First Task

Tuesday, early in the morning. It was still dark with only a little glimpse of sunlight shone in the sky.

Ax was running, circling around a park. He was running at his top speed for a while now that he almost cut the wind with his inhuman speed. That was around 60 miles per hour. A speed that passed the speed that of pro athletes and almost as fast as a cheetah.

After running for four laps straight around a park which was about 500 meters per lap, he was slowing down little by little on the fifth lap. Then he stopped his step. Both hands on the knees as he was panting. His heart was beating so fast that he could even hear the beats inside his ears.

He reached out for a mineral bottle of water that he had prepare and put it at a bench at the park. Then he opened the bottle lid, cocked his head up and opened his mouth. The mineral water was poured into his mouth then he spat out the water. He did it again and gulped the water down his throat.

'My throat is a little bit better now... It seems that four laps is my limit at full speed... Five hundred times four... Two kilos. Your body is pretty good, Leon.' He spare a praise to Leon's body. 'Still, after the incident, I don't think that Leon died. But what happened to his soul after I entered his body? I couldn't sense him at all.'

A man ran passed him. Someone else was also exercising at the park like he currently did. The man was not run at his full speed like Ax did. But instead, he was just jogging around the park on normal pace.

It was a weird sight, seeing someone exercising in a hoodie with the hood on. His clothes were all black. It was not winter season and it was not raining, yet the guy was wearing a hoodie while jogging and exercising.

Ax tried to take a glance of his face underneath the hood as he ran passed him. But it was futile. He cannot see the face as the surrounding was so dark moreover under the hood. He is not crazy enough to point his phone's flashlight to a stranger's face out of nowhere.

For a moment, he decided to take a rest at park bench and maybe watching the guy jogging.

'Man, that guy sure got a lot of energy. It is already his eleventh lap around the park currently.' He thought.

Two beeps were rung by the system.

[ NOTICE ]

The host has fully adapted to Leon Scarlet's body. It is time for the host to complete a task.

Please select a difficulty:

> Light

>Normal

>Heavy

>???

>???

>???

'A task, eh? What does question marks mean?' He tried to tap on one of the question marks.

"Difficulty locked." The system sounded.

'So, that's what it mean. Locked.'

The man in black hoodie suddenly dropped on all fours just slightly away from him. Ax took a glance at him, saw the guy panting heavily with head pointing down. He exhausted almost all of his energy after the jog. It looks like the guy was trying to improve his stamina by running till his last drop.

Ax stood up and approached him. Held his bottle by the top and offered it to the guy.

He lifted his head up and was looking at Ax. His face still cannot be seen. Only his mouth was visible to Ax. The guy grabbed the mineral bottle and voiced out. "Thank-" His breath stuck halfway and he was coughing. His voice was hoarse at the time. He drank a little and gave the bottle back to Ax.

"Are you okay? You look super tired." Ax asked him.

The guy just raised his left hand, joined his thumb and index finger in a circle shape and holding the other fingers up. Signifying that he is okay.

The sunlight has shone on the dark sky. The sun had rose up already. Ax would like to take the chance to see the guy's face but he did not have the time to do so. After all, aside of going to school, Lisa did not gave him the permission to go outside without her knowing.

"I would like to know you better but I need to get to go to school." Ax turned around. "Hope we'll see each other again soon. Bye" He said as he walked away.

The guy stared at him for a moment. A smile was shaped on his face.

[ NOTICE ]

Host must choose a difficulty within 30 seconds.

29

28

'Heavy must be the hardest. So, I'll pick "normal" just in case the "heavy" is too hard for my current condition.'

He decided to pick the normal difficulty.

[ TASK ]

Achieve 40,000 steps in a day.

( 1 / 40,000 )

Remaining Time : 23 : 59 : 31

"Look easy enough." He looked down on the task.

. . .

Noon, around twelve. Inside a police station. The place was pretty chaotic with many wrongdoers were shouting around, yelling bat the cops. Claiming that they had not done anything wrong and discriminating against their arrest. Whether they were inside a cell or were currently dragged by the cops to a cell.

They all were caught at one place in common, that was at the outside of the 'shortcut' alley.

"I have told you already! There was a monster inside the alley that killed a man with only a punch!" A skinny man yelled at an ununiformed cop in an interview room. He looked like a living skeleton with human skin on. A drug addict without a doubt.

"Just then, you said that it was a high school boy. Now, you says that it was a monster. You're clearly on drug, man. You're hallucinating." The ununiformed cop stated.

"No-" The man groaned. "Look here. I am fucking sane, right now. The boy I'm talking is clearly a monster in a human skin! And the fire was much likely caused by him too as there was no prove of any substances were used to created the fire." He was still trying to convince the cop in front of him and also the cops in the observation room behind the one-way mirror.

"Haah... I'm done with him." The cop sighed.

Two cops in their uniform entered the room and lifted the man up on his feet. They escorted the guy out and henceforth to a cell.

"I'm telling you the truth!" He shouted whilst struggling to escape himself.

"And... That was the second guy. Also saying the same thing as the first guy. I started to suspect that they are scripting this." Noah Jones, a young detective in his mid twenty who has been working alongside detective Robert Miller for almost two years, spoke behind the one-way mirror, inside the observation room. He was acting carefreely.

Detective Robert who was on Noah's right, was thinking about the interrogation. Does their answers were really scripted? Or it was actually real like what they have confessed.

