It would be a lie if he said he instantly recognised the people, but he could identify them as soone he was searching for.
As the streetlights around the plaza lit up, the duo walked into the center of it from opposing directions.
The man on Oliver’s left side was young and barely old enough to be a registered superhuman. He was wearing standard pants and a shirt without any noticeable features. Oliver wouldn’t have noticed him in the crowd if he hadn’t been searching for this young man.
The other man was slightly older. His walking posture had a slight crooked limp. It seed like he was injured while working. From the light armour he wore, Oliver deduced he was a hunter, a low-level one at that.
As he observed the duo on either side of the plaza, glancing at them with the corner of his eye, his fist tightened and clenched. For so reason, he was tense.
"Hey, Oliver, are you going to waste my whole day?"
Achara couldn’t bear the silence and asked.
Oliver, without taking his eyes off the target, shushed.
"Sh..."
Finally, Achara noticed the change in his deanor. Unknowingly, it influenced her too. She focused in the sa direction Oliver was looking, with her body taut.
If there is one thing she knew from her past experience, it was that Oliver could sense danger faster than she could. So, this ti, she instinctively trusted him.
"What is it?" She asked.
"I feel like sothing bad is about to happen."
"You feel! Are you an oracle, perhaps a seer?"
Although Achara asked it like a joke, all the muscles in her body were filling up with an unimaginable amount of mana.
As an A-ranker who specialised in close combat, she was ready to spring into action anyti.
"Neither. I wish I were... Or else I wouldn’t have co here in the first place."
His words rang alarms in Achara’s mind.
"Why is that so?" She asked with her eyes, finally targeting the two people Oliver was looking at.
"..."
However, Oliver didn’t reply after that.
The people he was looking at had closed in, and they were about to bump into each other.
Oliver waited.
A few seconds later, it happened.
The young man, who was slightly distracted by a flashing light on a billboard, accidentally bumped into the hunter. Then, both of them fell to the ground.
Oliver smiled.
’The tiline is not as fucked as I imagined it to be.’ He thought.
He had co to the cafe expecting it to happen, and it happened.
’Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t seem like the flapping of a wing of butterfly is enough to create a storm in this tiline.’
’Although I changed a lot of events that should have happened, it did not influence the current situation.’
’What does that an?’ Breathing out, he thought.
Although he asked himself the two questions, he already knew what it ant.
The first answer would have been that he had not made a splash big enough to be reflected in the tiline. It could or could not be the case. After all, his goal at the ti was to just help his family and protect the city. Was a city-level action good enough to change the flow of ti and send it on an entirely different route? He didn’t think so.
The second answer or thought, on the other hand, was slightly creepy.
’There is sothing out there that is undoing all my hard work. Or a natural corrective chanism was coming into play...’ Oliver thought gloomily.
The second one indirectly ans that the world will go into ruin, whatever he does. It doesn’t matter what he does or when, the end would be the sa and demons would win.
That was an unsettling thought.
’Anyways, it’s not exactly the right ti to think about all that. I need to change the future and prove it’s not. If sothing is standing in my way, I have to stomp on it and walk forward.’
Oliver slowly stood up when he noticed the hunter and the young man picking themselves up from the ground.
The hunter looked furious. He breathed roughly as he looked at the young man who bumped into him.
anwhile, the young smiled apologetically and asked for forgiveness.
There was nothing wrong with the situation just yet. But it wouldn’t stay like that. Oliver knew it.
His body suddenly released a shimring golden light that was almost imperceptible. Only Achara, who was near him, could see that.
At the sa ti, the hunter let out a furious roar. Like sothing inside him had triggered, he raised his hand to strike the young man.
The young man suddenly took a step back and cowered.
It was Oliver’s cue. The golden mana in his body sprang into action, and a thick golden armour materialised around him.
The armour was translucent and had a scaly pattern all over it. Oliver’s sudden appearance and him leaping out of the cafe, breaking the glass panel, caught everyone’s attention.
Oliver, on the other hand, was not thrilled about the appearance of the armour. He silently cursed at it:
’The damned thing only cares about other people.’
He was annoyed.
The golden armour of his was an ability he gained by activating the gold coin in his blood sac. He used it initially in the gate break incident to kill all rodent-type mana beasts that attacked people.
At that ti, he was satisfied with its performance because it increased his strength and defence to a new level.
But "AT THAT TI" had to be stressed.
Soon after, Oliver realised one major flaw of the damned armour. In his own words, it was – "The fucking fuck doesn’t fucking fuck about him at all." It literally translated to–the damned armour doesn’t care about him at all.
Although the armour was strong and powerful, it didn’t appear to protect him. Practically, it ignores all his commands all the ti and does what it wants.
Simply put, the armour was a temperantal one.
Despite all the complaints, he still believed it was useful. Although the armour often disregards him and his thoughts, the nasty thing was always ready if he was using it for a good cause, like saving other people.
’I strongly believe there is so kind of heroic soul trapped inside the damned armour. Fuck, why did it have to be a hero. It would have been better if it had no mind.’
Oliver complained as his body blitzed through the plaza, towards the hunter who was trying to punch the young man.
Imdiately, the armour showed a red glow around his target, the hunter.
Despite his quick reaction, he was not fast enough to stop the initial punch. The strong arm of the hunter moved through the air and smacked the young man on his face, throwing him to the ground.
Usually, normal people would have tried to stop the outburst when they realised they had struck down their opponent. But this man beca even angrier. His eyes turned red as he took a step forward to the young man who was on the floor.
Fortunately, by that ti, Oliver had covered the few dozen ters between them and intervened. His golden glowing body stood in front of the man who was attacking, and stared down nonchalantly.
"Thud."
With a feeble sound, the fist crashed against the golden armour. The scales on it absorbed the force entirely, distributing it across the surface of the body and finally diverting it to the ground. It was as if the man had struck the ground itself.
With a painful expression, the man pulled back his fist.
At the sa ti, Achara, who was just behind Oliver, slipped past him and used her water ability to capture the hunter. Smooth water appeared around the man, covering him in it and locking him in place.
Bumping into the man, falling to the ground, the outburst, getting punched, and being saved all happened too fast for the young man on the ground to compute. He stared up at the golden figure in awe and waited.
Oliver turned around, extended his hand to lift the young man up.
"Are you okay?" He asked while dispersing the mana and releasing the golden armour.
Oliver was not much older than the young man. So, the young man was caught off guard. Still, he nodded, signaling he was okay.
However, he noticed a frown appear on Oliver’s face when he said that.
What does that an? Did he want him to be not okay? The young man rubbed his cheek, which was punched, and thought.
But then he realised that Oliver was not frowning at him. He was looking past him to sowhere behind.
anwhile, Oliver tried to activate the armour again. But the damned thing refused, making his frown deeper.
’The temperantal fucking fucker.’ He roared in his mind.
However, it was too late. He had dispersed the armour too quickly.
Oliver regretted it.
’So, what was the red glow?’ He asked himself and scanned the area behind the young man.
Before he dispersed the armour, he had seen a similar glow of red, the sa kind the armour used to signal who his targets were, behind the young man.
Therefore, there existed a possibility of a third party being involved in the incident.
Then he turned to look at the hunter who was captured. He was looking around as if he was confused.
’A ntal attack of so kind!’ Oliver thought.
Looking at it objectively, the situation was indeed weird. The hunter didn’t really have reason to be that angry. He seed to have been influenced by sothing else.
Reviews
All reviews (0)