"I understand why you would be shocked by my proposal, but I assure you, I don’t have any plans to do anything bad to you or whatever.
It’s just, I saw you during the first stage; you, unlike other people, were quite brutal. You cut them down with an expressionless face and walked away.
If there is someone I want to rely on, it’s someone competent, someone that can do what needs to be done when the time comes.
The trials are not here to cuddle us, as we have seen. Each one of us that’s here currently had a kill count higher than five from just one stage, and I’m certain it only gets worse from here," Leon said and then dropped his head low.
"If we are going to make it through this, then every little opportunity we can place our hands on counts, and you are a good opportunity. No one really knows your real power, they all see you as the trash, and we can use that to our advantage," he said, giving his most convincing argument.
’I can’t put my finger around why someone like him would want me as a partner. His arguments make sense, and that makes me more worried as a whole because it’s all too clean and well-prepared.
Tsk, but then again, having someone watch my back might be good. Hmmmm,’
"If there is ever a need to actually work together, then you and I can work," Aren said. That was the best offer he could realistically do; he didn’t want to get mixed up with the other awakened. He had been a loner all his life, and he wasn’t going to change that.
The people that birthed him left; he was an orphan. Every love, friend, or whoever he had close to him left at some point. He had come to learn that people only do things when they have benefits tied to it.
"Fine, that works for me, I guess," Leon said and then leaned back on the wall, staring at the rest.
"Did you see the message of Shadow?" he suddenly asked.
"Yeah," Aren replied.
"He must be a powerful S-tier to be the first to level up. I guess that’s the competition we’ll have to face in the future," Leon stated.
"I’d rather not. This isn’t a competition to me; it’s survival, and if I can avoid unwanted issues, then I will," Aren replied.
"Hmm, and is that why you haven’t tried to find what is hidden on this floor? Or find someone to share your map fragment with?" Leon asked.
"Four hundred map fragments, one promised item that could help in the next stage. That’s a death battle set-up if I’ve ever seen one. The angel is playing us—the whole trial is—and it’s only a matter of time before the first blow is swung," Aren said and then dropped his head low, not bothering with what was happening anymore.
"You have a pretty grim outlook on people. Not everyone is savages, you know that, right?" Leon said.
"Not everyone is, but there are four hundred savages standing here, because they could have only made it here through killing five. They chose to kill," Aren responded, not bothering to even look at Leon.
"Well, we didn’t have a choice, right? We had to do it," Leon argued.
"We always have a choice. We all had a choice; we just chose what we thought was best for us. They could have easily said, ’No, I’m not killing,’ and allowed themselves to get killed, but they made their choice to survive.
So someone that was able to make that choice to survive—do you think they’ll not swing a blade now to survive again?"
"Sigh, I guess you are right. Survival is the goal... for all of us," Leon said and leaned his head back.
Half an hour went by, and some awakened were trying to use their map fragments to find the item, but it wasn’t helping. The entire floor was covered in a one-pattern black and white floor; there was no way they could know.
And due to this, certain people were getting pissed, angry. They wanted to find this item, and soon this want turned into a need, and after more than half an hour, the first blow was thrown.
"Hand it over now!" A massive man stood before a girl. He was completely ripped and had a bat in his hands. His bald head gleamed under the light while his sharp eyes pierced into her.
She looked frail, short black hair and pale skin. She clenched her map fragment tight and looked at the man. "Get the hell away from me!" she yelled.
But the man wasn’t having any of that. "I said hand over your map fragment," he said while swinging his bat at full speed, but before it could hit her, a wall of water rose and blocked the attack, stunning the man.
"Get the hell away from me!" she yelled and thrust her hands forward. A massive ball of water formed and turned into a lance shape. It lunged forward, penetrating deep into his upper chest and throwing the man back. He slammed into the ground as a mix of water and blood spread all around.
He coughed, blood clogging his throat. His body struggled for a few seconds, and then he stopped moving. He was dead. There was a dead silence that followed as everyone stared at him.
Then footsteps sounded—clack, clack—approaching the body. A young man of at least twenty, with white hair and a tall frame, with a sword in his hands, bent low and picked up the map fragment of the man like he was the one that earned it.
That action alone was the much-needed trigger, as from nowhere, someone rushed from behind him, leaping into the air and lunging a kick right at his head. "Hand them over!"