"Oh shit! That's my ring!"
"Huh?! Who's there?"
Casey heard a voice and immediately turned around, but to his surprise, there was no one there. He had thought that his boss had found him and caught him in the act, but it seemed to be a false alarm. Perhaps he had just imagined the voice? He wouldn't be surprised considering how nervous he was.
After looking around and making sure that he was truly alone, Casey placed his focus back on the ring. It was truly exquisite, something that he couldn't lay his hands on via normal means in his entire lifetime. He didn't know what it did, but a magical artifact is still magical, it will probably make him stronger.
"With this, I can pass the exam with no problem at all!"
With uncontained excitement, Casey closed the chest and locked it, before running out of the room and slamming the door shut. From the other side of the door, Kayden and Hel could hear the boy whoop in joy as the footsteps grew more and more distant.
The invisibility spell faded.
"Well, there's no denying it now. This ring's at fault."
He looked at the ring, trying to discern if there was anything special about it. He was seeing the memories of an owner of the same ring… Just what could it mean?
Either this was a previous owner of the ring, or there's an exact same ring somewhere out there, and he was somehow spying on the owner's memories. Both ideas seemed doubtful.
He decided to ask Hel about it.
"[It's impossible to tell. Be it a different place or a different time, I have nothing to compare it with as my knowledge is limited. But if I had to guess, this is a past owner.]"
"Huh… Is there a reason why you think that?"
Hel walked over to the door and opened it, revealing another change of location outside the door.
"[The boy's aging as we continue, right? We'll know once we reach the end.]"
Saying that, she stepped in, and Kayden followed. He had to get to the bottom of this.
'I mean… what if someone else can spy on my memories? Wouldn't they know I'm the Kelekona Reaper? Shit, I hope not…'
The next scene was drastically different from the past three. They opened the door and were sent right smack into the middle of a battlefield. Loud battle cries and the stench of blood filled the air, seemingly present no matter where they turned. There was no mistaking it. A war was happening.
Two sides, one black and one green, faced off against one another in a hectic, yet organized battle. Spells fired off in continuous volleys into the opposing ranks with no signs of stopping, and both Kayden and Hel found themselves on the receiving end of a few rogue ones.
Kayden dodged the few bolts of fire that shot at him while Hel raised a barrier made of ice, blocking the remaining shots. Again, Kayden turned the both of them invisible, and they snuck off into a calmer area where the main battle wasn't taking place.
"Where the hell are we now?"
Hel shook her head, evidently confused as well by their sudden predicament. If her theory was right about all this being the boy's memories, just how did he end up here? They were left with no choice, they were going to have to ask around.
But who would spare them the time of day in the middle of combat? Any person they went up to would assume they were an enemy and try to cut them down. Kayden didn't know if dying in here meant dying in real life, but he certainly didn't wish to test it out.
Left with no other choice, they decided to look for Casey, and it wasn't hard to spot the mop of blonde hair in the sea of black and green. The problem was how to get there.
Casey was currently on the black side of the war, and tightly gripped in his gloved hands were his sword and shield. Unlike the other soldiers beside him, he didn't look anything special. There was no magical aura surrounding him, nor was he casting any flashy spells, he was just a dude trying his best, and just like before in the coliseum, he was bruised and battered.
Life just can't seem to give this guy a break.
He looked slightly older than when Kayden saw him last, probably around the same age as him now. Instead of being at school, this man was fighting a war.
"Don't tell me that he still wasn't able to make it? And he joined the army as a result? Did the ring not help him at all?"
Kayden had no evidence to back up his claim. For one, he didn't recognize the uniforms the soldiers were wearing, so who's to say that it was the army? Still, Casey was so dead set on passing the school test, but now he seemed to be nowhere near his goal.
As they continued to watch on the sidelines, there was a sudden, inexplicable change in the battlefield. The green soldiers seemed to be retreating all at once, and the black soldiers, upon seeing this, began cheering.
"Huh. Good for them."
"[Uh… Kayden, we might want to get out—]"
Their surroundings brightened up like as if the sun had appeared. A sudden, blue beam of light shot out from the sky and crashed heavily into the ranks of black soldiers, and countless screams rang out at once, only to be silenced immediately after. The ground shook from the mere impact, and Kayden couldn't stand his ground. The attack was that devastating.
When Kayden got back up, he saw the carnage in vivid detail. A number of soldiers were straight up vaporized, leaving only their ashes as proof of their existence. Many others lay limp on the ground. Dead or unconscious? Kayden couldn't tell. As for Casey…
Hel gestured for him to follow.
"[Come on. The shockwaves of the blast sent him flying into enemy lines. I'll bring us there.]"
Weaving through the countless soldiers across the whole battlefield, Kayden and Hel were steadily making progress on their way to Casey. It was highly unlikely that he had died, for if he did, they should have been kicked out of the memory by now. He was the main character of this particular story, after all.
Soon, they came across the crash-landing site, which was a small, man-sized crater on the hard ground. Casey wasn't unconscious, but his bones were definitely broken. One of his elbows was bent the wrong way, and blood stained his uniform until it was more red than black. Any normal person would probably be screaming in agony right now, but Kayden noted that Casey didn't make a single noise.
That was his power. The power to resist pain.
However, that power was pretty much useless in his present situation. Surrounded by enemy soldiers on all sides, Casey was doomed to fall.
"Should I… help him?" Kayden whispered.
"[No.]"
