Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

"...."

Team leader Dains carefully placed the documents on some tissues.

"What do you mean by 'safe'?"

"I mean what I said."

Team leader Dains frowned.

"How can you guarantee that?"

Alan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Fidel, you guys are worried that he might be related to that terrorist group, right? You've also asked him to prove himself."

"Right."

Alan leaned back on the chair.

"What I'm saying is that you don't have to be worried about him being related to those fools because there is something bigger for you to worry about."

"...."

Team leader Dains looked at the stained papers with sad eyes. He had been working on them for hours. After putting some other tissue on them, he glared at Alan again.

"...Was that meant to comfort me?"

Alan stretched his legs out with an annoyed face.

"Why are you guys so stubborn? You pretend to be so smart when you can't do shit!"

"What-"

"Listen to me once and let that boy do whatever shit he wants!"

"I've literally left him to do whatever shit he wants until now!"

"Good! Keep that up! Also, don't scare him off his power."

"That might bring us trouble in the long."

"You will be in deep shit in the long so anyway don't worry."

"...."

Team leader Dains got up from his seat.

"Get out."

"Hey!"

The team leader grabbed Alan by the collar and dragged him towards the door.

"If you are not going to explain things and act all mysterious, so get out and don't waste my time."

Alan grabbed the table with both hands and yelled.

"This is not how you should treat someone like me! I am honoring you fools by spending my time to aid you fuckers!"

Team leader Dains pulled him even more.

"Explain everything or get lost."

"I'll explain them to some degree so let go! Oy!"

PLOP

Team leader Dains released Alan. 

"I'm listening."

. . . . . . .

The woman looked at the identification cards in her hands, then looked at the owners of those cards.

"New recruits for the Monster Hunting Division?"

The other person nodded her head.

"That is right. I've brought them here to train."

The employee looked away from the captain of the Monster Hunting Division and looked at the people behind her who were all wearing the uniforms of Monster Hunting Division. She checked the faces with the cards in her hands before nodding her head.

"Welcome, hunters."

The woman welcomed them with a warm smile and stood aside, showing them the way up.

"Thank you."

They thanked her as they passed the checkpoint and started to walk up the mountain.

"Are we going to go there on foot?"

Asa asked.

"I guess so? We are here to hunt monsters after all."

Asa looked at Elsie with tired eyes.

"Is it really necessary to keep playing this role?"

"Of course it is! We are a bunch of hunters who came here to train, don't forget that."

"Yeeeah!"

Asa was visibly dissatisfied, but she nodded her head and looked forward again.

"Oh!?"

She then suddenly gasped and placed her hands on her mouth. 

"...."

Elsie, confused by her sudden strange action, followed her gaze and looked at where she was staring. 

"I just wanted to see how his power worked. I didn't expect to get beaten up so miserably!"

Reyan said with a huge amount of sadness and disappointment in his voice as if his pride was greatly hurt.

"But that last attack of yours seemed really powerful. You would've won if the opponent was not someone with the ability to turn back time."

Kairen answered Reyan with a robotic voice while walking beside him.

"But you won against him!"

"It was only because he-"

Kairen couldn't complete his words as his body started to fall forward after tripping to a stone on the way.

"Hey!"

Reyan grabbed him from the back of his shirt and pulled him back.

"Gasp!"

Asa gasped.

"...."

Elsie looked between the due who were talking and the teenager with sparkling eyes, with a puzzled face. After looking at Asa for a few seconds, Elsie decided not to try to find out what Asa was thinking about and only focus on walking forward.

"...Thank you."

Kairen looked down at the stone with a blank face.

"Are you fine?"

Moving his head a little bit, Reyan looked at Kairen's face. 

"Yeah."

Even though Kairen said that he was fine, his face was pale. There were dark circles under his eyes and he seemed to be half asleep. 

"Is there something bothering you? Can't I help?"

"There is nothing. Everything is fine."

Kairen shook his head.

"...."

Reyan looked at him with a worried gaze despite him saying that everything was fine.

Kairen avoided Reyan's gaze and thought to himself.

'I mustn't have stayed awake last night...'

But how could he sleep after that conversation with Alan? He couldn't fall asleep at all, thinking about all the things that were happening around him.

"You are starting to feel like your previous self..."

Kairen snapped out of his thoughts and turned to his friend.

"Huh?"

"Always keeping things to yourself and all!"

Reyan shrugged.

"Not then, not now. You never tell me anything!"

"..."

Reyan didn't stop and kept nagging with a dejected face.

"Do you know what friends are for? To help each other!! But here you are, not even telling me your problems!!"

Kairen silently looked at Reyan who was still nagging. In fact, he wasn't paying much attention to his words. He was thinking about something that's been in his mind since yesterday.

