Twenty Levels Scaling

Chapter 5: Fishing

Then Inazuke slams his fist to the table he had in front of him and shouts

"TWENTY LEVELS SCALING!"

After they decided on their team name, they all went to sleep preparing for their free day, so they didn't have something planned for tomorrow. They ate breakfast at home, breakfast made by Ken, scrambled eggs. He insisted to cook spaghetti but Inazuke and Soma didn't let him.

After they eat, they went again to the living room and start relaxing in their free day, again Ken was meditating, Inazuke was reading manga, Soma was still cleaning his armory.

After a while Soma says

"I am bored, let's go to the city to find something to do,

"You don't know the city, do you?"

Inazuke was right, Soma after those 2 months of staying alone, he forget what the city looked like

"Okay, we found the quest for today! Help Soma explore the city, we leave now"

"YOU leave now, I am not going, this is my free day, I am not wasting it roaming brainless around the city," Says Ken while he was still meditating

"You are anti-fun, Inazuke let's go, I want to see what changed in the city," Says Soma

And with that, they left the house, letting Ken home alone,

Ken was meditating for half an hour after they left but he got bored the same way the others did, he started wondering the house for something to do, he started to read Inazuke manga but he didn't like them, then he started training with Soma sword and imitating him, but he got bored of that too, he then started to read all the items he had on him and reading again his abilities, but he didn't do that for much time because he didn't have many skills

"Damn, I am so bored, why didn't I go with them? Oh right! I don't like human interactions,"

Ken got so bored that he started to talk with himself, so he decided to go to the city, but not to wander around, he just went to the same restaurant he went to every day. When he gets there he gets the typical greeting

"Ken, my friend, kind late today, as usual, right?"

He didn't buy his everyday spaghetti, he just went for something sweeter and he just ordered ice cream. Lisa noticed immediately that Ken was not ordering spaghetti and so she went to Ken to talk with him,

"Are you ok? you don't have money again?"

"Why do you always think that I don't have money when I don't order spaghetti"

Lisa just looks at him while thinking that this was the case for the last 4 years and says "So, what's the real reason you are here? and where are the others?

"They are wandering around the city, I didn't go with them, so I decided to find something to do here,"

Lisa leaves for 5 minutes and after Ken ice cream was over Lisa come to him and says

"What about fishing? a lot of people enjoy that" and Lisa shows him a fishing quest

Ken thinks that even if this is his free day, a fishing quest doesn't require that much effort for him and it might be a relaxing activity for him,

"Fishing it is then," Says Ken and he gets up from the chair

"Want me to go with you?" Says Lisa

"Don't you have a job?"

"I can get a free day, and I might teach you something about fishing, I learned it from my grandfather,"

"I think I am god," Ken says this and leaves waving at Lisa and thanking her for the help of finding something to do

Lisa gets a little bit sad because Ken didn't want to take her for fishing to have some time together but the reality is that, Ken just wanted some time alone. Sure, finding a team was the best thing that could happen to him at that point, but he was still a lone wolf, he liked doing things alone.

So he stops at a nearby shop and buys a fishing rod with some baits and some snacks to eat there.

While he was still in the city he sees Inazuke and Soma, he didn't want to get questioned about why is he outside when he said he doesn't want to go with them so he just put on his hood and tried to keep his distance.

He get's to the quest location. It was on a lake near the city, and the quest was not hard, was just time-consuming. It didn't have a time limit or a special condition, it was just "catch 10 fish,"

Ken took this quest because he thought it was easy at first but he quickly realized that this was not the case. Ken had zero experience in fishing so it was very hard just to catch the smallest fish until...

Once again he was waiting for something to bite his lure. He was just looking at the river who was very clean and you could see the fish in him that was just ignoring the lure. Ken gets a little bit angry and thinks

"Why are fish smarter than people?"

After that, he was not paying attention to what happened in the river, the only thing he realized was that something did catch the lure, and it was heavy. He gets so excited that was only paying attention to the fishing rod. trying to pull the heavy thing from the water. After a long fight with it, he finally pulls from the water a thing looking like a dead body. He gets scared and gets some distance,

"That doesn't look like a fish at all, but it sure smells like one,"

All wet the "person" who was fished by Ken slowly gets up and looks at Ken. His eyes were glowing blue and his clothes were soaked in water but also very torn apart and with a face mask that had on it a dragon mouth.

