Knowing her reckless self, Arina left the key to her room to Seo before leaving for the market but forgot to mention it to Asano. When he got back and announced to everyone that Arina just left out of a sudden, people went perplexed and it was understandable since why would she leave at night and where would she go considering they were in Bali at the moment?

Seo and Asano helped Arina pack her suitcase the night before leaving and had to come across tons of her beauty products. The more they discussed and thought about it together, the odder it got. Why would she leave all of her stuff behind? And where did she leave to? Also, what made it so urgent?

Asano couldn't bring himself to not feel concerned. He contacted her through her Bali number but failed to reach her every time. Should they really leave her there and go home first?

Whatever had to come will come. Before they entered the airport Asano called her again but it was no use. Perhaps she had left the island already? He texted her through Line but received no response either.

Waves surged within him, what if she was kidnapped or something? Asano freaked out and demanded they extend their trip to go look for Arina. Of course, Mr. Gojou didn't approve of it, and Asano declared that he was to stay there by himself to go look for her.

"You can't travel by yourself, Asano-kun. You're thirteen," reminded Mr. Gojou.

Obviously that Asano had considered the problem. However, he thought he could find a way somehow. The circumstance brought Asano to retreat to silence and arrived at the conclusion that Arina must have left with the person who called her last night since she couldn't just leave for another country alone.

After drawing enough conclusions, Asano called the police and told them about Arina just in case. Eventually, he had no choice but to leave with his class back to Japan. Ever since his horrid experience with class 2-A, Edirusdimand had been traumatized and ought to quit his job forever and moved to live in a rural area. Mr. Gojou Botan again felt like he was an outcast the entire time when there was a so-called trustworthy leader present in his class.

The final of the World Scholar Cup will start right after Asano, Koyama, and Ren return, and had to travel to the States for their participation. Ren was squealing the whole time back home imagining himself greeting Liliana Chadwick. Koyama was too busy memorizing and reviewing the stuff needed for the tournament to bother about anything else. Asano was, too, excited about meeting Liliana. However, he was rather skeptical about her actual capability. What if it was all fake due to propaganda and her family's fame? Who knows. He can't wait to find it out later.

***

*Flashback*

A strange number appeared on Arina's phone as she wiped her grieving tears away and picked it up.

["Avenira, are you hearing me? Here's urgent news. Japan had somehow succeeded in its plan and is sending some bizarre creatures here as a testament. We need you to join our sniper unit immediately! I will come and pick you up right now!"]

That's it -- Arina had a tracking app installed on her phone so the government could know her position at any time. Apparently, an Orlas agent was going to pick her up as she broke into an alarm over this shocking news.

"HOLY MOLY!" screeched Arina in fright. She ran around in full circles to ease herself down and proceeded to go find Asano but ended up finding him only a few meters away.

"Oh, there you are, Asano-kun!" gasped Arina. "I must leave now -- this very time! Oh, Asano-kun, I'm so extremely sorry for the wicked words I used against you. Oh, please bear with me! I'm about to leave now; can you report that to Gojou-sensei? And -- and, my stuff! Asano-kun, I would be very grateful if you help me pack my suitcase and get it back to Japan for me. Oh! It's fine for you? Oh, Asano-kun!"

There she pulled him into a quick hug and retrieved her stuffed lamb, then fled away from his sight without leaving any explanation, causing Asano to feel puzzled and concerned.

*End of flashback*

"Based on Avenira's report, Japan is implementing a project to have antimatters piggyback on human cells. And yes, antimatter is real stuff, not just science fiction, and Japan had proved that to us. After the fusion, it resulted in these," a ZE major said whilst the sniper unit was traveling on an armored vehicle to their deployed destination. He toppled over a metal bucket, and three to four alive tentacles fell out from it. Dancing on the vehicle's floor. The snipers were taken aback by them.

