SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything-Chapter 30: Decision

67!

68!

69!

70!

Ding!

[Daily quest, 100 Pushups has been completed]

[You have received 100 exp]

[All the Daily Quests have been completed]

[You have received 1 Non Allocated attribute point and 1 Recovery potion]

[Reward has been added to your Inventory]

Hide let his body lay down on the floor, panting and his vision a little blurry. He was covered in sweat.

After his breath stabilized, he picked up the coin that the joker had left behind after he vanished.

"Your hot water is ready for bathing." CASS’s robotic voice came from the washing area.

"Thanks, CASS. I will go take a bath."

He stood up and sat straight. He had thought long and hard about the actions of that mysterious man with the joker face mask, and the person he met in the gat training facility.

Everything that had happened today was not by any means normal, or a coincidence.

He thought about the Joker’s words the way he had been not thinking about them since the cemetery — by which he meant he had been thinking about them constantly.

’He punched me, and said that I wouldn’t want anyone else to hear. Why was that? There was nobody around... was there?’

Hide pondered about it and reached a fair conclusion. ’There is, by all means a chance that I was being followed. Of course, the Geo Ford Agency and the government are not going to just leave me alone after I got out of the hospital. That would explain how that guy in the Gate facility found me, and how he knew about the Gate challenge thing when no one had even heard of it for years.’

He gritted his teeth, realizing that someone might be looking at him at this very moment too. Well, this apartment was a government property, so it might be even easier.

The next part was about his father. ’That doesn’t matter. I have never seen him, I don’t even know his name. What good it would be to see or know of him now?’

Hide retaliated at the thought of it, and smashed his hand in the floor, It did not hurt him anymore. He didn’t wanted to accept the truth, yes... he had always wanted to find out who his father was and he wanted it as much right now, too.

Not knowing your own father’s identity was not a good experience at all.

And then the next was the truth behind his mother’s death. He was, obviously a little careful with that information, but as far as he suspected, the joker was not a foolish guy at all and he most certainly knew something.

And if he is going to do it, he would rather do it properly, that was always the way he had done things.

Hide had decided. He was going to the Area 5. He would find the Joker’s certain place and hear what the man had to say. He would look at the NEA card on its own merits after that, not before, because signing with anyone before he understood the full picture was how people became useful to others rather than to themselves.

He stood up and picked up his phone or widely known as a communicator and called Fuu. He found the contact number from the school group.

--

Fuu had reached home after a long and miserable day, after taking a warm bath, he sat in his room with his eyes closed and recounting how he had been humiliated by that lowly F-Rank Hide, who doesn’t even have a talent to begin with.

What he was trying to understand was that how in the name of the old gods had Hide completed a 2 star gate in 5 minutes.

That was when his phone rang and he was startled, almost falling off of his chair.

"Who the son of a -" His words stopped in his mouth after he read the name. It was Hide Volter. Fuu’s face went pale as he, at first thought to not pick up, but at the end decided that was not the good move.

He took a slow breath and picked up the call, putting it to his ears.

"Hello..." he spoke, a bit confused.

From the other side, Hide’s voice sounded, flat. "Pack your bags and whatever it is that you need..."

"Huh?" Fuu’s mouth gaped as he heard that in utter surprise. "What do you mean pack?"

"Oh yeah, book two tickets in an airbus, in the luxury ward. I am sure you can spare that... we are going to Area 5 tomorrow morning."

"WHAT?!" Fuu was utterly dumbfounded. "What the hell -"

Beep Beep -

The call disconnected and Fuu was left staring at his wall in silence. "FUCK! I am so cooked!"

--

Hide sighed after the call disconnected and saw the message from Kai, well he had not touched that message almost all day, but he now did.

It was a simple text message, saying sorry and nothing else. Kai didn’t knew what else to say. Hide called him and the call was picked up after the first ring.

"Hide." Kai’s voice was immediate, the voice of someone who had been looking at the name on the screen waiting for it to move.

"Hi, Kai."

"Yes? Where are you? Are you alright? What are you doing?" The questions followed without a stop.

A smile creeped its way to Hide’s face. "Are you free within the next hour? I will tell you everything."

The other end was silent for some time. "Where?"

"Theos."

"Done... In an hour." Kai agreed. "Make sure to not get late."

Hide disconnected the call and went to the bathroom. It took him twenty minutes to remove all the grime and sweat off of his body, by rubbing several times.

Then he got ready in his normal cloths.

"CASS, is the window repaired?" He asked.

"Yes, It has been repaired and closed shut."

"Good." Hide nodded as he stepped towards the door. "Order some boxes and pack the things that might get dirty outside."

"Ok." CASS replied in her robotic voice. "Are you going somewhere for long time?"

"Yes..." Hide said as he wore his shoes and put on his jacket. "I will be gone for some time, so make sure to boot yourself down to standby mode. Same with the kitchen equipment’s. I don’t know when I will be back."

"As you wish."

He stepped out and closed the door, but then opened it again. "I forgot, make the security locks to the highest level."

"I will. Good luck with your task Hide."

Hide nodded and locked the door behind him. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The streets outside were as familiar as ever. The strip below the building, the wider avenue connecting the residential blocks to the commercial zone, the long curve that ran along Area 17’s outer boundary where the gate monitoring stations sat behind chain-link, their lights cold in the dark.

He had moved on this route for years. He knew every broken section of pavement, every dead streetlight, every shopfront that had closed and stayed closed.

He was going to leave all of it tomorrow. But he had already decided, and who knew maybe he can be back here soon enough.

The walk to Theos took him another thirty or so minutes, and when he reached there, he saw one of Kai’s bike parked outside already.

He chuckled at the scene, it had not been an hour yet and Kai was already here. Without waiting further he opened the door and stepped in.