After Himo and Phylia went through a day of traveling, the grandeur of the capital walls displayed itself before them. Under the morning sun, the shadows revealed a few vertical cracks in the gray stone, extending from the ground to the top of the wall.
Unlike the last time Himo had seen the walls, its gate was adorned by red silk curtains accompanied by two flags displaying the pattern of two corns spouting from a silver helmet. What didn’t change, however, was the long line of travelers, merchants, and adventurers glaring at him—he was, naturally, cutting the line.
“Hey, we meet again!” Himo waved at a guard. It was yet again the same guard he had met when going out. He waited for a reply, but was stunned when he saw a frown on the guard’s face. “What’s wrong?”
The guard looked left and right, then leaned closer to whisper in his ear. “It’s better if you don’t come back here. The Valhanna held a coup, they killed the royal family and are setting up a celebration in the whole capital.” When he said those words, the guard felt a piercing cold coming from the child.
“What about my family?” Wrath-filled words flew to the guard’s ears, prompting a shudder.
“They’ve been thrown in jail. Before the celebration starts, the Valhanna planned to execute them publicly as a show of strength. It’s scheduled for three days from now.”
Himo breathed easy. “Do you know their cultivation level and their numbers?”
“Around a hundred. I heard that the strongest of them is in the fifth string, while most of them are at around the third. While there are some under the Dantian Core Formation realm, they aren’t many.”
“Eh? Then how did they beat my family? My parents are in the seventh string!”
The guard fell in thought for a few seconds before replying. “This is just a rumor, but… aside swarming your residence with sheer numbers, some believe that they took your sister hostage while claiming they had caught you already.”
“I see…” Himo gritted his teeth. Three days, huh… very well! I’ll make you regret what you’ve done!
DING!
Unlike the previous times, the ding resounded stronger than ever, also accompanied by a different interface. While the quests he had seen before were shown in a black display, this time, the display was red. Its sides were on fire and the text was written in bold.
[Path Quest: Save your family!]
[After conquering the kingdom, the Valhanna family and the Arasura sect are planning to hold a public execution. Save your family and show that you cannot be bullied!]
[Quest Difficulty: S+]
[Quest Reward: 150 BS points.]
[Quest Failure Penitence: A clichè revenge path will start!]
Path quest? What’s that? Himo frowned.
[The failure or success of this quest will impact heavily on future quests.]
What do you mean?
[If the user were to fail, the next quests will follow the story where, after losing his family, the user will be overwhelmed by rage and will thus spam quests over and over, trying to reach a cultivation level that will make possible to take revenge.]
Oi! Don’t plan a revenge story over my misfortune!
[The system is fair and just, there is no way it would ever plan over someone’s misfortune.]
After sighing due to the system’s nonsense, Himo turned to the guard. “Thank you for giving me this information, I won’t forgive this debt. I’ll return in two days.” He then walked away, followed by Phylia.
Seeing that Himo was bent on losing his life, the guard shook his head. He was about to return to his position, when he noticed some frozen grass in the spot where the child was standing. “This is…”
-----
Several kilometers away from the capital walls, the two stopped in the middle of a forest. The surroundings lacked any kind of bushes, even small plants were rare. The only things common in that place were pine trees and boulders. Besides that, only patches of green and brown stood as the ground. No trace of animals nor monsters.
“Phylia!” Sitting on a boulder, Himo pointed at the surrounding pines. “We will now begin the ‘deforestation operation’!”
[Was that name needed?]
Absolutely!
He jumped down from the boulder and cut a tree with a slash of his scythe. Then, he glanced at Phylia. “Your job will be to sharpen this. Make sure that it’ll have a decent spike.”
“Yes!” Following his words, Phylia wrapped the severed part of the tree. Her body turned corrosive, and she began to “absorb” the wood until it shaped into a sharp(?) tip. Himo, meanwhile, severed all the branches from the trunk. They stopped after two minutes. The end result was that of a ten-meters long pointed log. While it held some minor imperfections—like a big cut Himo had done accidentally and several holes made by Phylia—that “log” was merely the first attempt.
Grinning, Himo grabbed the log and— “Heavy!”
[…What did the user expect? It weighs nearly a ton.]
It’s fine, I just wasn’t ready for it. Himo frowned. Crouching, he grabbed the log from its base and lifted it over his shoulders’ height. His strength was, after all, comparable to that of over seventy individuals. And using that superhuman strength, he launched the log to the boulder. Darting through the air with its massive weight, the log departed under the watchful gaze of a child, a slime, and a system.
It plunged into the dirt just before the child. Distance traveled: two meters.
“Ah. I guess I’ll need a bit of training…”
[Saying “a bit” is an understatement.]
Himo grinned. This much is nothing! Taking out the scythe once again, he turned to Phylia. “By today, we need to do the same for every tree in our surroundings. From tomorrow, we’ll start the real training—throwing logs!”
