Kirou's figure lightly disappeared from the branch he was on a reappeared some hundred meters away before he started making his way towards the duo. Although they were still very quiet, Kirou allowed his footsteps to make just enough noise so that the couple ahead would be able to hear him coming. With confirmation that Kirou was closeby, both s.h.i.+va and Andy got into positions as they waited for Kirou to make himself visible.

As soon as Kirou 'arrived', he was greeted to the sight of s.h.i.+va and Andy both leaning on a tree while facing his general direction. Just as he had appeared from s.h.i.+va since day one, Kirou maintained the smile on his face as he spoke up, "Well then, Ms. s.h.i.+va. Now that your mission has come to an end, I believe it's time for me to collect my fee so that we can all go our separate ways."

Both Andy and s.h.i.+va gave each other a quick glance before s.h.i.+va approached Kirou with a smile of her own. She stopped about two feet before Kirou and spoke up, "Well, Mr. Kirou. It's been a pleasure working with you. Your presence in town made it a lot easier to pull off my plan and the various contingencies you put in place made it easy for us to both slip in and outside of Lockrim City." Having said her piece, s.h.i.+va rubbed her storage ring lightly for a few seconds before an item appeared in her hand, which she then tossed over to Kirou.

Having caught and verified the item, Kirou nodded his head to Andy and gave a bright smile to s.h.i.+va before turning around. Before he could leave, however, Andy spoke up from his position, "Mr. Kirou, would you be interested in aiding us in another job. I promise it won't take long and the remuneration will definitely be worth it."

Hearing those words caused Kirou to pause for a second. Since his back was currently turned towards the duo, he allowed himself to release a silent sigh while inwardly shaking his head at their actions. 'And the opportunity presents itself.' As that thought flashed through Kirou's mind, he turned back around to face Andy who had walked closer to him.

Seeing that Kirou had turned around, both Andy and s.h.i.+va were inwardly delighted while also sneering at Kirou within their hearts. After doing a fake cough, Andy spoke up once more, "The job involves taking down a high profile target and we'd like your help in making sure that he doesn't flee. What do you say?"

Kirou looked at both Andy and s.h.i.+va and paid attention to both of their body languages. Their body language gave away nothing, which prompted Kirou to realize that they were ready to strike. Pretending to be ignorant of the duo's thoughts and plans, Kirou responded to Andy's question while maintaining his smiling facade from before, "We'll have to discuss who's the target and what kind of compensation I'd be receiving before agreeing to anything."

s.h.i.+va was the one who spoke up next after hearing Kirou's words, "Don't worry, Mr. Kirou. Just come with us for now and we'll fill you in on the details along the way. If it's not to your liking, then we can always split up right then and there."

Following this, both Andy and s.h.i.+va started traveling in a specific direction of the forest. Kirou acted as if he was hesitating for a moment before he too followed closely behind the duo. With the duo ahead, when they noticed that Kirou had started following them, both gave each other a quick glance while sneering at Kirou. Unbeknownst to the two, however, was that the person trailing them had a sneer on his face as well before quickly dissolving into an indifferent expression.

********

Kirou once again opened his eyes to face the ceiling of his apartment. Taking up his phone and checking the time allowed Kirou to realize that it was now 12:15 pm. After spending a few seconds to have his mind adjust, Kirou got off of his bed and did some of his weird stretches before going to the bathroom to wash up. Spending roughly twenty minutes or so to sort out his bodily needs and thoroughly was.h.i.+ng up, Kirou was now staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

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An expressionless and indifferent face stared back at Kirou as he looked into the mirror. After a while, it seems that his current expression had overlapped to the one he normally makes while carrying out a kill. Staring at this reflection for a few minutes prompted Kirou to release a sigh before he walked out of the bathroom.

'I never thought I'd end up remembering that mission after deciding to take a proper nap. It seems that my dreams probably won't be a place for me to escape reality anymore.' As those thoughts entered Kirou's mind, he could only shake his head to rid himself of such trivialities.

As Kirou got dressed and left his apartment, he remembered the details of how that mission ended for him. After following the duo for a few miles, they tried to ambush him with a trap they had set in advance and was leading him towards it. Unfortunately for them, they never realized until it was too late that not only had Kirou discovered their trap ahead of time, he had also turned it against them.

Before the duo could try and escape, misfortune struck as the poison in Andy's system finally started to take effect. Unlike s.h.i.+va's poison that was meant to kill after half an hour, Kirou's poison was much milder since all it did was relax the nerves. That being said, the moment this poison went into action, Andy realized that he was stuck in the trap and unable to escape. s.h.i.+va had discovered this and wanted to turn around to help him, only to witness an expressionless Kirou using his wires to dismember Andy's weakened body that was caught in the explosive trap that the duo had set.

Having dismembered Andy, as per his mission requirements, Kirou had turned his expressionless eyes towards the now angry s.h.i.+va. She was quite a distance away when she noticed Andy hadn't escaped the trap and it was due to this distance why her self control had managed to stop her from trying to engage Kirou in a deathmatch. While she was confident in being able to fight Kirou to a standstill, that was not including situations where he was able to use his wires, nor any other hidden traps he might have planted in the area.

