Grey landed on the ground deftly, a grin on his expression as he turned to face the last woman.

"Be careful, she’s a Third Ranker!" Brad called out.

It seemed that while they labeled teams by the position they came out of the Tutorial with, there was usually one person more responsible for their success than the others.

For them, it had been Stella, so she had taken their initial leadership position. For this team, it was the woman that suddenly burst through the fog with a pair of dancing whips in her hands. Each one had three thread lines, and they snapped in the air as though they could borrow momentum from one another.

When her wrist snapped, the first of the lines would crack, echoing through the sound barrier. Then the second followed right after, smashing through the limits of the first by far.

And then the third slammed toward Grey’s head.

’What the hell sort of bullshit weapon is that?’ 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

He could feel it. It had multiplied the woman’s STR by three by the time the last crack happened. What was especially ridiculous about that was that she somehow had two of them.

And yet...

Grey’s wrist flickered and the whip was split down its width. The snapping lines lost their momentum and the woman’s eyes went wide. This was a very high level item in her eyes.

Not high enough, it seemed.

Grey vanished. Before the woman could react, he grabbed her wrist with one hand and her throat with the other. Raising her off the ground, he smashed his forehead into her nose, flattening its bridge until it practically lay flat against her skull.

She instantly lost consciousness, her mind going incandescent with white flashes of hot pain.

Grey released her and she collapsed to the ground.

"Third Ranker, huh?" Grey pursed his lips.

All these people were still in the Proving Class. Granted, it wasn’t like he was all that much better. He was still at the Established Class. But he also had multiple Frames to improve, and each one of them was a Perfect Frame with six or more Abilities that needed to be raised to Level 10.

He assumed that most of these people had weaker Frames, and as such had fewer Abilities. If that guy he killed in front of the outpost was a measuring stick, then Grey had only gotten three Abilities out of the Cyber Warp he stole from the man. So these people probably only had half the Abilities to worry about and were still so slow.

He couldn’t help but look back at Mauve and the others. All things considered, they weren’t doing too bad. He had screwed them over a lot, but they were at least close to the Established Class, and Mauve’s Abilities were interesting between invisibility and her illusion casting.

If not for him, they’d probably already be at the Established Class, and they were technically their Second Rankers.

"Well?" Grey asked the three of them.

The triplets weren’t going to get closer anytime soon, they were still waiting for them to be drawn forward toward them. So there was time.

Obviously, Grey was asking about his earlier question about whether or not they should kill them.

"Is it possible to round them up and capture them?" Mauve asked a bit hesitantly.

Grey raised an eyebrow.

"I’m not asking because I have a bleeding heart," Mauve clarified. "I’m asking because it’s a better show of power. You haven’t made any appearances before, and if you suddenly appear and win the tournament, it could cause some problems.

"They are aware that we have a First Ranker that’s never made an appearance, but it’s not enough to just show up. This is already a highly contentious matter, and there are more groups unhappy with the arrangement than we are. If you give them any reason to doubt or question you, things won’t go as smoothly as we hope."

Grey nodded. "Valid."

Mauve’s lip twitched, seemingly being reminded that Grey was a kid.

Grey laughed as though reading her mind. He found teasing Mauve like this was hilarious as it was about the only thing that could get a rise out of her.

But he also knew that the more he leaned into it, the less of a chance he was going to have to bag her.

It was a real dilemma he was dealing with here. The art of the joke or the art of the pickup artist. It was a harder decision than he expected it to be.

"Alright, let’s tie them up, then. We have some convenient rope here," Grey grinned and picked up the whips the two women were using. Then, using his farmhand expertise, he tied them up like cute little pigs for a roast and handed them to Brad.

"Come on, big guy. Put those huge muscles to use."

Brad rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t about to ask Mauve or Stella to help, and Grey was doing the fighting. So it was only natural he help.

**

"Where are they," Bee asked with a frown, "it’s been a while."

"Be patient," Rye stopped him from going into another spiral, "they’re Third Rankers too and their teamwork is very good. Stella is also very smart, so tricking her might not be too easy. She might also have some scouting skills as an archer we aren’t ready for."

"You’d be right under a neutral situation, but this is an ambush."

"In that case it might be a situation where they already saw us coming," Rye said slowly.

As the two of them debated, Sone stood with a frown on his face before his lips finally parted.

"Someone is coming."

Out from the Fog of Chaos, Grey stepped forward, a light, refreshing smile on his face.

The triplets weren’t surprised. They had seen Grey earlier during their scouting, they just didn’t know who he was. There was a reason the teams of three tended to stick together, so they didn’t know why Stella’s team would risk adding a fourth, but given the smile—

"Yo," Grey greeted with a two-finger salute, "how about we stop wasting time and get this show on the road, hm?"