Pursuit, Void Bubble

After Iris drained the last sliver of Gloomy Shadow's health bar, Linton used Gathering Skill to successfully collect the Pure Spirit dropped by the boss.

However, just as the two were preparing to leave, an unexpected change occurred.

The black mist instantly condensed again, forming the blurry silhouette of a child.

Normally, after a leader-class boss was defeated, it would take seventy-two hours to respawn. Yet not even seven minutes had passed. How could it have revived so quickly?

Amid his surprise, Linton noticed that the darkness on the figure was rapidly fading away. It was then bathed in silver moonlight, gradually solidifying into an adorable little girl.

The girl wore two small braids. Her face was childish, and her bright, lively eyes darted over the two before her before finally settling on Linton.

"Big brother, did you come to take me home?"

Her voice was soft and tender, filled with childish sweetness. If they had not known what she had transformed from, they would have definitely needed a blood pack to recover.

Linton, who had just been plotting to toy with a monster, slowly bent down. Looking into the girl's eyes, he spoke with a gentleness Iris could scarcely imagine.

"Little one, what's your name? Where do you live?"

"My name is Bella!" Bella gave her name, then fell into troubled thought again. "I live, I live, I live in a village! But... I forgot how to get there."

She reached out and tugged at Linton's sleeve, saying softly, "Big brother, could you take me home? There are lots of beautiful flowers at my house. When we get there, I can give you the prettiest one!"

Iris leaned closer, lowering her voice and putting on a frightening expression. "Aren't you afraid we're bad people? We could sell you somewhere very far away! Very, very far away!"

Miss Puppet's prank had no acting skill whatsoever, but Bella was still startled. Her eyes immediately grew misty.

She hopped behind Linton, peeking out with only her tiny face as she said fearfully, "Big brother, this big sister is a bad person! Let's go, let's go home quickly."

"?"

Iris's eyelid twitched.

"Obviously, the person in front of you looks more like a bad guy! Look at him, dressed all in black and wielding creepy magic."

"No!" Bella retorted loudly. "Big brother is definitely a good person! Definitely, definitely!!"

"You're the bad person!"

Iris clutched her chest in disbelief.

Miss Knight had been quite popular everywhere she went since childhood. She had rarely even heard people speak badly of her, much less been disliked by a child and treated as a bad person.

She wanted to argue back, but just as she opened her mouth, she noticed that something around them seemed off.

Under normal circumstances, seeing her suffer like this, that damned necromancer would have either made some sarcastic remarks or laughed without restraint.

So why had he suddenly gone so quiet?

Turning toward Linton, Miss Puppet found him silently looking down at the ground, a thoughtful expression on his face.

In the eerie plaza, a mysterious girl had made a request of you.

World Quest: Pursuit, Void Bubble

Quest Objective 1: Take Bella back to her home

Quest Reward: 20,000 EXP, 50,000 gold

Quest Objective 2: ???

Quest Reward: ???

Linton stared at the suddenly appearing words and fell into thought.

As the name implied, World Quests were quests that players could potentially trigger while exploring the world. Their difficulties varied, their rewards varied, and the ways to trigger them were equally diverse.

Because every nation's map in Kingdom of Heavenly Principles was enormous, their number was nearly comparable to the stars in the sky. Before Linton had transmigrated, no forum post had ever dared claim that every World Quest had been discovered.

But the problem was that the place beneath his feet, as the boss's location, had been visited by countless players. Yet no matter how deeply he searched his memories, he could not recall anyone ever triggering this quest.

"Perhaps... it's because of the necromancer's traits?"

He temporarily set the question aside and looked back at the quest description.

The rewards were not particularly substantial, which meant this was not a highly difficult quest, nor one with an especially complicated process.

But what was with the question marks afterward?

"Hey!"

Linton's thoughts were interrupted by a voice from outside. Only then did he realize that he had somehow become the boundary line on a chessboard, with the girl and the young woman facing off across him.

Bella tugged at his sleeve and whispered, "Big brother, let's go. This big sister is really scary."

Iris immediately choked with indignation. "How am I scary?! I was obviously kindly warning you not to get tricked, okay!!"

"You're the liar!"

"I'm not!!"

"Alright, alright, stop arguing." Linton did not know whether to laugh or cry. He clapped his hands to stop the two from continuing their kindergarten-level trash talk. "Iris, even if you win, I won't reward you with candy."

He had never imagined that Iris could be dragged down to such a childish level while arguing with a child, and had nearly been defeated by the other's extensive experience.

She really was a child too.

"Who wants your candy?! Don't treat me like a child, asshole!"

Iris rolled her eyes at the necromancer, and the anger she had not felt much of in the first place settled once more.

She glanced at the little girl hiding behind Linton and asked, "You're going to agree to her request? Do you know where her home is?"

"Is there anywhere nearby besides that village where people live?"

"That village?"

Iris frowned and pondered for a moment. "I understand."

"Bella." Linton also lowered his head to look at the little girl and held out his hand. "Let's go. We'll take you home."

"Yay!"

Bella placed her hand in Linton's palm. The warm feeling of being enveloped immediately made her narrow her eyes, revealing an expression of catlike delight.

"..."

Watching the tall and small pair walking side by side while holding hands, Iris felt an inexplicable, strange sensation flow through her heart.

"He really likes children."

She repeated to herself what she had said at the village entrance, but she did not realize that the same words now carried a faint hint of sourness.

"Big brother, what was that candy you mentioned? Is it a fruit as tasty as an apple?"

Linton lowered his head and met the girl's curious gaze.

He smiled lightly. With a clench and opening of his hand, a glittering piece of candy appeared in his palm.

"This is candy. Here, try it."

"Thank you, big brother!"

Bella's eyes curved into crescents as she took the rather poor-quality candy, tossed it into her mouth, and savored it carefully.

"It's so much, much smaller than an apple... The taste, the taste... it seems like it doesn't have any taste."

Linton froze, then remembered that the girl was actually a spirit creature without a physical body.

"Sorry, I took out the wrong one."

He patted his head. Light flowed through his eyes, and when he opened his hand again, two candies far duller in color than before appeared in his palm.

The girl picked one up and put it into her mouth. She immediately narrowed her eyes happily again. "So sweet! So sweet, so sweet!"

She picked up the other candy and held it before Linton. "Big brother, you should eat one too!"

"Mom said that when there's something tasty, you should share it with everyone!"

"I have plenty. It's enough that you like them." Linton smiled gently.

"How did you do that?" Iris leaned over and asked curiously. "Logically speaking, spirits shouldn't be able to possess physical sensations. How did you make her think candy tastes sweet?"

"It wasn't difficult." Linton spoke casually. "It's true that spirits cannot possess sensations, but before becoming spirits, they recorded those sensations through their bodies. I extracted what I believed candy tasted like from my own senses, then used magic power as a medium to transmit it to Bella, thereby activating the 'sweetness' hidden deep within her."

"..."

Iris looked at him as though he were some kind of monster.

She did not know about anything else, but merely being able to extract and copy his own "sensations" already seemed absurd enough to her.

She had not fully understood the rest, but it still left her deeply shocked.

She could not help complaining, "Something so complicated sounds as simple to you as moving a piece of wood from one place to another."

"Maybe... I'm a genius too?"

"Tch, shameless."

Linton smiled but did not answer.

The three chatted as they strolled along the mountain path. Before long, the only village in the mountains appeared before them once again.

Yet this time, beneath the veil of night, the mountain village no longer seemed simple and rustic. Instead, it carried an eerie quality hidden within the shapeless darkness.