Code Collector - Chapter 168

It seemed like everything was on their favor until it wasn’t.

Barandilla still have the upper hand even when there were hundreds of witnesses in Allen and Fantasia’s battle. Although Allen expected for the rumors to be twisted for some reason, he didn’t expect it to be too intense.

“Mr. Dante Reed,” a man said from their doorway. “You and your allies are hereby invited to the Skill Altar Hall to be reevaluated. It seemed like we are suspecting you of cheating in your placement test by tampering with our machines and, or, hiding your true powers.”

“Okay,” Allen said and smiled. “We have no problems with any reevaluation, sir.”

The man didn’t respond and instead just left the building. Allen closed the door and watched his friends have baffled expressions plastered on their faces.

“What?” Allen asked. “I told you, this was bound to happen. It seemed like the higher ups finally heard our noise and are now taking action on it.”

“But will we be okay?” Jeremy asked. “What if they try to trick us again. What if– they frame us?”

Allen laughed lightly and shook his head. He walked over to the coffee table and sat on the floor, his friends following him so they were now occupying all four sides of the table. “When I went to Earth a couple of weeks ago, I saw this ancient game.”

“Allen, this is no time for games–” Jeremy was silenced when Allen placed a finger on his mouth. “Argh.”

“It has cards and you pile up the cards until such time that you run out of turns,” Allen continued. “I saw this one particular special card. It reversed the turn and up until the twentieth century, they used this term.”

“Which is?” Jeremy asked to which Allen grinned.

“We pull the Reverse Card.”

–

It was all too familiar for Allen. He had been there before. He was examined before and had been through the tests once. He knows what happens after these trials and he knows the result.

“You seem to have a quite sturdy body,” the doctor said, waking Allen from his thoughts. He glanced at the doctor’s nametag and it says Dr. Jackson. “Dr. Shania Jackson. I’m originally a healer but I turned out to be one of the three doctors in this camp. Hunting is too tiresome for me.”

“You don’t miss hunting?” Allen asked, making Shania chuckle. “Hunting feels good, you know.”

“It does,” Shania replied. “But once you get bored of it, you just seem to look for another thing to do.”

“There’s a lot of things you can do though,” Allen said. “You can even fly if you want. It’s all up to what or how you want to do things.”

“Yeah,” Shania nodded as she wrote something on her clipboard. She hummed and skimmed through the test results again. She then looked at Allen and crossed her arms. “You definitely are not a D ranker, yet you’re also not a C ranker either. Either you’re something more or you’re nothing.”

“What do you mean?” Allen couldn’t help but ask.

“You know how when you cook you have to wait for a certain time for your food to be prepared, right?” Shania asked to which Allen answered with a nod. “You’re like that but then you’re cooked too early, and now you’re something that’s raw yet flavorful and good.”

“You can see those things?” Allen asked to which Shania chuckled at. “I mean, how?”

“You don’t need to be someone good to know that someone is special,” Shania replied. “You just need to have a keen eye. And gossip. I heard you beat Fantasia in a challenge.”

Allen’s guard instantly went up from the mention of the match. It was a good thing that he didn’t revealed a lot of things and talked about anything yet. This way, he can still slowly fall back when he feels like is cornered with the questions. Shania may well be a spy.”

“I don’t know,” Allen said. “I just fought with whatever I can.”

Shania smirked and played a video. “This was taken by a special reporter and sent it to me. It doesn’t seem like you’re anyone that’s fighting with whatever you could. You look like you’re strolling in the park.”

The woman had now shown a lot of signs of red flags. Allen had to finish their conversation with as little words as could mutter. He can’t trust anyone here anymore.

“It’s not like I’m part of Barandilla,” Shania suddenly chuckled, making Allen even more suspicious of her. No one had mentioned the group nor any members of the group, yet she just brought it out of the blue. “You’re just too good to be a D ranker, even defeating an Ascender. But whatever it is you’re planning, I can help you.”

This is when Allen stood and bowed. “Thank you for the examination, doctor. But I’ll be leaving now.”

“Think about my offer,” Shania said before Allen could walk out of the door. The boy glanced one more time and this time, his eyes widened after seeing Fantasia show him a photo of the mask of the Wandering Trader on her phone screen.

“I got your back,” Shania said.

Allen immediately left the room and went outside. For a moment there, he was nervous. He didn’t know how Shania got a hold of his information, but he will find out soon enough.

“Dante, here!” Gwen called out as Allen walked out of the glass door of the hospital. He walked towards his group and greeted them with a smile.

“What’s wrong?” Gwen asked to which Allen answered by shaking his head.

“Nothing,” Allen said. “I just talked with the doctor that examined me and she knows the identity of the Wandering Trader.”

“What?” Jeremy gasped. “That’s not nothing, you know.”

“No,” Allen turned to the hospital once more, seeing the doctor on the window looking at them. “It’s nothing.”

–

The tests continued and the results were out. Bryant was outside of the building, crossed arms and wore a scowl on his face. The rumors were still spreading all throughout the camp and the nearby camps.

There wasn’t much camp in Paradise, only one to two per country. Since the countries have been condensed throughout the years, there are only seventy countries in the world. In the approximate one hundred camps, a rumor like this would spread like wildfire.

“So,” Bryant hummed. “What do you think is going to be your result?”

Allen shrugged. “I don’t know, but all I know is that I’m truthful with whatever the tests were. I didn’t cheat.”

Bryant wanted to pounce on Allen, but he was stopped by his companion. “You know what he did to Fantasia. Calm down.” The companion said.

They waited outside of the camp hall to wait for the results. As the words came by, more and more people started to gather. There were now approximately one hundred people outside of the camp, that’s a huge number of Hunters.

“See this crowd?” Bryant smirked. “If it’s proven that you cheated on your first test, you will be arrested and your Hunter license will be revoked. Good luck to you.”

Allen didn’t bat an eye as an official got out of the building and handed Allen, Jeremy, Gwen and Gary their test results. He nodded at them and went back inside like nothing happened.

“Open it!”

“Too slow. We’re here to beat you up when you’re revealed to be a cheat. Haha!”

“Go on, Mr. Fantasia-Beater. Open it and prove to the world what you really are. A cheater!”

…

The more these people scream against Allen, the more he was inspired to prove them wrong. He was not excited to see their faces when he revealed the result.

He opened the envelope and raised the paper inside. A paper that shows a large D watermark under a pile of words. This was a shock to everyone which includes Bryant who’s smirk was wiped off of his face.

“W-What?” Bryant gasped with wide eyes. “But how?”

Bryant then felt someone pull his wrists. He was about to resist when he saw the blue uniform with the golden badge on it. He froze and watched Matthew walk closer to him.

“Mr. Bryant Sachs, you are hereby convicted of the crime of tampering with the sacred Challenge,” Matthew said. “You are one of the thirty people who are part of the crowd that tainted the sanctity of the said event.”

Bryant couldn’t believe his eyes. He turned to Allen’s group and they were smiling at him. Gwen even waved her hads goodbye, showing a sarcastic pout.

“This is–” Bryant wasn’t able to finish his words when he saw a familiar woman nearby.

Fantasia was standing by the hall, her hands cuffed behind her while four officers surround her. Everyone gasped at the sight, one of the most powerful Hunters, being escorted by police officers.

“For these crimes, your Hunter licenses,” Matthew said. “Are hereby revoked.”

Allen raised a card that had two arrows pointing at each other, as he gave them a victorious smirk, “Reverse card.”