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I"ve...run away from home...No, I didn"t run away from home. I escaped...once again.
I love Nicole, from the moment I met her, I"ve loved her. While that initial love was mostly the lolicon in me talking, but as the years pa.s.sed, I fell in love with her. I was the daily recipient of her tender loving care. No matter what it was, she was always the one who did it for me. Whether, it was feeding me when I was young, bathing me, washing my clothes...all of it was her. She was truly a major part of my daily life.
She was the world"s most caring older sister. She was a genius who could reach the peak of a human warrior. She was a one in a million beauty...No matter how you looked at it, she was flawless. A perfect existence.
As for me? I"m sure you already know; I"m nothing but a talentless piece of garbage. A piece of trash that couldn"t even protect a gold coin. The only thing I was good for was holding her back and getting in the way of others...since that"s the case, there no point in me staying.
Under the cover of night, I left. My only companions were a backpack and my weapons...I left. My head never turning back, not even once. I knew that if I did that, I might never take another step forward. That"s why I had no choice but to leave in a hurry.
My mind was full of conflicting emotions as I recalled the past few days. Nicole"s care for me, Roscar"s care for me. Then there was that dinner...their care for Sares, Roscar"s question to Sares about Nicole… I"m thinking too much about this. I"ve got to pick up the pace.
With that in mind, I continued my aimless wander through the forest. As time pa.s.sed, I began to feel that I was completely lost; my lack of experience outside clearly showing. In the past, I was merely an otaku. In this life, I was about the same. I rarely ventured outside. This wasn"t a safe world for children after all. One misstep and you might find yourself on some slave trader"s caravan as a pitiful slave.
Time pa.s.sed, and I felt that I had covered a significant distance. Even if I turned back, there was no way to go back home. By now, the skies were pitch black. My heart pounded in fear with every step I took in the darkness. Perhaps I shouldn"t have left home after all. But it was just too painful...why did they have to focus their attention on Sares…because I"m a burden? Or is it because I"m trash…
Since this world has aura and magic, that means there should be dead spirits as well…
As I thought about this, my body shivered reflexively as a chill ran down my spine; my hairs standing on end. Even a slight breeze would scare the living daylights out of me given my current condition.
But I can"t go back! I don"t want to go back! What"s waiting for me at home? d.a.m.ned Sares"s face!
I"m scared but I don"t want to go back. At this moment, I was just like a kid throwing a tantrum at no longer being the favorite son. I forcefully held back my fear and continued on. Thankfully, it was a relatively uneventful trek. Other than my occasional encounter with the boogeyman of the forest, the owl, nothing scared me…
As I continued my aimless trek, the sun began to rise. I sat down on a nearby rock and took a break. I had some money from daily savings. It was meant to help me start a business but it had now become my travel budget. Without a destination, I could only try to stretch this budget as long as I could. If I met a bandit on the way, I could only pray he let me live in exchange for this sum of money.
The plan was to continue on till I finally grew tired of traveling or was just too tired to move. At which point, I would make a pit stop in a village.
Sounds pretty miserable, but wasn"t this how the main character in those wuxia novels got a fortuitous encounter? Eight years have pa.s.sed and I still had no Aura Perception, hack or grandpa. Hopefully, it"s just that my fortuitous encounter hadn"t come as yet. Perhaps this trip will be the start of my new life.
A new day, a new beginning and a new hope...oh wait, and a new dawn.
The night sky slowly retreated as the sun rose, radiating its brilliant rays of light.
It"s time to press on.
The eight year old me, with a 43 year old soul, pressed on towards the rising sun, a new hope in my heart. My aimless journey began once more and stopped once more. After an hour of trekking, I stopped for a meal of bread and water.
After that pit stop, I set off again. As I stood up and patted the dust off my b.u.t.t, I heard a faint voice echo in my head. It sounded like a cry for help.
Help? Why is there a strange voice asking for help in my head!?
Should I reply? How do I reply? What if it"s a trap? But if I don"t go, this itch will never be scratched...I guess I"ll go check it out.
Having decided on a course of action, I began to gear up. I equipped a small iron-plated buckler on my left hand and a 60 cm short sword on my right. Perhaps it was due to the influence of >, my first choice of equipment was a shield and sword. This was my plan, to become a Sword and Shield Warrior if I ever awakened my Aura Perception.
Lastly, I holstered a couple of daggers on both sides of my waist and set off to find the owner of this strange voice.
To be honest, the moment I decided on this course of action, I was already prepared for the possibility of death.
After another 10 minutes of trekking, I suddenly spotted a strange red creature running past me. I immediately took up a defensive stance, but this creature merely ignored me and continued on. In a blink of an eye, it had disappeared. I wasn"t able to catch a proper glimpse of it before it vanished into the bushes.
While I was slightly surprised by this, I continued on, my curiosity growing even more. That creature reminded me of a devil. But if that was a devil, shouldn"t it have pounced on me right away. Why did it ignore me? There"s definitely something going on.
I picked up my pace once more. After 10 minutes, a chaotic clamoring echoed in the air. From the sound of it, it was coming from right in front of me. I crouched down and and entered a shrub. From my bush, I spied a bunch of green figures a short distance away.
