Toshiro turned to the right.
Misora and I nodded. Toshiro started sprinting in the right direction.
Toshiro was fast, but both of us were keeping up with him, although we were aware he was holding back his speed for us.
We ran extremely fast. The heated air pushed against us at a speed more than five times that of the car. I wondered why we didn't just run here.
Still in the middle of nowhere, and now with not even a road in sight, we ran for two minutes. It might not seem like much, but it was more than a hundred miles.
A hundred miles seem crazy, but the speed is considered just normal for people like us who use mana to enhance our speed and body movements, let alone there's people who completely depend on mana alone in combat, like I did back in Black Cloaked Manipulator's dungeon.
A couple minutes of running went like—Toshiro in front of us, while Misora and I were side by side in a deserted place in the middle of nowhere.
A few seconds later, I saw trees a dozen miles ahead.
Just as we reached the trees, Toshiro stopped and we followed.
"This is the place," he said.
Nothing else other than the trees was in sight—absolutely nothing. Misora and I looked at each other, confused, while Toshiro searched his pockets.
"Found it," he said as he pulled out a red, ancient-looking key, as big as his hand.
Misora and I leaned in to see what it was, still confused."What is it?" Misora questioned, curious.
"This is the key to the base," he replied.
Misora and I looked around—nothing in sight to use this key on.
"There's literally nothing I see here. Where is the key gonna go?" I questioned.
"Well, I forgot to tell you something.
Under no circumstance question how and what is happening—not even once," he said. His tone shifted from casual to serious and terrifying. His voice echoed in our heads, and we became terrified by his words. We knew for certain not to disobey this command of his.
"Well, shall we go inside?" he questioned. His tone was back to normal, but that terrifying voice was still embedded in our minds.
We followed along and said, "Yes."
He turned toward the trees. Still a few meters away, he raised his hand with the key.
He locked the key into the air, twisted it, and we heard a tick sound.
Misora and I were just staring at it, wondering what was happening. While Misora was scared, I was no longer fazed—since the Black Cloaked Manipulator far surpassed Toshiro's horror play.
When he twisted the key, a gust of wind gathered around, forming like a tornado.
After a few seconds, the wind started carrying red and white particles along with it.
Just then, Toshiro pulled out the key.
"This is..." I said, realizing what it was.
This was just like how the dungeon gate was formed—except instead of blue particles, these were red.
Misora was still confused. "What is happening?" she wondered.
Slowly but surely, the gate had formed.
It was the exact same size as the Black Cloaked Manipulator's gate—the only difference being that, instead of blue, it was red.
"Let's go," Toshiro said, and we followed without asking any questions.
Well, I had a bad experience with gates... so I was a little scared now.
We entered the gate.
It was a hallway. Just a simple hallway with white tiles and room doors on the sides, with names on them.
The place was nicely lit. It smelled fresh. The place was chill, cooled by the ACs I saw in the hallway above the room doors—but the pressure of the presence I felt was immense and almost overwhelming.
When we entered, the gate behind us closed immediately.
"Welcome to the house of the Crimson Order."
"This place is..." Misora said, still a bit confused.
I said nothing, because I was still unsure about everything that was happening.
"Let's move forward, shall we?" Toshiro said casually.
Misora and I nodded.
We moved through the hallway. The tiles were white, the walls were nicely painted, and every few meters a new door appeared with a name above it.
The hallway was long—very long, in fact.
We moved forward, and I had probably passed 20 rooms on each side, making it 40. Some rooms were unnamed, while others were claimed.
When we had almost walked through the entire hallway, with a big door ahead that didn't look like a room, I saw two rooms facing each other that said the names 'Misora Kurogane' to the right and 'Kuroto Kurogane' to the left.
That most likely meant they were our rooms.
We closed in on the door.
"Be prepared, you're going to meet the members of the Crimson Order," he said. It was more of a reminder than a warning.
I nodded.
Toshiro opened the door.
The place was like a meeting room, with a wooden table in the middle and 26 total fancy-looking chairs—ten distributed to the right, ten to the left, and three on each of the remaining sides.
There wasn't much to the room aside from the dark blue curtains that covered the greyish walls. Above the curtains were ACs—about four in the meeting room.
There were a total of eight people, aside from the three of us, sitting in the chairs.
My gaze landed on a couple of familiar faces such as Daiki and Haruka.
And then my gaze landed on a certain someone.
I saw a girl.
She was the same girl from the café.
"Wait, she is..." I thought to myself, while she did the same when our gaze met.
I just stood frozen.
It wasn't a shock because of her power, neither was it me being amazed by her beauty.
It was something else.
A familiarity that I didn't understand.
Just looking at her felt like I had been her friend forever.
Just then, a realization hit me.
"Can she be one of the God reincarnations?"
It was more of a realization than a suspicion, because the familiarity wasn't an ordinary scenario.
"Brother?" Misora said, as she hovered her hands in front of my face because of the zoning out.
"Uh," I looked around, realizing I had zoned out.
"Well, I zoned out," I told her.
"Okay, I guess," she said, still wondering why I zoned out.
I went back to being myself and thought to deal with that later.
Toshiro said I would be loaded with questions, but that didn't seem to be the case, since they didn't really look like they were going to ask anything by the looks of it.
Toshiro sat at the near end of the three chairs in the middle while giving me and Misora a seat on the sides.
I was on the right, and Misora on the left. Toshiro spoke.
"These two are the new cadets of the Crimson Order," he said, introducing us.
He gestured his hand toward Misora.
"I'm Misora Kurogane. Happy to work with you all," she introduced herself.
Everyone listened, looked at us normally.
Toshiro gestured his hand toward me.
