679 Are you having fun with me right now (2/2)

”My apologies. Please allow me to keep that a secret; I don't know if she's willing to publicize her involvement or not.”

Yui's appearance here was undoubtedly a direct intervention in this affair.

Seiji didn't know if his older sister was acting secretly or if she didn't care if others knew about what she was doing. Besides, the Haruta Family had a mortal enemy here… Seiji glanced over at Shigure and Keimi.

Seiji chose to keep her identity a secret in order to err on the side of caution.

Izawa understood and didn't pry any further.

*Boom!!!*

There was a frightening sound which made it seem like the sky itself was falling. White flames erupted with a brilliant dazzle, yet no heat emanated from the fire at all. It all seemed as beautiful as fireworks.

After the light finally faded, everyone saw nothing except a large crater where the gray tree had originally been located… the entire tree had disappeared!

Yui walked over to the large fireball that remained and cast another seal.

The flames suddenly burned even fiercer as pitiful screams came from within the fire. The fireball then gradually became smaller and smaller, and the screams also came to a stop.

When the fireball shrunk down to the size of a person's hand, the flames disappeared to reveal only a ball of bright-red blood.

”Come over by yourself.” Yui sent Seiji a magical message that only he could hear.

Seiji blinked before turning around to Shika and the others.

”I'm going over for a bit. Everyone, wait here for me.”

”Brother…”

”I'll be fine. Don't worry.”

Seiji walked over to Yui by himself and stood before her.

”Excellent job,” Yui praised him.

”Thanks to you.” Seiji smiled.

”This is the Challenger's Bloodwine that belongs to you and your teammate. I've already cleansed it of all impurities from earlier. It's now a spiritual wine that has no negative side effects. Drinking it will greatly improve your power level.” Yui looked directly at Seiji. ”You now have three choices. First, you can directly drink this. Second, you can combine this spiritual wine with the remaining energy from this location and then drink it. This will be highly risky, but you'll obtain much greater power. It'll even be possible to directly become a top-level Spiritual Ability user and become one of the top-ranked Spiritual Ability users in all of Sakura Island.”

That powerful? Seiji raised his eyebrows.

”Third… you can combine this spiritual wine with the residual energy here but choose not to drink it. Instead, you can use it to save all the people that died here.”

Seiji was astonished to hear this.

”All those dead people are still savable!?” he asked in his astonishment.

”Their souls have yet to leave this island. Perhaps it will be possible to revive them using this spiritual wine, but the odds of success are unknown,” Yui told him. ”It might succeed and it might fail. It's also possible that only a portion of people will be revived.”

”…So, you're saying that it's only a possibility with zero guarantee?”

”Indeed.”

Seiji fell silent.

At this moment, conversation options appeared before him...

[A: I choose the first option.]

[B: I choose the second option.]

[C: I choose the third option.]

'Are you having fun with me right now, system of mine?'

Seiji felt rather helpless and wanted to beat up his imaginary system fairy at seeing how incredibly simplistic these conversation options were.

Although the options were incredibly simplistic, at least this was still an important hint from his system that this was a highly important choice.

The first option was the safe option which would bring him certain benefits. The second option was risky but would bring him greater benefits. The third option was to abandon his own chances at gaining anything all for the sake of an unknown chance to revive others!

The great majority of dead tournament participants had no connection to Seiji whatsoever. He felt that he had no need to save those who had died.

As promised, he had already tried his very best to protect those who came to him for protection.

It was so difficult for him to finally win. Logically, he should take what he deserved, rather than sacrificing it for the sake of others. Not to mention, those others weren't any friends or family of his. They were his competitors. Some were even his enemies!

Seiji knew that the most logical choice would be to choose the first option.

Drinking this spiritual wine together with Shika and improving both their power levels would be the safest bet.

Although the second option was rather attractive, when considering the risk… or the price for the potential power, the risk didn't seem worthwhile.

The third option… was nothing more than a distraction that he shouldn't focus on!

And yet…

Seiji found it difficult to come to a decision as he recalled the pitiful appearance of all the corpses he saw during this tournament.

Yui silently watched him.