"Boy, you freaked us all out. You suddenly fell to the ground and stopped moving completely."

"Are you okay? Maybe you need some rest..."

Doran and Levia were talking to Qasim, who was zoned out, thinking about what had just happened.

*I died... I really died and went to hell... but then I came back alive? No... It’s more like I went back in time? Does that have something to do with the time cave? No, that place I was in was familiar... It’s the same place I was when I searched for my true name... What did I do back then?*

Qasim recalled that he had entered his Egoistical Layer to find his true name. There, he was nothing but a floating awareness, being attacked by... something.

*It had to do with my Egoistical Layer. There are things living there...*

Qasim removed the glove from his hand and looked at the tattoo.

It was as he expected.

The tattoo had the same pattern as the stars had... That was his Egoistical Layer, and inside it were some creatures and five eyes looking at him from above.

When one of the eyes closed, he was sent back in time, but...

*That pain...*

Qasim hugged himself tightly as he remembered the pain his body and soul had suffered.

*And there’s also the fact that even though I was sent back in time, I was stuck in a weird state where I couldn’t move, couldn’t see, hear, or speak. I was just there, suffering without even having the right to cry.*

Qasim looked at the time.

It was now 05:32 AM.

*According to Doran, I fell to the ground at 05:15, which I assume is when I went back in time... Then, for 15 minutes, I was stuck in that weird state. I got my senses back around 05:30...*

*How much time did I go back? Seven hours? Maybe eight? Then I got stuck in that hellish state for 15 minutes...*

Qasim couldn’t think of a better name to call that state of suffering.

"Um... Is everything okay, Yasmin? You’ve been looking at me for some time now..."

Yasmin, as if she had just realized what she was doing, lowered her head for a moment before replying slowly.

"I’m sorry. It’s... your life energy suddenly changed a bit."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"From the start, you’ve had this weird life energy... Something I’m familiar with from back when I was an assassin. It’s the energy of a killer. That’s why I didn’t really trust you at first, but then you proved you were a good person, so I didn’t think about it much until now. Suddenly, it got... worse? Like a rotten fruit..."

Qasim was shocked to hear this. He placed his hand on his chin and asked himself:

*What the hell was the original owner of this body?*

As he was thinking, someone entered the room.

It was Valen, and he said exactly the same words Qasim remembered.

"I can’t find the answers right now... It’s better to first change the future of this mission."

What he knew so far was that Team One would die, and Team Two had probably died as well, though he didn’t know how either of them would die.

Doran would lose an arm, and Levia would die...

Valen had said he was ambushed. The path he and Yasmin had taken the first time was basically a waste of time.

The Savior was...

Qasim stopped thinking and tightened his fist in fear.

*Let’s not think about him for now...*

It was now clear that Qasim needed to warn the others and help as much as he could after seeing how much stronger these terrorists were.

09:50 AM

The three teams met up exactly as Qasim remembered.

If he tried to warn them now, they probably wouldn’t understand him, so he decided to wait until the woman from the officials explained the plan.

At 10:40 AM, the plan was done and set.

Meanwhile, Qasim had also made his own plan.

He would let Team Three play their role, the same for Team Two, and simply warn them to be careful.

As for his team, he decided that the best thing to do was to let Doran and Levia fight the gorilla beastkin with prior knowledge of his healing ability, while he, Yasmin, and Valen would all go to the fox’s secret place and kill that bastard.

He found Aurora arguing with Yorness, so he stepped in.

"Aurora, please be extra careful when you go to that tunnel. The enemy already knows about it and probably has a trap there or something dangerous."

"Oh boy! Why are you saying this? Please don’t jinx it already~"

She laughed at first, but when she saw how serious he was, she gave him a wink.

"Don’t worry, boy. I love my life and will not waste it on a mission like this. I’ll take your warning seriously. Thank you."

"Huh? You’re really going to do that? Just how much of a fucking coward are you, Aurora, to follow a little boy’s warning that’s based on nothing? Haha, he’s probably afraid himself. What’s wrong, boy? Peeing yourself already?"

