A stand-off between three people and one of them had the advantage. The nude Jason held up his two swords. The moment he heard the two voices coming inside the toilet, he retrieved another sword of his.

 

Seeing he was intimidating two children around fourteen to fifteen, his overall appearance looked like a bully. One thing for sure, he was quite surprised seeing Inuits in Oshawa, to be fair, they weren’t that many in the southern part of Canada.

 

No, that doesn’t seem right. The city is supposed to be empty. 

 

Realizing the age of these two kids and thinking about how he was back in his teen days, he sort of understood it quite a bit.

 

Ah yes. Teenage rebellion I think, got to be those hormones fault then.

 

“Both of you don’t look like orcs, so why are you two kids running around in an orc infested city?” he asked.

 

“We…” the girl was about to say something.

 

“Don’t!” but the boy stopped her.

 

“Oh, we’re keeping secrets aren’t we,” said Jason. “You do know both of you are in danger right?”

 

Nuniq grinned his teeth, knowing Jason was right.

 

Being held at sword point was indeed the clear definition of close to death.

 

“So, unless one of you talk, neither of you are going to come out of this unharmed,” said Jason.

 

It was a bluff. Jason wasn’t the unreasonable type, but holding them in this position made him wanted to say some weird stuff.

 

“So, what is it going to be?” Jason asked with a smug tone. He definitely watched too many movies.

 

“You, dying!” Nuniq replied was unexpected but what came next made Jason’s eyes turned out wide.

 

“Beast Spirit on!” said Nuniq. A resplendent blue light emerged from Nuniq’s body as it pushed away from the slight force from Jason’s sword.

 

Jason retreated a few steps for precaution as he witnessed the visual change. All around Nuniq’s body was a faint blue light, which then formed into a huge shape.

 

“A bear?” Jason muttered.

 

“North Ursa awaken!” Nuniq shouted as the huge shape finally completed, taking shape into a huge translucent polar bear.

 

This energy shape stood tall at 2.4 meters in height. A strange coldness emitted out from the energy as the naked Jason felt chilled.

 

The boy glared at Jason with flame-shaped bluish energy circulated around his eyes. But then, Jason’s sight was attracted by the girl beside the boy.

 

Her palm was directed at him as if she was readied to do something at him. A skill perhaps which shoots something out from her palm like a hadoken or a kamekameha.

 

Both of the flashlights from the girl and the boy were on Jason. Yet his nakedness didn’t surprise the duo. It made sense considering this was a tense situation, showing disgust at a naked man was the least of their concerns.

 

Jason observed the duo closely and seeing these two didn’t make a move while having their skills all out in the open made him wondered.

 

Is it because they're kids? Or they don’t just hurt people in general?

 

Jason let his grip loosened, and as the swords fell, the clanking rang in the men’s washroom.

 

Nuniq flinched a bit as he was surprised seeing this naked man letting go of his weapon. Unknown to him, his subconscious mind made him relaxed.

 

Jason didn’t raise up his hands as he muttered.

 

“Let’s not do this. I’m already tired of fighting with the orcs,” said Jason.

 

Tapeesa relaxed as she put her hand down. But Nuniq was still wary about the naked man.

 

“He’s playing with us, Tapeesa, don’t let your guard down,” said Nuniq. His words betrayed his relaxed body, but a reminder from his grandfather kept his wariness alive.

 

“I’m not good with being naked in front of people,” Jason went off-topic, and as soon as he ended his words, he vanished.

 

“Where did he go?” Tapeesa asked as her nervousness spiked back up.

 

“Stay close to me Tapeesa,” said Nuniq as his eyes and flashlight searched around the toilet for the invisible man.

 

Beads of sweat trickled down on Nuniq’s forehead as even the coldness of the bluish aura couldn’t negate his nervousness of the situation. A man that suddenly poof into nothingness was a threat, no matter the preference of him being naked.

 

“Show yourself!” said Nuniq.

 

Then as if complying with Nuniq’s request, Jason’s voice emerged from behind, and this time he did things rather drastically.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said.

 

“Nuniq!” said Tapeesa.

 

Nuniq turned to the side and saw his sister being held by Jason with a sword on her neck.

 

“Let her go!” Nuniq was about to rush at Jason.

 

“Back off, if you don’t want her to get hurt,” said Jason.