Robert wanted to believe that it was real because since childhood, he had always dreamed of being a hero who slay down monsters and it never change even when he was in his thirty. His childish dream has always been kept a secret deep inside of him. He had never told it to anyone. Not even his parents nor his best friends.

'A monster is living among human, in a society. With a human skin as their camouflage... Please let it be real.' He begged inside his head.

Ax... Was considered as a monster to the people from the alley and was hoped to be a real monster by Robert.

. . .

"Yo, Leon!" Eric's voice was kind of echoing in the classroom. He shouted out from the front door.

The other students throws an angry glares at him.

"Sorry..."

He walked towards Leon's desk awkwardly. "Yo, Look here." He shoved his phone screen to Ax's face.

Ax moved back a little. "Mn? What is this?" He curious.

"I won five tickets to watch the semi-final MMA match between Carlson Dixon and Mike Carpenter on this Saturday. Isn't this exciting?" He said excitedly.

Ax's eyes were widened. A big smile was carved on his face. "Bro, this is interesting. How do you got those?"

"Well, I bought tons of Hishe chocolate bars when they made tickets giving event. Buy their chocolates and win a ticket. The buyers just need to scan the QR code behind each pack. And I got five out of..." He paused. Counting the amount inside of his head. "Fo~urteen boxes maybe."

Ax raised an eyebrow. "You can just buy the tickets though. You're filthy rich."

He tutted while waving his right index finger in front of Ax's face. "Buying and winning a thing is and will always be two different things" He explained.

"Anyway," Ax put his right hand on Eric's left shoulder. "as a friend, you'll give one to me, right?"

"Well, I've planned to invite you from the start."

"Nice." He did a low hook punch to the empty space in front of him.

"I also invited Emilia and Phoebe."

A name struck Ax's head. Emilia Stone. She is Eric's younger twin sister and also Leon's girlfriend.

Emilia is a girl with honey colored blonde hair, heart-shaped face with a couple of bright yellow eyes. She is someone who is always cheerful and spoiled.

"Phoebe told me that she is also interested in martial arts competition. So, she asked me for one. Ain't no way I wouldn't give her one. I'm not some cold hearted dude that treat their girl like air that were passing by." He continued. "And about Emilia, well you know how it is. She will sulking if I don't invite her to watch it when you'll also be with us."

"Oh yeah, talking about Emilia, where is she? I didn't see her anywhere lately." Ax looked around to check whether the girl is around or not.

"Man, you're so cold hearted. When you didn't even try to ask about Emilia before, I thought you've already know about her."

"I just forget a little. What is your problem." Ax irritated.

"No need to be angry, bro. I'm stating the fact." Eric coughed twice to clear up his throat. "Anyway, she caught a cold. Dengue apparently.

Ax nodded twice while looking at him.

"And for the last ticket, the girls said they wanted to invite a friend to come with us too. So, I let them since I don't have any idea of what to do for the fifth ticket." Eric shrugged.

"Well, it's not my ticket. So why would I care."

. . .

The school session has ended for the day. it was evening already.

Ax was walking down an empty hallway, followed by Eric behinds him. He planned to investigate something on his own but Eric followed along. He couldn't drove Eric away as he was being so persistent. Because of that, he was annoyed by the rich boy's presence.

After walking down the empty hallway for some times, he stopped his step so suddenly. Eric who was following him accidentally bumped to his back. He pushed him back with his right shoulder. Then, he got close to the wall on their left and leaned his back against the wall while taking a peep to the connected hallway on their left from the corner they were at.

It was where he accidentally saw the short-haired girl entered the small cleaner's storeroom and disappeared to thin air.

"What are we looking for?" Eric whispered to him while looking at the hallway. His eyes were spinning around to see every inch of the hallway.

Ax ignored him and opened his step silently and slowly. Approaching the storeroom with cautious.

"Oi, wait up" Eric shouted in slow tone.

Ax reached the doorknob slowly and held it in his grip. He tilted his head to Eric who was at his side, lift his casted left hand and put it over his own mouth. Telling the loud boy to keep silent. Then he turned the doorknob and quickly pulled the door open. Just like before, there nothing in there except cleaner stuffs in the storeroom.

"Except for cleaner stuffs, there is nothing here. Unless, if those are what you want." Eric blurted out. "Why so sneaky though?" He muttered slowly.

Ax frowned. ' He's right... There's nothing. Not even a crack in the space.'

"You two right there! What are you doing?" A voice of a girl yelled form across the hallway. Her voice startled both of them.

They both took a look at their right. They saw a girl wearing a cream-colored sweatshirt and a black circle-style skirt. Her face was small and oblong shaped. Her hairs were long at the front, almost fully covered her beautiful bright purple eyes.

"We just-"

"My cents rolled into this room." Ax blurted out, cut off Eric's words.

"Seriously? I didn't even heard any clank sound and you expect me to believe you just like that?" One brow was raised as she stare at them with dull eyes.

"Tch, it's not like we're bothering you, aren't we? Go away." Eric demanded as he doing shooing motion towards her.

"These guys..." She muttered. She started to walk and approaching them. Stopped when she was about a meter away from them. "I'm a hallway supervisor. Who do you think you are to chase me away?" She said as she shoved her pass that was hanging on her neck to their faces.

"Oh, shit." Eric cursed underneath his breath. "I- I"m sorry. We're just here to-"

"Shut up." Ax whispered to Eric's ear as he grab the back of Eric's collar. "Run away." He said and opened wide his step. Run away while pulling Eric with him. They gone after a couple of seconds.

The girl stared at where they ran to. "What a couple of weirdos." She muttered.