The Challenger's Return: Rebirth of the Rainbow Mage
chapter-25

Otto opened his eyes to a lively scene.

He couldn't help but smile a little.

Whether on purpose or by accident, these teleportation stations truly resembled train stations or subway stations.

Otto stepped off of the large circle and watched as several attendants bowed to him.

They saw that he looked rather wealthy, and eagerly tried to direct him to the map of Sector 77.

It was to help new travelers better understand their environment.

This was a city called 'Golthra' with no particular defining characteristics.

Otto, of course, ignored these attendants.

He knew his destination, and wouldn't be staying for long in this sector anyway.

He spoke to Julia who looked around curiously behind him.

"Follow me."

Otto maintained a brisk clip towards their destination.

As the duo walked, they took in the sights of Golthra, and the new sector.

Julia had never been outside of Sector 79, and was slightly curious about the differences.

She felt the air around her. Hmmm. It seemed to be... the same temperature?

She sniffed for an unfamiliar scent. Mmm...nope. The same fresh air, nothing different there either.

As for the sounds...well, she was really trying, but there didn't seem to be anything particularly different about Sector 77.

To her chagrin, other than faint nuances in style of the buildings and roads, practically nothing else had changed.

It was to be expected.

The Sectors weren't actually 'nations,' and human culture had not had enough time to develop independently of each other.

Furthermore, with Universal IDs and teleportation circles stationed all over every sector, there was no such thing as isolation in communication or travel.

Looking outside the city, even the natural scenery was similar to that of Telmar: sector 77 and sector 79 were almost neighbors geographically.

Julia sighed inwardly and decided to squash her vague hope of 'traveling' and 'seeing the sights.'

She felt a little bored of looking around.

She turned her attention to Otto in front of her, and eventually couldn't hold back her curiosity.

He hadn't told her very much.

"Where are we going?"

"Picking someone up."

Otto cast an indifferent glance at her.

Seeing his expression, Julia obediently did not speak. Well, she wasn't much for constant chatter in the first place.

The two walked quietly through the naked streets of Golthra.

After a few stops at small teleportation circles and a half hour or so of brisk walking, they finally arrived at their destination.

It was in Golthra's District 7, a quaint district reserved mostly for the aspirational and well-off middle class, filled with residential suburbs and Earth-style shopping centers.

Evidently, the folks here preferred to remember their time on Earth, or perhaps they hadn't fully adapted to Area 1's environment, even after all this time.

It was inside one of these family style houses that Jeremy was living.

Otto was unwilling to waste time, but he still decided to be polite and knock on the door.

To his slight surprise, Jeremy was not the only person living here.

A short young woman with dark hair answered the door.

She looked rather tired, and her eyes carried distinct dark circles under them.

But her whole face lit up as soon as she saw Otto leisurely standing at the door.

Her back straightened and she stuck her chest out slightly, feeling deeply regretful she hadn't bothered to wear any make up when she opened the door.

Still, it could be said that she maintained her manners.

Her smile was especially bright.

"Hello. Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Jeremy."

The woman frowned a little, evidently trying to recall, before she thought of something and nodded.

She chuckled a little,

"I almost forgot he was living here. Come in, mister…"

Otto nodded at her, and gestured to Julia behind him,

"I'm Otto, this is Julia."

Julia waved at her cheerfully and the woman introduced herself in a vaguely ambiguous tone.

"I'm Lauren. Come in, come in, feel free to stay as long as you like.

Jeremy, are you awake yet? You have a visitor!"

She giggled. Julia thought her laughter was tinkling and pleasant to the ear.

Otto, unfortunately, had no opinion.

Lauren led them to the family room to sit down.

She proceeded to stick closely to Otto as she introduced the house and its denizens.

"It's just the seven of us living here at the moment, oh! Actually, now it's eight. We had another challenger come in just three days ago."

Lauren also took great pains to paint herself in a good light, emphasizing her deep friendship with Jeremy.

If only she hadn't almost forgotten that Jeremy lived here, perhaps Otto would have believed her…

Jeremy had originally arrived in District 7 after he cleared the Tutorial and had decided to remain in this place.

In a district like this, it was not easy to accidentally exit the safe zone.

Fortunately, his batch of new challengers had a regular Federation guide that actually guided them well and helped them register themselves, and set up the necessary bank accounts and what not.

Jeremy had chosen to temporarily live with this group of challengers until Otto arrived, since it was cheaper to rent a house like this than to stay in a hotel, especially as Jeremy didn't know how long it would take Otto to find him.