"HAVE YOUR BALLS FALLEN OUT!?" roared the major when he saw their reaction. "According to Avenira, these antimatter tentacle-based lifeforms are immune to ordinary weapons. In fact, metal weapons and ammunition will melt if they pass through the body of a tentacle-based lifeform. After researching and experimenting, we have found the right material for destroying these tentacles."

He took out a BB bullet and showcased it around to the soldiers. Some of them gasped in amazement whilst Arina's little head protruded from their bulky shoulders, desperately standing on tiptoe to see what was going on. The major then demonstrated to confirm what he said by shooting the tentacle with the BB bullet. It immediately burst and tore apart.

"Seriously!?" ejaculated some, unable to fathom how a BB bullet can break through this thing but not a regular bullet.

With that, the ZE major appointed the snipers into pairs. One observer and one sniper. A guy named Bobr was appointed as Arina's observer. Together they traversed the everlasting path of the cold color of white and each was given out BB bullets to get armed.

It was their first task dealing with a thing other than humans, and it drove some of them to goosebumps at the thought of having about to witness the enemy's antimatter creatures with their own eyes. Arina, though, was rather excited about fighting them.

***

The World Scholar Cup Final was here. Asano with his two chosen minions flew to the States and in particular -- Connecticut -- and arrived at Yale University to participate in the tournament.

Without a doubt, Ren already fled to search for Phillips Academy's participants, or perhaps one should say the superstar Lilliana Chadwick. He wasn't the only person to do that though, almost the entire folks in that area were also searching to see her. The prospect of finally meeting Lilliana in real life was a dream come true for many people.

Asano -- being goal-oriented as he was -- reminded Ren to not forget the reason why they were there in the first place -- to win this tournament and bring honor to their school's name. Ren, however, thought having Lilliana as a lover was way more worth it than some cups and medals.

Even Koyama couldn't hide his excitement for Lilliana Chadwick. He memorized every of her information and whether you think it's either wholesome or creepy, he thought his action was admirable.

Finally, to their disappointment, the Phillips Academy's participants had their grand entrance to Yale's hall but were surrounded by bodyguards keeping everyone out of their sight. Lilliana was treated like a huge celebrity and needed to be protected from her paparazzi. It wasn't until the tournament started that other participants had the chance to fully viewed her face. Some even fainted at Lilliana's out-of-this-world beauty.

Those who got the chance to sit next to Phillips Academy's students' table were considered unbelievably lucky, which meant that Asano, Ren, and Koyama should be grateful for being so.

Sitting at the table next to Lilliana Ren couldn't focus on answering his quizzes. In reality, he again wasn't the only case. That was one advantage that Lilliana had against their opponents -- by being too distracting thanks to her fame and unreal appearance.

She definitely lived up to her name as 'the most beautiful girl in mankind's history'. Her ocean-violet eyes were wonderfully intoxicating, enough for a person to get lost and stuck in them forever. She possessed an exquisitely perfect face proportion girls from every continent would use face filters to achieve it. A perfect hourglass body looking as though straight out from surgery. A perfect complexion -- not too pale nor too tan but rather neutral with a pinkish undertone and rosy cheeks and lips. And most importantly -- as a trait brand running among the Chadwick Family -- was her glowing golden hair. It wasn't like a typical blonde hair color, it was GLOWING like the flaring sun. So bright, so outstanding.

You knew how beautiful a girl must be when even Asano Gakushuu -- despite labeling himself as immune to love at first sight -- felt a lightning strike in his heart. What was this intense feeling? He had a realization that he knew Lilliana from the bottom of his heart. It was as if she was a person he knew from his many past lives. Someone he failed to conquer in romance multiple times. Someone who was there to teach him a lesson in his life. Someone incredibly significant on a spiritual level. At that moment, Asano completely forgot about his temporary crush on the girl he just met in his lifetime and focused entirely on this reunion with his one true love.

