Chapter 16 - Presence

Hearing everything that Jobon said, Yuki felt happy. The appreciation that was given to him indirectly made him feel special. It was as if he had saved someone's life.

"I can't relate to that but it doesn't matter. All that you have to think about is your freedom. Nothing can hold us back anymore," Rui said trying to cheer everyone up/

"He's right you know. We all had different lives before but now, we're together so cheer up will you?" Katsumi told Jobon.

The entire time, Yuki was smiling and making comments. He truly felt pure joy for the first time in his life. It was as if something was tugging on his heart. A sensation that he never wanted to let go of.

"So this is what it means to be happy, I've been missing out on this my entire life. I don't want to ever lose this," Yuki thought to himself.

As he began zoning out, Rui called out to him.

"What about you Yuki? How was your life in the previous world?"

His mind went blank. He started remembering all the times his mother beat him for no reason, the feeling of constant loneliness, all the humiliating times he experienced, all the events that had driven him to suicide had been brought back to his mind. However, he couldn't allow himself to relive his previous life.

"Nothing special honestly, basically school and hanging out with friends," Yuki lied.

"No way, you at least had a crush on someone right?" Jobon replied.

Just as he heard those words, he remembered Sophie. The way she had rejected him, humiliated and controlled him before she finally threw him away like trash. Yuki also began to remember the way he tortured and killed everyone that had driven him to his death once he had been reborn. Yuki had become so desensitized to death since he knew that all of them were just part of a game. Now that he had a chance to think, it made him sick to his stomach. Yuki pretended to choke on his drink to give Jobon an answer that would be fitting of a 15-year-old.

"N-no way! That's disgusting. I would never do such a thing," Yuki replied.

The other 3 laughed and continued talking for hours. Once they tired themselves out, Katsumi, Rui, and Jobon all passed out. Before Yuki did the same, he gathered himself and went back to the shack to stay the night.

"Well, that was one amazing day. I wish I could've spent more time with you guys. I need to take care of something right now, once I'm finally done, I'll come back. I promise!"

When he had finally made it to his room, Yuki went to sleep right away. When he would finally wake up, he knew that there would be very little time for him to relax.

The very next morning Yuki went to buy energy potions and food since he wouldn't be able to sleep for the next week.

Once everything was ready, he took all his supplies and stationed himself at the roof of the ice cream store next to the shack. The store was a bit bigger than the shack but only because there were no customers at the time which meant it wouldn't be able to increase its size.

"Okay, I have about 1 week left before my ability timer resets. I'll try to ambush the master of "INFINITE HOTEL" within that time but if he doesn't show up, I'll resort to plan B," Yuki said to himself.

For the next week, he watched the shack constantly. Whether it was morning or night, he didn't get distracted for even 1 second. All his attention was given to the shack.

It was the final day before his timer restarted, Yuki was disappointed but he knew what he had to do.

[Timer requirement has been met]

[Ability: resettable]

Yuki sighed and climbed down from the store roof.

He walked into the shack with full knowledge of everything that was going to take place.

"Welcome back dear customer, glad to have you back! Would you like me to register you for a room?" the man behind the register said.

"Hey, I have a question. Since you're someone's ability if someone stronger than you came here, would they be able to kill you? If so, your master will be alerted right?" Yuki asked, expecting himself to be correct.

"Well, not technically. If you were to attack me, my master would be alerted however I would take no damage. I'm part of this shack which means as a person, I don't exist," The man behind the counter replied with a blank face.

While Yuki was a bit irritated that his guess wasn't accurate, he got the information he needed.

He quickly jumped to the man behind the counter and punched him. As expected, he didn't move a flinch. Yuki had hoped that his master got the message but he didn't know for sure. Just to make sure he did, every 5 minutes, Yuki punched the man behind the counter on the face. Finally, after 30 minutes a man walked into the shack.

"What do you want?" the man said. He looked to be around 40 years old. He was a tall man wearing a suit with a red tie. He had his hair combed back. He was as professional as a person could be. Beside him stood two people wearing cloaks with hoods on top.

"Should I take it that you're the master of this shack?" Yuki asked.

"You would be correct in assuming that. Now please answer my question before I get these two to get physical with you," The master replied.

Before anyone could even process what was happening, Yuki grabbed a dagger from his pocket that he had found in the forest while he was killing monsters and sprinted to the master. To everyone else, it looked like he teleported because of the massive speed boost that he had gained after he leveled up.

Yuki put the dagger close to the man's neck and simply sighed.

"Look, I'm the one who's asking the questions here!"

Without even trying, Yuki had made his menacing aura known throughout the shack.