"W-what happened.." He felt dizzy as he tried remembering what happened.
[You have defeated a B-rank beast.]
[You have defeated the Black Wolf.]
[You have gained 50XP.]
[You have levelled up a skill]
[Bloodlust Of The Assassin > Level 2)]
[You have obtained a flag.]
"Huh?" He felt a wave of calmness wash over him, and his head stopped spinning. "What happened..." For a moment, everywhere went blank, and it felt like he wasn't in control of himself.
Then when he came to be, he found the beast on the ground, dead besides him, with a huge hole in it's chest.
"Bloodlust of the assassin huh?" He stared at his palm, and he found a red flag in it, then he immediately recalled the system notifications before everywhere went dark
"The vice captain of the 5th Squad did mention that we could find flags on the body of the dungeon beasts. But it's the most dangerous way to obtain them when compared to the other ways like searching." He crouched to his knees, and examined the black panther's body.
"Given the time limit, and the various ways of obtaining a flag..." He stood to his feet, and glanced at the direction where the explosions came from.
"If I remember correctly, the daughter of the head commander is too ambitious, driven by her desire to live up to her father's legacy. That means she wouldn't settle for just obtaining flags. She'd go after the dungeon boss herself, and even Takashi too."
He sighed dramatically, life would have been a bit better if he was dealing with only Takashi.
"Even if the time limit is one hour, thanks to those two, it might not even come close to half of it. This might be the most dangerous method, but killing beasts to obtain flags is the surest way to pass this phase before they defeat the boss."
He headed off into the ruins, if the two powerhouses were going to clear the dungeon by killing the boss, he needed to gather many flags.
If Kaira was successful in killing the boss, her team as a whole automatically passed, but that kind of success was a coward's way out, and he refused to just sit by and do nothing.
After all, in this world, survival was everything.
"Hm?" Almost immediately, as he ventured deeper into the city, he sensed someone behind him.
He turned around immediately, and he found three men with swords sheathed at their waists, standing right behind him.
"Who are you?" He asked with a cold voice, judging from their appearance, and the blood on their clothes, they were participants of the first phase.
"Whoa whoa whoa... We're not here to fight, no need to get all spooky on us." The man in the middle stepped forward, and raised his thumb to his chest. "My name is Darius, and these are my teammates, Ronan and Seth. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"What do you want?" He glanced at the three men, he wasn't going to let his guard down, not in the first phase of the Soul-Hunter's exam.
"You're Kazuki Matasuragi right? The Soul-Hunter who was acknowledged by the second seat of the 11th Soul Squad?" Ronan asked.
"What if I am?"
"Oh nothing really, we were just surprised that you were on your own considering Kaira asked you to join her team. But it seems you don't need her, after all you were acknowledged by a high ranking officer." Darius sat on a huge chunk of rock and sighed dramatically.
"Aren't you going to search for flags to complete this phase?" Kazuki said, still on high alert.
"We've been searching, but all the beasts we killed had none in them, not to mention we searched the abandoned buildings, but we didn't find anything either." Seth spoke softly, his voice laced with the exhaustion of tireless searching.
"You found none? Even after all the beasts you killed?" Kazuki raised an eyebrow, if that was the case, that meant that there was more to what they were told that meets the eye.
"That's right."
'They killed many beasts and couldn't find even one flag?' Kazuki thought hard on it, pressing his hand against his chin.
'Wait.'
He turned to the three men. "What kind of beasts were you fighting till now?"
"What kind of beasts?" Darius said, then he recounted their achievements in the first phase. "Nothing more than D-rank beasts I suppose. We are just a team of C-rank Soul-Hunters consisting of a Support Soul-Hunter, a Zen Soul-Hunter and an Elementalist Soul-Hunter."
"So that's how it is..." Kazuki said loudly, turning his attention to the battle ahead that sparked brilliant lights in the sky.
"So in the very least, it's safe to say that the flags are only found on beasts that are ranked C-rank or higher. My guess is, that's why it's a team effort, because you might be strong, but against a B-rank beast, you'll need help." Kazuki spoke with a soft voice, offering his assumptions on the first phase.
"Whoa..." Their eyes went with disbelief, if what he said was true, it was a whole new way of approaching the dungeon.