***

After eyeing the target through the binoculars and checking the wind rate, Bobr reported to Arina as she went into her aiming position. Most snipers shoot while laying flat on their stomachs since it gives the enemies a smaller target to aim at. Arina, however, fired from a sitting position because she felt the position was better for her aim. She didn't worry too much about making herself a bigger target, as she was just a biscuit nearly five feet tall who would conceal herself in snowbanks and put snow in her mouth to hide her breath.

Since Japan was still in the early development stage of its experiment, the process of creating antimatter was still a challenge for them. As a result, in their initial creations as this one, the products weren't at all to their expectation. The bizarre creatures didn't possess an unmatched speed like their later works. Nevertheless, they secretly sent around ten of their production to Normady without knowing their enemy had already figured it out since the beginning and had deployed a spy to investigate their headquarters laboratory and stole some of the antimatters and creations back to their mainland.

These very first bizarre creations Japan sent as a testament were them using death rows to fuse with the artificial antimatters. They were slow due to the tentacle's movement but still with their awakened consciousness. Nonetheless, there was nothing special about them as the sniper unit easily cleared them out and complained about how the government was being overreacted.

During then Arina realized she had wasted potentially quality time with her classmates and cried and opted to go back since she didn't want to miss the summer festival Seo had been bragging about all the time. Unbeknownst to her, unfortunate fate had decided to put her still at Normady for a while.

***

After the various subjects' quizzes, it was time for essays as Koyama immediately went full mode memorizing the examples he read online and copying and pasting them. Asano had no problem with academic-related things as usual. And for Ren? He was motivated and inspired by observing Lilliana as he went ahead and won the gold medal for his descriptive essay later.

Now for the final part -- the debate tournament. Actually, it couldn't exactly be said that Asano was flawless in every academic-related stuff. Surprisingly, he wasn't so good at debate contrary to everyone's belief. The issue here was that Asano was attending the Japanese educational system throughout his life and they didn't include debating in their curriculum. However, to participate in this tournament, Asano and his minions had been exceptionally trained for debate.

The most nervous part was confronting Phillips Academy's participants in the debate tournament. Asano, Ren, and Koyama were lucky to avoid being their opponents in earlier rounds. Those unfortunate to debate against Lilliana's team early were destroyed and had to stay out of the tournament.

With miraculous willpower from Asano's team and especially Asano himself, they won against many teams who got more training in debates than they do and proceeded to enter the final with Lilliana's team as their final opponents.

To begin the final, the opponents shook hands with each other as Ren couldn't help but groaned in jealousy witnessing Asano and Lilliana being third speakers shaking their hands. He was the first speaker and Koyama was the second speaker and their opponents were all guys to Ren's chagrin.

Unlike the initial rounds where they place the participants in private rooms, in this final round they had to debate in the main hall in front of the entire participants and coaches. The front seat rows seated the judges who were professional lawyers and champions of debate and such.

Koyama broke into sweats from the understandable amount of pressure whilst Asano was the total opposite of him -- confident and assertive. Ren was imagining himself casting a spell on Lilliana for the entire time.

The motion for this debate was announced, 'Global peace and security are attainable'. Asano's team was to be the affirmative team and Lilliana's team was the negative team.

After having time to discuss and wrote down their ideas and sorted them, Ren was the first one to begin this match.

["Constructive speech first speaker team affirmative, three minutes."]

They started the stopwatch and Ren began his speech, "Hello ladies-- I mean, hello! (Asano grimaced in shame at this) my name is Sakakibara Ren and I'm representing Kunugigaoka Junior High. I strongly believe that with the current state of policy issues global peace and security are attainable."

There he justified his team's belief using their knowledge of the political field and after using up his three minutes, it was the negative team's first speaker's turn as he went up on the rostrum and contradicted what Ren just addressed.

The same went on for each turn. Asano issued this matter with an imposing voice that resonated over the entire site of the hall. Female participants were whispering among each other about how confident and attractive that Japanese guy was. And when it was Lilliana's turn, the entire hall stood up and cheered for her.

