times already but his thoughts were drowned by the usual notification sounds.

Ding!

[Congratulations, you've discovered a hidden dungeon known as the dwelling. It is an S tier ranked dungeon, dwelling with monsters of the same rank.]

"Is it just me or the system is more informative now that we know whats going on?" Nikolai asked crossing the threshold of the dungeon.

"Maybe it's Chronos' way of fast tracking our growth. I mean we don't have the luxury to die anymore, losing experience would be the worst thing possible at the moment."