He was taken from his thoughts as he remembered that there were three other player signatures, right beyond the door to the parking garage of the mall.

Though knowing what he had just encountered, he hesitated for a moment in front of the door, hovering his hand just before the handle.

…If it’s another player like that, I don’t know what will happen. But, at least one is somebody being attacked, right?…If it’s two, maybe, just maybe we can turn the tides. I hope…He thought.

After a minute of preparing himself, he was hastened by another scream echoing out, this time coming extremely close, just beyond the door.

“Stay away–! Just leave us alone–!”

“Us”? He thought.

It was enough to give him the full go-ahead as he swung the door open, instantly charging in with a [Blink Step], seeming to come in just at the right moment as a similar player clad in all-black with a feathered, crow-like cape was midway through swinging a sword downwards.

Another [Blink Step] was required to place himself between the longsword that was being pulled downward, countering it just in time before it came down against the girl it was aimed towards.

“…What’re you…?” The girl let out in surprise._.

Utilizing both of his daggers, he managed to barely repel the sword, exerting himself against the other player’s superior strength to do so.

It was only a moment of their strength clashing, but he felt it well: the frightening power behind the swing.

If I didn’t come in here by complete surprise, there’d be no way in hell I’d be able to deflect against an attack like that–is this guy stronger than the last…? He thought.

Glancing back, he realized what the situation was.

The young woman, who looked between the age of Kamou and Myung-Hee, with wavy, dark-brown locks and pale, gray eyes was protecting somebody herself as well. On the ground behind her was a man who looked about his age, with unkempt, ginger locks, holding his bleeding shoulder as he was left wincing in pain.

It was clear they were both players by the white uniforms they wore, though the ginger man’s had been dyed in crimson from his own cut shoulders.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

There were only a sparse few moments bought as he knocked the black-dressed assailant back momentarily in his deflection.

The brown-haired girl was still in shock with eyes full of tears, fervently shaking her head as she came to, “I’m fine, but Brother isn’t–! H-he got hurt trying to protect me…I couldn’t do anything!”

“…T-that’s not true, Ara…” The young, gray-eyed man on the floor assured her, managing to stand himself up.

“Brother…! You can’t–!” Ara tried to get her older brother to stay down, but he stood, standing beside him.

He looked at the orange-haired man, who was a tad taller than him, by just a hair, with an equip uniform that was made up of a short, half-top coat, white shirt with snow-white, leather armor and tight, strapped pants of the same shade.

“You alright, man?” He asked.

The man nodded with a wry smile, sweating from the painful gash on his shoulder, holding his broadsword with one hang that hung by his side, “I’ve been better. The name’s Hyun. My little sister there is Ara.”

Though he referred to her as his “little” sister, they seemed similar in age, definitely no larger of an age gap than one year.

“Jeong-Hui,” he introduced back, standing beside the injured man as they faced against the mysterious attacker, “What’s this guy all about, anyway?”

“No clue,” Hyun replied, “…We were camping out here, then two of these guys just showed up and attacked us out of the blue. Actually, the other one left because they sensed you, I think.”

“Yeah, I bumped into him on the way here,” He told him with a small smile, “He left.”

“Damn, you managed to make that brute retreat? You’re the real deal, Jeong-Hui,” Hyun laughed wryly before coughing.

“Brother!” Ara assisted her sibling, rubbing his back as he held his bleeding shoulder.

“…I’d like to say that I am, but he left out of sheer luck, I think,” he told the two, “This guy seems even stronger–so we have our work cut out for us.”

“That we do,” Hyun agreed.

Glancing at the two siblings of relative age to himself, the system finally showed their statuses to him.

[Player(s) Recognized…]

[Hyun Choo. Level 10. Class: Spellblade.]

[Ara Choo. Level 10. Class: Black Mage.]

“That fool…”

The words left the unseen lips of the man who wielded the rose-designed blade as his all-black, crow-like cape swayed. He seemed to notice the fact that his gauntlet-wearing companion had already fled the establishment.

“He is reckless. Allowing himself to be exploited by one much weaker than himself,” the faceless, slender man said, reversing his grip on his longsword, “Such hubris is what we must avoid. Indifferently, we must kill.”

“What’re you on about?” He asked.

“I’m telling you, this guy is a complete nut…” Hyun told him.

There was something unmistakably eerie about the man; the uniform he wore, while similar to [Equip] at some level, it was distinctly different. The tattered robes that hung around his coat, and the six-pointed star design etched onto various points with multiple studded, silver pieces–it didn’t seem like a normal uniform, at all.

Beyond that, an unnatural aura oozed off of the man that could not be registered by the system–something dark.

“He’s got weird skills,” Hyun whispered to him while they faced the faceless man, “All I could get from him is that he has a different system from us…”

“Weird skills? Wait…a different system? Is that why…?”

Hyun nodded, “Nothing like I’ve seen before. That’s why we can’t get any information about him from our system–it seems like it’s completely different. I couldn’t lay a finger on him, let alone even read what he was doing,” he caught his breath, “Ara, you’ve got our backs, right?”

His worried, brown-haired sister looked at him for a moment with her teary eyes before nodding.

“Alright…Jeong-Hui, right? Let’s drive this bastard back!” Hyun said, standing on his own as he let go of his shoulder, wielding his broadsword as tightly as he could.

“Yeah!”

Together, they took off in a sprint towards the darkly-dressed, star symbol-bearing man who hid his appearance.