It was obvious that Asano was irritated by this. Lilliana went on the rostrum and began her speech. She knew where to emphasize and deliver her thought as effectively as it was. As opposed to Asano who displayed himself as a strong debater, Lilliana sounded more influential and reasonable.

After taking turns debating, it was time for crossfire. In reality, it was more like a battle for intellectual capability between Asano and Lilliana. The rest stayed quiet and sweatdropped at how competitive and active these two were.

The topic was heavily leaned toward the negative team's victory and it drove Asano mad having to come up with a resolution every time Lilliana dismissed his idea. Honestly, he was madder than impressed by her luck and overlooked her intellect.

'I could've won if we were given the negative team,' thought Asano bitterly after the announcement of Lilliana's team's victory. However, he pulled on his mask and approached her with a charming smile.

"Congrats on your victory. I hope we will face each other in another match soon," he said, extending his hand to her.

Lilliana's blue-violet eyes locked with his, as she returned him a charismatic smile. Her hand reached to his and shook it.

"I'm much obliged. I've been blessed with people's blessings the entire time and I hope it'd do the same for you too. Such a pity."

For some reason, her comment brought more bitterness to Asano, as he accidentally dropped his mask for a split second. Lilliana noticed this and her eyes widened in satisfaction. If one relies on their intuition carefully enough, they could sense that she was being manipulative to some extent.

There was something about Lilliana that made her so charming. She could cast a spell on anyone she wanted as if she was a wizard. She was the TRUE people person with her ability to read into people's minds with no effort and easily used it against them. She knew the whole time how Asano must've felt post the match and just with a few deft lines she proceeded to make him drop his mask. That was her way to achieve her goals throughout her life.

Asano, though, despite being vexed by this girl, opted to enter into a conversation with her.

He introduced himself to her and began to tell her about his accomplishments. Most people would've felt annoyed by his arrogance but luckily his counterpart was Lilliana. Being an emotionally intelligent person as she was, she calculatedly made him talk about himself more to satisfy his needs and to manipulate him if needed. She seized the chance to gather every piece of information from his important relations when he mentioned them.

"I want to know everything there's to know about how you manage leadership," smiled Lilliana charismatically, fully aware that males love to be asked about how things are done as opposed to females who just wanted to share their emotions. "Perhaps you could teach me how it's done. I still have a whole great thing to learn."

Asano fell deeper in love with Lilliana after acknowledging a sense of comfort and companionship in her whilst Ren stood there watching them in jealousy not daring to interrupt.

Throughout his life, except for his father, Asano had always felt like he was alone on the top looking down at everyone. But as soon as he met Lilliana, he felt as if she was someone who was standing aside from him. A very strong sense of companionship. Little did Asano know Lilliana was all the time being like this toward everyone to easily manipulate them through soft power.

'She was meant to be mine' Asano told himself with a smirk. He humbly asked Lilliana if she could keep in touch with him and fortunately, she saw the potential in him and said yes. Ren also jumped in asking the same thing but got rejected immediately.

During the closing ceremony, Asano himself got double amounts of gold medals from both Ren and Koyama combined. They also received a silver cup from the debate tournament which Asano couldn't be proud of. For him, winning is gold, everything else is losing. Turning to Lilliana, she got around the same gold medals he got and a golden cup to Asano's bitterness. However, he can finally confirm that Lilliana truly lived up to her fame.

Before leaving for the car, Asano met up with Lilliana again to bid farewell. Ren and Koyama, too, joined in and were on the verge of fainting when she returned their words with a sweet smile. The guys who were Lilliana's teammates rolled their eyes and went away to bid goodbyes to other participants and hoping to receive the same treatment as Lilliana.

Although when he was finally riding in the car, Asano received a free phone call on WhatsApp from Lilliana. Amazed, he picked it up instantly.

["SAVE ME! Asano! I need your help! I'm at the back of Yale's building--"]

Without finishing her lines, Asano heard some men's voices as they made her end the call. Panicked, Asano commanded the driver the head back right away! Immediately!

