Chapter 618: Who is Burt?

Werner moved through the corpses slowly, studying them, his expression cycling through shock to confusion to calculation. He stopped beside the matriarch, examining the damage pattern on her armor.

"These holes," he said, almost to himself. "They’re tiny. Precise. Like someone drilled through with something small and sharp, not a sword or spear."

Other recruits were spreading out, examining the hatchling corpses, finding similar patterns. Cracked armor, concentrated impact points, damage that looked almost surgical in its precision despite the obvious violence required to create it.

"Maybe the instructors?" someone suggested nervously. "Testing us? Seeing if we’d actually investigate?"

"Why would instructors kill beasts and not harvest cores?" another recruit countered.

"Bounty hunters?" someone else offered. "Passed through here, cleared the area, left the cores because they were in a hurry?"

The speculation continued, theories multiplying as recruits tried to make sense of what they were seeing.

Werner stood apart from the discussion, his eyes moving between the corpses and Noah, who was examining a hatchling body near the tree line.

Then Werner’s expression changed, something clicking into place behind his eyes. His gaze fixed on the matriarch’s breach point, on those clustered tiny holes, on the damage pattern that spoke of concentrated force applied with incredible control.

’Precision,’ Werner thought, the word resonating. ’These holes could only be made by someone with precision. Perfect force concentration. The kind of control that takes mastery of techniques most of us are still struggling to learn.’

He looked at Noah again, really looked, studying the way he moved, the complete lack of surprise on his face at finding this massacre.

’Which hunter would kill and not harvest cores?’ Werner wondered, the question taking on new weight. ’Someone who didn’t need them. Someone who was hunting for a different reason. Protection maybe. Or clearing threats.’

His mind went back to training, to watching Noah master the Vital Point Technique in a single day while everyone else struggled. To seeing him drive concentrated strikes through training posts with precision nobody else could match.

’Could this be Burt’s doing?’ The thought was insane. One person couldn’t kill this many Cat-3 beasts. It was impossible. But the evidence was right there, the damage patterns matching what he’d seen Noah produce during training.

’But how? Why? He was only gone for an hour, maybe a bit more. This would take... I don’t even know how long this would take. And he came back clean, not covered in blood and ichor like you’d expect from someone who just fought a hundred beetles.’

Werner’s thoughts were interrupted by one of his group calling out.

"Werner! What do we do? These cores are just sitting here. Free for the taking."

The red group was looking at him, waiting for leadership, waiting for a decision.

Werner looked at the corpses again, at the cores visible through cracked carapaces, at the sheer quantity of resources just lying there unclaimed. His mind shifted from mystery to opportunity, from speculation to practical advantage.

"We keep this quiet," he said, loud enough for the whole group to hear. "This is red territory, our discovery, our advantage. We don’t tell yellows or greens about this location. We harvest what we can carry today, then we mark this spot on our maps. Tomorrow and the next day, we come back, pretend we’re hunting fresh kills, bring back more cores."

Several recruits looked uncertain. "Isn’t that cheating?"

"It’s strategy," Werner replied firmly. "Using available resources. These cores aren’t claimed by anyone. We found them, they’re ours. The competition is about who brings back the most cores, not about how we acquire them. Nothing in the rules says we have to personally kill every beast."

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the group, opportunism winning over ethical concerns.

"Start harvesting," Werner ordered. "Prioritize the smaller corpses, they’re easier to extract from. Leave the big one for now, her core is probably deep and we don’t have time to dig through that much armor today."

The reds got to work, carving into beetle corpses, extracting cores with varying degrees of skill. The crystalized masses glowed faintly, each one representing points in the competition, representing victory over the other colors.

Noah helped with the harvesting, playing his part, saying nothing about how these beetles had actually died. He watched Werner watching him, saw the suspicion there, the questions the red leader wasn’t quite asking.

’He suspects,’ Noah thought, carefully extracting a core from a hatchling. ’Doesn’t have proof, can’t quite believe it’s possible, but he suspects. Good. Let him wonder. Let him think I might be capable of this. It’ll make him more likely to trust my judgment going forward, more likely to follow my suggestions.’

The harvest took maybe two hours, each recruit collecting multiple cores, filling their packs with crystallized energy that represented Cat-3 beast kills. By the time they finished, the red group had maybe sixty cores between them, more than any single color could reasonably gather in one day of normal hunting.

"We head back to base camp," Werner announced. "Turn in what we’ve collected, act like we had a successful day of hunting. Tomorrow we come back, repeat the process. By the end of the competition, reds will have an insurmountable lead."

The group began the trek back, energy high, cores secure, victory seeming assured.

***

Base camp was chaotic when they arrived. Yellows and greens were already there, comparing their hauls, showing off cores, bragging about successful hunts. The instructors were logging acquisitions, keeping tallies, maintaining the competitive atmosphere.

The reds arrived and presented their cores with carefully controlled excitement, not wanting to seem too triumphant and raise suspicion about their source.

Valen examined the cores, his expression neutral as he added them to the red tally. "Sixty cores. Impressive first day. What did you encounter?"

"Various beasts," Werner replied smoothly. "Nothing too dangerous. We worked well as a team, covered good ground, got lucky with some concentrated populations."

"Luck is useful," Valen said, his scarred face showing nothing. "Keep it up. Four more days to go."

