Conall glanced at the screen before moving forward. The storm was in an uproar. It was nothing less than a berserk beast going on a rampage against the world.

The droplets fell upon his body with such intensity it felt like his skin was being torn apart. As expected, this wasn’t a place for a Level 17 like him. However, he could at least try something here.

Back in the game, the first Daughter of Calamity, Juliette, died at the very beginning. Her death was the very first cutscene that introduced players to the world of Hestrea.

It was also her death that released the first Calamity, resulting in the dreadful atmosphere that the game was known and praised for.

Weather like this was nothing compared to the daily life after the Calamity showed itself.

Back when he was playing the game, he tried innumerable times to at least have a go at stopping the killer, but nothing worked. No matter what, each attempt was futile. The image of Juliette’s head being pierced through with a sword lingered in his head, especially as he saw the man performing the attack that was blocked off by a blue barrier.

He stood before the heavy-breathing assassin of the empire, the elixirs he drank wearing off.

“H-how? What did you? What did you do, you little fucker?”

“Oh, come on. I know I’m pretty small, but little? I’m 18, but men can still grow up to 21, you know?”

“Answer me!”

His aura burst forward. To be done in by such a low-level that he couldn’t even feel his mana and aura, outrage boiled from within him. And the boy had to commend him. The aura he released was pretty good. It managed to sway his hair, even in this damned weather. But, there was no point in aura if the body was in a retarded state.

“Aren’t you an assassin? Can’t you tell how a poison works? Did you forget to raise your intelligence?”

Conall answered with a belittling smile.

The assassin looked at him with deadly eyes. He wanted to scream at him that no poison worked on him, but there he was, unable to move at all.

Seeing him struggling to move, the boy smiled deeply.

“I will reveal a secret to you. Even if you have the strongest antidote, it won’t work.”

The man looked at him with confused eyes. Did he not know what sort of a level he had? He was level 75, there was no threat he didn’t have a solution to.

Taking out an antidote from his inventory ring, he quickly downed it, and the boy didn’t even try to stop him.

As soon as the antidote entered his system, only then did the assassin notice the oddity. A taste of iron filled his mouth as a warm liquid trickled down his nostrils.

Blood spilled from his mouth, tainting his palish lips. Life was being drained out of him at an alarming pace.

Experiencing the devastating effects firsthand, the man grimaced as he felt his organs collapse. He started to mumble, blood splattering from his mouth with each slackened word.

“Whe did yu gee is, wha so oo poisn?”

As breathing properly started to become a challenge, so did the forming of words and sentences.

“Do you like the pain? I can give you so much more if you want to.”

Conall walked closer to the enemy. Clutching onto the dagger’s handle, he jerked it away, in the most painful way he knew. Well, the assassin below was put under harsher agony than a simple cut, but the satisfaction from the action was well worth it.

The poison he gave him wasn’t known in Hestrea. At least to the majority of the populace. Only the knowledge from the game was what allowed him to find it and give him this painful concoction.

It’s name was Death’s Misery. What was so horrible about this poison was that it didn’t kill the person who consumed it. Melting away your organs, bones, muscles and all of the tissue of the body, it kept you at bay. The only way to get rid of the poison was to die or get help from the world’s saintess.

Although Conall wanted to watch him writhe in pain all day long, he wasn’t a sadist. Just the fact that he had slightly changed the course of the future was enough for him.

So, he grabbed at the hems of the assassin’s hair before slicing at his neck with the dagger.

But, what came out of it was but a mere scratch. What had he expected, after all? He was level 17, while the enemy was level 75. Their difference in stats was that of an ant and a wyvern.

However, he didn’t care.

No matter how long it would take, he sliced, stabbed, and pierced countless times in the name of the Daughter of Calamity’s survival. If he couldn’t save her, then it just meant his death in this world.

With grunts and wails of pain, the assassin had eventually passed away, his eyes still wide awake, not believing he had died to the lowest of the low.

He didn’t know how long it took, but he was exhausted. His arms were shaking from the constant motion of hitting the target, but he finally succeeded. Deep inside of his soul, he felt a warm sensation. Although he would have to check later, he was sure he had leveled up a couple of times.

As if in return for his endeavor, the rain washed him clean off the blood that came from the empire’s assassin.

