Kairos massaged his temple using the tip of his finger.
“I don’t understand, like I told you, I just came here. What do you mean by they were never meant to be cleared?”
The man closed his eyes.
“…I came from a different place, traversing down a hallway where countless swords swung through the air, nearly taking my life on countless occasions. I had just barely made it past, though I had strained my muscles badly in the process.”
He then took a deep breath while trembling slightly.
“Then, I found myself in a room. After taking a break, I then went down one of the pathways. There were more traps just like last time. Soon, I found myself in another room with three more paths.”
The man looked down to the floor.
“I continued to try going down these paths, but some of them were dead ends while others simply led to another room. And eventually, while trying to make my way through a hallway, my leg was cut off.”
Kairos rubbed his chin.
“In other words, it appears to be in the structure of a labyrinth.”
The man frowned.
“…It’s more like a cage!”
Kairos sighed.
“There are still many paths you haven’t traveled to yet, right?”
The man opened and closed his mouth.
“But who’s to say there will be an exit on the other side?”
Kairos clicked his tongue.
“You don’t need anyone to say it, you just have to find out. Have you gone down this thin path?”
The man furrowed his brows.
“N-No, but you really shouldn’t go down that one, it will be far too hard to dodge.”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“I’m going to do it. If you want to follow, you can.”
The man reached out, while his eyes bulged slightly.
“No, no! You can’t!”
His breathing became heavy.
“If you going to just kill yourself, you might as well die here, so I can have something to eat.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“You plan on eating me?”
The man looked at him strangely, with eyes that had become bloodshot.
“If you are going to die anyway, then what’s the problem?”
Kairos narrowed his eyes.
“…You really think I’m going to die just like that?”
The man scratched his scalp.
“Of course! There’s no other way!”
Kairos clicked his tongue.
“I just went through that previous hallway without so much as a scratch or even being winded. Do you really think it will be that hard for me?”
The man slammed his fist against the floor.
“That’s because it was an easy one!”
Kairos chuckled.
“Well if it’s so easy, then why don’t you just go and do it?”
The man pointed towards his missing foot.
“How am I supposed to when I’m literally a cripple?”
He shook his head.
“You know what, I don’t need to convince you.”
Strangely enough, it was then Kairos had the exact same thoughts. Though the man before him probably possessed a certain commendable amount of strength for being one of the people to perform a Daring Kill, his will was too weak, and his character was bad too.
Not to mention, Kairos would also have to invest in him by helping him regenerate his foot, which meant giving up a green orb as well as his secret.
He was fairly sure if he gave one, this would be the type of man to ask for another.
In other words, the man was worthless to Kairos.
The man swiftly reached for the steel sword next to him, showing none of the previous fragility he had before.
Kairos thrust his spear towards the man, but he seemed to be quite capable as he brought the sword to block without even looking.
A clang resounded within the room.
The man immediately retreated and took on a stance, holding the sword with one hand, while the other held out like a claw. He was standing on his stump of a foot without nearly as much trouble as one might expect.
Kairos decided to wait, as he imagined he would win the war of attrition. The man was starving, after all, so he must’ve been desperate. There was the consideration that his mind was slowly being stressed out but his future vision, but the man didn’t know that.
And as such, he rushed forth.
Kairos watched him swing his sword in his future vision. He stepped out of the way and thrust his spear forth.
However, the man reacted promptly, also moving out of the way and shifting the trajectory of his attack.
Kairos gave up on his initial attack and brought the spear up to block.
A loud bang resounded, echoing off of the walls.
Though his initial attack was blocked, the man continued to press down with his sword, forcing a clash. Kairos pushed back, using both hands. Yet, despite the fact the man was only using one hand and was supposedly starving, Kairos felt himself slowly being pushed back.
He was quite surprised, as his strength was twelve points but still on the losing end. The man probably had fifteen points in strength and also knew some techniques that increased his application of force.
Because he was on the losing end, Kairos had the intention of backing off. However, he saw that the moment his foot moved in his future vision, the man would grab his spear.
While furrowing his brows, Kairos let one hand go from the spear. Almost immediately, he began losing the confrontation.
As for the man, he saw this as an opportunity and reached for the spear.
However, Kairos had channeled the fire spell with the minimum mana required for activation, creating a tiny fireball in the palm of his hand. Using his future vision, he cut off the man’s hand.
A miniature explosion occurred, followed by the sound of searing flesh.
The fireball had hit right in the center of the opposing palm. With a cry of pain, the man backed off while shaking his free hand. Black smoke was coming out of his palm, along with the smell of cooked meat.
