Hessien gently pats Vacinay’s shoulders. “Your first murder,” he says, his voice a low murmur, “how does that feel?”

She rubs her chin, lost in thought. “It feels… like leveling up!” She pumps her fist in the air, a triumphant smile on her face. “I’ve reached level 8 now. Gained four points from it.”

She attempts to lift the sword and, unlike before, manages it with moderate ease.

A grin spreads across her face at the sight of her newfound strength. “Okay, I’m ready to kill some more."

I glance at the corpse, noticing that it's leaking regular blood from its head.

I turn to Yamanda, curiosity piqued. “So, that guy wished for extra hands?”

“He was most likely an amputee,” she replies, her voice matter-of-fact. “Probably wished to get his hand back, then paid the price by becoming like this after a while.”

That seems strange. It's like a mutation…

“Have you met a mutant before?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah, but mutants aren’t capable of thinking and are like wild beasts, unlike these half-men.”

I hope that's the case. The last thing I want is to get touched by one of them and suddenly transform into a freak.

I almost feel a pang of guilt for how I'm thinking about them. Well, I would if that freak hadn't acted so disgustingly. I have no idea what that bastard thinks is going to happen. I want to revive him just to kill him myself. The audacity.

Vacinay points into the distance. “I spotted another one. Time to level up!” She dashes forward.

Hessien looks at us and says, “I’ll stick with her just so she doesn’t get hurt or do something stupid.”

“Try to gain levels too, dude,” I say as he runs off.

I turn to Ghomas. “Just you and me now, eh? Stick close and you won’t get hurt, dear boy.”

He stares at me, opening his mouth to form words but then gives up.

Yamanda is grinning from ear to ear, while I'm holding back my laughter with all my effort.

Suddenly, Yamnanda points at a tall tree. “Catch.”

A snake man appears out of nowhere. He looks around frantically. “F-fine! I will finally become level 13!”

Interesting, indeed. The anxiety to level up must be on another level when you live in a dangerous area

He raises his arms to the sky, where electricity dances from his fingertips. “Die!” he shouts, directing the energy towards us.

From his perspective, it plays out like this:

Before the electricity can leave his hand, a sudden pain shoots through his neck, and his head begins sliding off.

Confused and baffled, his mind spirals into chaos before his head falls to the ground and rolls to a stop. I come into his vision, standing there with a bloody knife in my hand.

“You wanted to kill me to gain levels, I wanted to do the same,” I say as his eyes close.

Yamanda, fascinated, asks, “Your time freeze is so amazing. I have a question, can you interact with those frozen in time? I know you stole that food, so I assumed you could change the positions of things that were locked in time. But, can you change the state of those locked in time?”

Wouldn’t it be somewhat of an oxymoron if I could change the state of those locked in time?

I shake my head. “No, I can’t. Not yet at least.”

“Interesting. I am heavily interested in your potential,” she says.

“Oh. Thanks…”

I act cocky about my time powers, but it's always to be playful or childish. It isn’t like I don’t know the potential of my powers, but hearing it from someone so amazing feels… really nice.

Yamanda then turns to Ghomas, “You see that? They are all currently around looking to kill people to gain levels. So don’t feel bad about killing them; you all desire the same thing. The stronger one will simply get it.”

He nods. “Yeah… I know. I am not doubting that. It’s just a scary position to be in, you know?”

He looks sincere as he talks about morality and the impact of taking another life, even if it may be self-defense or justifiable homicide.

I listen intently as I ignore the man with the super long neck and hands behind him.

I nod in wonder.

“That’s very interesting,” Yamanda says.

Suddenly, she teleports him to face the half-man towering over him from behind. The creature has a blank expression, as if it has been stripped from a horror movie.

Ghomas’s mouth drops as he screams, “What the hell is that?!”

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He immediately tries to run away, but Yamanda doesn’t allow it. As soon as he takes a step away, she teleports him back.

I wonder how many energy points she has since she uses her powerful skills as if they are nothing.

With a pointed hand, I try to motivate him. “Stop being a little bitch and fight! You are over 6 foot for show or something, pussy?! Fight fight fight!”

Tears well up in his eyes as he hurls slurs at me. That is new. I don’t even know what they mean.

Yamanda covers her mouth in surprise. “He is very… interesting in his choice of words.”

I turn towards her with my arms folded, ignoring the half-man trying to break Hessien’s back with its massive arms, which are instead destroying trees. He is successfully evading as if his life depends on it, so it's all good.

I ask her, “How do you know what they mean?”

“It’s common here. Mefard. I think he heard it on our way to the restaurant.”

Hmm. I didn’t hear that, but then again, I basically ignore everything the translator can’t handle.

I notice another half-man in the distance. It forms a bow and arrow out of grass and aims at me. Without thinking much, I take the last spear gun and take off its head.

I continue the conversation with her. “What does it mean?” (I AM SO COOL OMG OMG OMG)

“Um… That you are incestuous. Daughter and father. Femard means you are a product of incest from immediate family members.”

My eyes twitch as a tiny bit of rage boils in my soul. How would he have even known what it meant?!

I then facepalm myself and laugh. “Ah. Why am I getting worked up by the words of weaklings?” I shake my head and then walk off. “Ta ta, Ghomas. Do survive.”

"Don't leave me behind!" he begs, but his words fall on deaf ears.

To my surprise, Yamanda follows me.

I ask, “Don’t you have to check to see if he’s going to get killed or not?”

“I’ve already marked a custom teleportation on him. If he bleeds a certain amount, he’ll be teleported near me without me even thinking about it.”

