Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 62: Special Missions

"Sigh, I’m sorry!"

She apologized, realizing her mistake, her excitement having gone down by a notch. Kieran on the other hand didn’t give a response and kept looking at her questionly, waiting for an explanation.

"I just took a special mission. It’s a little higher than what you can handle, but it should be fine since I’m coming along!" She explained briefly, no longer avoiding his gaze.

Hearing this, the questioning in kieran’s eyes reduced a little, but he asked further.

"What mission?"

"I’ll tell you later, trust me. You are going to like it. I figured you were going after some though missions and this fits just right!" She said with a pleading expression, hoping for him to cooperate and play along.

"Sigh, alright!"

Kieran let out a resigned sigh and stopped pushing for answers.

"Thanks!"

Ruby smiled, her expression beaming.

’He’s changed somehow, but I can’t say what exactly it is’ Ruby thought to herself with narrowed eyes.

"Alright, you ready?"

"Hmm"

"Let’s go then!"

Ruby said, pulling his arm again, her touch lighter than before.

Looking around, Kieran noticed that she was taking him in the direction he had been staring at earlier, where the mission contents were being submitted.

Entering the room, Ruby pulled him into a small door at the side before he could even get a good look leaving him slightly disappointed.

It was strange, but for that short moment, the smell of blood and sweat seemed to stir something with him, but he had no time to ponder on that when he felt Ruby tap his shoulder.

"Your pass"

She asked and he became conscious of his surroundings once again. They had arrived at a gate, more like a checkpoint and behind him was a long line of other people who were about to go out like him.

Not wasting anytime, he pulled out the badge he had just received and stretched it forth to the soldier at the entrance who only took a glance at it, before looking back at Kieran with a strange expression.

The soldier was about to speak out when Ruby butt in.

"He is with me!"

The moment she said that, a look of understanding could be seen coming upon the soldier’s face and he nodded, letting them pass.

"They can see the level of the mission you’ve taken and your own level too. That’s why he had that expression. I told you the mission was above your level, but since I’m tagging along its okay"

"...."

Kieran remained silent, although he understood the system roughly, he still hadn’t experienced the difference between missions and how that had to so with Ruby’s explanation and the soldier’s reaction.

"What level is this mission?"

Kieran asked, unable to hold his curiosity in anymore.

"It’s a level 5 mission" Ruby answered, making Kieran more confused.

"You know I said earlier that even between missions of the same level, some are harder and easier compared to each other."

"This mission should have been evaluated as a level 6 mission actually, but the camp didn’t do that since the evidence submitted wasn’t enough so it was left at level 5"

"And no one completed it ever since?"

"Well, there is a reason for that." Ruby said, a smile that Kieran couldn’t see appearing on her face.

Kieran didn’t ask further, he knew she was going to try and put him off. If she intended to tell him, she would’ve said the whole thing when he asked.

The ray of light from outside distracted him from his thoughts as he took sometime to take in his surroundings. Ever since he arrived in the camp, he rarely had the opportunity move out of the mountain outside the exercises from the morning drills which were usually held within the mountain range, a place that had been cleared of all its natural predators for the camp to settle in.

After being copped up in the mountain for such a long time, the scenery outside always felt different. The sight in front of him reminded him of the unique condition of this planet. He was currently surrounded by an open field which spread further to his right till his eyes couldn’t track it anymore. To his left, the same open field also existed, but he could clearly see the boundary between the green lush fields and the barren, dry and sand filled floors of the desert he had first landed in.

The straight line dividing the two regions created a striking visual effect, making it feel like he was looking at the other side through a screen.

"Let’s go. We have long journey ahead of us!"

Ruby said, walking ahead of Kieran who only followed a few moments later.

"What did you mean by that?" Kieran asked when he caught up with her.

’Shit!’ Ruby thought when she heard Kieran ask this question, her face flushing up completely.

Playing with her red hair, she answered in a low tone trying to hide her embarrassment.

"Well..... Where we are going is quite far away and even if we ran non stop, it will still take half a day to get there, so we would have to make a camp for the night."

Kieran looked at her and one could tell, even through his unchanged facial expressions that he was gobsmacked.

"..."

"DON’T SAY IT!!!! I KNOW!!" Ruby shouted with her eyes closed before he even said a word, her face even redder than it was before making Kieran wonder how it was possible for that much blood to rush up to a person’s face.

"I was excited and I forgot about it, okay?!"

She said in a poor attempt at explaining to Kieran the reason behind her error. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Sigh, you’re lucky I took survival class seriously"

Kieran said, walking forward like nothing had happened, leaving surprised Ruby behind. Her surprise morphing into something else that she quickly concealed before turning around.

"Ahem!..... IT’S THE OTHER DIRECTION!" she shouted to Kieran who was already far in the wrong direction.

With Ruby leading them, they made their way over to the site of the mission, and since they were going to need a camp to stay the night, they aimed to make it to the ’border’ where they could find some sort of shelter, according to ruby at least.

"How far out are we?" Kieran asked once the sky started to darken.

"Just a few more, we will be there soon!" Ruby tried to reassure him.

"Hmm... while we are still on the road, why don’t you answer my questions from earlier!"

"Ughh!! Fine!" Ruby rolled her eyes.

They were about arrive at the zone where the mission was going to be carried out anyways. It would be better if he knew fully well what he was going to be dealing with.

"Like I said earlier; this is a special grade level 5 mission that has a danger level of the average level 6 missions. Because of this, normal level 5 recruits and even some level 6 have tried and failed to complete the mission, which lead it to it being abandonded. The higher rankers among the level 6 would not bother themselves to clear a mission that’s a level below them"

"There are a lot of missions like that at each level and its become a kind of unspoken rule for the recruits of higher level to leave those missions for those of same level to clear it, and such a situation where those missions are cleared are pretty rare." Ruby explained clearly this time around.

"Aren’t you violating this rule by helping me?" Kieran asked, adjusting his scythe strapped across his back.

"Oh please!" Ruby scoffed, rolling her eyes at his words. They both knew enough about each other to know that neither of them cared about that.

"So what? Are they going to beat me up or something?" Ruby laughed darkly.

"Besides I’m not really helping you directly!"

She said and Kieran rised an eyebrow at her words.

Seeing that he didn’t belive her words, she pushed further,

"With your track record of zero missions taken, there’s no way you would have been able to take the mission. By standard rules, you are required to have a certain amount of experience before you can take up special misions like that. I just helped you skip that process!"

"Considering the way you do things and what happened to you recently, I figured you wouldn’t want to go for the easier ones....." Ruby explained, letting the sntennce complete itself.

’What happened to me recently? Seems word has spread!’

Kieran thought, catching onto that phrase by ruby. It would be a lie if he said he was surprised; the Richard he knew would do everything he could to rub his defeat in his face and try to make him take the first move that would give him an excuse to beat him up again.

"What exactly is this mission though?" Kieran finally asked the most important question.

"Basically, it was once to clear a small group of beasts, but now, all we have to kill is one beast!" Ruby said, and from her tone, Kieran could tell that she wasn’t confident about something.

"what beas-"

"Ah! We are here!" Ruby shouted while pointing forward, her voice lighter; like a weight had been lifted off her chest.

Looking the direction of her finger, Kieran’s expression changed for the first time that day.

"THE FUCK??!!"