[Wanderer]

Slap! Slap! Slap!

Will-Bukelin was enjoying a pleasant dream when he suddenly felt waves of pain in his cheeks.

He slowly opened his eyes...

Only to find a figure in a black robe before him?

Then the restraints around his hands and feet made Will-Bukelin freeze.

Wasn't this a warrior his father had sent to summon him back to the capital? Why had he strung him up?

"I don't want to waste words with you. Hand over your Storage Ring, and I'll give you a painless death."

An Kai altered his voice, threatening Will-Bukelin in a hoarse rasp.

"You... you're not a warrior my father sent to summon me back to the capital?!"

Will-Bukelin could hardly believe it. Even now, he still hadn't caught on...

"Your father? Your father's been dead for three years!"

"What?!"

An Kai's words left Will-Bukelin utterly stunned.

As though those words had touched a sore spot, Will-Bukelin's tears ran down his forehead and dripped from his scalp...

Drop after drop. It was hard to imagine anyone's tears could come so easily.

"Enough. Stop putting on an act. Hand over your Storage Ring, and I'll send you to reunite with your father."

An Kai was growing impatient. He was still trying to put on an act in front of me?

Anyone from the Mountainbreaker Gang had at least several innocent lives on their hands.

And now he was crying in grief? Crocodile tears?

Yet Will-Bukelin seemed not to have heard An Kai's threat at all.

He remained immersed in his grief, tears dripping endlessly, one after another...

An Kai didn't want to wait any longer. He would rid the world of this menace and slaughter Will-Bukelin. If necessary, he could simply cut him open and slowly search for the Storage Ring himself!

"Don't kill me! I want revenge! My father definitely didn't die of natural causes. I examined him before I left on my travels. He should have lived at least another ten years!"

Just as An Kai was about to act, Will-Bukelin suddenly begged for mercy.

But An Kai wasn't about to give him a chance. Only begging now? What had he been doing before?!

A Fireball abruptly appeared, lighting up the surrounding oasis!

Will-Bukelin froze again. He had never imagined that An Kai, who was even stronger than him, was actually a mage?!

And a remarkably gifted mage at that!

He had never seen such a gigantic Fireball in his life!

If it hit him, he would lose at least half his life... probably!

Will-Bukelin swallowed hard and hurriedly revealed his trump card. "I'm a Wanderer!"

"A Wanderer?"

An Kai stopped...

Light rippled across Will-Bukelin's body, and a rainbow-colored heart emerged from his chest.

[Wanderer's Heart: A devout heart, and the seat of a Wanderer's life force.]

[Tip: This is a favorite delicacy among orc nobles. It is worth a fortune!]

After the [Wanderer's Heart] appeared, Will-Bukelin's face turned deathly pale.

At the same time, a pitch-black Storage Ring was spat out of Will-Bukelin's mouth.

Looking at everything before him, An Kai could hardly believe that a place like the Mountainbreaker Gang could actually produce a "Wanderer?!"

Wanderer was the abbreviated name for the [Wanderer] class. As its name suggested, it was a class devoted to traveling the world.

Beyond that, there was one universally acknowledged fact about members of the [Wanderer] class: they were all pure of heart.

Their views were often considered "just" by the public, so [Wanderers] were universally regarded as righteous and absolutely kind.

This was also tied to the nature of the [Wanderer] class. Anyone who wasn't pure of heart could not possess it.

[Wanderer] was also the only class that required personal enlightenment and could not be obtained through any other means.

It offered a great many benefits. From An Kai's perspective, the key one was that the [Wanderer] class gained more attribute points per level than other classes.

In terms of attribute points gained per level alone, [Wanderer] truly stood in the top tier!

Above classes such as [Mage].

Of course, an aberrant [Mage] like An Kai wasn't included...

In his previous life, An Kai had only heard of a handful of players undergoing [Wanderer] Class Advancement. He had barely seen any [Wanderer] Class Advancement NPCs, either.

But every last member of the [Wanderer] class was recognized as a bleeding heart and a truly fair and impartial person.

Seeing a class packed with such positive buffs on Will-Bukelin, someone from the Mountainbreaker Gang, felt utterly incongruous to An Kai...

Yet the [Wanderer's Heart] before him told him unmistakably that Will-Bukelin really was a "Wanderer..."

"Put it away," An Kai said softly.

In that short time, Will-Bukelin had turned pale as paper, showing just how much strain manifesting the [Wanderer's Heart] placed on him.

The system description said the [Wanderer's Heart] could be sold to orc nobles, but An Kai had never considered doing so.

The war between the Human Race and the orcs had been raging for far more than a year or two. Among the Human Race, an act like the Bukelin Duchy's First Prince defecting to the orcs was tantamount to treason.

And An Kai had his own moral boundaries.

That left An Kai somewhat conflicted.

Hard as it was to believe, Will-Bukelin was undeniably a Wanderer.

He belonged to the category of people An Kai's principles forbade him from killing.

Because [Wanderer] was the only class on the continent whose members all living beings could recognize as "good people" based on their class alone...

"I took the Mountainbreaker Gang's money to help orphans and refugees in the neighboring countries. The Mountainbreaker Gang's money was ill-gotten!"

Without waiting for An Kai to ask, Will-Bukelin volunteered an explanation of where his money had come from.

Hearing this explanation, An Kai nodded silently.

That was typical [Wanderer] behavior.

Relieving suffering, robbing the rich to help the poor...

An Kai picked up the Storage Ring from the ground and examined it. There were roughly a hundred gold coins left inside.

Most likely, Will-Bukelin had given the rest away...

"Please don't kill me. I want to avenge my father. I can swear that I'll never seek revenge for what happened today!"

An Kai remained silent, his mind racing through possible solutions.

Just then, desperate to survive and gain a chance to avenge his father, Will-Bukelin took action.

He manifested the rainbow-colored [Wanderer's Heart] again...

"I, Will-Bukelin, swear upon my heart that I will honor the person before me as my guide!"

The rainbow-colored [Wanderer's Heart] suddenly blazed with light, becoming a beam that shot toward An Kai's left hand!

Three seconds later, the light dissipated, and a rainbow-colored heart symbol flashed on An Kai's left hand before vanishing.

[Attribute points +8.]

[Identity obtained: Wanderer Guide]

A Freezing Spell appeared in An Kai's hand, taking the form of an icicle...

Whoosh!

The icicle flew out, severing the rope around Will-Bukelin's feet.

"Stay out of trouble!"

With those words, An Kai turned and left.

As he turned, warmth surged through his body. He distributed the eight attribute points evenly among his four attributes.

With that, all four attributes reached 55 points.

Will-Bukelin fell into a sitting position on the ground. Watching An Kai's retreating figure, he thought for a moment, then chased after him...