"Are you on my list?" He says very quietly

"What?" Ken didn't hear what he was saying because he was far away

But then in an instant, the unknown person creates a knife and with an instant move, he throws it to Ken.

Ken tried to block it with his sword, but before the knife hit him, it transformed into a hand made of water and catch Ken, the hand gets back to the unknown person right into his hand, and he lift up Ken with inhuman strength

"ARE YOU ON IT?" he shouts at Ken

Ken just kicks him and gets further again. But the unknown person shows him a list written with names and he points his knife to one of the names that were not marked by an X, also his name was written in red,

It was indeed Ken's name there but weirdly enough, where his family name was supposed to be, the list was just cut off there

Ken gets surprised that his name was there and the unknown person realized that Ken expression changed and says

"So you are on my list! now you die" And with that, he started approaching Ken

Ken got a little scared but he kept his calm and try to reason with him

"Calm down a little fish boy, how do you know you need to kill me based on that list? it might be a shopping list, who knows"

The unknown person thinks for a bit at what Ken said. At that time Ken was waiting for the moment and when the unknown person was not paying attention and started running.

Unlucky for him the unknown person shouts at him while showing his list

"YOU ARE NOT LEAVING"

After those words, the ground beneath Ken started to shake, and before he realized it transformed into a piece of paper floating in the middle of nowhere.

"What is this?"

The person that was behind him responds with

"Tamura list" No one escape from it"

Ken was still surprised at what was happening, his first thought was what kind of ability is this, it looked too complex to be a normal ability and too overpowered to be an item. But before he could think more Tamura starts attacking him pushing him back to the edge of the paper

"Careful to not fall, it means death"

"Tsk, How do you know you need to kill me? my name is in red because maybe you need to take me alive"

Tamura stops attacking Ken and goes to the other edge of the paper

Ken was expecting that Tamura will do something and he was totally right, once again Tamura launched his knife attached with a rope at Ken,

Ken immediately thinks

"If he gets me right now he can easily take me off the platform. Good thing I read my abilities"

"GET OVER HERE" Shouts Tamura

"NO U," Says Ken while taking a defensive stance with his sword and wind currents appearing near him. At the moment the knife transformed into the hand that could hit Ken, He deflects with his sword and making the hand totally change its trajectory to Tamura. So now the hand catches Tamura and Ken pulls him to the edge of the platform and kicks him out of it.

Everything gets silent for a couple of seconds but after that, an echoing voice starts speaking

"You cannot kill me in my domain" And with that, the piece of paper Ken was standing on started to collapse and with that in an instant, Ken gets back to the normal world with Tamura laying near him

"He said no one can defeat me in my domain, how did you do that?" Says Tamura

"I will answer that question if you tell me who is that "he"

"I can't remember, I remember he is the one who put your name on the list, that's all"

Ken gets angry and before he could have to think about something

Tamura was standing up looking right at Ken. He knew he wanted the answer to the question from before so Ken replies

"It was my ultimate, at weak at it seems, it turned out to be useful"

Ability name: Deflect

Ultimate ability

"The user becomes immune to all sources of damage and crowd control for 2 seconds, additionally all the projectile types attacks and abilities get launched back at the caster of them

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Tooltip: If no damage was deflected, the cooldown will be 15 seconds

"Ultimate? you may actually be enough special that you deserve to live"

"Speaking of ultimates, that fake world is yours right?"

"Yes"

Ability name: "The list"

Ultimate ability

"The user chose an enemy near him to transport him into another world, completely separated from the normal one. The list lasts for 2 minutes and the caster gains a boost of attack damage as the time goes on. If he kills an enemy while he is on the list, the user gains a bonus of a percent of the killed target stats for 10 seconds. After a kill, the ability cooldown gets reset"

Cooldown: 3 minutes

"That seems pretty good," Says Ken and intends to leave

"Wait! you are on my list! I can't let you go until you get erased"

Don't you erase your own list?" But Tamura shows Ken that he wanted to tear the part of the list that Ken was on, but the list just got regenerated back.

Ken thinks

"So he is bound to me by that item, cool, my loneliness just got shattered" and he looks at Tamura and says

"Ok, ok, you can come with me until I get erased from that damn list, but promise me you will not try to kill me"

Tamura after hearing that he starts writing something on the back of the list, "Don't kill Ken, Ken don't leave"

He looks at Ken and says

"A contract is a contract, I follow my part, and you yours,"