Picking Up His Lost Integrity

"You don't need to thank me. I merely removed a vicious beast from the forest for the sake of the other animals. Go to heaven in peace."

Since she had put it that way, Duke knew their brief exchange should end here. In his soul state, he placed his right hand over his left shoulder and bowed to Alleria.

Alleria nodded, then vanished nimbly into the woods in a flash.

"Whew..." Duke let out a long breath.

All right, it was time to pick up his lost integrity.

Shaking his head, Duke sprinted back toward his corpse. Sure enough, he saw the enormous boar lying there. Two arrows had pierced the boar's eyes with incredible precision, boring straight into its brain, while the third was lodged in its throat.

"Hiss..." Duke sucked in a sharp breath.

What terrifying archery!

Luckily, he had been clever enough earlier. Otherwise, those three arrows would not have been aimed at the boar.

The system sprite's voice rang out again. "You have found your lost integrity. Oh, I mean your corpse. Would you like to resurrect now?"

"Please, your jokes aren't funny at all."

"Then... would you like to resurrect?"

"Obviously! Of course I want to resurrect!"

The moment he mentally selected "Yes" on the window before him, the scenery around him rapidly changed. Duke could clearly see his miserable corpse, its belly torn open by the boar, immediately turn into a mass of flowing light. Within seconds, it broke down completely, leaving not even a trace of blood behind.

All the light began to gather around Duke's soul.

Duke could feel an incomparably full sensation returning to his body. More importantly, his moral principles, which had seemed to grow faint, had returned.

Oh, oh, oh! His lost integrity was back!

Watching the world regain its vibrant colors, listening to the birds chirping around him, and smelling the earthy fragrance rising from the ground...

For the first time in his life, Duke felt that being alive was truly wonderful!

He desperately wanted to laugh out loud three times, but when he saw the labels "Soul Power 99" and "Humanity 99%" in the system prompt, his excitement faded again.

"All right, I'm alive. Does that mean my journey in this other world has officially begun? Then how can I become strong enough to protect myself before the Dark Portal event arrives?"

The goal was clear, but the path was bewildering.

"Uh, before becoming strong, is there some kind of beginner's gift pack?" The awful coarse linen clothes clung tightly enough to hurt. Duke, accustomed to modern mass-produced clothing, simply could not get used to them.

Ideals were plump, but reality was gaunt. Duke patted himself down and discovered that not only was he penniless, but his pockets were completely empty.

Without realizing it, Duke turned his gaze toward the beast that had killed him.

"Such a huge boar definitely isn't some ordinary animal. I remember skins from the game could be sold for money, right?"

Duke immediately discovered the problem.

"Fuck, don't tell me I have to skin it with my bare hands?" There was nothing he could do but give up.

Duke walked away somewhat dejectedly. After wandering aimlessly for about ten minutes, he suddenly heard the sound of a small river. Throughout history, where there was water, there were often people living nearby... probably, right?

After following the riverbank for a few steps, Duke slipped and met with tragedy, sliding straight into the river.

As the current carried Duke downstream, he had no idea that just as he reached the riverbank, Alleria's agile, beautiful figure abruptly appeared beside the dead boar.

For some reason, she instinctively felt that something was wrong. After walking away for a while, she decided to turn back and investigate, as well as retrieve her arrows. The moment she arrived at the scene, she noticed the anomaly.

Only the boar and her arrows remained. The scent of human blood she had detected earlier was gone.

Looking at the signs of violent struggling on the ground, the ranger-general could say with absolute certainty that a human victim had once been here.

Yet there was no corpse, no pieces of a corpse, not even bloodstains, nor any traces of other creatures passing through.

"What the hell was that?" Alleria planted a deep seed of doubt in her heart. Then she smiled, a springlike smile blooming across her beautiful face.

Yes! Her interest had been piqued.

The planet Azeroth, where Duke had transmigrated, was mainly composed of two continents: Kalimdor in the west and the Eastern Kingdoms in the east.

About nine thousand years ago, a group of High Elves were exiled from Kalimdor to the Eastern Kingdoms by their own people because they refused to abandon their precious magic. They traveled to Quel'Thalas in the north of the continent and rebuilt their civilization there.

For thousands of years, Quel'Thalas had been considered a place where magical power converged. A source of magic known as the "Sunwell" provided every High Elf with an inexhaustible supply of energy, and these elves used nature's power to gain immortal life and strength.

Thus, the High Elves were a race with immortal lives. Living for ten thousand years or so was no big deal at all.

Yet a long life came with both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage was that one had endless time to squander.

The disadvantage was that after experiencing too much, one practically understood everything and knew everything. For Windrunner, who loved new things and enjoyed wandering about everywhere, that was undoubtedly torture.

If it were wartime, then as the ranger-general of Quel'Thalas, the High Elf kingdom, Alleria naturally could not abandon her post without permission.

But she was on vacation, and after wandering around, she had ended up here.

"Looks like... I've finally found something interesting!" Alleria's exquisite face was filled with wild delight born of curiosity.

A ranger was an expert in guerrilla warfare, a favorite of the forest, and one of the strongest trackers.

Alleria flashed and leaped between the treetops. With barely any effort, she found Duke's footprints.

"Oh? The first footprint is actually more than forty yards away from where the corpse originally was?" Alleria's smile grew even brighter. It was the expression of someone who had found a fun new toy.

Her feet barely touched the ground as the agile ranger-general raced across branches of every size. She moved so swiftly that she was practically a phantom.

Before long, she reached the riverbank.

She lost Duke's trail. The riverbank was covered in pebbles, and unless one deliberately pressed down hard, it was difficult to leave footprints on such ground.

"Oh? He knows a little counter-tracking too."

Difficult to leave footprints did not mean it was impossible. An adult's weight pressing down on a bed of stones would still cause slight changes.

Alleria followed the trail for a few steps, only to discover in astonishment that the footprints had disappeared.

"Could he have been stupid enough to get swept away by the water?" A different image swiftly formed in Alleria's mind: a mysterious man pretending to head downstream to evade pursuit, then taking a few steps before quickly wading into deeper water and moving upstream instead.

Alleria had truly misunderstood Duke. In that moment, his cunning was multiplied countless times in her mind. The High Elf's lovely figure immediately vanished from the riverbank as she raced rapidly upstream.