 

Nuniq stopped on his track while glaring at Jason. He was confused about how this man appeared behind them undetected since his Beast Spirit ability did had a built-in detection capability.

 

“Nuniq,” said Tapeesa. She felt the sharp edge of the blade caressing the skin of her neck. It was the same as before, but this time, she was used as leverage to her brother.

 

“It’s fine Tapeesa, I’ll get you out of this,” said Nuniq.

 

“Okay, let’s stop this lovey-dovey saving the damsel kind of conversation. I’ll let her go if you disable that translucent bear of yours,” said Jason.

 

“Do you think I will trust you?” Nuniq asked.

 

“Trust isn’t the issue here. I’m just tired of getting into unneeded fights,” said Jason.

 

Although I had to admit, if I didn’t point my blade at them, things wouldn’t have escalated to this point. Well, who cares. I can’t blame myself, it's my instinct to protect my own rather than be careless.

 

“Nuniq,” the sister called out to her brother while her eyes were telling him to accept it.

 

Nuniq’s face was twitching as his emotion was in conflict, but in the end, his sister’s safety took priority. The translucent polar bear slowly faded into nothing as Nuniq kept his end of the bargain.

 

Seeing all things went fine and dandy, Jason took away his sword and let go of Tapeesa. She felt Jason’s grip loosened as she ran to Nuniq’s side.

 

“Are you okay?” Nuniq asked.

 

“I’m fine,” she said.

 

Then the siblings turned their sight at the man that just played around with them. Then both of them noticed he was fully clothed, unlike before.

 

“When did you…” Tapeesa’s words trailed off.

 

While Nuniq had other questions in mind.

 

“Who are you? And why are you here?” Nuniq asked.

 

Jason didn’t reply as he stared at the duo. After a while, the corner of his lips curled up.

 

“Impressive, both at level nineteen. That’s quite an achievement,” said Jason. It was a first for him to saw someone to had that kind of level without any assistance from him. Hakeem had the same level as them and with facts, he did achieve it with the help of Jason.

 

“How did you know that?” Nuniq’s eyes were quivering as the same for his sister.

 

“People have secrets, and I bet you guys also have some too,” said Jason.

 

The siblings stayed silent as they kept their eyes on Jason. At first, they thought they could take on Jason, but seeing him revealing their levels that easily, made them wavered.

 

“Let’s put that aside for a while. I’m Jason, and I came here with the military to exterminate the orc horde,” said Jason.

 

“This whole city is supposed to be evacuated. The problem right now is, why you two are still here?” Jason jumped up straight to the question after his brief intro.

 

“We’re picking up supplies,” said Tapeesa.

 

“Tapeesa don’t. We can’t trust him, we can’t trust the government,” said Nuniq.

 

“Shut it Nuniq, you know grandpa is a senile old man,” said Tapeesa.

 

“Don’t talk about grandpa like that!” Nuniq replied back. The scowl on his face showed his ire at what the sister had just said.

 

Tapeesa ignored his brother and turned to Jason. With her hand resting on her hips, she looked Jason up and down.

 

“Do you think you and the military can defeat the orc boss? Even my grandfather can’t defeat it, why do you think you can?” Tapeesa asked. Although she spoke ill about her grandfather, but the mentioning of his name just now showed a different side of the coin. As if she had great pride over his grandfather.

 

Jason, on the other hand, was intrigued.

 

An Awakened that dared confronted that big ass orc. It seems I’m right, strong people are starting to show up, and I wonder what level is their grandfather at.

 

Then while figuring out about this unknown grandfather, something just struck him.

 

They are picking up supplies? And their levels are this high even when they’re still teenagers, then…

 

“Have you guys been living outside of the safe zone?” he asked.

 

Tapeesa glanced at Nuniq, and the latter shook his head, a silent disagreement between the two siblings. But Tapeesa didn’t give in.

 

“Yes, me and my brother, along with our grandfather had been living outside of the safe zone,” said Tapeesa.

 

Jason was shocked. He didn’t believe it was possible, but these two high levels, along with the unknown grandparent had cemented that fact.

 

“Then where is your grandfather? He should know that these orcs are stronger than you two,” said Jason.

 

Then Tapeesa’s countenance changed as her eyes glistened.

 

“Please, you need to save our grandfather,” said Tapeesa.