*Evan POV*

As I stepped outside, the sun had already disappeared beyond the horizon, casting a red glow on the sky. Suddenly, I noticed Liza approaching on horseback. She had come over to check the house out last time due to some guild regulations or something, but she really liked my house, and one thing led to another, and now she stays over here on rent. So far, I've only seen her come here at nighttime.

"Hey Evan, heading out again?" she greeted me.

“Ah well, you know. I’m a busy man.”

Since moving in, her mood had taken a complete turnaround, and she now wears a constant smile. Her cold, emotionless face is now gone.

"Okay, but make sure you're back before daytime or I'll have to send a rescue team," she joked.

“Gotcha, you go get some rest.”

She's talking about the mines near the Human Kingdom that I've been sneaking out to. I'm actually on my way there right now. I've been visiting the mine at night for the past few days, and while I haven't found a lot of valuable items like some of the good gear, I have found a lot of useful materials such as copper, iron, tungsten, and many other things. On the bright side, I did find some life crystals and farmed for some fallen stars during the night. As a result, I now have:

Life: 240/240

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Mana: 220/220

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Now, this is bizarre because the highest amount of Mana one can obtain by using Mana crystals alone is 200 mp. While there are other ways to increase Mana further, such as using accessories and armor, the limit using Mana crystals is supposed to be 200.

I didn’t want to waste the extra fallen stars that I collected, but I had to experiment since I started with max 40 mp instead of the 20 mp, and somehow it worked. And hey, I’d take extra mana any day, but at the same time, I am kinda worried because if I didn’t know about this, I don’t know how many more things have changed that I don’t know about.

Welp, that’s a problem the future me will solve. For now, I gotta visit the guild before I went to the mines. There’s a few things I gotta ask the guild leader first.

I used the haste buff spell, which increases my movement speed by 20%, and then I used my grappling hook and my shield charge with the speed increase buff and quite literally flew straight towards the Kingdom.

After casting the haste buff spell, I felt a sudden surge of energy, and my movement speed increased by 20%. With that, I used the grappling hook and shield combo to quite literally fly towards the Kingdom at an unbelievable pace.

… Just wait till I get Hermes boots, which will increase my speed by three times. After that, I’m going to cosplay as Sanic, and nobody can stop me!

I dashed through the forest and arrived at the Adventurer's Guild a couple of minutes later. Surprisingly, there were only a few people present today, which was unusual as the place was either bustling or empty.

Since Liza was back at my home, I saw Lark behind the counter chatting with three muscular guys who seemed to be his friends since they were all having a great time.

“Ayyyy, what’s up my bois? What’s poppin?” I greeted all the people in there with my arms wide open, acting like the local celebrity.

“Evan?” said the confused Lark, squinting his eyes in confusion. Suddenly, his face lit up with recognition. "Oh, Evan!" he exclaimed with a smile, but then his expression quickly turned to anger. "EVANNN!”

Yo, why is he going through more phases than a Dark Souls boss?

Lark was like a crazed wrestler as he leaped over the counter and grabbed me by the collar of my silver armor.

"Well, hello to you too, Lark. You seem excited to see me," I quipped.

"Stop messing around, Evan! What did you do to our Ice Princess?" he growled, with his muscular entourage closing in around me.

“Ice- Who?” I replied confused. The only Ice princess I know of is Luna, and technically she isn’t a princess or a queen anymore.

“Don't act like you don't know what's going on! I'm talking about Liza!”

I raised an eyebrow, “What about Liza?”

"Don't play dumb with me! She's acting all weird! Smiling, laughing, it's not natural!" Lark exclaimed, his friends nodding in agreement.

"Well, maybe she's just happy? Have you ever considered that?"

Lark was fuming. "Evan, this is serious business! You need to spill the beans right now!"

“Let me take a wild guess, you're mad because Liza's finally not overworking and now you're stuck with her shift, and you can't chug your brews in peace?” I smirked.

He glared at me for a second before looking away, a bit defeated. "...Maybe that's part of it, but it's not the only thing. She's been acting different since you arrived. What did you do to her?"

"Dude, calm down. All I did was rent her one of my mansion's rooms."

"WHAT?! That's it? Our Ice Princess who never smiled is now giggling like a schoolgirl just because of a room?"

"Yup, that's pretty much it."

Lark looked down, completely defeated but didn’t let go of my collars. I couldn't help but chuckle internally at his sudden change of demeanor. He then looked up at me with puppy eyes and asked, "Hey Evan, we're buddies, right? Do you think I can rent one of your-"

But before he could finish his sentence, the Guild master interrupted him by storming downstairs with a bundle of papers in her hands.

