Huh, what could you possibly mean by saying that ? .
It appeared that my chance of surviving this attack of his at least according to him was somewhat close to zero, so i shouldn't be that surprised if he was dumbstruck at knowing that i'm still alive, but i once again reevaluate the strength of that Ludo on my mind, or maybe it wasn't related to strength at all, whatever that was, i should be more guarded against him even more than the current enraged team leader .
But what Ludo said afterwards didn't come to surprise me much, he said as if in answering the doubts of the leader :
Yeah, he might be stronger than how we first anticipated him to be, not only that, i can also be sure that not only he didn't suffer much of a damage from your attack, but he ended up completely unscathed, his aura should be a testament of that, i'm sure that you can tell .
So not only was he able to see through the debris and smoke and got a clear look at me, but he was even able to judge this much by reading my so-called aura, wait a minute, aura he can't possibly entail that me being found out that early might have actually something to do with the Aura Of Strong that i kept active, right ? .
If that was true then i could have been probably the one to expose myself, i could have willed it and most of the obvious visual effects that the skill had and the aura it kept on releasing could have pretty much vanished, but first i wasn't aware of it being that obvious to read, second everything prior to what was happening currently, happened too fast, too fast for me to take notice and for the sole purpose of pulling a perfect act as possible i refrained from doing any suspicious movement that could threatened to had me found out, yet i can see them finding me out through this kind of way, but these were still only speculations for now, i could be pretty much just overthinking .
But what i can confirm was that both of them were wrong about my strength and obviously wrong about that attack being enough to got me killed, in addition to that i was able to confirm another speculation of mine that i had before on that team leader of their, which was him coming here in seeking of a quick gain, not out of their patrol duty as he told the gang leader before .
There's also the fact that he did indeed used some weird techniques just like that Bloodlord from before, which had me raising my guard up a bit more, but after witnessing the attack myself, i can clearly state that it was probably at the strength level of an SSS Rank figure but that was all, i'm now a bit cautious wondering whether he had another attack stronger than that in his hand .
After all he can't have possibly used all of his strength in that last attack, you won't search for a hammer to use it in smashing an ant, so some bit of caution was needed, at least until i'm able to understand the effects of those weird techniques that they used .
The reason for why i was sure that there was a weird technique being used in here, was actually quite simple, there was this mysterious aura around the beam of light from before not to mention that if it was probably a magic attack, there would have been traces of it and i would have probably not have suffered that much damage, in addition to how lethal it was, piercing through the defensive line i has created and even piercing through the armor of mine was no much of a problem, some would say that he did it with ease too .
As i was contemplating about this, i heard the dejected voice of the said team leader, saying in a bit of resignation tone :
So, i guess you are right he do seem to be able to come out unscathed from my attack, quite admirable, but that mean we will be able to interrogate him after all as you wanted Ludo, i guess we better wrap this up quickly and head to the secret lair, otherwise some of the other patrol teams on duty would probably come to find us here and that could be quite unfortunate .
He really did surprise me by coming alive and even unscathed out of the explosion that could easily take down some of the strong S Rank figures in this land in it, so don't you think that it should be better to drew him to our side, instead of just killing him, he might be of some use to our cause, won't you agree Ludo ? .
I don't believe that he will agree to partake in any kind of negotiation after the attack you just launched at him though, but it could be only me who think so ? .
What of it at most, it will be counted as my way of greeting him and who said anything about negotiation, the need to negotiate or come to an agreement is only needed to be used when the two parties that are trying to come to agreement are equals, you don't believe he really think that he our equal,right ? At most i will lure him to our side by issuing a lot of the needed resources for him to increase his strength, that will work with you right, you guy out there, answer me .
I was listening attentively to the conversation they were having, what intrigued me was the fact that he actually tried to win me over after bombarding me just now which was quite weird, but i was still a bit clueless about the second part of his words where he talked about not wanting to actually negotiate, since from what he said i'm still unworthy of having him sit at the negotiation table with or was it the opposite, the scene turned out to be a lot more interesting than i initially thought, i won't lie but i'm beginning to feel quite amused about his remarks, almost beginning to rethink if i should leave him alive for a bit more .