A few minutes later, the rain disappeared completely. Slowly, but surely, all of the rain had flowed down to the gutter, giving him a way to walk properly towards one of the world’s victim.

She lay there, on the cold floor, her hair scattered in every direction, dirtied by the mud of the bricks. Yet, her face seemed like there were no worries in the world.

Sleeping on the tough bricks as though it was her normal bed, Conall couldn’t help but laugh inwardly. This girl was really the only one he had never truly got to know in the game. With all of the other three, you at least had some opportunities to talk or even simply fight.

This one, however, died in the very first minute of every gameplay. But now, he wasn’t a player, nor was he in a game. Everything he wasn’t able to try in the game, he could try here.

Glancing at the gashes and deep cuts scattered all across her body, he quickly took a healing potion from his aura inventory ring gifted by the goddess. As he parted her lips, he lifted the head to let the potion flow easier.

After a few seconds, the liquid started working. Conall saw as the wounds started closing in a matter of seconds, but he knew that she still needed to fully rest in order to function properly.

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Suddenly, however, intruders came.

“Guards! It was here, beyond this alley!”

Some person shouted and Conall could hear the clatter of armor against each other, as well as the road. Quickly, he took out something from his inventory before splitting it evenly with him and Juliette. This was none other than the remains of the elixir of concealment he had used earlier together with an elixir of strength in order to gain an upper hand over the assassin.

Although he was cursed against potions, elixirs were excluded, as they weren’t really potions. In simple terms, they were none other than liquified, grand spells.

As they consumed the elixir, their bodies started to disappear in thin air. As if they weren’t even there, he could calmly walk out of this place and bring Juliette back to her mansion, not caring for any sounds or moves he made.

Even though he didn’t know much about her, he knew most of the game. He had the path to her house memorized in his head as though it was his own.

He quickly moved on from the place so the guards wouldn’t notice anything with their fairly high level. Although noises and mana around them were concealed, if he stepped on a puddle in his hurry, they would be done.

After a few minutes of running, he saw the dark windows to her room, so he proceeded to jump the fence together with her in his grasp.

Even though the invisibility on their bodies started to wear off, he had already arrived in her room. The night’s obscurity disallowed him to see the room fully, but he could make out where the bed was because of the bright moonlight pouring inside

Slowly, he put her to bed, gently placing her on top of the already messy bed. Then, he grabbed the soft duvet, ready to cover her, however, her lightly opened eyes caught him off-guard.

They weren’t fully open, nor did they look focused, but Conall could feel her looking directly at his face, as if burning his image inside her eyes.

While closing her eyelids with the tips of his fingers, he spoke to her quietly.

“Sweet dreams. We will meet properly soon.”

Even when she opened her eyes for a few seconds a couple of moments later, he already wasn’t there, prompting her to go back to sleep.

In the other part of the city, walking with a happy expression through the well-lit street while dodging all the drunks, Conall finally arrived at his next destination. Since the street was lit with mana lamps, he could at least see well, without the use of the moonlight.

As soon as he saw the sign ‘Rosa’s Inn’, he quickly entered it, smiling at the person behind the wooden front desk.

“Are there any available rooms?”

Gazing out of the small window from his newly acquired accommodation, he felt ignited. This was a good beginning. No, for him, this was a perfect beginning.

He had the Unrested curse, but he felt like he would be able to get a great sleep tonight.

…

Her ears ringed. It was so loud she couldn’t think properly. When she finally made out what it was, it stopped.

The door opened after it kept being knocked on. An impatient maid barged in.

“Miss, how many times has that been now?”

Her voice seemed tired and dissatisfied. Yet, when she saw that her young lady was still glued to the bed, she got a bit worried.

Seeing her reaction, Juliette tried to calm her down.

“It’s nothing, I just used too much aura yesterday.”

The maid gasped after getting a proper look at her, dropping the food tray onto the ground a second later and startling the young lady. She quickly came up to her before touching the messy hair.

“Your hair, get up quickly. We have to take a bath.”

“Huh, wait? No! I’m old enough to do it myself!”

Juliette complained, but the old maid dragged her by the hem of her dirty robe. Soon, they arrived at the bathroom. In the middle, there was a bath made from what seemed to be copper.