"On what basis are you assuming this?" Darius asked as he stepped forward, just to make sure.
"Just a hunch." Even he had no idea if it was true, in the original novel, from the main character's perspective, he helped Kaira defeat the dungeon's boss, so there was no way to confirm if this was true.
Darius glanced at his teammates, and they both gave him a soft nod.
"It's decided then." He turned his attention to Kazuki, then stretched his hand out as a gesture of pleading. "Kazuki Matasuragi, join us in fighting the dungeon beasts."
"Huh?" He raised an eyebrow, it was difficult to believe that anyone wanted his help, another team at that. Regardless of how kind they were, a D-rank Soul-Hunter was nothing but a risk with no returns in a dungeon.
"Even though we are C-rank Soul-Hunters, we are weaker than even the average Soul-Hunter. It's not something we are proud to say, but denying our strength will get us killed. Please, with your combat prowess and the little abilities we can offer, I'll make sure we all get through this phase."
His pleas lit a spark in Kazuki, it wasn't everyone who had the courage to admit their own limitations and weaknesses. It reminded him so much of his old life, of the old him. A part of him he swore he'd never let return.
He sighed.
"Alright." And he agreed. Normally he could have managed just fine on his own, but suspicion would fall on him the moment the first phase came to an end.
He had no problems with revealing his strength, but until he survived what came in the final stage, he didn't want to attract any unwanted attention.
"It's a pleasure to be working with you."
[Time remaining: 30:54]
With only thirty minutes left on the clock, they wasted no time going into action. They encountered at least two C-rank beasts and a B-rank beast, and after defeating it, they obtained three flags from the B-rank beast, with one of them in Kazuki's hand.
"Hey Dairus." Kazuki called out to the leader of their team.
"What is it?" He answered, washing the blood off his sword in a nearby river that almost dried up.
"Why do you want to become a Soul-Hunter?"
"Hm?" He stopped halfway, then turned his attention to him. "Why you say?" He stood to his feet, placed his hands on his waist and glanced up at the crimson sky.
"When I was 11 my brother was killed and eaten by a Soul-Beast right in front of me, and I couldn't do anything about it. I was weak, powerless, and because of that my brother paid the ultimate price." He began.
"Damn... I'm sorry, I had no idea."
"It's alright." He turned his sights to Seth and Ronan. "Then I met those two, they aren't my blood but I refer to them as brothers because of the journeys we faced together and survived by our cooperation. That kind of friendship is something worth protecting, so I swore to become strong enough to protect them, so that they wouldn't meet the same fate my brother did."
"Fate huh." Kazuki scoffed.
"Yeah..."
"Darius!" Seth called to him from afar.
"What is it?"
"The B-rank beast we managed to kill, there was no flag on it."
Their eyes went wide with disbelief, no flag on it?
"I don't understand, what do you mean there's no flag on it!?" Darius rushed towards it's corpse, and there really wasn't any flag on it.
"I thought you said the probability of flags being on C-ranked beasts and above were higher, what is this? Despite the several number of beasts we killed, we only have three to show for it!?" Seth shouted.
Then, it hit Kazuki.
"Numbers..." He chuckled softly. How could he have missed such a vital clue?
"What's so funny?"
"Don't you get it? Numbers." He approached the corpses of the beasts, and carefully examined their bodies. "It was all about numbers to begin with, how didn't we notice it?"
From his observations, he discovered that out of the several corpses that laid around, only three had cuts and wounds that wasn't inflicted by them.
"What do you mean?" Darius got to his feet, and both him and his men paid full attention to Kazuki.
"Mass elimination. That was the theme of this phase, and if that's the case, why would they provide more flags than needed? Scattered across the dungeon, across beasts. It was merely a lie to cover up the truth, which means with more than a hundred participants, there's less than twenty flags in this dungeon. And each flag is only attributed to one person."
"Oh? Is that so?" Darius cleaned off the final speck of blood on his sword.
"Yeah." Kazuki stood to his feet. "I believe so."
"I see... in that case." Darius rushed at Kazuki with great speed and drove his sword into his chest, sending Kazuki flying into the wall of a ruined building.