"It simply disappeared?"
"Yes. It wasn't a teleportation out of Gaia, it was directly through space" Shiho nodded.
"And we're sure she didn't just go visit her father? She does that from time to time." After all, Lala has the technology to leave for and return from her planet whenever she wants, so it's not strange for her to disappear occasionally.
"No, she specifically told me it wasn't that and to give you this, she said it's important."
As she spoke, Shiho tossed him a small metallic pin, no larger than a hair clip, with the same design as the one she always wears herself.
Kaito caught it, and a voice sounded from the small object.
[Designated target confirmed... Projecting image]
A full-body image of Lala was projected from the pin.
"Hello!!!" the figure spoke. "Well, Kaito, if you have this pin, the truth is that you're in serious trouble... or that's what I'd like to say.
Actually, I re-record this message every so often, and although in the first version I said you were in trouble, at this point I think it'll probably just be a small trip for you.
But let's get to the point. Remember when I told you my father wanted to meet you when we first met? The time has come. It's for official galactic matters or something like that, so you absolutely have to come.
Starting from when this message ends, the pin will transport you to a special place in 10 seconds. Bye-bye, see you soon, and good luck! Not that you'll need it."
Once Lala finished saying goodbye, the pin stopped projecting the image and began blinking.
"Is this a problem?" Shiho frowned.
"No. Even if Lala acts the way she does, she's still a genius. If she says it won't be a problem, then it won't be" Kaito shook his head. "Besides, her father is the leader of the galaxy. I don't think he'd summon me to talk about marriage prospects or some nonsense like that. It probably has something to do with Gaia, so like Lala said, I have to go."
After thinking about it briefly, Shiho agreed and nodded.
"Alright, take care."
"Don't worry" Kaito smiled. "Even if I can't win, nobody can stop me if I want to run away."
Beep!
At that moment, the pin blinked for the tenth time. At a rate of one blink per second, that meant ten seconds had already passed.
The pin rose into the air on its own before beginning to spin at incredible speed until it looked like a sphere, which expanded and swallowed Kaito.
After doing so, it quickly stopped spinning and became a normal little pin again, falling to the floor.
Shiho walked over, picked the pin up from the floor, and slipped it into her pocket.
"As dramatic as ever" she muttered before leaving.
...
"As dramatic as ever" Kaito muttered once he appeared on the other side.
Lala had the ability to build a simple teleportation beam and even a button that could teleport you just by pressing it, so a pin that grows and spins could only be blamed on Lala's personality.
Finished complaining mentally, Kaito looked around.
Although there were at least hundreds of thousands of people present, his appearance didn't surprise any of them.
And after seeing other people appearing around him using similar methods, Kaito understood why.
Among these hundreds of thousands of individuals were almost as many races, from sapient beings similar to humans but with different characteristics, such as extra arms or unusual skin, to a giant floating slime sphere with its eyes closed.
"So I'm not the only one who was called" Kaito murmured.
He realized it not only because of everyone else, but also because of the surroundings. They were inside a huge white hall with tiled floors, similar to an arena and, above all, clearly artificial.
The place reminded Kaito of the Lords battle he had participated in before.
As if his thoughts were the trigger, at that instant giant screens all around the hall lit up while red letters appeared on them.
[Eliminate 1000 contestants to advance]
Kaito read the message and frowned.
'So this won't be a simple meeting after all, huh?' Although it had been easy to guess, Kaito had still held onto a little hope before the instructions appeared. 'Looks like there go my plans for tonight.'
Kaito sighed in disappointment, but it only lasted a second before he moved and started acting.
He wasn't the only one. Throughout the enormous venue, sounds of people being eliminated began to ring out, followed by red spotlights shining on the culprit as if it were some kind of television show.
The fact that eliminating someone didn't grant rewards confirmed to Kaito that nobody was actually dying. Somewhat disappointing, since the abilities possessed by people from all over the universe were bound to be interesting.
"Hey, you, die for me..."
Kaito vibrated to dodge a squid-like man who approached him and killed him in passing by becoming tangible again with an arm inside his body.
Then he returned to his vibrating state and continued moving.
For the first time in a long while, Kaito found something that could keep up with his speed, and it wasn't a person, it was a light.
The red spotlight followed him effortlessly, never allowing Kaito to shake it off.
This greatly slowed Kaito's elimination speed since everyone knew he was approaching. They used everything from abilities that made them intangible to avoid him, to traps placed around themselves.
One of them even used a sort of self-destruction ability to try and take him down as well, which irritated Kaito quite a bit.
"Damn it, we're only supposed to eliminate each other. We're not mortal enemies. Is there really a need to go that far?" he complained under his breath.
But more than his opponents, Kaito was interested in the light following him.
'System, we're still in Gaia, right?' he asked.
[Something like that. To be precise, Gaia is the name of the planet to which all Earthlings are summoned within the Gaia System.
At this moment we are on another planet, so we are not in Gaia itself, but we are still within the Gaia System.]
Setting aside the fact that the planet Earthlings were sent to shared its name with the entire star system, something that didn't surprise him too much, the System's confirmation only increased Kaito's astonishment.
'To think they have this level of technology in a place they could only have accessed for at most a month and a half' Kaito thought in surprise.
'Now that I think about it, Lala's father is already powerful. Won't he become even more monstrous in Gaia? Speaking of which, how do stats work? All of mine started at ten, but Gid could've started at a million or something, right? Or is ten everyone's baseline and the numbers are proportional rather than literal?'
[No, ten is illustrative. Everyone with ten Strength will have the same strength, and everyone with one hundred Agility will be equally fast. The only difference that could give someone an advantage would be skills.
As for you, you're unusual. Ten is the average for a young adult, and all your stats were exactly ten when you entered Gaia. It may be related to your reincarnation, or it may simply be a coincidence.]
The System spent quite a while explaining all that about a topic that wasn't especially important, so Kaito quickly realized the issue.
'So you're not going to answer about Gid, huh?'
[Sorry, outside the rules.]
'I figured' Kaito sighed, already used to that response.
Of course, that only made him even more curious about Gid. He seemed to be such an existence that even the System couldn't easily reveal information about him.
That, combined with the fact that a simple light created by his technology could follow Kaito, was already absurd.
Of course, on most planets technology is usually superior to people's natural abilities. On Earth, for example, a camera being able to see you didn't mean a person could. However, Deviluke wasn't like that. Gid was a monster who relied on neither technology nor abilities, only pure physical stats.
While Kaito discussed that with the System, the light above his head finally disappeared, causing him to stop.
On a list displayed on the surrounding screens, containing hundreds of thousands of names, his suddenly turned green, showing that he had already eliminated the required thousand people to advance.
But perhaps to encourage more fighting, even though he had passed the trial, he wasn't teleported anywhere and remained there together with everyone who had not yet passed.
Even so, while waiting, he was only attacked by a few weaklings. None of the true heavyweights attacked him. They weren't foolish enough to fight a strong opponent instead of simply advancing by defeating weaker beings.
At least, that's what Kaito assumed was happening, since he had no way of knowing what everyone else was thinking.
Finally, after another ten minutes, all the remaining names on the screens lit up green and the trial ended.
Leaving behind a little over three hundred people, from which Kaito calculated that the original number had been around three hundred thousand and change.
With the trial complete, white metallic doors appeared around them and immediately opened.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
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(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)