CHAPTER 119: NOT WORTH IT

Not Worth It

"You think I should speed up the search?" Namor raised a brow when he heard Agnes’ words.

"Yes," The girl said, though she sounded a bit more subdued than usual. "The fact that we haven’t found them already, even with the amount of manpower we have available, is concerning. We don’t know what they are doing, we don’t know how many points they have, and we don’t know if they have raided many supply markers already. They aren’t stupid. Wo knows what sort of preparations they are making?" She explained her point of view.

"Hm. You’re worried they might have something ready for when we find them?" Namor tilted his head slightly, his blank expression unchanging.

"I... Yes." Agnes nearly faltered, but she still spoke her mind.

"Interesting. Do you think that 3 people, one of whom is a half-breed, and another who is a leech. The only person in that group worth a damn is Kris, and he’s willingly letting himself be dragged down." He slowly folded his arms.

"Meanwhile, we have hundreds of students on our side, all of whom are talented members of the different families, and of course, me. It’s a shame that the others aren’t so interested, but I’m at least certain that they won’t help them." Namor shrugged, referring to the other Apex heirs at the last part.

"This isn’t some show or novel where the underdog somehow manages to overpower a large group of powerful people. This is real life, and there are no amount of preparations they can make that will allow them to withstand such an overwhelming opposing force." Hearing this, Agnes gritted her teeth.

It went against her pride, but... she couldn’t help but disagree with Namor. She wanted to believe they held an overwhelming advantage, that there was nothing to worry about, but even if she didn’t know much about Kris or see that much in Mike, she knew Theresa well enough.

She also knew that her half-sister was not weak.

She opened her mouth again, but Namor held up a hand.

"I’m not sure why I’m even wasting time explaining this to you. Just know that I do not need your advice. I’m only letting you tag along because you aren’t half bad. But don’t forget, you’re the one under me. So you listen to me. Understood?" Namor’s voice became a lot more icy, and Aghes gritted her teeth hard, but slowly, she nodded her head.

"... Alright." Without another word, she turned around and left, her hands clenched into fists.

Namor watched her retreating fogure and fought back a scoff. Quite frankly, he found her caution laughable.

He didn’t know what she thought she knew, but there was simply no feasible way for their targets to pose a reasonable threat.

Would their side sustain some losses? Maybe. Especially with Kris protecting them. But that would only fly for so long. Heck, Namor wouldn’t be surprised if they had already split up due to the situation they found themselves under. Granted, that would make things a bit more difficult since they would need to track them individually.

Not that he really wanted to hurt Kris specifically... well, maybe, but not kill him. That wouldn’t fly, and he’d be punished heavily for sure.

’That said...’ He turned to face the Titanic Corpse Flower, the imposing botanical lifeform looming in the distance.

’The sooner I get rid of them, the sooner I can focus on more important things.’ He thought. Naturally, he intended to take down the creature.

It went without saying, but whoever managed to kill the creature was pretty much set to win the competition. After all, Namor wasn’t the only one exploiting the fact that he had subordinates to capture surrounding flags and kill beasts. Of anything, he was a bit behind due to the manpower he was expending to find Mike.

That was probably another reason why he wasn’t keen on putting even more effort into finding them.

He shook his head.

’I’m thinking about pointless things.’ He had more important matters to attend to at the moment, so he stopped wasting his time standing there and went to work.

***

When the next day arrived, Mike almost immediately noticed a gangster when he woke up. And by the looks of it, so did Kris and Theresa when they saw him.

He seemed... grumpy.

While Mike wasn’t the type of person to pay attention to what he looked like when he woke up, even he noticed the discrepancy in his behavior.

Usually, he’d either send upbeat or just have a neutral expression. Now, though, there was a noticeable shift in his demeanor as a clear frown was on his face.

It didn’t take long for Mike to figure out why.