"He was the first to realize how dangerous these terrorists are, Yorness, remember? At the king’s meeting, you all laughed at him, but look at you now... Even if it’s just his intuition, I will follow that intuition. It was more accurate than yours."

"What did you say, old fu—"

"You too, Yorness... You need to be extremely careful if you don’t want to die."

Qasim said it suddenly, and the old man’s face changed. He narrowed his eyes.

"Make me, little brat."

"Trust me... If you want to stay alive to see tomorrow, take this mission as a dangerous threat."

"Alright, everyone. We are close to the tunnel. Let’s go over the plan one last time."

The woman interrupted them and called for the last meeting.

Yorness just gave Qasim a look of contempt before leaving.

The plan went like before.

Team Two went to the secret tunnel, while Team Four went around to the guards’ gate, and Team Three was in front of the main gate.

But this time, Qasim noticed something at the top of one of the guard towers.

There was a beastkin there, looking at the main gate before suddenly looking directly at Qasim.

The boy felt the strong aura coming from him.

*Is he the reason Team Three died?*

At that moment, he got an idea.

"Valen, look there..."

"I see... He is definitely at the third step."

"And surprisingly, he isn’t attacking us... Honestly, I didn’t notice him, so if he decided to kill us, we wouldn’t even notice. That’s scary~"

"What do you think is the reason?"

"I don’t know..." Valen said before suddenly widening his eyes.

"Careful, everyone!"

In the next moment, something landed beside them.

It was another beastkin that looked like a hyena.

She looked at them and then back at the other beastkin on top of the tower, who looked like an eagle, before looking back at them.

"Well, look what we have here..." she said while showing off her teeth.

Qasim remembered the fox’s teeth and bloody mouth, so he backed off in fear but then took a breath to calm himself.

As Team Four took formation to fight the enemy, the hyena suddenly stopped them.

"I don’t think it’s so smart to fight me while my friend over there is watching... Trust me, he can kill you all from that far-away distance."

"Haha, so you will let us leave or what?"

"It’s not a bad idea, honestly. If you don’t warn your team, who are near the main gate, we will let you go inside."

"Oh, is that so..."

As Valen was about to get something from his pocket, Qasim stopped him.

"I don’t think that’s a bad deal, Valen..."

Qasim looked at his leader, then at the hyena.

"But why do you do this? Isn’t it better to kill us? That way, we won’t warn our allies and you get rid of us."

"Nah, I’m just a paid mercenary. Same for him."

She pointed at the eagle.

"We do our job and leave. Unless you want to make our job harder, in which case we..."

"No, that’s work for us too, right?"

Qasim looked at Valen, who was confused by Qasim’s behavior but didn’t argue further and accepted the deal.

Once they were in front of the three paths, Qasim started talking.

"Doran and Levia should go to the middle path. There, you will face a gorilla-like beastkin. He has strong physical strength but doesn’t use Irada. Instead, he has access to the Life Rune power to heal himself. Don’t ever lower your guard when facing him. Even if he looks dead, continue attacking!"

"How do you—"

"Please trust me... Please."

Qasim looked at them with worried eyes, so they simply nodded at him.

He then turned to Yasmin and Valen.

"I know where the enemy leader is. Let’s go there, the three of us."

"Hmm... I won’t ask you how you know that, but why just us? Doran and Levia would be a great help too."

"I’m afraid they will notice something is wrong if all of us don’t show up, so it’s better if Doran and Levia go alone... Is that wrong?"

"Hmm... I don’t really know, but we can try that."

Qasim was extremely thankful that Valen was so cooperative.

Come to think of it, he always was, and that made Qasim think that he had indeed been so stupid to choose the sacrifice option last time.

He wasn’t a hero.

Instead, he had betrayed Valen’s trust.

"Thank you," he said while lowering his head.

"I did nothing for you to thank me for, my boy. Just lead the way."

The three of them then went to the middle path.

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