Trees were swept off the ground, some with their roots dancing within the dust and debris in the air, while others without their lower half. The more aggressive of the Siamang gibbon pair had swiped its long, muscular arm at Rain, and in return wreaked havoc to the surrounding.

This was not the first time Rain had engaged a Chimera beast in a similar setting, especially with this tactic of attack. He also definitely was not interested in having his ribs being broken by the same method again.

Rain gently removed himself from the path of the fragments of trees in the air. He reworked his steps during his battle with the Mutated Coyotes and closed the distance between him and the gibbon in a flash.

The arboreal, black-furred beast boomed in what seemed to be surprise, its throat sac glowing. But Rain was not feeling obligated to engage it in any conversation.

His gaze remained sharp and his lips flat. He tightened his grip on Alice’s hilt and dug his feet firmly into the soil, the veins in his arm and leg popping as though they were about to burst.

There was not a single shred of doubt in him that he needed this much strength if he was to do any damage to a Chimera beast.

Alice shimmered, her blue luster an ethereal beauty, as Rain cut a deep, jagged trail into the gibbon’s wrist. Each strike landed in rapid succession, connecting red dot after red dot, until he felt the gibbon lose function of its arm.

Immediately after, he rolled into the gap between the beast’s legs as it howled, then further pounced backward to a safe enough distance. A scream catapulted out of his lungs at that moment, “Klein!”

“Roger,” there was an instant, tepid reply from a boy in a sweatshirt and jean jacket as he leapt out of a tree. His azure eyes fixed on the gibbon while his brown hair danced in the wind.

A hoverboard materialized from the shadow of the tree Klein had jumped from, and he landed faultlessly on it as it carried him towards the gibbon.

The beast noticed the boy’s approach, and tried to swing its dominant arm to defend itself, but, alas, it was limp and non responding.

It cried out and fell to the ground on its buttocks while it swung its other arm. Klein, though, nimbly avoided every bit of danger coming his way. It was almost like he was an expert at hoverboarding.

As soon as he got within attacking range of the gibbon, he jumped off the hoverboard, prompting the shadow that formed it to turn into a manriki-gusari and restrain the beast.

The throat sac of the gibbon pulsed slowly, but no sound came out of the beast any longer. It was almost as though it had lost its voice.

Although, Rain could see that the beast had simply accepted its defeat and nigh-death. For reasons obvious to only him, ever since his battle against Archbishop Jude, he’d come to understand the characteristics of beasts more. A portion of his lifespan was gone, and with it some of his humanity.

Klein landed on the gibbon's shoulder. And without wasting a single moment, he extended his arm. His thumb hooked upward, mimicking the hammer of a gun cocking back. The rest of his fingers curled into his hand to touch his palm. Then a blob of shadow condensed on the tip of his index finger.

A second later the condensed shadow shot forward like a brilliant beam of light, blinding brightness replaced by a deep darkness, as it passed through the gibbon’s skull in a precise manner.

The beast fell to the ground with nothing as much as a quiver as Klein vanished from its shoulder and appeared beside Rain.

“Good work,” Rain said almost immediately. Klein nodded.

A rumble shook the woods, and the boy of little words turned his gaze to his left. “Should we help them?”

Rain was still staring at the gibbon they had hunted, precisely where its heart was located. A certain urge was building within him as he began to salivate.

He closed his eyes and clenched his chin in battle against his desires. But as it had been for a while now, it was hard.

“Rain?”

“No. There’s no need. They need it; precisely Sean and J.”

Rain was not sure how much of his lifespan was gone, since whoever this Asklepios was had chosen to make his life a living hell of constant thoughts. One filled with the expectancy of his sudden death due to the cryptic message he had received. Therefore, he’d decided to make sure to grow the children to a height where they would be able to live comfortably. He could not have them being exploited by elders like Archbishop Jude and Nun Cathleen down the line when he was gone.

Which was why for the past week he had been training Sean and had given the boy every experience points he had earned in battle. Sadly, him holding back to the points before transferring them to Sean did not trigger the multiplying effect for the boy. The Plexus realized that it was not Sean’s achievements.

As for Rain himself, besides the little trickle of points his Attributes got from him exerting himself in battle, he had not grown significantly. And since he could not keep giving points to Sean forever, the boy needed to start earning points for himself.

His teaming up with J and the rest of the kids, besides Mei Mei and Jan, was the start of that.

“I’ve been wondering,” Klein cut off Rain’s thoughts. “Is J getting stronger?”

“What do you mean?” Rain knew what the boy meant, he just wanted him to expatiate. After all, strength could mean different things; Alice had taught him that.

Klein was silent for a moment. “Uhm… I’m not sure how to put this, but I guess I’ll try. What I mean is, does she have the Plexus like we do, with the Attributes and all?”

“You know, I never thought to ask her if she had the Attributes Interface. What I asked her was if she was mentally mutated. She said yes, by the way.” Klein listened intently. “Anyways, I think she does receive experience points too, though what she does with it, I’m not sure.”

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His cognizance with J, tacked on with the growing beast nature in him, gave him a subtle feeling of what was going on with his Companion. She was getting stronger, but she was not spending the experience points she was receiving; it was like they were being stored, and once she got to a certain number she would evolve. It was fleeting but he could feel it.

“You can talk to her?” Klein asked. “How?”

Rain smiled. “We used syringes.”

At that moment a loud thud shook the whole scenery, and with it came playful chatters, as well as a message from the Plexus…

[Side Plot: Completed]

Side Character Rain Leclair, and his allies, have successfully eliminated their adversaries.