[Ferocity: 23% (slightly unstable)]

It fluctuated between 20 and 23, which was usually around the level where Mike started to show an outward shift in his demeanor. It’s also at this point that Mike decided that he needed to be more careful with how he carried himself, as while he wasn’t so volatile as to snap if someone looked at him the wrong way, he was certainly more liable to make emotional decisions.

Still...

’I’ve been through worse.’ He decided to shrug it off. Not ignore it, not entirely, but not fussing over it either.

He looked forward and saw that there were w few more things in the cave.

In a corner where the wolves usually left alone, a few supplies could be seen, from compressed food and water to more elaborate things like armor repairs, Mike and Kris had to use those. There was also a compact shower which could shrink to the size of a small cube but unfold in a moment to become a full shower.

Theresa used that almost immediately.

Kris had also recovered completely at this point, which was nice.

Moreover, Kris and Theresa managed to find the flag Kris landed near and kept track of. However, it had already been claimed by some other people.

Which is where Theresa’s status as an archer came in clutch.

According to them, she used one of her skills to spot the ones guarding the flag, or which there were 3 people.

Then, she simply condensed a powerful arrow and fired it out before making it split into three, and it took them out before they could react, forcing the ship to in orbit to extract them.

After that, they captured the flag, and it turns out that when you do so, you are able to make it transfer the points it generates between a total of five people, and it generated 100 points in a minute, so that’s points and a bunch of decimals between them.

’Speaking of, how many points do I have?’ Mike was suddenly distracted from his odd predicament as he decided to check how many points he possessed.

He’d stopped checking after the first time, and he had a few hundred then. Now, he hadn’t even bothered counting how many beasts he’d slain, though, he was certain the stronger ones, like the Rat King and the 6-armed creature were worth a lot.

They had to be, right?

He pulled up his watch, and...

"Holy...!" He exclaimed audibly.

21,966

"You good?" Theresa who was some ways away heard his exclamation and faced him with a raised brow.

"Uh... how many points do you have?" Mike asked and stared at her with wide eyes.

Finding his reaction strange, Theresa decided to answer honestly.

"8,650. Why?" Mike looked between her and his watch. Then, slowly, a mischievous smile appeared on his face.

"... I have more points than you." Hearing this, Theresa’s expression changed, and she quickly went over. When she saw how many points he had, she exclaimed.

"HOW?!" She glared at him, and Mike grinned.

"Fighting that rat was worth it, then." He said cheekily, and Theresa gritted her teeth.

"You..."

"What’s happening?" Kris, who had just finished using the shower, came over when he heard their exclamations.

"Kris! How many points do you have?!" Theresa practically demanded, and the other boy’s eyes widened at the sudden passion.

"Yeah, how many?" Mike asked, unable to stop the smugness from seeping into his voice. Kris was now the one to look at them with wide eyes.

The two waited as Kris took a moment to compose himself, then he said quietly.

"... 35,473." Mike and Theresa’s jaws dropped.

"Wha- How did you...?" Mike stuttered, and Kris scratched his cheek bashfully.

"Before the rat king... You know. I had to fight swarms of its offspring. They didn’t give a lot of points individually, but there were a lot, so the points accumulated. And at the end, when we finally killed it, I got quite a bit from it." Hearing this, realization dawned," Mike.

’Right. He’d been fighting them for almost the whole day...’ He realized.

Mike looked at Kris who still seemed a bit shy at the sudden attention. It was hard to reconcile his current demeanor with the guy who had been fighting the Rat King. And yet, he could clearly feel that it wasn’t a front.

"... Hm, well, Theresa, you have some work to do." Mike turned to her, and she rolled her eyes.

"Well, I apologize for choosing to stay in one spot after I landed and not going to hunt absurdly powerful creatures because I have a sense of self-preservation." Theresa shot back.

"Hey, in my defense I didn’t WANT to be in those situations." Mike defended himself.

"You could have grabbed Kris and run!"

"Where’s the fun in that!?" The two of them started bickering.

Kris looked between them, then he let out a sigh.

’Yeah. This is fine.’