'The trigger might be something related to the previous Kairen, like what happened in that mission...'

Did that mean that someone related to the previous Kairen had to be in danger for the power to be activated again?

Why?

Can't he just use his power normally? He didn't want anyone to be in danger! 

Also, there was something else.

'Is this the power of friendship I've always hated so much?'

Why did he have to be in such a situation?

"Hey, are you listening?"

"...Yeah? Yeah!"

Kairen nodded his head.

"...."

Seeing him like that, Reyan closed his mouth and didn't say anything else with an even more dejected face. 

Stlinct Mountain range. That was their current location. They were climbing the highest mountain in this mountain range. The place they were heading to was one of the places with a reduced monster generation rate. There was also a historical site there, that was the same place once called the Temple of Rift.

They wanted to visit the temple while staying unnoticed, as Philomns had a spy everywhere. For that purpose, they all came here under the name of the Monster Hunting Division, which was responsible for taking care of the monsters of this area. Captain Neal often took the newcomers on trips and small missions to train them, so it was not rare for her to show up here with a punch of new hunters.

As there were three mages, one healer, and one old ma- Alan in the team, it took them a while to finally reach the top of the mountain.

"Oooh! I can see it!"

Asa exclaimed as she pointed at the old walls that were slowly becoming visible from the distance. 

There, at the top of the mountain, they could see a huge, but really old building. The tall white walls were still shiny and bright despite their age and the stone stairs that were leading to the entrance of the temple were still intact.

"Wow!"

"I had seen its pictures but... it is amazing seeing it in person!"

"I had actually visited this place before with my dad when I was a kid!"

"Oh? I didn't know about that, Rai."

"Let's go inside!"

"Wait!"

Team leader Dains stopped the unit members from heading inside.

"We don't know what might happen so first, take out your weapons."

"Yes, sir!"

The unit members took out their weapons one by one. Captain Neal on the other hand started to cast multiple spells at the same time. Kairen also prepared some defensive spells before heading inside.

The last time they visited a ruin... they were greeted with a huge centipede who attacked the unit with the desire to kill them, so it was wise to be cautious.

Tap Tap Tap Tap 

They all walked on the stone stairs, which started a few meters before reaching the temple and led to the temple's entrance.

"There is no one here..."

"I told them to dispatch the hunters and block the road for today because of... possible monster attack."

Captain Neal answered Darren as they approached the entrance.

The huge marble gate was the entrance of the temple that led them to the yard. There were a lot of decorations placed here and there. Once they entered, they could see two huge statues of two eagles, each on one side of the entrance, standing as if they were guards. There were drawings and carvings on the walls and some other statues here and there in the yard. 

The main building was on the other side of the yard. A huge, white, and gorgeous building. Tall pillars, decorated with various carvings, were supporting the building. At the first sight, one could say how much time was spent on building this place.

"Holy!"

"How did they build such a place on top of a mountain?"

The unit members were looking at the temple with astonishment. Of course, there were exceptions. Such as Rai who had already visited here and wasn't that amazed, or Serria who seemed to not care about the beautiful building at all and only focused on peeking at Kairen and Reyan. Also, there was Alan, who seemed more angry than amazed, and team leader Dains who observed everywhere with a serious face.

"What are these drawings?"

The group walked to the two huge pillars at the front side of the main building. There, they could see some drawings carved on the pillars. 

"People are looking at something in the sky..."

The carving showed a bunch of people looking at something in the sky. There were some shiny things falling towards the people on the ground who had raised their hands up in the air. There was also another person who was standing on top of a mountain, lower than the thing people worshiped, who was waving at the crowd. On the other side, there were a bunch of monsters who were running away from the crowd.

"Is that the 'god' they worshiped?"

Asked Carlson.

Looking at the carving, Kairen slightly shook his head. 

"They didn't have a 'god' as we call them."

All of the team members turned to Kairen.

"What do you mean?"

Kairen touched the carving with his finger. 

"According to the things I found in the library, these people seemed to worship some kind of an 'idea' rather than a 'god'."

Kairen was really amazed after finding out about that when he was searching the books in the library. He even thought that this 'thing', 'idea', or 'god' that these people worshiped resembled some philosophical theories of Earth to some extent, although there were a lot of differences.

"According to them, they had to worship the 'cause' of everything. They didn't believe in a material 'god' who suddenly decided to create the world, they believed in chains of actions, the cause and result. They said that they had to worship the first cause and the last result. That is what they called 'god'. They also believed that that 'god' was the one who caused them to have unique powers.. They believed if they were obedient enough and a good follower, they would be able to fulfill the 'cause' to have the 'result' of having unique powers."