Since he had woken up so early, Gary was in no hurry to get to school. In the worst case, he could always use Charging Heart to get there faster, but even at his lackadaisical pace he would arrive there with plenty of time to spare.
On his way, the high schooler checked out his stats. The first thing that he had noticed was the fact that just like his system had promised him he had gained 10 Exp for every Bond Mark he had placed on a person, for a total of 30 Exp.
When he had shaken Kai’s hand, the system had asked him if he wanted to Mark his upperclassman. However, the ‘promise’ the two of them had made seemed a bit too weighty. The teenager would have much more preferred something that he wouldn’t have to worry about, just like the one he had made with his mother.
Although Gary had felt that he had gotten closer to Kai, in actuality there was still too much mystery surrounding the older student. Nevertheless, Gary truly did consider him a friend, yet he wasn’t too sure about Kai’s end goal. Aside from that, on the off chance Kai might break the promise, it would turn him into one of his hunting targets…
As such, he had decided against it.
There were actually more reasons for it, such as the fact that Gary’s Mark skill only had five slots and four of them had already been occupied. Making a bond with Kai would have left him with zero. While 10 ‘free’ Exp each day might seem nice, the teenager had only recently enjoyed the benefits of hunting a target.
Whoever had done that to his mother, Gary was convinced to hunt them down!
Unfortunately, he was now missing exactly that one little boost of Exp.
[Exp 757/765]
He would have to finish both of his Daily Quests to gain enough for a Level Up. It was seriously bugging Gary, as much as it did when he saw someone leave an unread notification on their phone, one where he could see that they would leave a little red dot indicating that they had read his message.
‘The people that do that are crazy..I’ll never understand them. If there was only a way for me to get a few Exp.’
“What am I meant to do now?! I’m totally ruined! You police are completely useless!” Gary heard an angry man shout at two policemen.
As usual he was wearing a hoodie, and Gary had it on even tighter than he would do before. This was because of the fighting that had occured yesterday, he was afraid that the Underdogs might have sent out their members to patrol the area, but it seemed like the police were there instead.
The police were being bombarded by not just one man. The entire area seemed to put the blame on them. They needed to shout their frustrations at someone, and some of them were scared while others looked to have been hurt in the chaos yesterday, not just his mother.
‘What is wrong with them…I thought this area was okay because it was meant to be protected by the Underdogs. What the hell were they doing yesterday?!’
“Come on, man, let’s get out of here. The police are down there, if they see you in those colours they’re going to arrest you! Heck, after yesterday you might get attacked on the street!”
The voice was only an angry whisper, but with Gary’s sensitive ears he had picked it up. Heading towards the noise, he was wondering who would just be afraid of the police and he could only guess a few people. It certainly wouldn’t have been the Underdogs.
Quickly, turning between an alleyway, he could see two teens getting rid of their clothes. One of them midway to pulling off his jumper. It was grey in colour, but not only that, there was blood on it as well.
“Hey, someone saw us! What do we do!” The one who was in the midst of changing asked.
“It’s just a high school brat, let’s just get out of here!” The other answer.
Seeing the blood, something clicked in Gary’s head from yesterday.
“Wait!” Gary shouted, yet the two teens naturally wouldn’t listen and ran away from him. A few seconds later, they heard something strange, one of the teens turned around, and he couldn’t believe his eyes. The kid wearing the hood, had somehow gripped onto the wall, and was holding on slightly.
Before he knew it he had lept in the air, and grabbed the two of them by the back of their heads slamming them onto the ground. Their foreheads hit the concrete, bruising and grazing their skin.
“I told you to wait!” Gary shouted. “Why did you attack this place yesterday?”
Both of them were still dazed by what just happened.
“Answer me!” Gary demanded as he slammed one of them down harder into the ground.
“Stop, you’ll kill him, you crazy bastard!” The grey colour gang member shouted.
“Oh, so it’s okay to hurt someone as long as it’s not somebody you know, is that what you’re saying?!” Gary shouted again, and slammed the same person’s head into the ground.
“I’ll tell you anything you want, just please stop! Our gang’s leader Buffin and the red colour gang’s Riv coordinated that attack. We just followed the orders we got, alright? That’s it, we know nothing else!”
The teen seemed to be telling the truth, but there was one more thing Gary had to ask.
“That blood on his shirt. Whose is it? And you better don’t lie to me.” Gary looked him in the eyes.
Right now this teen was scared for his life. His friend looked to have been passed out with blood dripping down his face. One wrong word and he would be punished for it. He was unable to make up a lie, too afraid to risk it.
“It was a…one of the shopkeepers.”
Gary looked down for a second.
“You guys are only worth Exp.” He muttered.
*******
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