Chapter 162: 162 - What Is Mark Doing There?
After getting herself cleaned up, Shiori immediately went to find Zero. Her purpose wasn't to ask him to get revenge, but to tell him what had happened.
Right now, Zero wasn't in his office but was waiting in another room to prepare for his speech for the opening ceremony of the new school year. The sudden opening of the door made him turn his eyes toward it.
Seeing Shiori, Zero immediately frowned. Even though she had cleaned herself up and reapplied her makeup, her bad mood still didn't escape his eyes.
"Did the surveillance fail?"
Zero wasn't too surprised to ask this. Just by looking at Shiori's mood, he could tell she had failed miserably without even needing to talk.
"Right. That guy is a monster, not a human. No, I don't mean a real monster, but his strength is just way too ridiculous. Even if I had to face an SS-rank hunter, I wouldn't be completely helpless to this extent. I couldn't even move when he..."
Shiori nodded as she answered, but when she reached the end, her face turned red and she stopped. It was extremely embarrassing to tell this, so she didn't want to say it.
As she spoke, she also thought about Nexus wanting her to become his disciple, but she didn't want to tell him about this for now.
"Did he do something too outrageous?"
Zero frowned. Shiori's strange expression made it hard for him to figure out what had actually happened.
"No, no, it's not that. It's just too embarrassing to lose like that, so I don't want to tell you."
Shiori shook her head repeatedly. No matter how concerned Zero acted, don't even think about making her tell him the details of this matter.
Her overly obvious attempt to hide it didn't escape Zero's eyes, but he didn't want to press her either. After all, Shiori was already thirty years old, not a child who needed him to keep an eye on everything related to her.
"Not much different from what I predicted."
Thinking about his analysis of Nexus, Zero's eyebrows slightly furrowed for a few seconds before immediately relaxing. His attitude showed a little surprise, but for the most part, it was as if he had already known this from the beginning.
"Are you kidding me? You already knew he was ridiculously strong, so why didn't you tell us in more detail? We're only A-rank hunters, so our senses aren't as sharp as an S-rank like you guys."
The corner of Shiori's mouth twitched. There were three S-rank hunters or above in the academy, yet no one had bothered to mention this last night.
"Sorry. It's just that we felt that before confirming it, we shouldn't assume Nexus has strength close to SSS-rank, so we wouldn't cause panic among everyone. Anyway, who wouldn't tremble when staying near an existence that could shoulder an entire era with his own strength?"
Although he said SSS-rank, Zero still felt that something wasn't right. If Nexus were really SSS-rank, the whole world would have known about him the moment he awakened.
"He has all kinds of abilities that have nothing to do with each other. I have a feeling that whatever he likes just becomes his ability."
"Hm? If it's the kind of ability that seems completely unreasonable, then it sounds a little like someone. But that old man's abilities aren't exaggerated to the point where he can do whatever he wants.
Like how Nexus can make someone unable to move, that old man can't imitate it, or at least he can't do it the same way as Nexus."
The unreasonable old man Zero was talking about was one of the two SSS-rank hunters in America. After the apocalypse thirty years ago, he rarely made a move, so he wasn't very famous among the public.
"So what are you planning to do now?"
Shiori didn't come here to listen to Zero talk nonsense. She wanted to know his attitude toward Nexus so she would know how to act.
"Just keep things as usual. If we can avoid fighting, then there's no need to fight. Although I'm very confident in our strength, once we fight, there will definitely be heavy casualties."
No matter how ridiculously powerful Nexus was, Zero would still have this confidence. If even the most prestigious hunter academy of mankind didn't have enough confidence, wouldn't that mean humanity was completely useless?
"Got it. The speech is about to start. Hurry up and get ready."
With that, Shiori turned around and left. Since Zero had decided not to make any major moves for the time being, she could safely go meet Mark and ask for a little more useful information.
---
At the central square, everyone was moving around in complete disorder. It was honestly hard to understand why the world's most prestigious hunter academy couldn't arrange a few rows of seats for the new students to sit in and instead made them stand like this.
Standing in the packed crowd was a little annoying for Nexus, so he and Lailah went to a tree in a secluded corner of the square to avoid getting in the way.
"Tsk, how long are these damned mortals planning to make the great Nexus wait?"
Nexus somehow found a blade of grass and put it in his mouth. Even though he was an existence that didn't need to sleep, he was now yawning because he felt so bored.
"You can go to sleep. Besides, as an immortal existence, how can you get bored so easily? You've lived for a very long time. You spent an incredibly long time drifting through that endless void."
Seeing Nexus put on an act, Lailah shook her head. She had only temporarily changed his personality, but his nature itself hadn't changed at all.
"Since I've already changed, wouldn't it be better to change a little more? Anyway, this is only a temporary experience, so I don't really care."
Nexus put on an extremely lazy expression. No one looking at him like this would think he was the supreme existence of a plane.
"Oh, they're here. Huh? What is Mark doing going inside there with those people? Could it be that mortals have some kind of special hobby and want a useless person to give a speech?"
Looking toward the building behind the podium, Nexus immediately spotted Mark inside. From the look of him, he didn't seem very willing.