A Morning

Soren quietly returned home.

Vivian was still sleeping peacefully in bed, a faint smile on her lips. But then she seemed to dream of something terrible, and a flicker of fear appeared on her fair Little Face as she murmured in her sleep, "Brother!... Don't go!... Don't leave me!..."

"No!"

"Don't take me!... You're all bad people!..."

"Hiss... bite them!..."

"Waaah..."

"Hiss... what's wrong?... Don't scare me..."

Vivian's little hands flailed wildly, her eyes still closed, but her slender arms seemed to be trying to hold on to something.

Soren, who had been about to change out of his bloodstained clothes, hurried over and gently patted the Little Girl's back. But he seemed to touch something, and pain immediately flashed across Vivian's Little Face. Soren quickly lifted her clothes and saw a bluish-purple mark on her back that was gradually turning black. It was a wound left by a heavy blow from a stick, the pooled blood beneath it darkening because it had not dispersed.

In an instant!

Soren's expression turned incomparably grim, intense Killing Intent bursting from his eyes.

He gently stroked Vivian's cheek, carefully lowered her clothes, and murmured, "Silly girl!"

"Why didn't you tell me you were hurt?"

Such a serious injury.

Yet she had endured it without telling him, probably because she had been afraid of worrying him.

The bruising on her back had already turned black. She must have been injured some time ago. That Little Girl had endured her pain while taking care of him for so long. At that thought, Soren's eyes grew slightly moist. It was a warmth and tenderness he had never felt before. Welfare in the Interstellar Era had become so good that parents did not need to raise children, nor did children need to support parents. Family affection was something both familiar and foreign to him.

Yet from this Little Girl before him, he felt a warm current flowing through his heart.

He was someone who went with the flow.

The little moments of the past half month had already bound him deeply to this Little Girl. Instead, he no longer missed his former life alone quite so intensely.

"It's all right."

"It'll get better tomorrow."

Soren gently stroked Vivian's Little Head, soothing her as she had her nightmare. He said softly, "Tomorrow, I'll get you a Healing Potion. This injury will be no problem. It won't even leave a scar."

Vivian gradually calmed down.

Soren rose and took off his clothes, revealing a lean, sturdy body. He tossed his bloodstained clothes into the stove, then stared silently at the scars covering his body. The former Soren must have lived a very difficult life. It was nearly impossible for a young boy to raise a sister who was only three through ordinary means.

He had fought and killed!

A youth of only eighteen had dozens of dense scars across his body. Who knew how many times he had narrowly escaped death?

These scars had been left by street fights, as well as whip marks from being caught after failed thefts.

Though he had merely been an ordinary boy, what he had experienced was likely more weathered than the lives of many professional adventurers!

A faint firelight flickered.

Soren changed into a clean set of clothes. Vivian was a diligent Little Girl. Though she was only eight, she always did whatever she could.

The house was always swept spotless, and the clothes were folded neatly.

He raised a hand and touched his face, feeling its handsome contours. His ears were a little more pointed than those of ordinary people. Since Soren's father had been a Half-Elf with one-quarter elven blood, he himself should have one-eighth elven blood. That was why he was more agile than many ordinary people; elven dexterity was almost inborn.

Darkness could not block Soren's vision!

Almost all Half-Elves possessed some degree of night vision. They were the finest assassins in the shadows of darkness.

"His foundation is pretty good."

Soren rotated his wrists, his dagger dancing at his fingertips and drawing streaks of cold light. "Although he doesn't have a Professional Hero Template and his attributes can't be reassigned, his overall qualities are better than those of many people."

"The only weakness is strength."

"An ordinary person's attributes are around 10 points. Strength 12 is about the same as a dockworker doing hard labor."

"He probably never trained deliberately and always relied on skill to face everything!"

"His agility is high!"

"But without formal combat training, high agility is actually less useful than high strength."

"At the very least, strength can directly deal with an opponent!"

Soren switched the dagger to his other hand. The rapidly spinning blade nearly became an afterimage. His left hand was exceptionally nimble, even stronger than his right.

It was an innate talent!

With a little training, he could master the combat specialty of Dual Wielding. It was a very useful combat ability.

"Improving strength requires experience."

Soren's figure gradually blurred in the darkness as he said softly, "It seems there are no quests now, so there are far fewer ways to gain experience."

"But killing should still grant experience."

"I just don't know."

"Whether a thief's Lockpicking skill and trap-disarming skill can earn experience."

Slaughter Experience.

It was the highest grade of experience and could be allocated to all professional, multiclass, and class-change templates!