I found my heart beating quickly at this dark thought of mine, but found my brain very much cool with it, if not it wouldn't have been made, can i call this a conflict of interest and on deciding the fate of another person at that, i wasn't even contemplating on whether should i accept his proposal or not, no i was more focused on deciding whether should i finish him now or leave him to continue jumping around for a bit more time .
The reason i declared this thought of mine to be a dark thought was that i found the idea itself interesting yet repelling, something that i hadn't had in quite a long time, before even getting summoned here and the solution that i went with at that time was to just forget all about and let everything that was destined to come, come .
At that time, i was quite weak and a bit of more or less dimwitted, it was the truth that i'm very sad to admit, but it didn't matter much to recall these sort of things other than to reflect upon them or maybe out of pure reminiscing and it could even be able to raise some sort of comparison between the me back then and the current me .
The me back then have forsaken to try making a difference, so he just decided to take whatever came his way without even trying to push back or struggle, he didn't end up make his mind, this was probably out of him being weak and helpless to do much at that time .
But now everything was completely different than before, now i'm quite capable of choosing and deciding on doing whatever i want, so getting to meet the same previous situation held a complete different taste and meaning to it, with enough strength i can choose to whatever i want either to kill that useless demon in front of me and i believe that i won't even break that much of a sweat .
Or toying with him for a bit more like how he toyed with that late gang leader, a dark thought but quite befitting to someone like him in my opinion, i could choose to do either but i will refrain from doing so, why some may ask, the answer was quite simple, it is because i can .
That is the fundamental difference between both the me back then and the me now, both parties refrained from doing anything and just letting everything going as destined, but one was forced to take that approach and the other willingly did so, wanted to see how would everything goes .
It might not appear to be that big of difference, but it was quite a huge big of difference, the me now could go around the world freely and without giving that much of thoughts to anyone or anything, completely free of any obstacles that what my current life is and i will continue to work harder to keep it that way .
Caution can go through the window, that useless guy believed that since he believed that since he is better than me then i would only have one choice and that to lay down on under his feet and obey him .
Quoting from his words, i don't even deserve to negotiate terms with him, because i was unqualified to, he may have a noble status which was the only thing that he possibly best me in, in addition to maybe money and proper set of clothes but that was all, he previously hinted at this himself, those things weren't what this world was built on, the sole fundamental reason for the differentiate between the people, is very much related to the thing that i could say to have bested most of the people in this world of not all of them and that was strength, Raw And Immeasurable Amount Of strength .
Their techniques were certainly odd , but i still believe that nothing could stop my current strength even with their so-called techniques, i'm not that much wary of those anymore after all, i was the one victorious in my fight against that Bloodlord, even though it was merely a puppet, but it was so powerful that it could put a lot of the SSS Rank figures to shame if not all of them .
But now that i remembered my encounter with that guy, i got reminded of the hysterical state that i found him in the end, he kept yelling about me destroying something quite valuable to him, i'm even quite certain that the Blood Link he kept muttering affected his overall strength somehow and maybe even the strength and effectiveness of his techniques, so by using that as a reference i might be able to try and search a weakness like that in those techniques, if i found that own strength was insufficient to break through of course .
I won't say that i wasn't curious about those techniques, but my gut was telling me that these so-called techniques weren't that simple to either learn or comprehend and there were two reasons for this line of thought of mine .
First it was related to the weird ritual that he asked that gang leader to perform to authenticate his identity and its weird linking to the totem that i have previously saw that Bloodlord conjure, if i had known that i would have still being found out, i could have witnessed that scene more throughly but i guess there wasn't much to do at this point .
The second reason was related to the origin of those techniques and the fact that they came from a whole different world than the one we know, the Real World of theirs could be another whole world completely independent and different to ours, a world with its own set of rules, laws and even whole different power system that may even contradict ours .
I'm kinda wondering about what the rule of the shard they were after in all of this, it doesn't make any sense, if that shard was really responsible for the leveling system that we were being endowed with, then removing it could result in a quite disastrous effect on all the people connected to the said system of power including me and Hana and all the other and the worst thing was that the possibility of something that might threaten the existence of this system was already upon us, heck a whole kingdom was founded for that sole purpose .