The tallest among them didn"t reach 1.5 meters and they all had an emanc.i.p.ated stature. They had a face that even a mother wouldn"t love and wore matching gra.s.s skirts. They wielded a bunch of crude weapons ranging from wooden clubs to rusty blades. These were goblins!
They numbered around a thousand strong and formed a goblin army. However, these dimwitted demi-humans weren"t capable of maintaining a proper formation, so calling them a horde would be more accurate. On the outer edges of this horde were a bunch of dead goblins and those strange red creatures. Even the red creature I met on the way here was lying dead in that pile.
The dense monster horde severely impaired my vision so I had no choice but to climb up a tree to survey the scene.
From my vantage point, I spotted a strange purple-haired loli in the middle of the horde. They were surrounding her. She looked to be around 10 years old and wore a white princess dress covered in flower embroidery. From a single glance, one could tell that this wasn"t something a normal person could wear. Her long flowing hair framed a lovely oval shaped face with a seductive pair of red lips and flawless white teeth as well. She looked like a little immortal from those Chinese novels.
She sat weakly atop a large rock with a grim look on her face. Beside her were over a hundred devils protecting her. These devils had a similar physique as the goblins but were slightly stronger. They were the same as the red creature I saw previously. It was called a small imp, and it reminded me of those small green imps you saw in a certain MMO made by a certain company named after a snowstorm.
These small imps possessed the combat strength of a normal adult human and were commonly found in Purgatory. They were the of the lowest tier in the devil world and had a status akin to a human peasant. They were also the original form of all Greater Devils.
Within these 100 small imps, there were 10 of them that were particularly large. This was the evolved form of the small imp. It was known as the large imp.
Large imps were one-star devils and were the equivalent of one-star warriors.
The devils formed a protective ring around the loli and faced off against the goblins. In the distance were some sporadic groups of imps rushing towards the loli. These were her reinforcements, but in order for them to reinforce her, they first had to break through the ring of goblins.
This was the beginning of the battle between the two races. The devils wanted to get in while the goblins wanted to block them. Their clash was inevitable and was a prelude to the upcoming bloodbath.
The goblins" garbage grade weapons barely had any effect on the small imps, so the imps had the advantage in a solo fight. But these goblins had an overwhelming numerical advantage. If one wasn"t enough, then what about two? What about five or even ten!
Most of the time, each small imp had to face goblins on all four sides. This resulted in them only being able to kill around two goblins before getting swarmed to death.
In the distance, I saw a goblin face off against a charging small imp with his wooden spear. It connected with the imp but it barely penetrated its hide before it was stopped. Having been injured, the small imp flew into a frenzy and charged headlong into that goblin, trying to claw him to death.
However, another was lying in wait behind that goblin. This hidden goblin surprised the imp with a wooden club to its head, stunning it slightly. At its side, another goblin wielding a blade fragment saw an opening and charged at the imp, his target, its head.
However, this imp was merely faking its weakness. As it saw the goblin charge at it, it flashed a toothy grin full of fangs. Ignoring the blade fragment, it reached out with its claws and latched onto the goblin biting down on its neck.
"Ahhh…" The goblin"s screams slowly faded as the imp"s fangs sunk into its airway. Soon it was tossed away like a ragdoll by the imp.
The imp"s cruel methods terrified the surrounding goblins and they began retreating. It was at this moment that a burly goblin stepped forward. It wielded a buckler and a short-sword. From its equipment, it was probably the head of these goblins.
The goblin pushed aside its terrified comrades and howled at them in an unknown language. At which point it turned its attention to the imp. Its mouth revealed a taunting smile that could only be found in a intelligent lifeform. It adopted a phalanx-like stance and charged at the imp.
This well-geared goblin was clearly different from its fodder comrades who could only rely on numbers. It was much stronger than its comrades and its gear was obviously pieced together from the remains of human adventurers. In terms of combat strength, it was at least at the level of an adult human.
The imp was of a similar level, but it didn"t possess a weapon which put it at a minor disadvantage compared to the goblin. Furthermore, it was still besieged by the other weaker goblins. It wasn"t long before a victor was crowned.
The imp was swiftly killed by a stab to its heart.
This was merely the fight of one imp. There were similar fights happening throughout the battlefield as the imps tried to breach the ring. Only the large imps were able to successfully breach the ring and rush to the loli"s side.
However, this wasn"t all. As time pa.s.sed, more and more devils joined the fight, and soon the goblin horde was the one being pressured.
Goblins were similar to gnomes in that they loved to kidnap beautiful humanoid females. These females then faced the terrible fate of being a reproductive tool for the goblins. This was because the children born from a stronger female were much stronger than the ones born from a female goblin. As a result, goblins, gnomes and other similarly inferior races adopted the custom of kidnapping humanoid females to boost their races strength. This was common knowledge.
I wasn"t particularly interested in this custom. Instead, I wanted to know more about that purple haired loli. She actually had the ability to tame these devils! How did she do that!?
Chapter 7: Leaving Home