Exchange

"What are you looking at?"

Foucault looked at the boy in front of him, whose eyes were blurred by blood. Even now, the boy still had the leisure to look up, and a flicker of unease rose in Foucault's heart.

He immediately threw another punch, intending to land a vicious blow on the other's stomach and break this strange state.

Just as the force of his punch reached Heka's stomach and transferred into the exposed ribs—when Foucault could practically feel those fragile bones—he suddenly felt his fist violently pulled upward.

Then, without warning, his fist slammed into a wooden board. Splinters sank deep into his flesh, while the child was lifted up by a crate.

A spellcaster? Why would there be a spellcaster here? Or was it a magical item?

Just as Foucault's heart skipped a beat at his own suspicion, an unnatural sensation came from his shoulder blade. Then he heard a sharp snap right beside him—the sound of a bowstring being released.

An arrow buried itself deep in Foucault's shoulder. This was not the hand crossbow Heka had used to kill those vagrants earlier. Heka even needed a mechanical mechanism to cock this crossbow.

And this time, it was a close-range shot from above, aimed at the unarmored part of his neck.

Caught completely unprepared, Foucault was pinned through the neck by the arrow. Its powerful momentum carried it through most of his neck before burying it deep in his shoulder.

The light in Foucault's pupils instantly dimmed. He was only a level-one adventurer nearing level two, nowhere near strong enough to survive after most of his throat had been torn apart.

Heka put away the crossbow in his hand, then freed one hand and tried to pull out the dagger.

"Ah—ah!!"

But the other side had apparently prepared specifically to pin him down. Even when he ignored the pain and pulled with all his strength, the dagger did not budge.

He had never tried storing something that was partially inside his body. Heka was afraid that the storage process would swallow his hand along with it. The backpack could not take in living creatures, but who knew whether his own hand might count as an exception?

Through blood-reddened vision, Heka looked at the children slowly approaching from afar.

There were unfamiliar faces among them, as well as familiar ones, but they were all street children. Not a single one belonged to the Graytooth Gang.

The children looked at the mess before them and at Heka nailed to the wall, their eyes gleaming.

Heka knew that, to these children, the dead were nothing to fear.

On the contrary, a corpse's body, clothes, even teeth could all fetch a good price.

Heka gave the children, who believed they had him cornered, a chilling smile. Then he pulled his hand downward, slicing through half his palm with the blade.

Without time to bandage it, Heka pulled out the short sword and charged at the one in front, blood streaming from him.

In street fights, you could not show weakness. Otherwise, these people would swarm you like a pack of wild dogs, each taking a bite until their prey was torn to pieces.

Though he was holding the sword in his off hand, and the blood loss and pain of his severed hand had drained all color from his face, Heka felt as if something had opened the instant he swung.

He could almost feel the strength rising from his waist. It felt different from the sensation he usually got while practicing slashes.

Heka could feel the blade entering flesh. Driven by his palm, it sliced through skin, slipped between the bones, then emerged from the other side of the youth who stood only half a head taller than him, trailing threads of blood.

The smooth cut made those charging behind him immediately turn and flee.

At that moment, they were like a pack of hyenas in the wilderness preparing to steal food from a pride of lions.

At first, they had thought they were merely some lionesses that could be harassed with ease.

But once they drew close, they discovered in horror that among the lionesses lay a male lion capable of biting through their spines in a single snap.

Heka swept his blood-soaked gaze around, then dragged the crate containing food and the toolbox to the mouth of the well.

Someone was still watching him from the roof, but fortunately, that person had not arrived when he released the crate.

That was probably because the man in gray wanted to interrogate him alone, so he had deliberately left those children behind.

Heka was not prepared to abandon the crate that had nearly cost him his life, nor did he want to expose his backpack so carelessly.

The instant he dragged the crate into the well opening, Heka immediately stored it in his backpack, making it look as though it had vanished into the sewers.

Heka looked up. Though he desperately wanted to lick the bag, there was no time now.

The massive blood loss made the scene before Heka begin to overlap. He tried wrapping his palm in his cloak to stop the bleeding, but the blood kept pouring out regardless.

Heka braced himself against the wall beside him with one hand, then staggered forward while holding onto it.

This time, he was probably going to die.

Feeling the strength slowly drain from his body, Heka moved his leaden legs and inched forward across the muddy ground.

Blood dripped across the ground as he walked. Heka could even hear rustling sounds in the darkness.

There were rats in Seapeak Port's sewers, and those rats ate people. That was no secret.

Heka had heard that the leader of a neighboring gang even kept a nest of rats specifically to punish traitors.

"Being eaten by rats? I'd rather die on the ground. At least that would be quicker."

Heka opened his backpack, preparing to take out the cheese and die with a full stomach.

But the section at the bottom of the backpack caught his attention.

[Challenge]

Wanderer Foucault — Challenge Level 1 (Reward Available)

Heka used his increasingly blurred consciousness to tap the available reward.

[Reward Point ×1]

[Warning: Reward exchanges can only be made on the reward page after completing a challenge. Unused reward points may be accumulated.]

[Reward Exchange]:

Strength: 0.260 — First Exchange Stage (1/5)

Constitution: 0.219 — First Exchange Stage (1/5)

Agility: 1.279 — First Exchange Stage (1/5)

Speed: 0.873 — First Exchange Stage (1/5)

Intelligence: 1.178 — First Exchange Stage (1/5)

Expand backpack by one slot (Reward Points ×10)

Synthesize a skill with three max-proficiency components (Reward Points ×15)

Extract one skill from the challenge target (Reward Points ×20)

Convert one specialized passive into a global passive (Reward Points ×25)

Extract one material from the challenge target (Reward Points ×30~?)

Though he did not know what the first exchange stage meant, since this was the only thing lit up, Heka could only tap it.

Although Heka had sworn to himself before that if he could allocate these points, he would definitely put them into Strength first.

But he was about to die now. Constitution represented self-healing, right? It had to, right? He hoped so.

Heka focused his will and put one point into Constitution.