As for the experience gained by thieves from Lockpicking and disarming traps, that was merely lower-grade Professional Experience. It could only be used to raise a thief's level.

The same was true for the experience wizards gained from copying Arcane Scrolls.

In War of the Gods, gaining experience was no easy matter. Experience earned merely by killing monsters was limited. Sometimes, a legendary adventure challenge might end with the killing of an adult dragon or a lich, yet only yield tens of thousands of experience in total—barely enough to raise one or two Professional Levels. Back when Soren raised his thief to the legendary realm, it had taken several years. He had killed three dragons and six liches in succession.

Of the teams that had accompanied him along the way, only one-third survived!

All the others had been forced into the cycle of reincarnation in the River Styx.

"Versatile Hands."

A sharp gleam appeared in Soren's eyes as he said in a deep voice, "I wonder when the weakness after the soul's resurrection will fade. If I can regain Versatile Hands, my strength should increase tremendously!"

The night grew deeper and deeper.

Soren put away his dagger, placing it somewhere he could reach at any time, before carefully climbing into bed.

Vivian's tiny body unconsciously squeezed closer into his arms. Then she mumbled in her sleep and wrapped her thin arms around his arm.

The night passed.

Soren was awakened by faint movement. Vivian tilted her Little Head and watched him for a while, then a sweet smile appeared at the corner of her lips.

She carefully climbed out of bed. When she brushed against the wound on her back, pain flashed across her Little Face. Then she bent down to put on her worn cloth shoes, picked up a broom, and began cleaning the room, wiping down the simple furniture. When she saw the bloodstains on the floor, fear appeared on her Little Face. She hurriedly ran over and lifted the blanket. Only after confirming that Soren was not injured did she pat her chest and wipe the blood away with a rag.

As long as it was not Soren's blood, she did not care about anything else!

When she had been very, very young, Soren had once fought a group of older children over a Silver Daler he had found.

Soren had been surrounded and kicked by the older children. She had hidden in a nearby corner and cried. She had been too young and weak to do anything, but in the end, summoning all her courage, she picked up a stone and threw it at the leader of the older children. The furious child slapped her, instantly swelling her face and knocking out a baby tooth.

She still remembered what had happened then, though she had been very, very young!

When Soren saw her fall, he seemed to go mad. He had been holding his head and silently enduring the beating, but suddenly pounced like a wild beast and bit down on that older child's ear.

The bloody ear was bitten off!

With bloodshot eyes, Soren picked up a stone and smashed it into the child's head again and again, until blood flowed everywhere. Terrified, Vivian rushed over and pulled him back, preventing him from beating the child to death on the spot.

Though he still died in the end.

By the time his corpse was found many days later, it was floating in a filthy ditch outside the Slums, unrecognizable.

They had already struggled just to survive. Other than each other, they had nothing!

Vivian did not care whether Soren was a thief, whether he had committed crimes, or whether he had killed people. She was willing to bear half of every sin Soren carried!

Vivian carefully cleaned the room.

When she saw the empty rice sack, worry appeared on her Little Face. But then she murmured to herself, "Brother has already woken up."

"Soon it'll be filled to the brim with rice and wheat!"

She believed in Soren. It was a trust without any conditions!

She had gone hungry, and there had even been a period when she often had an empty stomach. But Brother had never disappointed her, even though it hurt terribly to eat food stained with Brother's blood.

Still, she firmly believed that as long as Brother was there, everything would get better.

Yes.

Everything would get better.

So she quickly put aside this small worry, softly humming a tuneless song as she cleaned every corner of the room until it was spotless.

Soren slowly rose.

He put on his old, washed-out gray clothes, lovingly stroked Vivian's Little Head, and said softly, "Stay home and be good today."

"In a few days, we'll move into the city."

Vivian nodded gently, delight appearing on her face. She had not considered at all how difficult it was to move from the Slums into the city.

It required a large sum of money and the status of a free citizen!

She believed in Soren.

Because Soren always kept his promises!

Even if there were things he could not do, it was not Soren's fault. It was because there were too many bad people in this world.

The morning sunlight streamed into this inconspicuous, dilapidated shack.

Using his dagger, Soren sliced the overnight Black Bread, which had become as hard as a club, into pieces of equal size. Vivian stood on tiptoe atop a short stool and took down the cooked rice porridge. Her body swayed slightly because she was too weak, and Soren smiled as he steadied her and took the battered clay basin from her hands.

The Little Girl looked up at him, her fair Little Face breaking into a sweet smile beneath the sunlight, revealing two shallow dimples.

Everything was so beautiful!