Understanding that it would be suicide to face Kirou like that, s.h.i.+va fled the area without looking back. Kirou only watched her leave before he too left the area after he had collected Andy's head, along with any valuables on his body, which just so happened to include a belt styled storage tool.

Remembering the events of that day prompted Kirou to release a deep sigh as he went to a nearby restaurant to get some lunch. It seems the shadows of his past will never truly leave him alone. Following that, Kirou did some light roadwork and stopped at a nearby convenience store to purchase some ingredients for dinner before heading back home. After that, Kirou pa.s.sed the next few hours doing some basic training along with his routine stretches in between reps.

********

The moment Kirou logged in that evening, he immediately summoned out his pets and clones and had them separate into groups to 'train' while he dove back into work on the pile of sc.r.a.p.... (cough cough) weapons and armors in his inventory. That being said, he was down only a scant few now since he had already taken care of the bulk of the load from the previous night.

Kirou spent roughly an hour or so working on the remainder of the stuff in his inventory before he was finally able to breathe out a sigh of satisfaction while looking at how organized and clean his inventory had gotten. Besides the various piles of materials stacked up by a hundred for each stop, taking up just fifteen slots in total, not counting the other slots taken up by various weapons, kits, plants and other miscellaneous things in his inventory, Kirou now had enough s.p.a.ce to go farm the materials he needs to build up his secret base.

Another thing Kirou could take care of right now was finding or making another entrance to his secret base that doesn't require him to pa.s.s through the large cavern where Kirou suspected that the Psychedelic Jellyfish King will resp.a.w.n in. Thinking up to here, Kirou decided that it was time for him to take a look at the area directly above the underground cavern. Taking a look at the two groups playing around on their own, Kirou decided to make this trip above ground alone.

********

Taking advantage of the double camouflage and his knowledge of the cave system, Kirou snuck out of the underground cave system and was now standing at the entrance to the cave. Looking at the system map, Kirou could see the house icon marking the location of his secret base. Looking around the entrance of the cave, Kirou followed a random path that took him in the direction of his secret.

Kirou was in no rush and took his time to enjoy the sights of the unnamed forest that he was currently in. Along the way, he found a few resource harvesting areas for both copper and iron ore. Since he had the epic rank item, the

, Kirou didn't shy away from taking advantage of these harvesting areas and wound up obtaining quite a few pieces of copper and iron ores. In fact, because he was using an epic level item, the ores he managed to obtain from these harvesting sites were all above medium purity, with only one or two such pieces within the entire lot.

Although it was a relatively short distance of just one and a half kilometers, it had taken Kirou an entire hour to reach his destination, which turned out to be a cliff facing the sea. At the moment, Kirou could see the gorgeous sunset hanging over the horizon. Even though it is a game, Kirou had to admit that Immortal Era did a wonderful job in recreating such a scene.

Feeling the urge to capture the scene before him, Kirou thought back to the conversation he had with Mistaken Fox in the underground cavern, along with his memories from reading the gaming helmet's instruction book. Having remembered the information that he needed, Kirou made two Ls with his thumb and index fingers and put them in the shape of a rectangle before pointing at the sunset before him.

Following the sound of a camera shutter, a new window appeared before Kirou displaying a picture of the sunset that he just took. Kirou smiled while looking at the picture and before he knew it, he was already feeling the urge to take a few more pictures. After taking a few more pictures to satiate his newfound urge, Kirou decided to focus back on the task at hand.

Looking around the area, there was nothing present on this overhead cliff. It was just an open area overlooking the sea. Kirou was admittedly at a loss as for what he should do about the second entrance to his base. While the idea of using a boat to enter and exit the base did cross Kirou's mind, he found such a method to be counterproductive in the long in case he wants to keep the secret base a secret. Since he couldn't store a boat in his inventory, if he created a pier nearby and docked a small boat there, all it would take is for one curious player to stumble across this area before they see the boat and decide to mess with it. On the off chance that they manage to find the sea entrance to his base using the boat, Kirou would have no one to cry to if such a person ransacked his area while he was offline.

Releasing a sigh, Kirou turned around, only to be greeted to the sight of a giant mole-like monster staring at him. Well, Kirou thought the creature was staring at him but upon closer inspection, he realized that while the creature was staring in his direction, it wasn't exactly looking at him, if the fact that the creature's eyes were closed was anything to go by.

Kirou took the time the giant mole creature was not showing any hostility to check out its stats. To say Kirou was surprised with what he saw would be an understatement as he wasn't sure if this was another case of him getting a s.h.i.+pment of coal in the middle of winter.

Monster: Shura Forest Badger Mole (Elite)

Monster Level: 20

Health: 105,000/105,000

Attack: 100

Defense: 200

Condition: Healthy (Curious)

Skills: Seismic Sense (Pa.s.sive), Keen Senses (Pa.s.sive), Earth Control, Earth Armor, Claw Strike (Earth Attribute), Reckless Charge