[Bestowed Reward(s)]

+6 Experience Points (Assignable).

[Proceed to assign?]…

Rain almost frowned. He recalled the Chimera Anaconda giving him five experience points, and he’d thought that was because he had used his Mark. It seemed like the Chimeras didn’t give double digit points.

It was nonsense, in truth.

“They’re done,” Rain said as he sheathed Alice. “Let’s meet with them.”

“What about its meat?” Klein asked, gesturing at the body of the gibbon sprawled on the ground with brain juice oozing out of its head.

“Eh, let’s leave this one to die in peace,” replied Rain. “It’s not like we can eat or store all the meat. We still have the rabbit J brought back too. Food’s aplenty.”

Klein shrugged. “I guess.”

Less than a minute later they crept upon a group they were familiar with, working together to extract the soft and preservable meats of their kill.

Ray was barfing out orders from atop the gibbon’s head in a hoodie and cargo pants similar to Rain’s, only his wasn’t black but gray. While Ella had a soft but sharp gaze as she peered down at Sean who was seated languidly while huffing and puffing.

Rain went to where Ella and Sean were, while Klein moved in the opposite direction.

“I told you, “stay in the rear”,” Ella complained.

Sean was staring at the sky, his expression painted with a solemn tiredness that it almost seemed like he would ignore Ella.

“Staying in the rear won’t make me strong,” Sean rebuked. “Do you want me to remain weak forever?”

Ella folded her lips. “My goodness, Sean. You’re an Elementalist, a Water Warlock, you aren’t meant for the frontlines.”

“This is not fiction, Ella. Those ‘mages stay in the rear’ crap isn’t feasible. What if something happens and I’m all alone? Who’ll be in the vanguard then?”

Wow… Big words… When did he learn to speak like he’s an adult?

Rain was amused. In fact, he’d always been. He’d guessed from the start that the boy could be special, a prodigy, and Sean had not disappointed.

At the time they’d left Glasgow, Sean had still been a Low Level Water Warlock. It had only taken the boy four days to move to the Intermediate Level. While he… He was still a Low Level Blade Saint.

Granted, from what the kids had taught him, even though the concept to advance was the same for every Division and Skill, the practicality wasn’t.

Sean had needed to build his insight on what ways a Water Warlock could become powerful. He’d done so by breaking the restraints his Low Level put on him, which was the requirement of the presence of water.

Sean had stumbled upon the knowledge of extracting water from living things in his surroundings through his creativity, and the Plexus approved of this knowledge as the next step to the Intermediate Level. Then, all it had taken the boy was a day of practice for him to learn how to extract water from even the atmosphere itself. Although, it drained his Stamina quite excessively. He needed more points in that Attribute.

On the other hand, despite the fact that Rain had achieved his insight on what he needed to advance to the Intermediate Level of his Skill, he was unable to put it into practice. After all, how was he expected to cut through every and anything that had tangibility? There were stuff like metal and diamonds among them.

Now that he thought about it, maybe he really deserved his Side Character Role. Although, that was hardly the reason why he didn’t feel inclined to move up his Role despite suddenly having the opportunity.

[Side Character Rain Leclair has achieved the required Level to Advance a Role]…

[A Voting Poll has been triggered]…

[Side Character Rain Leclair has been offered a Role change]…

[New Role: Deuteragonist]…

[Accept Role change?]…

The Plexus had brought up the message as soon as he’d left the Cathedral back at Glasgow, but he’d quickly swiped it away.

It might seem childish, but he loathed the thought of having someone decide what he was and wasn’t; what’s worse was that the ones doing that were those who had turned his life into an unpleasant turmoil. If him remaining as a Side Character despite their wishes to make him a Deuteragonist would spite them, then he was glad to remain as one till his lifespan ran out.

He just hoped that he would have achieved his goals before then. But hope had never been much friends with him.

“I will,” Rain interrupted the children, bringing their gazes towards him. Ella’s lit up, almost unnoticeably. Sean frowned. “Why are you thinking up bad things? What do you mean “who’ll be in the vanguard”?”

The boy looked away. “It’s the truth.”

Rain understood. It would have been stupid of him not to. Alice was dead; that was a hard pill for Sean to swallow. And now the boy had taken into consideration his too—which was rather eminent.

“Are you going to make me repeat myself, Sean?”

Sean grumbled. “I know. I know. I have to believe in you, right?”

“Exactly.” Rain smiled. “I won’t die. I’m not leaving any of you behind.”

Sean took in a deep breath. “Fine! Gloominess vanished.” He swiped his palm over his face and revealed his teeth. “There.”

Ella held back laughter. “Stop.”

“What?” Sean asked. “You don’t like my smile?”

“Just close your mouth. Please.”

Rain felt relieved, and as such he turned his attention to the scuffle of words two boys were engaged in. Ray and Klein. The former pointing at the latter.

“Where the hell is the meat from your hunt, you nonchalant bastard?!”

“Rain said to leave it since we have enough.”

Ray’s face squeezed so much veins appeared at the sides of his head. “Huh?! Why would you listen to that Unc?”

Rain’s eyebrows twitched.

This brat…

He was seventeen. Well, technically twenty-two, considering he’d spent five years in the pod. That was besides the point though.

“Shut it, both of you,” Geraldine interrupted, then turned to Rain’s direction. “It’s almost dusk. We should be heading back, no?”

Rain nodded. With that they all packed up, leaving the rest of their hunts to be nothing more than carcasses.