Maru did not stop his journey to exit the sewers. His sorry figure was crawling once more when he got halfway through the sewers. He could no longer see anything as both of his eyes had already swollen. Maru was blindly touching the walls of the sewers to guide himself home.

"I have to live through this. I can't leave my mother and sister. I will survive. I must survive!" Maru was keeping his hopes up. He would not die before he saw his loved ones. He had still so much to do. Maru wanted to make his mother and sister happy.

To give them a life worth living for. He'd have given the world to them if he could. He wished he could see them one last time. But now it seems that those hopes and wishes will never come true. Maru stopped his crawl. It was not because he wanted to stop but because he couldn't move anymore.

His arms and legs had no strength left. His six year old body had been washed with bloody gashes from his crawling. This aggravated his already injured condition. Human wastes and mud had also stuck on every part of his body. Maru could hear his stomach growled because of hunger.

He did not have lunch earlier because he wanted to save the pennies for his family. He wanted to buy 2 kilos of rice for those 15 pennies. Not it was gone. It seems that he was also going to lose his life here. Maru felt that he was getting even weaker by the second.

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"I want to live. I don't want to die like this. I can't leave my family alone. Mother, sister, I'm sorry." Maru's thoughts were racing as he was getting closer to death's door. He had lost much blood during his way home. He wanted to cry when he thought about his sick mother and his little sister.

But even the relief of crying was taken away from him. He had no tears left to cry. Maru was dehydrated. It was at this moment that he heard a voice sounded in his ears.

"Initializing system…

1%

2%

3%

99%

100% complete

System Integrated...

Welcome to the Artificial Intelligence System, host." The female voice said.

"Hi." Maru answered with his thoughts. He had no strength left in him. Even opening his mouth to utter a word was impossible. Maru was unsure of what was happening but he decided to try communicating with this strange voice.

He hoped that this person can help him from this dire situation. Maru felt so alone at this moment. He wished he was not hallucinating this new change of hearing a voice from out of nowhere in the middle of the sewers.

He was sure that none had walked in on him because he was currently lying on his back. If there was somebody who came, he would have heard them a few feet away before they could get within whispering distance.

"Maybe this was one of the mystical cultivators that mom told me about. The fairies and heroes of this world." Maru thought hopefully.

"What are your orders, host?" the voice said to Maru.