After a short while, the Battle of the Lords came to an end.

...Finally.

All the Nagas had been killed, and apparently, the Lords they had been fighting were dead as well. Yet despite that, no one was celebrating because, truly speaking, nobody had the strength left for it. All everyone could think of right now was getting off this godforsaken realm.

The cadets were now huddled in small groups to recover a bit of their energy. Some could be seen drinking fluids from their haversacks, while others were discussing the situation with their friends and units. Many others were tying their clothes as makeshift bandages around their wounds.

Of course, there were many healers among the cadets, but after the battle they had just fought, no one had any mana left for anything. The only people still working were those with scouting skills, as they needed to determine if they were truly safe and if it was possible to keep moving forward.

As for the Hollow Ones, they walked around quietly gathering their dead. It seemed they were not going to leave their fallen on this island, but were going to take them along when they eventually returned to their Home.

Some of them could even be seen praying over the bodies. They prayed that the souls of their fallen may finally find the rest they had sought for many, many years.

While this was happening, Argentos looked around until he caught sight of Cedric, who sat on the ground far away. He was resting one hand on his knee and leaning his back against Aika, who sat behind him smoking from a pipe.

Upon seeing them, Argentos exhaled the cold air and began making his way toward them.

***

Some minutes after Cedric had killed Lee Lim, he had scoured almost the entire territory using his ravens. But no matter how hard he searched, he couldn’t find the being... or whatever it was, that had killed the Lords.

The entire city was empty, and this made Cedric really uneasy.

At the same time, for some reason, the back of his palm itched, as if something was crawling under it. He kept scratching the back of his hand as he grew deeper into his spiraling thoughts.

After a while, though, he exhaled and decided to also rest a bit. He needed to rest, not just his body, but his mind as well. So he sat on the ground and let himself finally relax.

He scratched the back of his hand again, then shivered from the cold.

"Can I have a smoke?" he asked, turning to Aika, who was smoking beside him with a lost look in her eyes.

She handed the pipe over and moved closer to his back, then rested against him. Cedric took a long drag and closed his eyes, then he scratched the itch on his hand again.

’Aissh! What is it?’

He opened his eyes and looked at the back of his palm that had been itching ever since killing the Lord. There was nothing there, but the itch kept burning. Cedric grimaced as he stared blankly at the skin.

Then, all of a sudden, a notification popped up, drawing his attention away from his hand. He looked up slowly and tiredly, expecting it to be some random message from his Gamer Privileges.

But to his utter bewilderment, the message was nothing he could have expected. In fact, it wasn’t even from Gamer Privileges.

It was from Administrative Privileges!

[Activating Administrative Privileges...]

’What the f**k?’

Cedric was so shocked his brain buffered for a moment.

At the same time, Gamer Privileges popped up to the side in red.

[Activating Gamer Privileges...]

[...]

[Warning: the exclusive attribute Gamer Privileges has detected an invasion of a different attribute.]

[The exclusive attribute Gamer Privileges shall quickly proceed to stop the invasion of Administrative Privileges.]

[The exclusive attribute Gamer Privileges has activated a Non-Diegetic Barrier.]

’What the f**k is actually happening right now?!’

"Aika?"

Even Aika seemed lost and began to look around. At that moment, so many screens began to pop up around them in a panicked red.

[Attempt one: Failed]

[Trying again]

[Attempt two: Failed]

[Attempt three: Failed]

[Attempt four: Failed]

[...]

[Attempt twenty: Failed]

[...]

[Attempt fifty-three: Failed]

While they were both frozen in confusion, two messages finally popped up in blue.

[Successfully activated Administrative Privileges...]

[You have received a part of the authority of the God of Unearned Misfortune]

Then, everywhere went silent.

The only sound around them was the heavy thrumming of both their hearts.

Cedric was in such disbelief that he quickly summoned his profile.

~~~~~~~~ Character Profile ~~~~~~~~

Character Name: [Cedric Anele Martini]

Epithet: [Lord of the First Ring]

Age: [18]

Level: [22]

Grade: [3]

Element: [Darkness]

Exclusive Class: [Gamer]

Exclusive Class Attributes: [Gamer Privileges], [Administrative Privileges]

Bond Name: [Aika Soryu]

Bonded Ability: [Chrysalis]

Exclusive Skill: [Flames of decay - Lv10], [One with the Ravens - Lv10]

EXP: [340 / 10,000]

Karma points: [N1,465 / P287,735]

~~~~~~ ============== ~~~~~~

’Huh? Lord of the First Ring?!’

Cedric felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Because what in the world was this supposed to mean?

Had he killed the Lords only to end up becoming a Lord?

His eyes quickly went back up to one of the earlier messages.

’God of Unearned Misfortune? Who is that? Is that one of the siblings? Was that the God who brought the Lords here?’

Many thoughts began to run through Cedric’s mind. Aika, who was also looking at the message, frowned deeply.

"I don’t know... I have a bad feeling about this, Cedric," she finally said after a while.

Cedric didn’t respond and just kept frowning.

’This God... it seems this is the God that brought them here. God of Unearned Misfortune.

’Also, it seems that killing Mr. Lim made me take on his attribute.’

Why?

’I do not know what this means but I do concur with Aika. I have a bad feeling too. The fact that Gamer Privileges fought so hard against the attribute just makes me more uneasy. If it was safe, Gamer Privileges shouldn’t have fought that hard to stop me from gaining it. Right?’

He was still in his thoughts when he suddenly heard footsteps that snapped him out of them.

When he raised his head, he saw Argentos in front of him.