Prologue

In the dim room, only the wide monitor flickered with a soft glow.

On a stifling midsummer night, the low background music intertwined with the cicadas outside, yet somehow created an eerie sense of tranquility.

Lines of text quietly appeared on the monitor, like inscriptions burned into the soul.

You once lived in Barkley, a distant land in the southwest of the Pande Continent. Your father was once...

[A knight.]

When you were a child, you lived well enough. Your father was a master of arms and was often hired for his services.

He possessed exceptional martial skill and patiently taught you every technique. You became adept with both sword and lance.

Your father was crude and cold, but fair.

Your mother was a minor noble of Pande Continent. She rarely spoke of her past, but she did tell you how she first met your father: he had rescued her from kidnappers.

Your father mentioned the knightly order he had once belonged to only once. It was when he was drunk, and he said that the order had been banished by the Lion King.

But he refused to answer any questions about the order, even its name.

He said he would rather never speak of it again.

During your teenage years, you had almost no free time, because your father...

[Was away all year, leaving you to live alone.]

As a boy who had grown up on the streets, everything you did was for survival.

You begged, stole, and worked for gangs to earn supplies, struggling day after day in a world full of violence, always one step away from the law and malicious crowds.

In a life that seemed unchanging, a new change came. You had the chance to become...

[A bounty hunter.]

Things could not remain unchanged forever. Guided by some force, you grew into a man, and the whole world around you seemed to change.

Unwilling to toil like everyone else for petty gains, you made a living in hidden corners, secretly earning wealth outside the damned law.

You relied on your skills to conduct some less-than-legal dealings, and occasionally took on jobs involving theft or robbery... These dangerous trades brought you considerable profit.

But as if it were fate, everything suddenly changed. You had to leave Barkley for Pande Continent because...

[You received news of your parents' deaths.]

Their deaths had been sudden and violent, and the murderer's identity was unknown.

Countless enemies also wanted you dead. A lord had even issued a warrant for your arrest. You had no choice but to leave Barkley for Pande Continent, hoping to avoid being found by those villains.

You took your father's sword—a family heirloom worthy of protecting you and making your name—booked passage to the Pande Continent, and left the familiar homeland behind alone.

Based on the rumors you had heard about Pande Continent, you decided to...

[Take a Fieltzwe merchant ship to Mistveil City.]

The monitor before his eyes began to blur, and his consciousness swiftly fell into darkness.

In his haze, Li Ang seemed to hear someone calling his name, but the call vanished in an instant amid the cicadas' chirping.

He forced himself to move his fingers, and an option on the monitor was selected.

Then, at the instant the interface changed, he fell into a long darkness.

The option selected was...

[Face life head-on. No saving or quitting!]

Hey, any young lads looking for a future in war?