"Ghouls?!"
Hearing the exclamation beside him, Hiro thought to himself, "As expected," and couldn't help but feel like the whole world knew what had become of it, except for him, who had been kept in the dark.
Although Hiro knew he wasn't someone who paid much attention to current affairs, he wouldn't completely ignore trending topics on X and FB, and he would even glance at the advertisements pushed to his phone.
Yet, even under these circumstances, he had never heard even the slightest bit of news related to ghouls...
Feeling the trembling sensation from his palm, Hiro swung Asuna's wrist in his right hand towards the path they had come from and said in a deep voice:
"Good that you know. Asuna, you run quickly. I'll hold them off here."
"But..."
Biting her lower lip, a hint of hesitation flashed across Asuna's face.
She didn't immediately obey Hiro's instructions.
This old cliché happened, and she doesn't want to run?
Does she want to become a pair of doomed lovebirds with me? Although I probably won't die anyway...
"Hurry up and call the police, and don't come back to be a burden."
Glancing at the hesitation on Asuna's face, Hiro said coldly, trying to make her quickly recognize the situation.
While Hiro and Asuna were talking, the two ghouls on the other side weren't idle either.
"Two students, what bad luck. I'll go take care of them first, sir. You don't need to worry about it."
The male ghoul with short yellow hair and a tiger-striped mask covering his face threw down the food in his hand, stood up, and walked towards Hiro and the girl.
"The boy is yours to do with as you please. Bring the girl over here, and be careful not to hurt her," the green-haired, one-eyed ghoul said indifferently before lowering his head to continue eating.
"Understood."
The mask and limbs were covered in bright red liquid, and four snake-like kagune grew from his back.
Being stared at by those eerie blood-red eyes made the fifteen-year-old Asuna's heart suddenly tremble.
"Nanamiya-kun, you- you be careful!"
Wouldn't it have been better if she had done this earlier? Why put on a melodramatic scene...
Casting a sidelong glance at Asuna's retreating figure, Hiro muttered inwardly.
For the "original Asuna," who hadn't experienced the darkness of SAO and ALO and whose life so far had been filled with various elite educations, this reaction to suddenly facing man-eating monsters like ghouls was normal.
Despite being curious about why Yoshimura Eto would leave an unscathed "original Asuna," the impending first life-and-death battle didn't leave him much time to think.
"My food!!"
A somewhat garbled roar came from under the tiger-striped mask.
The male ghoul suddenly lunged forward, and the four snake-like kagune on his back fiercely stabbed towards Hiro's head, heart, and other vital points.
Whoosh whoosh~~
Amidst the sound of air being torn apart, Hiro didn't even use "Intrinsic Time Control" and easily captured the trajectory of these four kagune.
With a slight movement of his feet, he shifted half a step to the right.
While turning his body at a small angle, he lightly tilted his head, perfectly dodging the four menacing kagune.
The extent of this "physical fitness enhancement" seems to be much higher than I imagined.
Staring at the male ghoul several meters ahead, whose kakugan had widened considerably, Hiro pondered inwardly.
"What?!"
Looking at the calm and composed boy surrounded by four kagune, the ghoul, whose kakugan had widened even further, exclaimed in surprise and tried to stop his forward momentum.
However, due to his previous rash action, this thought was difficult to realize.
This movement...
not an ordinary person, an investigator of student age? Or an investigator disguised as a student? Damn it!
I was so close to joining Aogiri Tree, how could I be so unlucky?
But it's okay, he has no weapons in his hands.
He's definitely no match for me barehanded.
Ordinary blades couldn't even break a ghoul's skin, let alone human hands and feet.
Having determined this, the ghoul immediately abandoned the manipulation of his kagune, clenched his right fist, and charged towards the boy in front...
Thump!
The four kagune brushed past Hiro's ears, shoulders, and sides, deeply embedding themselves in the residential wall behind him.
At the end of the alley, Yoshimura Eto, who had been eating earlier, had put down his food.
A hint of curiosity appeared on the face beneath his mask as he looked at the two engaged in battle.
"Die!!"
It's not like the louder you shout, the greater the attack power will be.
Do you think reality is a voice-controlled game...
Looking at the roaring male ghoul charging towards him, Hiro was speechless for a moment.
Intrinsic Time Control - Double Speed!
The moment the ability was activated, the world before his eyes underwent a very significant change.
The ghoul's movements seemed to have entered a slow-motion replay slowed down several times, completely losing its previous fierce momentum.
Even the curiosity in the eyes of the green-haired, one-eyed ghoul in the distance, Yoshimura Eto, was clearly visible.
If the world he was in before was normal time, now it was like entering a weakened version of bullet time, and this was only double-speed Intrinsic Time Control.
Dynamic vision, nerve reflexes, brain activity, blood supply...all bodily functions within his body had doubled in speed.
So this is what it feels like?
Dodging the male ghoul's attack and moving to his side, Hiro still had the spare capacity to think about these things.
The male ghoul slowly turned his head, his gaze shifting to Hiro's position, a hint of shock inevitably surfacing in his eyes.
Clearly, he hadn't expected this "ordinary" human, Hiro, to be able to make such swift movements.
Despite this, the ghoul didn't give up his intention to kill him.
His right arm and the retracted four kagune simultaneously changed direction.
But in Hiro's eyes, the ghoul's movements...
were as slow as a snail's pace.
Coldly staring directly at the ghoul's kakugan, Hiro raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers closed together, surpassing the hardness of steel with a human body-
Navy Six Styles - Finger Gun!
Shhh~
Two fingers pierced into the ghoul's temples, instantly extinguishing the other's consciousness and ability to move.
The movements of the kagune and the fist froze simultaneously, and then...
Thump~~
The ghoul with the tiger-striped mask fell face-down at Hiro's feet.
"Ho~ Killed a ghoul barehanded, young man, you don't seem like an ordinary person~"
Hiro followed the voice and looked over.
The green-haired, one-eyed ghoul in the distance had stopped eating.
His entire body was enveloped in his ukaku, and in the blink of an eye, he transformed into the "One-Eyed Owl"...
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Every 250 Power stones = 1 Bonus Chapter