"I'm Kuroto Kurogane. Happy to work with you all," I introduced myself normally.
Misora didn't look like it, but I was on guard. In a room with immense pressure like this, I couldn't help but stay on guard.
When I introduced myself they seemed to be analyzing me thoroughly from both looks and presence—except for Daiki and the girl..
"You all may introduce yourselves to him—first the cadets," Toshiro said.
"I'm Haruka Murakami. Nice to work with you both," said the blonde girl Haruka.
"I'm Ryota Sugiyama. Pleasure to work with you both."
Ryota Sugiyama had red, normal-looking hair, a muscular build, red almond eyes, white skin, and a height of 6'2. He had an extremely strong presence and a red aura of mystery surrounding him, at first glance you can tell nothing about this person at all.
"I'm Daiki Iwasaki. Pleasure to work with you," said the kid.
"I'm Riko Iwasaki... It's a pleasure to work with you," she said nervously.
"So her name is Riko," I wondered to myself.
"Pleasure to meet you, I'm Hayato Kisaragi."
Hayato Kisaragi had black, silky hair, black hunter-like piercing eyes that stared right into my soul, pale white skin, and an average build. The way he sat was like he ran the place and was the boss. He had a mysterious black aura of dread—not aimed at me—but his presence was almost threatening. It wasn't that his mana felt strong; in fact, his mana was almost invisible. He gave me a little bit of the Black Cloaked Manipulator's vibes.
"I'm Yuki Hanabira. It's a pleasure to work with you both, Ms. Misora and Mr. Killer of the Black Cloaked Manipulator," she said and chuckled.
Yuki Hanabira had beautiful, medium-sized silver-white hair. Iconically, she had a butterfly hair clip, made completely out of ice. She had beautiful almond hazel eyes, white pale skin, and a slim body. A white aura of serenity, calm, and comfort surrounded her. Normally I wouldn't say it, but she had a beautiful smile, as a matter of fact. Her height would be around 5'7. She was beautiful—from both her presence and looks.
"I'm Riku Azuma. Nice to have you both aboard."
Riku Azuma, on the other hand, seemed extremely well-mannered, as if addressing us as an elder. He had brown messy hair, brown hooded eyes, and very slightly dark skin—though most of it appeared white. His height was 5'8, like mine. His aura was brown, with the same serenity and calm as Yuki Hanabira's—but it felt different, probably because of gender.
"I'm Saya Fukuhara. It's nice to have you both aboard."
Saya Fukuhara had brown, medium-sized straightened hair with no hair clip, brown doe eyes that gave her an innocent but mature look, and white skin with a slightly pale look. Her height was 5'7. She had the blue aura of serenity and calm.
After their introductions were done, I realized something.
All the full members' presence didn't lack anything. In fact, it was so perfect I couldn't even imagine it. It was as if their presence was much more stable than ours. Even Toshiro's presence—before, which had felt a bit like ours but more overwhelming—was now the same calm and balanced, unlike ours.
Toshiro looked around and said, "The introductions are done. Do you guys have any questions for these two?" He asked everyone, perfectly knowing the answer was yes.
They'd ask me, "How did I kill the Black Cloaked Manipulator?"
I had two options if they did ask me that—either lie and brush it off, or tell them the real truth about my abilities.
I chose option three. I'd just say it was something personal.
Before anyone could speak, Hayato got up from his seat and started walking toward the door.
"Let's take this outside," he said while walking past me.
What did he mean? I was confused about what he meant by 'Let's take this outside.'
"The meeting isn't over yet. You cannot do that," Toshiro said as Hayato nearly exited the meeting room.
He briefly stepped back in and replied to Toshiro.
"You said I can ask any questions. Well, this is a question for me," he said. His voice was the second coldest I'd ever heard, and he exited the meeting room.
"I guess there's no stopping him once he gets in that mood. Kuroto, pray for your safety—and I will too," Toshiro said, while the full members got up, us cadets were just too confused.
"What is happening?" I questioned Toshiro, but he didn't reply. Instead, he just signaled me to follow him along with everyone.
Everyone else, myself included, was confused about what was happening.
What was happening? Why did Hayato say that? And what did he mean by 'Let's take this outside'?
I was confused—very confused, in fact.
I followed Toshiro, with Hayato a few meters ahead of us.
When he reached the wall, he pulled out his key, twisted it just like Toshiro did, and the red gate started forming exactly like before.
Misora closed in on me and whispered into my ear.
"What is happening?" she asked softly.
"I'm just as clueless as you are," I replied, picking up my pace by a step.
Just as we closed in on the gate, it had fully formed, and Hayato had already pulled out his key.
It seemed that opening the gate from the inside was faster—much faster—than opening it from the outside.
We stepped out of the gate, and Hayato was standing 30 meters in front.
"Newbie, you stay there," he said, and Toshiro looked back and signaled for me to stop.
I didn't understand what was happening.
As they all moved toward the far side, Misora questioned Toshiro.
"What is happening?" she asked worriedly.
"He's asking him a question," Toshiro said.
"Asking him a question?"
"Hayato is the type to question someone's strength when he's interested—and instead of judging a book by its cover, he fights them to see how strong they are," he said.
"Fight?" Misora repeated, worried.
"Yes. He tends to fight whoever's strength he's curious about, and no one—not even me—can stop him once he gets like that," Toshiro stated, his tone becoming more serious.
Misora settled back, still worried.
I realized this meant it was a fight. I prepared myself.
VoidMind: "You're prepared for battle."
"Newbie, show me what you've got. Considering you defeated the Black Cloaked Manipulator in front of Toshiro's eyes, you must have something up your sleeve," he said.