"Hey Lark, where did you put the-" She stopped mid-sentence as she caught sight of Lark grabbing my collars, flanked by his posse of buff dudes.

I could see the anger in her eyes, and I didn't blame her. Here was a hero that the Queen had been trying to contact for ages, only to see him get threatened by your own employee.

“I-I can explain.” There was genuine fear in Lark’s voice but the whole universe was revolving in my favor.

“15 silver coins,” she said, her voice cold and unforgiving, “15 silver coins will be deducted from your salary every month.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Lark looked like he lost his loved one as he fell down on his knees and started begging me for forgiveness, “W-Wait Guild master, N-No. We were just playing. I-Isn’t that right Evan?”

I just casually greeted Ruby, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Hey Ruby, long time no see. How you holding up?” Oh, by the way, I couldn’t help but notice that the buff trio was gone, they just straight up de-spawned when Ruby came downstairs, leaving Lark to his fate.

Despite the tiredness etched on her face, Ruby made an effort to look professional as she responded in a flat, monotone voice, "In the best of health, I guess." She seemed to be under a lot of pressure. "I have a lot of work to do now since my best receptionist has started leaving early due to a certain person," she said, her gaze piercing towards me. "And we can't hire more manpower nilly-willy due to the cultist threat." Her words came out with a hint of frustration.

“Ah, I see.” I ignored her earlier passive-aggressiveness and continued, “Any new news about the cultists?”

“Thankfully, no. They haven't done anything yet, and it's probably because of the huge blow you did to them during the elf festival. That and we’ve been keeping tabs on them while warning every nearby town, village, or kingdom about them.”

That’s nice.

“What about that cultist guy I captured, I forgot his name.”

“Lenard? We didn't get anything else. He's locked up in castle jail for further interrogation, but I don't think he'll reveal anything else. At least for now, he's bound to break sooner or later.”

Ookay, those were kind of horrifying words, but we’re gonna gloss over that and move onto the main reason for why I came here to meet her instead of going to my grind.

“Alright then, did you get the things I asked you?” I said with a serious face. The things I’m asking about are any known documents, books, or anything about the four heroes of Terraria. I asked her about it a few days ago, and she said she had them but she needed some time to get them.

“I found a few of them. I was just about to ask Lark where he put them, but then I saw you here too.”

Lark was still kneeling and looking down in the middle of the room like he lost his world, but he still talked, albeit in a crying voice, “They’re in your small arena room.”

“Alright, Evan, please follow me,” said Ruby as she led me downstairs to the small arena and then to her tiny room, which could barely fit three people.

There were three books on the small table next to the wall. Ruby grabbed them and handed them to me. “Here you go. They were surprisingly hard to get.”

“Neato!” I said happily as I tried to grab the book, but she didn’t let go. “Uhh Ruby?”

“E-Evan,” she stuttered and blushed a bit. “A-about the payment.”

It seemed like she was embarrassed to talk about it, but I already understood what she was asking. I summoned a mana ball of 100 MP, and Ruby's grip on the book loosened as she gazed at it with a look of utter fascination. It was as if she were a moth being drawn in by the glowing light of a lamp, her mouth beginning to water with anticipation. I gave her the mana ball for the books and told her that Lark and I were playing around and she shouldn’t deduct his salary before leaving her to her own devices.

Now then, my original plan was to venture into the caves in search of valuable gear and materials for more survivability, but my primary objective remained finding a way back home. The books in my possession held the key to unlocking the mystery of my situation, and I knew I had to read them as soon as possible. That was why I went straight back home.

It was a breeze to get back home, but I was surprised to find Tifa and Sarah waiting for me outside my house. Though Tifa does visit every now and then, I haven't seen Sarah for a while. They were probably waiting there since Jeff just told them I wasn’t there. I talked to them, and Sarah dropped a bombshell on me. Apparently, both the Queen from the human’s side and the Elves side had given the go-ahead for a peace treaty. Their last obstacle was convincing their military generals that this was a good idea, which finally happened. So, everything was greenlit.

Sarah went on to say, "Queen Elizabeth is scheduled to attend the peace treaty, and I was hoping you could accompany us. I know it's a lot to ask, but your abilities surpass mine in every aspect, and I would be grateful for your cooperation. Please understand that this is not a request from our Queen, but my own selfish request."