But that's exactly what made it even harder for me to wrap my head around it, if their only targeting the shard for the existence of the said system and their desire to acquire it then that's even more difficult to believe .
Just from the small number of encounters i had with their power system, namely their techniques and the number of my encounter with their techniques was mostly 2 encounters, but they were quite enough for me who have already judged it to be much stronger and superior to ours, a sad fact but a quite true nonetheless .
Both have some similarities the two system i mean, but in terms of raw strength and power the scales was completely tipping in their favor, so why would they want to have a power system that was far inferior to the one they currently have and strength capped too, after all i didn't heard of anyone getting above the SSS Rank, so that's that .
They could be attempting to fuse the two but i don't believe that to be the and the reason to why i didn't think so was that i kinda already had a clear idea in mind about why the huge difference in strength between the two power systems .
The power source which the two systems depended on, the power source of the two was apparently quite different, what convinced me of this was the beam attack just now had an aura quite different than any spell or magic attack that i have seen before, i had seen a lot of spells being launched in the previous battlefield, not to mention the other characteristics it had, all of that pointed and confirmed at least for me, the existence of the different between the two system's power source .
I don't even need to declare which one was superior as it was as clear as the day, at least the day back in my old world, i can't say the same about the day here, it is all red after all with almost nothing to differentiate or maybe there was, but i just haven't had the opportunity to experience it .
Anyway, those were all the speculations that i made about the shard but i'm not quite sure of the actual goal that these guys were trying to achieve, but whatever they were going to achieve, we from this land won't probably be part of it, after all without the assistance of the leveling system we won't be even able to protect ourselves from being turn into becoming their slaves or even worse cattle, so yeah whatever they were trying to achieve, if they were to succeed, it could only spill doom for all those who inhabit this land, so whatever the result of them succeeding, i can already be sure that it won't be in our favor, at least till everything got cleared up or even be fully explained .
But that Real World that they said they came from was still quite bothering me, since the last encounter i had in the outer space, i couldn't help but wonder if the Real World was just an actual part of the same world that we are in .
Yes, i currently indeed don't believe that the Real World to be an actual whole different world, but it could be in some land that was far away in distance from this land and what made me believe so, was actually the fact that when i was above the cloud and in the outer space, i was able to see that the whole planet under me was black but still huge, so them being just visitors from a great distance away seem a lot more logical to me at least a lot more logical than them being something akin to aliens .
Another point that came to my consideration, was the fact that me not seeing or notice any other planet in my sight, i was up there long enough thanks to the bubble and the barrier that enveloped me, long enough time to take notice of other than the huge numbers of twinkling stars in the horizon, there was no other planet in my sight, even the moon and the sun i didn't recall seeing either of the two celestial objects, but those things clearly exist here so how could this be possible, so that make the possibility of it being another world more harder to believe .
The only logical explanation is that the Real World was a place in this world and i was pretty sure that the mysterious fog around this massive island was the way to reach it, but if that were to be actually true, then what could possibly be the thing that prevented them from coming through there, why limit the number of people that can come here, all of this force me to go back to the question that i had before, how exactly were these Demons coming here .
But now there was one more question that will keep bugging me from now on and that question was, what exactly does that fog consist of, no one had ever came back after venturing into it, at least not according to the saintess of the Troland kingdom Reince, but that's only limited to the knowledge of Reince and the Troland kingdom, but i need to remember that this place was in fact an island, a huge one but one nonetheless .
So their might have been others who ventured through the Fog and might have even had the chance to came back and tell the story from the other 3 kingdoms that existed, so the possibility of them knowing some of the secrets of that fog was quite apperant, or they could have all ended in the same way no matter what those guys used, if Troland hadn't severed its connections with those other kingdoms, a lot of information could have been gathered about this weird phenomenal, at least that what i believed .
But still the fact that till now no one in Troland have any knowledge about someone being able to do the trip and coming back was in itself a quite clear acknowledgment of how dangerous it was to venture deep in there, or to even get near it .