Kibishi's POV

  The First Layer...

  Bright light faded away as we looked around the area. And as I had expected, it was the same building from before.

  Tao, Jir, and I stepped out of the teleporter and rested our feet on the concrete floor.

  But hold on. Something was different about this pce.

  For one, I could clearly see my own breath every time I breathed. And two, when I looked at the window, it seemed to be covered by cold air. The gss was so foggy that I couldn't even see the outside of this yer. Not to mention, the air around this pce was way colder, too.

  Something was wrong.

  Something was very wrong.

  "Huh. That's strange. Why is it so cold?" Jir hugged herself, trying to keep herself warm from this cold.

  "Yeah, this pce wasn't this cold the st time I visited." Tao nodded and then started to head towards the window. When she got closer to the window, Tao's movement slowed down and she slowly lifted her hand to press on the gss.

  When Tao touched the window, she jolted and retracted her hand.

  "The window is like ice!" Tao rubbed her hand.

  "I wonder what's causing this..." I pced my hand under my chin.

  "I can guess." Jir turned serious and suddenly started dashing towards the exit of the room. Jir made a turn and disappeared out of our sight.

  "What's causing this?" I tilted my head.

  "Well, it's most likely that monster we faced before-"

  Bash!

  The window burst open and all of the coldness came flooding into the building. Covering my face with my arms, I could see only white and nothing else. It almost reminded me of a blizzard that could overwhelm a city and shut down its system. The coldness was so bad that my fingers were starting to feel numb.

  "Kishi!" Tao called out my name.

  "I'm fine! We have to close the window before it's too te!" I started to walk slowly towards the window, but the force of the wind was pulling me backwards. At this rate, this whole room would be filled with snow!

  Damn it! My vision was blocked!

  What could I do to-

  Swift! Hug!

  I felt someone hugging me tightly. I then realized the warmth and looked up. I saw Tao hugging me, trying to protect me from the cold. But by doing that, she herself was exposed to it. I suddenly heard footsteps from behind me. They then stopped and I could hear some heavy breathing that repced the footsteps.

  "Damn it! I knew something was wrong! Tao, activate heater mode for your Super Code!" I heard Jir's voice. She must have returned since we hadn't followed her.

  I heard a click and then I could feel Tao warming up more than before. The heat was good enough to maintain movement in this cold. But I could tell that even this heat would burn out if the cold wasn't stopped soon. I then felt Tao's hands on top of my chest.

  "Please excuse me!" Tao said politely before going inside my jacket and sliding her finger on the fabric. Before I could even ask what was going on, I could feel warmth appearing around my body. Is this the work of the Super Code that I'm wearing?! This is awesome!

  But what were we going to do with the broken window?!

  "Now I'm going to use my magic to fix the broken window!" Jir shouted.

  I saw her lifting both hands toward the broken window. Jir's hands started to glow yellow and she used one of them to bring the pieces of the window together like a puzzle. She used her free hand to block the cold wind by creating a force field and preventing the pce from being filled with snow. Well, some snow did come in here, more than I had expected. But that aside, it seemed like Jir finished putting the window back together.

  "Okay! The window has been restored! Now, I'm going to restore it back to its pce!" Jir raised her hands towards the roof as her eyes glowed yellow.

  Both the window and the open hole glowed green. Before I could admire the glitter-like things around both the window and the hole, Jir did a pushing motion and the window ended up filling the hole once more. Jir used her right hand to hold the window by leaving it straight while using her left hand like a wand and acting like she was screwing something into the wall. Green lights filled the cracks that were there since the window wasn't really attached to the wall. Once the green lights filled everything, with one fsh, the material on the wall fully restored and this gave Jir a sign to stop holding the window with her magic. The glowing aura around the window started to disappear to our naked eyes.

  Jir's eyes started to spark like a fshlight losing its light due to a dying battery. Jir slowly lowered her hands and went down on one knee.

  Panting, Jir closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath due to how hard that trick seemed to have been.

  "Jir!" I shouted and started to run towards her to check if she was okay. Tao followed me and headed towards Jir as well.

  Once we reached Jir, as if by instinct, she lifted her hand to halt our movement. Still breathing hard, Jir slowly looked at me with a serious look. "Good grief! I can't take my eyes off you two for one second! Why didn't you follow me the minute I ran out of the room?!"

  "A-ah. I'm sorry..." I apologized and looked away in shame.

  "I'm sorry..." Tao apologized as well.

  I then heard Jir sigh deeply, which made me look back at her.

  "...Well, it doesn't matter. In the first pce, I should have been more clear that the outside was freezing and we needed to leave the room with the window nearby. This one was on me..." Jir admitted and slowly stood up while holding her right arm. "At any rate, now I've wasted some magic so I'm in the same boat as you two. I can't just join in the battle as I like now. It sucks, but Kuma and David will have to keep fighting on our behalf for a bit."

  "Won't they be tired by now? They've been fighting for hours on end without anyone with them to support them." Tao mentioned with a worried look.

  "Don't worry. Remember what we're wearing?" Jir pointed at her Super Code. "See these here? If even one is outdated, the others will automatically update if we're close enough."

  "Oh! Well, that's neat! O-oh, but then... won't the monster detect us?" I asked with a frown.

  "Good point. Tao, put on the anti-magic mode for Kib and yourself. I'll do the same as well." Jir went to the middle of her chest area and pressed it with her index finger. Her body glowed briefly and turned back to normal. I felt Tao pressing the middle of my chest area and my body did the same as well. Tao repeated this to herself and the result was the same.

  Jir turned around and looked at the exit of the pce.

  "Now let's move. Once Kuma's Super Code gets the update, she can keep going for a little while. Once those updates are complete, I'll move away from you two and wait until my magical energy has been restored well enough to join the fight." Jir started to walk towards the door.

  "That's advanced technology. I haven't heard anything like this during the expnation for the Super Codes, though." Tao mentioned as she helped me walk towards the door. Her one hand was behind my back while the other was on my chest area.

  Jir stopped and turned around with an unamused expression. Her eyes narrowed while her lips were straight. "Super Codes are complex technology that's built thanks to this world's magic. Don't you remember what Mato said? It depends on the situation. So, of course, the Super Codes won't always be the same every time. Also, they can always update to things that we won't be aware of until the st minute. Humans can't always know what comes next so the technology will automatically change based on the situation itself. Again, it depends on what we're doing."

  With that conclusion, Jir, looking tired from both saving us and expining herself, started to walk ahead once more.

  "I'll leave both of you behind if you don't hurry up this time." Jir said with a ft voice.

  Yikes! She sounds serious, too!

  "W-wait up, Jir!" I shouted in a panic.

  "Kishi! Let's hurry!" Tao pulled me forward.

  "R-right! Let me just-!"

  "No time! I heard the door opening!" Tao shouted with a serious look.

  "Wait, Jir is already downstairs- whoa!" I panicked when Tao lifted my body as if I were her bride.

  "Hold on tight!" Tao started to dash away with intense speed while carrying me.

  "Whoa! Wait a second! I can get down just fine! Put me down, Tao!" I turned red as I was getting carried by my best friend who worried about my safety. That was great and all, but being carried like this wasn't something I had in mind!

  But I had a feeling that Tao wouldn't listen to reason at this point-

  Leap!

  "WWWWHHHHHOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAA!!!!!!!" I screamed.

  We were falling to the first floor instead of using the stairs!!! Tao! Why are you being so risky so suddenly?!!!!

  I shouldn't be thinking that since I'm like that, too, but still, this is making my heart pound even more than being carried like this!