Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

'Damn. It is taking too long.

I'm still 4000 Karma points away from leveling up and entering E-Rank.'

Eren thought to himself as he checked his progress on the Sansara interface. Even after taking care of so many participants all by himself, he found it difficult to progress too quickly inside the Sansara World.

He then checked out his team's progress through the Sansara interface.

There would be a purge of rankers after a certain time. And teams that did not have the required number of flags would get kicked out of the Sansara World. It was an automated process in the Sansara World and nobody could do anything about it.

Thankfully, his team was making good progress so far. It had collected 20 flags at this point. Meaning it had engaged with many teams and won.

The butcher was relieved to learn these statistics. 20 flags ensured that his team would survive the next purge. It allowed him enough leeway to find Jason and get rid of him. At least that's what he was hoping to do.

Eren was still not able to get the Karma-point sharing perk yet. As a result, Steve and Renita were falling behind. Things were still manageable. But he needed to speed things up if he wanted to ensure his captain's safety.

From Eren's main team, Becky accumulated the most unused Karma points and level-ups. Ramy was right behind her. The rest of his group was also doing well.

Eren had also noticed something weird ever since he started dealing with his opponents from day one. There was an unusual amount of delay in the Sansara World's defense mechanism kicking in. It was enough for experienced rankers to attempt real-life killings.

Alephee had already confirmed that the delay was for everyone and not limited to the participants specifically. Meaning the infiltrators had also put their own lives on the line to mess up the kingdom of Edinburgh. If nothing else, the butcher gave them a thumbs-up for operating under such parameters.

Of course, Eren didn't go out of his way to kill the normal participants. He let them get teleported to safe locations after he was done scoring his Karma points.

He knew most of them wouldn't be able to pass the special test. Even if they did, they wouldn't bother him. In addition, they would eventually be purged by the flag requirement.

The butcher was already somewhat aware of the infiltration plan that the kingdom of Layos had crafted, thanks to the living undead he had created out of Shandil. It was just that it hadn't been finalized and delivered to Shandil when the butcher killed him. And Shandil wasn't exactly a concise speaker.

Eren had also met up with a team of elves who belonged to the kingdom of Layos. These elves were operating under false identities with the help of mask artifacts. Alephee could identify these rankers because of the masks they wore.

It seemed that these infiltrators had some kind of hit list and they were targeting all the influential rankers in the kingdom of Edinburgh. Thus, he was not surprised when they started targeting him as well as soon as they saw him.

The butcher made quick work of these infiltrators. He used Alephee's help to prolong the delay in the defense mechanism even more and killed them all for good. There was no need to show mercy to someone who was gunning for him.

Eren also found out that as the rankers' levels grew, they were able to give him more Karma points when he took care of them. It was done to balance out the increasing Karma point requirement with each level up.

The difficulty in battling with someone was directly related to the number of Karma points the winner could gain out of the conflict. The more difficult it is, the higher the rewards.

This is the reason Eren found targeting infiltrators to be more lucrative. They targeted stronger individuals who had better teams assisting them. As a result, these infiltrators had to struggle a lot. This resulted in Eren gaining relatively higher Karma points when he killed them.

'If only I could find some more elves to farm for Karma points.'

Eren licked his lips and thought to himself as he headed towards a certain location. And suddenly Alephee told him something.

'Eren, I sense more mask wearers heading your way. They'll reach you in about three minutes if you don't move from your current spot.'

Alephee's heads-up raised Eren's eyebrows. He stopped in his tracks and started checking out his Sansara interface all of a sudden.

'What are you doing?'

Alephee asked, puzzled by Eren's actions. She was inscribing more runes in her grimoire inside the pendant abode.

'Checking to see if I somehow activated some kind of Wish Granting perk by accident. In all my two lives, I have never been so lucky.

Should I have asked for something else? Like… another transcendent-grade artifact… OR…. Another unique power-up? Because I might not get the opportunity again."

Alephee chuckled when she heard Eren's oddly pessimistic and a tinsy bit satirical view of life. She resumed her work as Eren prepared himself to farm more Karma points.

***

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Mister Eren Idril. And I also need to thank you for waiting for us. Name's Meeshah."

Meeshah greeted Eren with a radiant smile and ear-pleasing words. The latter smiled as well and opened his arms wide before speaking up.

"Eren Elijah Idril. The pleasure is all mine, Mademoiselle."

Two Shamshirs appeared in the butcher's hands as he bowed elegantly. He gripped them firmly and swung them casually, relieving his stiff muscles and prepping them for a series of repeated actions.

At this point, Eren was surrounded by Meeshah's team, supposedly blocking all his exit routes. They all had their weapons drawn and were waiting for Meeshah's orders.

Meeshah thought that Ken was an exception. However, she could still try her luck with Eren and fight solo with him. She wanted to see how he fared against the low-key hype he had created for himself.

Eren looked around him and saw his opponents as nothing but living breathing Karma points. He was about to attack the healer of the team when Alephee said something shocking to him.

'Eren… they... they killed Ken Riverine. His dead body is in Meeshah's storage.'