『00:00:05』

“Five minutes left...” I announce after looking at my timer again

You can really tell that the eclipse is close to being over as well. Most of the light has already returned, and aside from an orange tint to the sky that still remains it looks as if it was any normal day. It doesn’t seem like there will be too many more hours of sun though. Evening is quickly approaching.

“Quite a convenient ability you have there. It’s kinda useless to everybody but you though.” Kera says with a shrug as she looks for signs of another ratmol

They became significantly more scarce a few hours ago. Not all at once, but the number we encountered became less and less until we would spend 10-15 minutes looking for each one.

“I doubt we are going to manage to find anymore, so why don’t we start meeting up with the others?” I suggest

“Meh, I already got a surplus of these ratmol hides anyways. Probably going to have a bit of trouble selling them all. The merchants guild will be on me big time if I suddenly flood the market and ruin their value.” Kera responds with an indifferent shrug

“Of course your going to be splitting those profits with me right?” I ask with an irritated expression

“Wha?! I’m the one preparing them though! That's the hardest part!” She argues back with a lively look

“Maybe, but you wouldn’t even have them to prepare if not for me. If you don’t like splitting your profits 50/50 then you should talk to a hunter.” I explain

She should be happy that I’m letting her keep half considering all of the hides technically belong to me.

“Fine, fine, but don’t say I never did anything for you.” She says throwing her hands up in defeat

“Heeeeey! Guys!” I hear off in the distance

I turn to see a waving Kiel with Bik walking towards us.

“How did it go? Did you two decide to fight together again?” I ask wondering why they were together

“Not a chance! This was a manly test of skill! There was no way I was going to let some technicality take away my title as the second strongest!” Kiel answers excitedly

“Oh? You sound confident, don’t you? I’m sure we both know that I did better though.” Bik taunts with his chest puffed out

“No point keeping us in suspense then! Tell us your scores!” Kera says as if she were hosting some kind of game show

Is there some kind of equivalent to that in this world? It sounds very practiced.

“34!” Bik declares striking a proud pose

“Pfft! 45!” Kiel yells in a similar fashion with a smug look on his face

“Wha?! How did you take down more than me! I’m sure I was doing better!” Bik angrily demands

“It’s because you use those axes! I bet they were jumping around like crazy and you could hardly land a blow! Even if you take them down with one shot, if it takes you ages to land it I’m gonna beat you!” Kiel gloats

The smug grin on his face is rather unattractive as well. It is almost annoying even though I’m not the subject of it.

“Oh ya, wise guy? How did you take them down! I should have taken you at least twice as long with those shallow cuts of yours!” Bik ask with steam rising from him

I can’t tell if he is embarrassed or mad. Either way, he looks like he is about to blow.

“I snuck up on them. One cut was all I needed as long as I could choose where to put it!” Kiel answers

Kiel obviously notices the tantrum coming soon from Bik, but is antagonizing him anyways. As fun as this is to watch, I should put a stop to it.

“You should r-“

“Maou!”

“Maou Maou!”

I hear from above moments before Mak and Kay drop from the canopy and latch onto me.

“We win”

“So many!”

They excitedly spout

“How many?” I ask as I try to remove them

““90!”” they say in unison

“No way! Beat even by them... was I actually the weakest?” Bik ask falling to his knees

“Wait! ‘We’?! You can’t combine your score!” Kiel quickly retorts with a hurt pride

“What are your individual scores!” Bik jumps in trying to heal his own pride

I'm pretty sure if they had 90 at least one of them had more than 45 though.

“Don’t know.”

“Didn’t count.”

They respond with disbondent expressions, trying to act as if it was unimportant.

““Disqualified!”” Kiel and Bik yell in unison

“No! We team! Our team win!”

“You sore losers!”

Mak and Kay angrily respond

As they begin to talk over each other I become unable to understand them anymore. It has devolved into a senseless argument. Was this a bad idea? I feel like I should have stopped it before it went this far.

“OI! None of you morons win. There is someone here with an even higher score than you lot combined!” Kera announces loudly to interrupt their fight

“Wha? You?! There is no way you're stronger than any of us!” Kiel quickly retorts

“Nope, the dark horse of this race was.... Mana! With 213 kills!” Kera announces theatrically as she presents Mana with her hands

““““.............”””” Silence falls over them for several moments as looks of realizations fall over each of them

Sigh “There is no point fighting for third... it just feels petty.” Kiel says breaking the silence

Everybody shows their agreement with a few short nods