The interior of the house was lavish, having the same polished stone floor as the first floor, and Josh even could see his own distorted reflection on it. He noticed most of the furniture was made of stone, alongside the rare wooden ones.

‘Where do I go?’ Now that he was inside, Josh realized he had no idea where anything was.

‘Begin by expecting the closest room.’ Johan said.

Josh turned to the left and opened the door. He noticed the door was finely made, and woven from several weed threads, they had been colored in some kind of material to give them a smooth texture, and despite the material it was made from, was pretty solid.

The first room he got into was just a bedroom, not normal to his standards in any way, but besides the luxury, there was nothing of interest. He closed it and went into the next one.

One by one Josh opened the doors, carefully looking around each room, and from time to time he watched the entire floor to see if a guard was approaching and hid when necessary, as time passed, he began to grow impatient.

‘Josh, calm down. We can’t make a mess in this place, you know that.’ Johan quickly said, worried his brother's temper would get the better of him. Since that horrible day, Josh had changed, not being the calm boy from before.

‘Don’t worry, I’m controlling myself.’ Josh took a deep breath and kept going.

Luckily, after a few more rooms he found something of interest. The room had a bookshelf with some books - A rarity in itself - and there were papers neatly organized over the table.

Thankfully, both brothers knew how to read and write, an ability their late mother had taught them through a lot of effort.

‘Help me look through them.’ Johan said, and Josh ran to the table.

They just skimmed over it, trying to find anything important, and unfortunately, were able to see something horrible.

‘No way they are doing this…’ Josh gritted his teeth while reading the paper, the report looked like this.

August - 27

Monthly exchange report

Mushroom -

Brown clap 189 units

Red turd 12 units

….

Slaves -

Woman 12 units

girls 5 units

fit males 20 units

‘I need to kill those bastards!’ Josh got up from the table and walked to the door.

knowing he had to act fast, Johan said. ‘I’ll just block you from using my card. You won’t be able to do anything.’

‘Are you really going to do that now?! Those bastards are kidnaping people from the town and selling them, and you are going to stop me!? You should be helping me instead.’ Josh's face was distorted in fury. ‘Using that move is too low.’

Despite being in his brother's soul, Johan’s card was still his own, and he could still shut its connection to Josh anytime he wanted. It was because of that flawed connection that Josh could not use it to its full extent and had so many drawbacks from using it.

‘Yes, I’m going to do that if it means stopping you.’ Johan was primarily worried about him. ‘If you want to do something, then be powerful enough for that! Those people have years and several cards on their back. You have to get strong enough before thinking of facing them, if not, you'll just be a number added to their book. Josh, I know you’re smarter than this, stop acting recklessly and cool your head, you know I’m right.’’

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Josh didn’t leave the room, instead, he walked from side to side, taking deep breaths and slowly calming down. He knew his brother was right, but most of his mind was telling him to act, and not wait for more people to suffer.

In the end, he controlled his feelings and turned that explosive anger into cold hatred. ‘I want to rob everything they have, I want to use the reaper to take the cards out of their souls.’ Josh said, embedding the hatred inside of him.

‘Don’t turn that way…’ Johan thought to himself while seeing how his brother was reacting.

Josh, more than anyone, hated the feeling of being powerless and people that abused others.

Their cards were accidentally found by their father, and the two brothers had fused with them. There were some kinds of cards that would fuse into someone, and their belonged to that category. Despite their parent's fury, Johan used the card to hunt, putting more food on the table. Josh, on the other hand, had connected his soul with Johan’s card to enhance his and was happier than ever.

The reason he had died was because someone had slipped Johan had gotten a powerful card, and that had somehow gotten into the ears of a visiting noble from an upper island, who killed Johan and his family trying to find the cards.

Johan had accidentally used his soul resonance to strengthen their soul bond, thus slipping into his brother's soul, at least that was their conjecture.

Having grown by himself after that, Josh faced some really harsh things, and what he hated the most was injustice.

After calming down, Josh left the room and finished exploring the upper level. He had to hide in different rooms three times to avoid patrols, but everything worked out.

‘No mushrooms up here. They’re down there.’ Josh said.

‘Just be careful.’ Johan added.

Now, he had to move to the first floor, the storage would probably be there, but getting down would not be easy. There was only one stair connecting the floors, and the bigger number of patrols made it that much harder.

They stood there, observing the patrols for longer, and after that, Josh even hid in one of the rooms to make sure his eyes would be properly rested.

After everything was ready and they had the patrol routes in mind, Josh got ready to go down.

Despite his anger issues, Josh was still sweating and his hand trembling a bit, he was not made of steel, and could still feel fear.

‘Now!’ Johan said, and Josh went forward. From observing the routes where the guards moved, Johan had memorized the layout of the first floor and knew exactly where to go. Josh immediately took a side corridor following his brother's instructions

‘Where to now?’ Josh looked from left to right. patrols would pass on both ends of the corridor, and he had nowhere to go.

‘Up!! Jump up and support yourself on the walls.’ Josh placed his hand on the wall and crawled up, using both walls as supports. Just as his back touched the ceiling, the guards passed by each side of the corridor.

He noticed that both of them looked at the corridor at the same time.

Josh's heart stopped at that moment. ‘Will they come into the corridor? I’ll die without getting the golden card?’ many thoughts swirled through his head as he saw the guard's head turning. He was frozen like a statue.

However, after a brief glance, the guards exchanged nods and kept walking.

Josh released a breath he didn’t know he was holding and slid down, immediately taking action and searching the closest rooms.

There were fewer rooms on the first floor, but they were much bigger, so it didn't take long for him to finally find it.

‘Yes!’ Josh was overjoyed as he found the storage room. There were mushrooms all over the place.

‘On the left corner.’ Johan quickly found the mushroom with his spread-out sense and Josh collected as many as he could, filling the bag he had prepared.

Josh once again activated soul sight and saw that no guards were coming, he left the room and prepared to head back to the second floor, but an excited conversation caught his attention.

“It's finally coming! HAHA!” A manly voice was loudly saying. The tone was uneven, and he could swear there was something stuck in his throat. “Can you imagine, having a rare card! That’ll be worth every penny spent!”

“Our first step is to get out of this place.” A heavier, raspy voice said. It sounded tired.

‘I wonder what kind of card it is…’ Josh said to his brother.

‘It’s probably a weaker rare one. There’s no way they could have gotten a good rare card this easily.’ Johan added.

“What do you think father, will it take long for us to master it? I can’t even think how you were able to get an elemental card.” The voice was full of excitement.

‘What??’ Josh couldn’t believe that, and stood frozen in place.

‘Quickly! Go up, there’s a guard down the corner!’ Johan noticed a guard on the edge of his perception and alerted Josh, who quickly snapped out of his daze and ran up the stairs.

After that, Josh made his way out of the house and sneakily left through the fields, almost being discovered because of his unfocused state.

Getting out of the farms and making his way back into his mud shack, he threw the pouch on the side and sat down to relax. Millions of thoughts were going through his head. And he just had one thing in mind right now.

‘I need that card.’ Josh said.

‘We’ll get it.’ Johan answered.