Ren and Koyama were wondering what was happening and asked Asano about it. But he didn't reply. After returning to Yale, Asano threw the car's door open and fled outside to search for Lilliana at full speed.

'I'm coming to save you!' Asano thought, gritting his teeth in hurry, and desperately flew across the entire site of the building.

***

It was the day Arina had got to go back to Japan out of bitterness for all the things she had missed. She acknowledged today was the day the boys participate in the tournament as she sent them messages wishing them the best with love from her, combined with a bunch of emojis and stickers.

Before going back, she visited her cottage near Avenirgrad Oblast to collect some of the stuff she forgot and decided to wander around the winter forest for she surely missed it after experiencing such humid and sunshiny weather.

"Such a weird feeling ain't it Mr. Snowman? You only miss the cold when it's hot and only miss the hot when it's cold. I've decided now that I shall always cherish every bit of moments in my life without complaining," confided Arina to the little snowman she just built. With a dreamy sigh, she leaped on her feet and sauntered deeper into the forest.

There was a small family living near her location. They lived in a hut and were completely isolated from the rest of the world. They chose to be that way since they couldn't bare the oppression lifestyle from the government.

It was during a hunting trip that the husband brought something unthinkable back home. He should've thought about his wife and daughter but his instinct overwhelmed him and he ended up letting it chase him back to their hut.

The gift he surprised his wife and daughter with was a two meters bear. Not purely a bear, though. There were tentacles coming out from its back and feet. It was something out of this world -- an alien, perhaps? The poor wife and her daughter had to witness the bizarre creature catch the man and tore him apart with the support of its sharp teeth and tentacles, preparing to eat its prey alive.

The woman was drained of blood. She went fully petrified at the sight. Despite so, she tried her best to shield her daughter from witnessing the horror scene.

By then, during their most miserable state, someone fired a bullet at the bear's head. The bullet, however, melted. The bear didn't respond since it had got its prey under its teeth and continued swallowing it.

Terrified, Arina carefully moved closer to observe it and nearly passed away witnessing such a creature for the first time in her life. Her whole, tiny body shuddered as she reached for her pocket to search for some spare BB bullets. She had to do it. She had to do it to save people since she now noticed the presence of the wife and the daughter hugging themselves in the hut. Extreme fear drove Arina to shed unconscious tears. She frantically searched and what a relief! She found two BB bullets in her coat's pocket.

Arina was shaking to the point when she had to load the BB bullets into her pistol they always slipped and fell out of her grip, making her pick them up again and restarted the process.

However, before she could finish, the creature let go of its prey, stood up on its tentacles, and...

"FO-FOLLOW ME! QUICK!" shouted Arina at top of her lungs to the woman and her daughter.

Despite being petrified, the will to not let her daughter die brought the woman to stand on her noodle legs. Carrying her young daughter in the front, she fled to Arina in desperation with tears flowing down her freezing cheeks.

The hybrid bear diverted its gaze and began to chase after them.

***

Asano finally found Lilliana -- who was fighting back from being sexually assaulted by her own bodyguards. Fire lit within him, and Asano lunged attacks on the two bodyguards without seconds to spare. No one had noticed this before, but he was very strong in a fight. His father had trained him in martial art ever since he was merely three. And if someone ever had a coach like chairman Asano, it meant that they were going to be superior to other humans.

After knocking them out, Asano turned to ask Lilliana if she was okay, and totally did not expect her to run forward and wrap her arms around his neck.

"You--you saved me! It was so close," faltered Lilliana. Her upper body pressed into his as she rested her head on his shoulder, seeking out a sense of safety. "I'm-- I'm not physically strong...I couldn't fight them back myself."

It was true. Although Lilliana excelled in almost everything, sports or anything that require physical strength wasn't her thing. She naturally possessed a fragile body, and it drove Asano crazy about her. She by far triggered his hero instinct the most. He felt like he needed to protect this girl for the rest of his life.