"O-okay…"
Suddenly, the surrounding soldiers parted and made way for another soldier to pass through. This particular soldier was unlike the others in that there were four different badges pinned to his chest, most likely symbols of his authority. If Kayden had to guess, this was akin to the enemy's commander.
"Now, what do we have here? A sorry sack of shit came to invade our tent all by himself?" the commander spoke with a gravelly voice. It was obvious from his looks that he was old, but his demeanor told otherwise.
He was tall, about the same height as Kayden, which was pretty tall for a human, and especially so for one of old age. Still, there are plenty of abilities and spell out there that can nullify the effects of aging, so Kayden wasn't too surprised by this.
"Hmm? You look young. What's someone like you doing on the battlefield?" the commander scratched his head as he observed the pitiful Casey, "Eh, nevermind. Men! You can do whatever you want with him! Just make sure to protect the laser cannon!"
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers all saluted at the same time as the commander left, walking back to the same place whence he came.
Once he was out of earshot, one of the soldiers ran up to Casey and sent a kick straight to his face. It wasn't enough to knock him out, but the soldier wasn't done either.
"Take that! And that! There!"
Each kick was like a vice, gripping his heart tightly. 'No mercy to your enemies', Kayden understood that phrase well, but seeing the boy who had gone through so much suffer unjustly like this, it made his blood boil.
Blood splattered all over the ground as Casey took repeated kicks to the face, and the soldier had a malicious grin on his face, all the while the soldiers around him began cheering. Some even began to join in, and soon, Casey was left a bloody mess, like a squashed bug on the ground.
"…Disgusting." Kayden clenched his fist, just barely restraining himself from jumping in. "Just what do they gain from inflicting pain on others?"
Hel tilted her head. She had never seen this side of Kayden before.
"[I'm surprised. I didn't think you would care about this kind of stuff.]"
Kayden ignored her and gritted his teeth. One of the soldiers had begun to pull Casey up by gripping tightly onto his hair. He could see him try desperately to escape, clawing, kicking, screaming… but none of it worked.
Frost began to form on his fingertips. He didn't care if this was simply a memory. In fact, it was because this was a memory that he was so willing to kill. None of these people were real, right? He couldn't just stand there and do nothing…
"[Kayden…? Don't you—]"
Just as he was about to cast his spell, Casey screamed at the top of his lungs.
"ARRRGHHH!!! I GET IT! I'M USELESS! I'M USELESS!"
His voice grew faint.
"I'm absolutely useless… It's because of that I'm here. Mom was right… Boss was right… The voice was right too…"
The surrounding soldiers temporarily stopped their laughing, only for it to resume immediately after. They began mocking him. Jeers and laughter were thrown at him from all sides, making his next few words nearly indecipherable.
But Kayden was listening. And he heard every word.
"I'm useless, powerless, but I can always change. As long as I'm determined, as long as I don't give up… opportunities will come… and my dreams… will come true! I don't need you to tell me what's right and what's wrong!"
Casey clenched his teeth and opened his bloodshot eyes.
"Just shut up and give me your power!"
With considerable effort, he reached out his right hand and pointed into the distance.
Then, a glowing, blue light began to shine from within his glove.
The same blue light began to shine on Kayden's ring as well.
"What the—?"
"Steal… Function…!"
[Target is using tier 5 spell: Steal Function]
'Tier five?'
Kayden quickly looked over at the object that Casey was pointing at, and discovered that it was a massive cannon that pointed straight up into the sky. It looked like a straight, black cylinder that came up from the ground, with rings upon rings of blue magic circles all floated above the cannon's opening. Kayden assumed that this was the laser cannon that the commander was talking about earlier.
"Wait, don't tell me…?"
A tier five spell was not something to be trifled with. Kayden could barely scratch tier four thanks to his new 'Ruler of the Underworld' ability, which upgrades his tier three spells into tier four, but tier five? Kayden doubt even his master could cast them.
Tiers fives were hard to explain, since Kayden never ever saw one in person. To put it one way, tier four was the absolute highest tier you can bring your regular spells to, tier five on the other hand… was where things got very… unique.
The magic circles around the cannon all disappeared at once, and the cannon proceeded to collapse on itself, crashing into the ground and turning into rubble.
It was no longer functioning.
'Hold on… didn't he say: Steal Function…?'
Kayden slowly turned back to Casey, whose black glove on his outstretched hand suddenly brightened and turned to a shade of dark blue. The surrounding soldiers never noticed this, only focusing their attention on the now-destroyed cannon.
With a loud cry, Casey pointed at the man who was still gripping onto his hair, and the tip of his finger began shining a blinding blue.
"FI—
"Hel! Move!"
"—RE!"
Kayden tackled Hel onto the ground just barely in time before a bright ray of death shot over him, disintegrating all that bathed in it. The man who stood in point-blank range of the boy was no more, along with several other soldiers behind it.
His heart was pumping wildly. He didn't know if he would die if he got hit, but still, that way too close for comfort.
"What the hell… was that!?" Kayden shouted aloud in shock. Did the boy just… replicate the cannon's attack? How was that even possible? He was shocked beyond disbelief.
But Kayden quickly dismissed that line of thought. It was a tier five magic spell, and he had seen the avatar of a Goddess first-hand. Maybe he shouldn't be too surprised about this stuff.
But the next thing that happened did come as a surprise.
[User has learnt tier ? spell: Steal ???]