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 pale little face as she murmured, "Brother!... Don't go!... Don't leave me!..."

"No!"

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

"Heath... Bite them!..."

"Wuwuwu."

"Heath... What's wrong?... Don't scare me..."

Vivian's little hands flailed wildly. Her eyes remained closed, but her slender arms seemed to be trying to hold onto 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 appeared on Vivian's small face. Soren swiftly lifted her shirt and saw a bluish-purple mark on her back that had gradually turned black. It was a wound left by a vicious blow from a stick. The pooled blood beneath the skin had darkened because it had not dispersed.

In an instant!

Soren's expression darkened beyond measure, and intense killing intent burst from his eyes. He tenderly stroked Vivian's cheek, carefully lowered her shirt, and muttered, "Silly girl!"

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

Such a serious injury.

She had actually endured it without telling him. She must have been afraid of making him worry.

The bruising on her back had already turned black. She had likely been injured some time ago. Yet the little girl had endured the pain while caring for him for so long. At the thought, Soren's eyes became 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 their children, nor did children need to support their parents. Family affection was something both familiar and unfamiliar to him!

But in this little girl before him, he felt a warm current flowing through his heart.

He was someone who adapted wherever life took him.

The little moments of the past half month had already forged a deep bond between him and this little girl. Instead, he no longer missed his former life of solitude quite so intensely.

"It's all right."

"It'll be better tomorrow."

Soren gently stroked Vivian's little head, soothing her as she suffered through her nightmare. He said softly, "Tomorrow, I'll find you a Healing Potion. This little injury will be nothing. 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. Soren's past must have been incredibly hard. For a young boy to raise a sister who was only three years old, ordinary means were practically impossible.

He had fought, and he had killed.

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

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

Though he had only been an ordinary youth, 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 always neatly folded.

He reached up and touched his face. He could feel its handsome contours. His ears were slightly more pointed than those of ordinary humans. Soren's father had been a Half-Elf with one-quarter Elven blood, so Soren should have one-eighth Elven blood himself. That was why he was more agile than many ordinary people. Elven nimbleness 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.

"His foundation is quite good."

Soren flexed his wrists, and the Dagger danced across his fingertips, drawing streaks of cold light. "Although he doesn't have the Heroic Template of a professional and his attributes can't be reassigned, his overall qualities surpass those of many people."

"His only weakness is strength."

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

"He probably never trained deliberately. He always relied on skill to deal with everything!"

"His Dexterity is high!"

"But without formal combat training, high Dexterity 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.

This was an inborn talent!

With a little training, he could master the combat Feat 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 in a low voice, "Right now, it seems there are no quests, so there are far fewer ways to gain experience points."

"But Slaughter should still grant experience points."

"I wonder."

"Can the Rogue class skills Lockpicking and trap removal earn experience?"

Slaughter Experience.

This was the highest-tier type of experience. It could be allocated to all classes, multiclass builds, and advancement templates!

As for the experience gained from a Rogue picking locks and dismantling traps, that was merely a lower-tier Class Experience, which could only be allocated to raise a Rogue's level.

Likewise, the experience Wizards gained from copying Arcane Magic scrolls was the same.

Gaining experience in War of Gods was no easy matter. The experience earned solely from killing monsters was limited. Sometimes, a Legendary-level adventure challenge might end with the killing of an adult Dragon and a Lich, yet the final reward would only be tens of thousands of experience points—barely enough to raise one or two class levels. When Soren had advanced his Rogue to the Legendary Domain, it had taken him several years. He had killed three Dragons and six Liches in succession.

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

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

"Master Sleight of Hand."

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 Master Sleight of Hand, my strength should improve tremendously!"

The night grew deeper.

Soren put away the Dagger and placed it somewhere he could reach at any time before carefully climbing into bed.

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

A night passed.

Soren was awakened by a faint sound. Vivian tilted her little head and watched him for a while before a sweet smile appeared on her lips.

She carefully climbed out of bed. When she touched the wound on her back, a trace of pain appeared on her small face. Then she bent down to put on her worn cloth shoes, picked up a broom, and began cleaning the room, wiping down the crude furniture. When she saw the bloodstains on the floor, fear appeared on her little face. She hurried over and lifted the blanket. Only after confirming that Soren was not hurt did she pat her chest and use a rag to wipe away the blood.

As long as Soren was not the one bleeding, nothing else mattered to her!

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, she gathered all her courage, picked up a stone, and threw it at the leader of the older children. The enraged child slapped her. Her face immediately swelled, and one of her baby teeth was knocked out.

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

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

The bloody ear was bitten clean off!

With bloodshot eyes, Soren picked up a stone and smashed it into the boy's head, again and again, until blood flowed everywhere. Terrified, Vivian rushed forward and pulled him away. Only then did she stop Soren from beating the older child to death on the spot.

Though he still died in the end.

By the time the body was found many days later, it was floating in a filthy ditch outside the Slums, so decomposed that its original appearance could no longer be recognized.

Their lives had already been difficult enough. 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 the sins upon him!

Vivian carefully cleaned the room.

When she saw the empty rice sack, a trace of worry appeared on her little face. But she soon muttered to herself, "Brother is awake now."

"It'll soon be full of rice and wheat again!"

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

She had gone hungry before. For a time, she had often had an empty stomach. But her brother had never disappointed her, even if it hurt terribly to eat food stained with his blood.

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

Yes.

Everything would get better.

So she quickly set aside that small worry, softly humming a tuneless song as she cleaned everything in the room until it was spotless.

Soren slowly got up.

He put on his old clothes, washed until they had turned grayish white. He lovingly patted Vivian's little head and said softly, "Be good and stay home 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, as well as the status of a Freeman!

She believed in Soren.

Because Soren always did what he said he would do!

Even when 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 fell upon this inconspicuous, dilapidated shack.

Soren used his Dagger to slice the black Bread left overnight, now hard as a club, into pieces of equal size. Vivian stood on tiptoe atop a low stool and took down the cooked rice porridge. Her body swayed slightly because she lacked the strength, but Soren smiled and steadied her before reaching out to take the battered clay bowl.

The little girl raised her head. Her fair little face gave him a sweet smile beneath the sunlight, revealing two shallow dimples.

Everything was so beautiful!