Otto could tell at a glance that Jeremy's mission rating had been rather good.

Seeing he could afford to stay here in District 7 (which, by the numbers, was where the 7th wealthiest group of new challengers in Golthra spawned), he'd arrived with at least a decent amount of money.

Otto felt more at ease after personally witnessing Jeremy's situation.

At least he hadn't needed to escape from his own guide.

Perhaps it was Jeremy's lingering fear of Otto, or perhaps he was simply bored with nothing to do, but it didn't take more than a couple minutes before Jeremy came down.

His hair was messy and sticking up in several places, and he wore a t-shirt and sweats, having evidently just woken up.

Jeremy's face was eager, and he immediately ran over to Otto, arms wide open.

"Otto! You came!"

Before he could successfully be hugged, Otto stretched out his pointer finger from his position on the armchair and lazily reached up to poke Jeremy's forehead.

Jeremy found his body unable to move an inch further.

He tried for a few seconds before collapsing bonelessly and giving up.

He grumbled,

"What's wrong with a hug? I was just happy you were okay, hmph."

Then he smiled,

"I knew a grumpy guy like you would definitely miss a cheerful and cool guy like me anyway!"

Otto cocked an eyebrow.

Ehh, so what if he was a little grumpy. He's an old man, okay!

It was just that no one else knew that...

Jeremy looked around and noticed Julia sitting on the side.

His eyes bulged as he looked at her beautiful figure, then back at Otto.

He looked at her again, then back at Otto, before wiggling his brows suggestively.

He 'whispered,'

"Hey Otto, did you find yourself a girlfriend while I wasn't around?"

Julia barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes at this dumb kid.

They had met, what, a week or so ago?

Otto was closer to a benefactor to her; she wouldn't even consider him a friend yet.

Otto just looked at Jeremy speechlessly and introduced her.

"Jeremy, this is Julia. I picked her up after I arrived. She'll also be part of the team in the future."

Julia waved at him and spoke politely without much expression,

"Hello, I'm Julia. It's very nice to meet you. Mr. Otto can be considered my benefactor and boss."

Jeremy was almost caught up in staring at her bright eyes before he snapped out of it.

Then, he seemed to think of something as he looked at Julia threateningly,

"Oi, missy, I was the first one to meet him, you hear? Just because you're pretty doesn't mean you can take my spot.

I'm his first little br…ehem, teammate! I'm his first teammate!!"

Julia just cocked her head at him a little before she nodded simply.

Pleased with her 'submission,' Jeremy's lips curved up in pride. He was about to continue speaking when a voice interrupted him.

It was a young man's voice, and sounded surprised with a hint of timidity underlying his tone.

"Otto?!"

Lauren was the first to react,

"Ah, Otto, this is Elliott, the newcomer who arrived a few days ago that I was telling you about."

Her tone was a little puzzled,

"He seemed rather insistent on staying here, so we let him pay a bit of money to sleep on an unused futon.

In the end, he fell asleep for two straight days before he woke up yesterday…do you two know each other?"

Jeremy also saw Elliott and his eyes lit up.

He ran in for a hug and patted Elliott's back before speaking rapidly,

"Elliott, this is Otto who I was telling you about. He was the one who helped me a lot in the [Tutorial] and we…"

Jeremy spoke with wild hand gestures and quite a few exaggerations of his own exploits in the [Tutorial].

He of course didn't tell the whole story, as Otto had previously reminded him not to divulge too much information about himself to others.

Elliott, despite having obviously heard this story before (possibly more than once), unexpectedly didn't reveal any impatience.

Though his mood looked a little glum, Elliott nodded his head continuously and tried his best to humor Jeremy, though it was equally clear that his heart wasn't in it.

He even snuck in some words of praise for Jeremy, who practically beamed with pride.

When Jeremy reached a break in the story, Elliott interrupted and said shyly,

"We also briefly met before the tutorial, actually."

Jeremy was suddenly speechless, wondering if he'd made a mistake getting to know Elliott.

Wasn't his position as the first little brother *cough* teammate, at risk?

He was ready to threaten Elliott the same way he'd threatened Julia, but as he saw Elliott's timid expression, he abruptly withered.

This person was really nice to him, letting him talk for hours without interrupting, after all…

Forget it. He will magnanimously be the bigger person for once.

Otto felt a little surprised, but not too shocked to see Elliott.

He felt it was almost certain that Elliott's innate trait, [Survivor's Intuition], if Otto remember correctly, had led him to this exact house, most likely exactly so he could meet Otto.

What Otto was surprised about was two things.