Ever since I had reunited Tifa with her mother, Sarah's attitude towards me had changed. She used to always insult or belittle me, but things seemed different now that I decided to be serious.

After pondering for a moment, I replied, "Firstly, I should remind you that I belong to neither of your territories. I am neither an Elf nor a Human; I’m a Silver daemon. And as far as I know, Silver daemons remain neutral in all situations between different kingdoms. Besides, I have more important stuff to do than to worry about things that doesn’t involve me."

Like finding a way back home.

She immediately bowed down, which surprised me. “Please! I beg you! Since there hasn't been any notice of any cultists attack, we think that they’ll attack during the peace treaty. More than half of our military strength needs to protect our kingdom, so we really can’t do this without your help!” Even Tifa joined her and started begging.

“Ugghhhhhhh…” I let out a dramatic groan before flailing my arms like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Alright, fine! Whatever!” I said before pointing at her. “But you owe me for this!”

Tifa breathed a sigh of relief and expressed her gratitude, “Thank you.”

“Alright, then come to our kingdom at 6 am tomorrow morning,” said Sarah before she turned to Tifa. “Now then, let's go?”

Then they both waved their hands and left.

As Tifa and Sarah went on their way,

The books in my hands held the play,

To unlocking the secrets that… awaited me?

…I suck with rhymes and I don’t know why I wanted to rhyme that but I did.

Anyhow, I just drank a potion of recall to spawn back into my room because I’m not going to risk sneaking back in and getting caught by Luna or someone. I materialized next to my bed as blue sparkles radiated out of me for a moment, which were just the effects of the recall potion.

I looked around my room and saw Emma, the nurse, sitting on the sofa. We both looked at each other, and she nodded before quietly leaving the room. I looked over to my bed and saw Faith and Hope sleeping soundly. They were so adorable, and I couldn't bear to throw them away like most of my problems, at least until they could think for themselves... maybe? Helputt and Nezha really liked them, so they could take care of them if I left.

Actually, I should stop thinking any further, unless I want to become a villain.

I went to my workbench and made two baby cribs for Hope and Faith. The baby cribs don’t exactly exist in Terraria, but I unlocked them after reading some books about carpentry. I placed both the cribs next to my bed and then carefully tucked the babies into their new sleeping quarters right beside my bed.

Alright, now that that’s done. Stamina! Show me thy Status!

Stamina: 56%.

Well, that's good enough for like 2 days… I feel like I'm treating myself like a phone.

Since the bed was free of my babies, I took the opportunity to lie down and sift through the books Ruby had given me. If there was any hope of returning, it should be through this.

Oh yeah, I should mention that one of the three books I received had its pages ripped out, while the other two books looked more like thick tomes than books.

As I cracked open one of the thick books, I soon realized that it wasn't a work of fiction like the other books I found in the library. It was the personal diary of a person from my world, and he was the hero of range from the looks of it. He filled his diary with his daily musings and grand ambitions, but I wasn’t interested in any of that besides the possibility of finding some clue about how to return home. Regardless, I still read through everything carefully, just in case I didn’t miss anything. Despite his extensive knowledge of this new world, he seemed to be unaware of Terraria, which was an odd thing that I figured out.

I spent a long time reading all of it, but I didn’t find much until I reached near the final page.

April 25th, 994

"I have done everything I wanted to do here. I'm writing this in case there are other poor souls like us who got trapped in this world after we're gone. Since we somehow got here, we can also somehow leave. That's a fact, and the way to leave is quite simple. You just have to..."

Everything written after that was blurred out by ink.

I stood there in silence before my mind exploded in rage.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!

I READ THAT WHOLE BOOK FOR THE LAST LINE, WHICH WASN’T EVEN THERE!!!

{Author Note: Ha-ha, Get bamboozled.}

It’s alright, I still got two more chances. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m not mad. I’m mad. I’m really mad. Goddamn it.

I sighed. At the very least, I now know that there’s at least a way back home.

I angrily took out the other thick book. This one seemed to be the diary of the Hero of Strength. I think he's Chinese since his name is Qin He, but everything is written in English, so that’s convenient enough for me.

I then spent the next few hours carefully reading it until I reached its finish as well.

April 25th, 994

"I have talked with the others, and tomorrow we're all going back home. But honestly, I quite like this world. I've made so many friends here that it feels like a waste to return. But there's better food there, so whatever. Oh, yeah, it looks like Zhen found a way back, and who would've thought that it was…"

I flipped over to the next page, and I was shocked with what I saw.