The reds dispersed to set up their camp section, pleased with themselves, confident in their strategy.

Noah found a spot on the edge of the red area, away from the main group, and sat on a flat rock that overlooked the darkening forest. The sun was setting, painting the sky in oranges and purples, the temperature dropping as night approached.

He was tired. Not physically, the system enhancements made fatigue almost impossible to feel for something like this. But mentally, emotionally, the weight of everything pressing down in ways he couldn’t quite articulate.

’How much longer?’ Noah wondered, watching stars begin to appear in the deepening sky. ’How much longer do I have to stay in this timeline, playing this role, pretending to be someone I’m not? The quest said extinguish the flames but I still don’t know what that means. Still don’t know what I’m supposed to accomplish here.’

He thought about the fight earlier, about cutting loose for the first time in weeks, about not having to hold back or pretend weakness. It had felt good. Natural. Like breathing after being underwater too long.

’But I can’t do that regularly. Can’t let them see what I’m actually capable of. Have to keep playing Burt, the talented recruit with exceptional strength and talent but nothing supernatural. Have to keep the mask in place.’

The weight of it sat heavy on his chest.

Back home, in his timeline, he could be himself. Could use his full capabilities, could lead Eclipse openly, could fight without constantly calculating how much strength to show. But here? Here he was trapped in a role that required constant vigilance, constant limitation.

’Diana I hope is healed by now,’ Noah thought, the worry less sharp than before but still present. ’Sophie’s managing everything. Kelvin’s rebuilt KROME. Lucas is handling everything I’d normally handle. Lila and Seraleth are keeping things stable. They’re all capable people doing what they do best. The world doesn’t stop spinning just because I’m not there.’

But he wished he was there anyway. Wished he could see them, talk to them, feel like himself again instead of this carefully constructed persona.

The camp sounds faded as people settled in for the night. Fires burned low, conversations died down to murmurs, exhaustion from the day’s activities pulling everyone toward sleep.

Noah sat on his rock and watched the stars, wondering when this would finally end.

***

Werner stood in the shadows between two tents, his position giving him a clear view of where Noah sat outlined against the darkening sky. The red leader had been watching for maybe ten minutes now, his mind working through possibilities, through suspicions he couldn’t quite voice.

The matriarch’s armor kept coming back to his thoughts. Those holes, clustered together, tiny and precise and deep. The kind of damage that required perfect force concentration, the kind of control that Werner himself was still struggling to achieve even with basic strikes.

’Precision hunters could make holes like that,’ Werner thought, analyzing the damage pattern in his memory. ’Yellows with years of experience, instructors who’ve mastered the Vital Point Technique completely. But which hunter would kill and not harvest cores? That doesn’t make sense. Cores are valuable, everyone knows that. You don’t just leave them lying around.’

Unless you didn’t care about cores. Unless you were killing for a different reason entirely.

Werner’s eyes narrowed, studying Noah’s silhouette.

’Could this be Burt’s doing?’ The question felt absurd even thinking it. One person, even someone as talented as Burt, couldn’t kill that many beasts. It was impossible. The sheer number alone would overwhelm anyone, and the beast armor required serious force to penetrate.

’But he mastered the Vital Point Technique in a day. He cracked the dragon scale board when nobody else could. He moves faster than anyone I’ve ever seen, hits harder, doesn’t seem to feel pain or fatigue the way normal people do.’

Werner remembered the earlier confrontation, when he’d raised his hand to strike Nami and suddenly Burt was just there, appearing between them faster than Werner’s eyes could track. The push that had sent him flying twelve meters like he weighed nothing.

’He’s been holding back,’ Werner realized, the thought crystallizing with sudden clarity. ’Everything we’ve seen him do, all the impressive displays during training, that’s him operating at maybe half capacity. Less than half. The instructors know it too, I’ve heard them talking. They know he’s hiding something.’

The question was what exactly was he hiding, and more importantly, why?

Werner watched Noah sit motionless on the rock, staring at stars, looking for all the world like someone carrying weight that didn’t show on the outside.

’If he did kill those beetles,’ Werner thought slowly, ’then he did it to protect us. The roar we heard, the way he volunteered to scout immediately. He knew something was coming, went to stop it before it could reach the main group.’

The pieces fit together too neatly to be coincidence.

’How did he do it though?’ Werner wondered, frustrated by the gaps in his reasoning. ’How does one person kill a hundred beasts in barely over an hour and come back completely clean? No blood, no wounds, not even breathing hard. It’s impossible. Unless...’

Unless Burt wasn’t actually who he claimed to be. Unless the story about being a tavern boy from a small town was complete fiction designed to hide something much more significant.

’Why would someone that powerful pretend to be normal?’ Werner asked himself. ’Why hide in a training camp with recruits when he could probably already qualify as a dragon knight? What’s the angle? What’s he actually after?’

No answers came, just more questions.

Werner kept watching, kept analyzing, kept trying to make sense of someone who didn’t quite fit into any category he understood.

On the rock, Noah continued staring at stars, unaware or uncaring that he was being observed.

And in the shadows between tents, Werner stood with suspicions he couldn’t prove and questions he couldn’t answer, wondering what exactly was sleeping in the red camp tonight.

The tiny holes in the matriarch’s armor haunted his thoughts.

Precision.

Control.

Power.

All concentrated in one person who claimed to be nobody special.

Werner didn’t believe it for a second.