Science/Magic

Five minutes later, Bloed appeared in the roof of a building several kilometers away.

The first thing Bloed did after appearing was cursing.

"Dammit. That was close."

He never expected the hunter would be so strong.

Even between A-Ranks, that hunter could be considered a very powerful one.

Bloed felt it during the battle. Even with Atai helping him, he was not confident in defeating that monstrous beastman.

The only method Bloed thought could defeat him was to use his saber in a surprise attack and take the A-Rank out of the battle in one move. But if he failed, the A-Rank would become wary of his saber from there onwards, and his opportunities of winning would become zero.

Due to that, both Bloed and Atai reached the same conclusion.

To escape.

Fortunately, Oculus's plasma ray managed to stall the A-Rank long enough for Bloed to use his stealth and run away and Atai to escape.

Even so, when Bloed saw the A-Rank survive the head-on attack of Oculus's plasma ray with just a few burns, he was stunned.

At the same time, he sighed in relief.

Fortunately, the A-Rank purpose was just to test them, so he did not use his entire strength during the battle. Otherwise, Bloed would have had to use all his trump cards just to escape.

But although the battle against Atai and then the A-Rank was dangerous, Bloed gained a lot from it.

Firstly, he managed to test the performance of his new equipment.

And second, he finally tested one of his most important upgrades after attaining B-Grade.

When Bloed advanced to B-Rank, his [Enhanced Brain Capacity] ESP ability gave him the ability to thought-control three or so more machines.

One of these slots was given to Oculus.

As for the second, Bloed did not use it in a new machine.

Instead, he used it to upgrade his mechanical eyes.

More accurately, he added a new program to his eyes.

Bloed called it [Battle Simulation].

The function of this program was simple. It used information in the database to calculate the likely next movement of an enemy and how to react to it.

In fact, this function was not something new. At C-Rank, Bloed could already do something similar. Just that he used his brain to realize the calculations instead of a program.

This program was the upgraded version of that ability.

Different from before, this program gathered information of each enemy Bloed fought, using some new functions of Bloed's eyes such as energy sight and x-ray sight to grasp the movements of his enemies' muscles, bones, and mana. Then, the program collected that information in a corner of Bloed's brain and used it as a database.

In other words, each enemy Bloed's fought was like fertilizer nurturing this program.

Unfortunately, this program was still far from perfect. And Bloed realized it during this fight.

The problem was in the energy sight.

Bloed tried to use the energy sight to understand the enemy's flow of mana, and according to that, calculate the next technique his enemy was going to use.

Unfortunately, the flow of mana was different from person to person. Plus, currently, Bloed did not have enough data to make use of that information.

During the fight against Atai, this function ended being more of a burden than a help.

"… I guess I was too ambitious, huh." Bloed smiled bitterly. "I will have to calibrate the program after this… For now, I'll suppress the energy sight until I collect more data."

Well, failure is the key to progress.

Bloed consoled himself with that thought.

At that moment, an image appeared in Bloed's eyes.

It came from Oculus.

And it was showing a greatsword-wielding beastman running in his direction.

'… Such shitty luck. Why is he chasing after me?'

Bloed cursed in his mind and changed his direction.

But one minute later, his expression turned grave.

The A-Rank was still chasing after him.

And for some reason, he was going straight towards him.

Bloed wrinkled his brows and an ominous premonition appeared on his mind.

To make sure he was not imagining things, he changed his direction again.

But just like before, the A-Rank adjusted his direction a few seconds after Bloed, as though he knew Bloed's movements.

Bloed tried a few more times but the situation remained the same. No matter how much he tried, the A-Rank continued in his trail.

Moreover, he even flashed a grin to Oculus, as though telling Bloed he could not escape.

Fortunately, each time Bloed changed his direction the A-Rank needed a bit of time to adjust his direction again. Otherwise, the situation would have turned even worse.

However, Bloed knew he needed to find a way to shake the A-Rank off his tail.

Bloed smiled wryly. Was the selection supposed to be this difficult?

With a thought, he turned off his stealth. His stealth had shown to be useless in the current situation.

Afterward, he climbed on Leto's back and told it to run as quickly as possible.

As a peak B-Rank robotic wolf, Leto's speed was considerably faster than Bloed.

Then, he sent an order to Oculus.

Instantly, Oculus's eye lit up. Then, it aimed at the A-Rank.

In the next second, tens of energy bullets started to fly towards him!

The A-Rank's expression changed. He hurriedly moved aside to avoid the bullets. However, Oculus's bullets followed after him.

Frowning, the A-Rank used his sword to block the bullets. To his surprise, the bullets were less powerful than he expected.

The problem was the number of bullets.

Even as an A-Rank, the hunter could not afford to block each bullet. His mana would not last that way.

But when he tried to avoid the bullets, he realized the bullets' purpose was not to injure him but to delay him.

While he tried to avoid the bullets, the boy was constantly gaining distance.

The A-Rank grinned. "Great!"

Then, he raised his greatsword and slashed towards Oculus!

The eye moved aside to avoid the blow, but even so, a part of its body was blown away!

One second later, though, its body reformed again, making the hunter frown.

"How troublesome…"

The situation remained like that by fifteen minutes. With Bloed escaping and the A-Rank avoiding the bullets and occasionally attacking Oculus.

But with each passing second, Bloed's expression turned darker.

In the end, the number of bullets Oculus could shoot was limited.

Plus, although Oculus seemed to be immune to damage, it was not like that.

With each attack Oculus received, its reserves of energy diminished and parts of its body were completely destroyed, falling to the ground.

In the fifteen minutes since the chase started, it had become almost ten percent smaller!

What should I do? Bloed thought to himself, trying to find a way to escape this situation.

Quickly, he got an idea.

Bloed did not hesitate and ordered Oculus to find another contestant.

Soon, someone appeared in Bloed's sight.

The next second, Bloed changed his direction once more.