Holding Lilliana in his arms whilst stroking her golden strands of hair, Asano let out a smirk out of pride, "You're safe now. I will be the one to escort you back to the car. And make sure to report and fire these dishonorable human beings."

Unbeknownst to him, his wish to protect her for the rest of his life was going to be granted. Lilliana was going to be his future half. His future wife.

***

The bizarre creature slithered on its tentacle toward its prey. Arina kept swiveling her head back to keep track of its distance in a panic and shrieked whenever it got closer as she frantically pushed the mother and daughter forward even more.

Their screams echoed throughout the forest which nobody ever heard. Arina was white to the lips, but she did not lose her fighting spirit. There was one chance -- just one.

"I was horribly frightened," she told general Fedorov the next day, "I remember how desperate I was to save them. Oh, general Fedorov, you know the fiery urge that surged up within you when someone is in trouble you ought to save them! Even if you are too frightened to pick up yourself too of course. Oh, poor souls" -- she began to tear up at this part -- "their husband slash father died in front of them in the most gruesome way, and I wouldn't bet on my imagination to go beyond that. It was simply unimaginable. Oh, general Fedorov! Why would you scold me for having feelings? Oh, you must have seen their miserable faces at that moment then! I bet your feet will also move on their own to rescue them even if it might cost you your life. But even if so, I reckon it will be very worth it. After I led them out of the hut, that strange creature chased after us and I was so shaky that whenever I tried to load the BB bullets in the pistol, I failed! Of course I would since I was also running for my life at that point. I prayed, general Fedorov, most earnestly, even though I'm an atheist. It really shows you how desperate I was. But I didn't shut my eyes to pray, for I knew the only way God could save us was to summon rescuers or empower me to stay collected and load those BB bullets in so I needed my eyes opened to stay aware if He had fulfilled my prayer or not. But I had a sudden feeling that I need to get on my knees to pray in order for it to work. It was proper to do it that way, and while I dropped my bullets on the way I felt like I might just as well kneel down for a while to pray. And-- and guess what!? Mrs. Smirnova cried and begged me to get up and until then I realized how stupid I was. The creature was only a few meters away from us and OH BOY! We gathered every bit of our strength to distance ourselves from it. And *dramatic shriek* I forgot to pick up the BB bullets!!"

After Arina's efforts of praying, God hadn't granted her a thing but to worsen the situation. Even so, Arina kept telling the two they were going to be okay. But how were they to trust her if she kept tripping on her dress and stumbled over?

In the process of undergoing panic and failing to keep herself calm to save others, her hysteric mind triggered a familiar recollection.

"I found a bear! Asano-kun! A BEAR!" her past self exclaimed out of excitement, making Asano wince in disbelief. "It was attacking a mother and a child! I quickly threw myself in the middle of danger, shoving a cupcake in its mouth! I bought time for us to escape-- Oh, Asano-kun! I haven't finished just yet! Where are you going?"

"Unfortunately, you're wasting my time," he responded coldly.

"That was how I got the bruises, Asano-kun! That's why I need to cover it!"

"Just stop making up nonsense stories. I'm getting enough of it. Your head is always up in the clouds."

That's it -- getting some of the memories back made Arina feel more at ease as she laughed at her past self despite being chased by a literal beast. At least she managed to gain some composures by then.

Taking a deep breath in, Arina bravely turned to the mother and daughter whilst running and offered them something that never would her earlier self think of without being in a collected state.

"Keep running in this direction, then you will reach my private cottage that's filled with elite soldiers by now and they will help you two for sure! Go! I will distract it!"

"B-But--" gasped the mother in concern. Her child was bursting crying the entire time.

"You will live!" smiled Arina in comfort. Her smile was a mixture of compassion and courage. "You must live!"

Letting them go, she shouted once again, "Keep running! LIVE! Between us, you gotta live to care for one more life!" before pulling out a small bottle of Vodka from her coat and pouring it onto herself.