“Holy shit. That’s amazing!” I exclaim.

She smiles and brushes her hair. “It’s nothing that crazy… Just a smart skill.”

“How many skills do you have?” I ask

, curiosity piqued.

“You’re super nosey, aren’t you? If someone asks you that question, you never tell them. That goes along with what the theme of your skills is, or what each skill does.”

I realize I have been rude without even noticing.

But her skill theme is obvious, as is Hessien’s. What would it matter if he told someone?

“So… if I asked if the theme of your skills is teleportation, you wouldn’t answer?” I ask.

“Pretty much.”

“But, isn’t it obvious?”

“Not necessarily. Is the theme of my skill, or rather, my originator skill card, teleportation or is it spatial manipulation? Or is it position exchange? What do I exchange positions with? Could be air. The point is, the less a person knows, the fewer strengths they would know you have. Along with weaknesses.”

That makes sense.

I hop over a corpse that's still warm. Well, it isn’t just a corpse. It's like a damn genocide has occurred here!

A red monkey with four arms and a 2-meter-long tail falls off a branch and slams in front of us. Then the monkey form begins to rapidly change.

“Vacinay?!” I shout.

Vacinay’s form is soon revealed… and she isn’t naked. Although, she nearly is because of how badly cut her body and armor are. Hell, she is covered in various hues of blood.

“They are pretty weak,” Vacinay says as she uses the sword to stand up while panting heavily.

“Let me pee in peace!” Hessien runs as he tries to fix his pants, while a person with the shape of a ball, covered in flame, is rolling after him.

“Let me kill you!” it screams.

They seem quite desperate for levels.

Once Hessien has adjusted his pants properly, he smiles instantly and aims his finger, which shoots a white, misty marble. Upon contact, it explodes into a dense mist. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t see much through it.

A massive improvement!

Hessien then takes aim with his spear gun and fires. There is a bang, and the sounds of the half-man fade.

Had he seen through the mist?

Hessien notices me and waves over. “Do you remember passive skills and all that stuff?” he asks.

“Yeah…?” I respond.

Hessien grins, “So it turns out, I actually had my passive skill unlocked before… but I thought it was fake since it seemed so damn lame compared to yours.”

I raise an eyebrow before figuring it out. “You can see through your mist?”

“Not just mist. It seems to apply to cloudy stuff in general,” he explains.

“Awesome! Your mist ability is turning out to be cool as hell, cozo!” I exclaim.

He grins and pumps his fist into the sky. “Hell yeah!”

I turn back to Vacinay to ask, “I assume your passive skill allows you to keep your clothes on when you destransform?” I remember the sword she had retrieved as soon as she returned to normal.

“Something like that. Since the monkey form would have torn part of the clothing, I immediately got the passive skill to preserve the destruction of my property. So… whatever I have on somewhat merges with me and gets stored there,” she explains.

Yamanda, incredibly curious, asks, “That’s what you did with the sword, right?!”

She nods.

“Holy! You would make the perfect smuggler!” Yamanda exclaims.

Vacancy faintly laughs at that. “Ah yes, I want to follow in my mother’s footsteps and go to jail.”

That isn't a joke.

She then stands up. “Anyway, I am at level 12. Some jerk touched my shoulder and caused my skin to erupt in cuts. The little monster chased me down, calling me his living levels.”

After rotating her shoulder a bit, she declares, “I am so getting my revenge. He is my living levels, not the other way around!”

With that, her cuts begin to wiggle like magnets, closing one by one until they start to vanish.

Holy shit...

“How much did that cost?” I ask her.

“About 5 skill points. The monkey form was 2. I only took the monkey form to escape from that guy, to be honest. He nearly touched my damn throat! Imagined if my head went flying.”

I will be able to easily deal with him.

Yamanda nods, impressed. “Man, I am so excited! You all seem to have such potent skills. Something like body repair for shape-shifting is something I expected to be very late-stage or not this powerful.”

It probably has to do with the fact they are legendary.

Suddenly, Ghomas comes rushing after us, panting heavily. “Damn it!” he exclaims.

I turn to look at Yamanda. “Isn’t your thing automatic?”

She bites her lips. “Ah, you see… it’s a work in progress.”

“You okay?” I ask Ghomas, who is heaving with his hands on his knees.

He glares at me. “What do you think?”

“You are very good. So, what’s the level up?” I ask.

Ghomas grumbles. “Damn it, not even asking me about my wellbeing…?”

As he speaks, Yamanda walks over and injects him with a healing shot. “By the way, both of you are betraying bastards. Anyway… after I killed it by using Lumine’s secret technique, the pussy cracker kick, I managed to kill it with my war hammer. I just kept hitting and hitting… Then another bat-like creature appeared and tried to bite my neck off. The armor saved me. I killed it by strangling it. Then there was the worm-man who had just finished another half-man. I fought and barely managed to kill it. It had low defense, fortunately. So, there I was, standing in the blood of three individuals that used to be just like me and you. I was huffing and noticed many others were coming from all over, smiling, calling me an easy prey.”

Ghomas spits on the ground and takes a seat. “I created a clone variance; the variantion being that it’s very fast. Then I noticed I was level 11, so I used my secondary card.”

His white card shines, but it has an image. It looks like… electricity.

Ghomas flicks his finger, causing a bolt of lightning to shoot forward. He then says with a cool demeanor, “But… they were mistaken. For I wasn’t the prey, I was the predator.”

Vacancy, Hessien, and I exchange glances.

"Corny ass," Vacancy chuckles.

"Don't disrespect mister alpha male!" I raise my voice to the sky. "Alphaaaa maleee."