016 FLASH DASH
"Hey bastard! I thought you'd never co… do you know how much stress I've been since your uncle got sick," lody shouted, shaking Dan awake from his sleep.
Dan's eyes fluttered open. "I've been here all night," he replied, swinging his legs over the couch and standing.
lody blinked. She was surprised by Dan's appearance. Dan had grown noticeably taller.
"When did you get so… tall?" she asked, her curiosity was mixed with awe.
Without proper nutrition at ho, it was impossible that Dan would have a chance to grow.
Dan smirked. "I have been growing lately. You just didn't have the chance to notice… you were too busy playing poker."
Previously when he was still living with his uncle's family, Dan often left the house before anyone woke and returned late from the mine. By the ti he ca back, lody was usually already asleep.
She hadn't seen him properly in a while.
Shoving aside the question of his growth, lody crossed her arms. "Where've you been these past few nights? I had to get Beck to cover for you in the hospital. You'd better stay here and watch over your uncle until he recovers."
She expected it was Dan's responsibility to take care of Ralph and not them.
"Didn't Beck tell you?" Dan asked cautiously.
"Becky tell
what?" she replied, confused.
Apparently, Beck had never ntioned snatching Dan from his mock test or losing his dals.
"Ah, never mind. I'll be going," Dan said, already turning toward the door.
"Stay there! You're not supposed to go anywhere!" lody yelled.
The outburst drew the attention of the other patients and visitors. Heads turned. Murmurs rose.
Dan smiled and gave a casual wave. "Hi, I'm Dan," he said loudly.
"I am this sick man's nephew. His own family doesn't want to take care of him, so they dumped the responsibility on . I stayed here all night watching over him… and now my aunt wants
to keep doing it while she goes off to play poker."
He tilted his head innocently. "What do you think?"
The crowd erupted in disapproving grumbles. Fingers pointed. Accusations flew toward lody, branding her careless and heartless.
That was exactly what Dan wanted.
He needed witnesses—people who would rember him, rember that he had been here the entire night. A perfect alibi for the murder committed hours earlier.
Satisfied that every eye had seen him, he added lightly, "Bye."
Then he was gone.
lody lunged after him, but the hallway was already empty. She stomped the floor in frustration, her breath unsteady.
"How does he run so fast?" she muttered, awe and irritation twisting together.
"…Dan."
----
Dan returned to the café outside Heroes' Gym. The handso waiter who had served him yesterday wasn't on duty—probably hospitalized after Dan had taken his Charm the night before.
"Serves him right for being rude."
He sank into his usual corner seat and pulled out his phone, ready to start the day's mining again. This would beco his routine and soon with the help of the app, he would beco strong enough to stop being bullied.
"What the hell is this?" he muttered suddenly.
A notification blinked across the screen, "You have a ssage."
He tapped the ssage. "You have acquired a new ability from your mining target. Do you accept? Y/N."
Curiosity piqued him, so he read on. The ability's na was: Flash Dash.
He clicked Yes imdiately, and the notification vanished.
Dan acquired a new skill from a mining target. In his mind that could only be Mad Cat because he acquired from him a total of four tis. The didn't take more than once from his other mining targets before.
"Did I… just gain an ability from Mad Cat?" he whispered to himself.
He thought it through.
After a mont, a theory ford: this must be a new feature unlocked by the app's recent upgrade. "I have a chance to acquire a victim's skill after acquiring from them repeatedly… or it could be because he killed Mad Cat while he was mining him…those were the two possible explanations," he concluded.
"This is a cruel thod to acquire a skill
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