First, finding Otto would not actually be able to help Elliott 'survive' in the short term.

They were in a safe zone right now, and not facing any imminent danger.

Which meant that Elliott's trait was geared more towards long-term decisions, making it markedly different from those traits like 'beastly intuition' or 'danger sense' which were more immediately useful in battle.

Second, the scope of this trait seemed to be very large yet so accurate- it was surprisingly powerful!

Elliott found the exact house that Jeremy was staying in from who knew how far away and resolutely followed his 'feeling' and stayed here for three nights.

He was even patient with Jeremy, who Otto knew from experience could talk the ears off of anyone.

Otto held his chin, deep in thought.

He didn't worry that Elliott had bad intentions.

Otto was extremely sensitive towards this sort of thing from his experience in the past.

Now, he couldn't detect everything; nor would he instantly figure out if someone was a bad person, but Otto would generally know if someone bore him hidden malice.

Take Katherine, for example.

Otto had figured out she had no good intention within a few seconds after her arrival.

The second question was…if Elliott was strong enough.

Otto took a second and used 'Analyze' on Elliott.

[Elliott Lastermann]

Floor Cleared: Tutorial

Class: Mage of the Storm (Silver)

Profession 1: None

Profession 2: None

Profession 3: None

Health: 45/45 (0.04/minute)

Stamina: 35/35 (0.3/minute)

Mana: 160/160 (0.1/minute)

[Attributes]

Strength 1

Speed 5

Stamina 3

Sturdiness 4

Mana Pool 8

Intuition 11

Magic Power 6

Regeneration 5

AP: 0

Otto then analyzed Jeremy as well while the boy was still speaking.

[Jeremy Smalls]

Floor Cleared: Tutorial

Class: Invisible Acrobat (Silver)

Profession 1: None

Profession 2: None

Profession 3: None

Health: 75/75 (0.04/minute)

Stamina: 75/75 (0.4/minute)

Energy: 20/20 (0.12/minute)

[Attributes]

Strength: 7

Agility: 8

Stamina: 4

Sturdiness: 4

Energy Pool: 1

Comprehension: 1

Energy Compression: 1

Regeneration: 3

AP: 8

Otto was dumbfounded.

Both of these guys got silver classes?

The same silver class that appeared in approximately 1 in 1 billion individuals?

Otto's first reaction was actually to confirm his findings.

They didn't change.

He suddenly felt like he picked up a couple treasures for cheap.

Well, even in his previous life, Jeremy's class was at least either White or Bronze.

Perhaps with Otto's help, his relatively higher mission rating affected his class selection too?

And Otto had never heard of anyone with the name of Elliott Lastermann in the past.

Otto was familiar with most of humanity's top figures, too.

Did Elliott make different choices because of his influences?

Otto smiled secretly.

At least, he knew for sure that Elliott was definitely worthy of being trained.

He would certainly make a good team member, if only for his silver class alone!

"Elliott. You did well to pass the tutorial. Congratulations. I promised you could come find me for assistance should you live."

Jeremy scowled in the background, feeling a little jealous about it.

How come Otto hadn't congratulated him on passing the tutorial? So biased!

Otto then asked Elliott,

"Do you have any requests?"

Elliott's eyes shook slightly.

Was this…a polite means of rejection? Saying 'I'll keep my promise, but that's it'?

He summoned his courage and looked Otto dead in the eye.

Elliott was absolutely positive that the reason he had, on a whim, or rather a 'feeling,' spent the entirety of his money to get here was to meet Otto again.

His intuition was sending the strongest signals he had ever felt!

He fidgeted with his clothes under Otto's firm gaze, but managed to spit out,

"I…I also want to follow you!"

Elliott immediately avoided eye contact after he spoke.

Though he was two years older than Jeremy, Elliott had never been very good at interacting with people.

Even back on Earth, he was quiet and basically didn't speak at all.

Saying that sentence was practically the limit of his small social courage.

He didn't see Otto's faint smile, so his nervousness only increased when he didn't hear Otto respond.

Elliott was about to rush out of the room in embarrassment when he finally heard,

"Very well. Welcome to the team."

Though Elliott didn't reveal much happiness outwardly, his face still held quite a bit of relief.

Jeremy even caught the glint of a tear that was blinked back before it could emerge.

'WTF! Why is this guy crying?'

Seeing this, Jeremy's jealousy evaporated into the air.

Hmph, he'd have to teach this guy how to buck up and be a man.

Jeremy's thoughts were interrupted as Otto clapped his hands.

"Let's head off, then. Pack your things, if you have them. We won't be coming back."