Of course, as Juliette was undressing herself, none of the cuts to the robe were missed by the maid, to which she had some explaining to do.

“You were attacked yet again?! Those disgusting brutes. Only chasing after money, those cowards. Really.”

The head maid burst out while applying shampoo to the lady’s hair. As she was asking, she saw her young lady making a dejected face, the one she wanted the most to get rid of.

Over the last twenty five years, she has been able to see a plethora of such looks. Each time she saw the young lady’s misery, a desire to want to take action sprouted in her, however, she was simply unable to.

Duke Talise, her father, stopped her the very first time she tried to intervene. Since then, she was forbidden from approaching Juliette if it wasn’t at the mansion. There was nothing she could have done while being under the Lord’s watch.

The maid tried to persuade the Duke countless times, albeit nothing resulted from the effort. When trying to ask for the reasons why he let the world harass his child, he only gave vague answers.

She could only watch as the disgusted looks directed at Juliette slowly turned into harassment and persecution before she started being attacked by high level warriors. All while her father continued to watch from the behind, pretending not to care about her.

“Judy, please, don’t worry about me. You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?”

Juliette’s question snapped the old maid back to reality.

Realizing that she lost herself in the past, the maid quickly continued washing the young lady. After hearing the young lady, she decided to keep the rest of the bath silent, only the sound of rain from beyond the walls keeping the silence from becoming awkward.

…

Despite the high sun painting her room bright, she had no mood for the colorful scenery. Conflict resided her mind.. For once, she felt terror. Yesterday was the first time that she met someone able to easily kill her.

At first, it was only people looking at her with disdain. Quickly, however, it turned into disgust and contempt. She was young at that time, so she couldn’t help but seek inexistent help. Even though both of her parents were alive, she was kept alone in her room.

The significant change occurred during her late education. Insults slowly turned into pranks that gradually transformed into physical harassment.

But now, her life consisted of residing in the academy as a ‘professor’ and being attacked by an assassin at most once a month.

Even that, however, was changing. The frequency of attacks increased with each passing month, and the quality of her attackers also increased.

Up until now, she was able to deal with the thugs as they were roughly the same level as her. Yesterday, however, terrified her.

Just recalling the onslaught she received made her body shiver in fright. Every second of the battle was dreadful, from the very beginning. Trying to block the attacks with her sword, it shattered to bits and pieces, while her aura did nothing to him.

Why, then, was she feeling so peaceful right now, as if nothing happened?

Even though she was at the brink of death, she was weirdly collected. She should have died right there and then, but here she was, fidgeting all over the place in her bed.

Suddenly, she stopped, as if realization hit her.

The last thing she remembered during the fight was the shattering of her barrier. Then, how was she still alive? How was she able to think right now, with a proper, undamaged head?

‘Did father actually save me?’

A fleeting thought crossed her mind before she scoffed at the idea.

‘Forget it, he doesn’t care. He probably doesn’t even know. Still, was I saved by someone? How am I supposed to know that if I was unconscious, haa.’

She sighed, somewhat defeated by the whole ordeal.

But, while she was slowly losing faith, it was at that time that she recalled something at the back of her head.

The weird dream she had today, she was assured it must have been that. Something inside her was telling her that it was the answer she was seeking.

‘Was it actually a dream?’

She wondered to herself before trying to recall the images of the alleged savior.

There wasn’t much she could have remembered. Thinking about it, she was half-conscious that night for at most a minute.

Nonetheless, to her, the most important factor was there. In the period of being half-awake, all she did was look at the rescuer. Her heart started to thump in anticipation.

Venturing through the depths of her mind, she confidently revealed the clouded memories of the past night.

She first opened her eyes when the savior was still carrying her, ready to put her down onto the bed. Then, Juliette could finally see the features of what seemed to be a male.

Staring at the glowing yellow eyes, she didn’t think it was a human. Together with the red glow around its cute head, it looked like the savior of hers… was a fairy?

To be chosen by a fairy? Her mind suddenly shut itself. Has the goddess finally answered her prayers? While she started daydreaming about the savior fairy, the window that was opened let in countless sounds.

The most prominent ones, however, were the stepping of horse hooves.

Whilst disappointed that they distracted her, she glanced out of the window, only to see a certain tall man stepping out of their house’s carriage.

“Ugh.”