Marc glared at the couple in front of him.
After claiming the title of Champion of the Village, Marc never thought he would receive backlash from the citizens. Of course, that had to do with the fact that he's been reverted to the body of a 17 year old, even while he was almost 27. He sighed, finding the man's condescending look very irritating.
This middle-aged couple seems to have been the two who rallied a few strangers together and found this village, so by their "logic", they should have claimed leadership, even if they don't quite understand the system yet. Marc rolled his eyes and shoved past between them. They protested.
"Hey! Listen child, I know you want to copy whatever you learned on TV, but being the leader requires experience and maturity - which you obviously do not have!" The man rubbed his shoulder as he scolded Marc. Marc didn't take another step.
"Yeah. I know you teens think you're adults, but just let an actual adult handle this, okay?" The woman chimed in. An itch creeped up Marc's spine, and his eyebrows creased. There he stood, frozen for many moments before he finally decided. Marc turned around to face the couple again, this time using just a little [Killing Intent] so they felt... threatened.
"Don't you remember who gave you the coins for the houses and beds?" Marc raised his eyes to meet the man's. Marc silently cursed his short stature - he had grown a lot in the dungeon, but of course the system had to take it away from him when he was teleported.
"We know you did, but finding coins has nothing to do with leading people, does it?" The woman soothed. Marc's right eye twitched. They were treating him like a child, which Marc certainly didn't think he was. If only he could somehow revert the magic over his physical appearance.
Marc huffed. "How do you think I got all those coins? Did you find any just lying around?" He took a step forward. As the range decreased, his [Killing Intent] grew more potent, and there was visibly more sweat on their necks and faces. "Let me tell you how I got them. I hunted. I killed. You know monsters exist now, don't you?" He tried to drop his voice lower but of course - adolescence inconvenience - he had a voice crack.
Feeling literal fire crawling from the tips of his ears to his cheeks, he swirved and sped off into the forest to cool down. Hopefully, the two idiots knew not to challenge him.
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In a flash, Marc had already arrived at his last checkpoint, the scorched tree indicating that there were no stray people from that distance to the village. Each day, he pushed further out to find the people scattered around the newly shaped Earth, hoping to find them before the beasts did.
It was a cruel process, as the Fire God Azar had said, for a science-type starter world will have an overwhelming number of people with "Path of the Peasant". If Marc doesn't let the monsters do their job of eliminating many of these people, Earth will perpetually remain weak in terms of strength of combat since their children will almost always carry the same path.
His job was to save those he came across and to nurture those with "special" paths that will help develop their world and assimilate it into the Gen Worlds - every other planet the system has taken over.
Just as he was picking a direction to start, a notification greeted him.
[New Path Quest]
These notifications were not new to Marc, since his time during the dungeon were painted with these quests. They annoyed him somewhat, but their rewards were plenty. Ranging from skills, equipments to plain stat points. He clicked on the notification.
[Path Quest!]
As the sun rises once more on a new land, new dangers follow. People are scattered, and so is their hope. As a Demigod, a manifestation of the Gods, unite our people, give them new hope.
Find and persuade 100 people to go to your village.
0/100
Before he could decide how to proceed about with the mission, he sensed something nearby. At that second, a projectile shot past him, morphing through his screen. It whipped by and Marc raised an eye. Some feet away, three troll-like figures taunted him.
Marc found it odd that these monsters dared to taunt him, and quickly realized the reason why. These were hobgoblins, which low-level boss tier monsters that acted as the bosses for low level dungeons - and easy kills in higher-leveled regions.
Marc pursed his lips. Hobgoblins aren't supposed to be out the dungeons in this region yet!
He, of course, had no trouble dealing with the few level 10 hobgoblins that challenged him - all that's left of of their corpses are ashes. But for anyone else, even meeting one will kill them on sight.
He better get on with that mission.
<<<>>>
Death wasn't cold. It was warm, unlike what most would think. It was like taking a bath in warm steam, getting warmer, warmer, warmer.
In the darkness, Kyra could feel something pry open her mouth. Yet the rest of her body wasn't there, and she didn't try to reach out, because she knew all she'll feel would be pain.
Perhaps the goblins had already torn her body into pieces and all that's left was all she could feel.
But then something slipped down her throat. She tried to resist, but of course, no part of her body responded. All Kyra could feel was the cool liquid slipping down her throat and the warm sauna around her.
"Hey kid, time to wake up, you've slept long enough."