Remembering the research process, the early stage of creating these experiments included that these creatures will not necessarily have a good vision, but a rather keen nose. Their noses were likely to be better than human noses about twenty times and they used their noses to hunt their prey most of the time. The vision will be developed later in the experiment.

Seizing it as an advantage, Arina was now a heavy scent of alcohol. She distracted the hybrid bear from the mother and daughter as she proceeded to keep a distance between her and the beast and ran back to the spot she dropped the BB bullets, hoping it will follow her.

After that earlier moment of flashback, Arina swore she will live up to her imagination and expectation of herself, even if it might cost her life. Praying under her breath, she was so relieved to see the hybrid bear divert its target and chase after her instead.

"General Fedorov! Love conquers all for me!" she declared without having him hear it. Reaching the spot, Arina dropped to her knees on the snow once again but fully focused on picking up the BB bullets this time.

It was a situation of breath holding, the hybrid bear was so close to her that one must be a superbeing to not fail to stay calm and stabilize during the process of loading the bullets.

The liquor on Arina's body began to freeze her, making the shaking even worse than before. Her wet silver-blond hair was now frozen from the ice cold, as of her face. It began to crack. Her whole body was too freezing to the point she lost to the cold and was stuck in a place. For a moment Arina took back her words of promising herself she will cherish every moment in her life. It was simply impossible in this state. She apologized to Mr. Snowman in her head over and over for not keeping her word.

At last, she finally managed to load the BB bullets into the pistol with her shaky, numb hands, but was it good timing? No.

The beast caught up to Arina. Its tentacles extended to grab her, whilst Arina shed tears and determinedly aimed at its heart. She fired the first bullet. And...missed.

For the first time in a while she had missed, Arina had got her hands too numb and her breathing rate was too hectic to be able to shoot perfectly. She missed by inches and it went to one of the tentacles instead.

'Keep yourself together! Keep yourself together! Dear me!' Arina kept telling herself so. The beast opened its mouth revealing its long, sharp teeth as she cried out and gave away another shoot in a plain frantic moment.

Missed.

Arina had run out of BB bullets. And even worse, one of the beast's tentacles whacked the pistol away from her loosened grip.

Fortunately, although she missed, the bullet went through the beast's mouth causing it to explode and needed time to heal, buying Arina more time.

Realizing this, she reached out for any emergency things in her coat's pockets hoping she will find something effective for her self-defense.

What a surprise! Arina still got some BB bullets in the deeper layer of her pockets. But the problem was how was she supposed to make use of them now without a pistol?

Should she give in all the fate? In mere moments, when she saw the hybrid bear heal itself again and prepared to tear her apart, Arina reckoned it was time she shall leave this world. Shutting her eyes welled with tears this time, she thought to herself how she was going to die and there was no way out of it...until...the thought of the mother and her daughter came into her mind. If she dies and leaves this creature alive, will it catch up to those two? Will they have to face the same tragic fate as her? NO! She will NEVER let that happen!

Gathered every last bit of strength, Arina shrieked in a fiery determination and shoved the BB bullets into the beast's mouth. It ended up closing its jaws trapping Arina's arm into it. The red blood from her arm splattered on her face and her clothes, some of them dissolved into the white snow, but none of them caused Arina to flinch a bit. She was DETERMINED to win against this beast even if she might lose her arm or her life!

Shutting her eyes once again, she prayed. She prayed for Asano and his minions to win the tournament as they hoped. She prayed for Juria and her ex-girlfriends to find their true love someday, etc. Saving for the last, she prayed for the beast to die so the mother and her child would be safe and sound.

Miracles did exist. A group of soldiers appeared behind her in an armored vehicle and shot the bizarre creature dead before Arina could go armless for the rest of her life.

She looked at them with her watery, glistening set of eyes full of gratitude. The mother and her child were safe with them in the vehicle also. Perhaps they had reported the situation to the soldiers and led them to her location.

The corners of her white lips twisted, Arina laughed a laugh full of joy altogether with her tears of happiness. In the end, God really did listen and granted Arina her wishes. It was fulfilled.