The man seemed to get hungrier because of it. He grit his teeth in anger before rushing forth again.
Kairos kept all of his attention on the man, but in his future vision, he suddenly saw himself get rocked off balance, the floor underneath one of his feet shooting up all of a sudden.
Without questioning it, Kairos preemptively moved to the side.
As he did, a block of earth shot up from the ground. The man’s eyes widened in shock, but he did not slow down in his charge.
Kairos saw in his future vision that the ground underneath him would rise once more, disturbing his footing. As such, he decided to move forwards, not wanting to be caught in between the two blocks of earth.
The man furrowed his brows as he slashed. Kairos swung his spear like a sword.
With a bang, they collided.
However, Kairos had no intention of keeping up this confrontation, with the intention of stepping to the side and sliding the spear up the side of the sword to parry it. Yet, the moment he moved his foot, he saw that a block of earth would rise underneath that place, thus he changed his direction midway through.
The man narrowed his eyes as he watched Kairos step away.
He seemed to realize that it was not a fluke that Kairos could predict where the blocks of earth would appear. Though, that didn’t mean he had given up on using the earth spell.
The man took a step toward Kairos with an overhead strike. As he did so, the ground underneath him rose at an angle, so that he was on a slope and partly sliding towards Kairos, while his stump of a foot was securely put in place within.
As Kairos had just dodged out of the way, he did not have much time to do so again. Though his agility was his highest stat, it seemed that the man’s was even higher. He intended to block, but saw in his future that he would be unable to keep his stance. In fact, even standing up would be a challenge.
If that happened, he would be completely open for the next strike.
As such, he decided to make a rather dangerous move.
Kairos felt the blood rush through his head as he neglected the man’s sword entirely while thrusting his spear towards the heart.
Seeing this, the man seemed to be in disbelief. Though he saw this coming, he had already put everything he had into this strike, and thus could not back out now. In fact, the man couldn’t even dodge in time.
In the end, he decided to use his free hand to block.
This time, a bang did not resound. Instead, the piercing sound of flesh filled the air.
The sword slammed into Kairos’ shoulder, sinking deep into the collarbone and causing a concerning crack to ring out.
On the other hand, the spear pierced through the man’s hand messily, and into the chest. Unfortunately, it just barely missed the heart, but was still able to puncture the lung.
The man had purposely held his hand at an angle, thus the spear did not pierce through cleanly, but was instead caught in the bones and forcefully diverted.
Kairos did not wait up and attempted to pull the spear back. Unfortunately, because of how tangled up they were in the bones and flesh, it wasn’t that easy.
The man similarly tried to pull out his sword, not falling into a daze despite the pain he was experiencing.
However, Kairos steeled his will and compressed the muscles in his shoulder. It magnified the pain several times over, but it similarly made it difficult for the man to retrieve his weapon.
The moment Kairos had pulled out his spear, he fully intended to thrust it again, but before he could do so, the man jumped back, immediately fleeing. Kairos considered chasing, but the man was faster than him, so he didn’t bother.
Instead, he shifted his grip and held it with one hand, leaving his other free.
Once the man had reached the other side of the room, he pressed his forearm against his chest to slow the bleeding. Unfortunately for him, there was nothing he could do to stop his hand from profusely doing so.
His breathing was ragged and clearly painful. Nonetheless, he still found it in himself to spit out words.
“You… don’t even care about your own life?”
Kairos chuckled as he tensed up his shoulder muscles to slow the bleeding.
“I do care about my own life. That’s why I decided to take a trade when the other options were worse.”
The man remained still, staring at Kairos with a new type of gaze. His breathing was still ragged. He created a small block of earth to support his stump of a foot and seemed to be trying to stabilize his condition before moving forth.
As for Kairos, he didn’t mind waiting, thus just stood in place.
His injury wasn’t by any means light, but he was confident that it was nowhere near the man’s. The internal bleeding from his lungs should have put the man on a clock.
Though he would’ve been confident that it was lethal for the average person, Kairos couldn’t say anything with how much people have evolved. Perhaps just five points in endurance were enough for a person to heal from that given enough time.
But still, Kairos was making that assumption in the consideration that the person had the nutrition in their body to support it. Though the man wasn’t moving like it, Kairos was still pretty sure he was starving.
After a few minutes, the man seemed to get desperate. His eyes had concerningly large bulging red veins within.
The man took a deep breath.
“You… You were the one that forced me to do this.”