The light source was rising when I realized I was heading primarily West. I could try to loop around to another city, but I was already pretty far. The tribes people were already out but they left me alone as I killed monsters in my path and didn’t bother with the crystals.

The closest city was a bit to my Southwest and was New Hakarta. After thinking about things for a moment, I turned towards the South and where a road should be. It would be faster and safer than going through the wilderness. I wanted to reach the city within a day. Get healed up, feed the kid, get supplies, and then find somewhere to rest safely.

I was exhausted both physically and mentally. The long trek to the Forbidden City, then everything during that had worn me out. I would need to tie up the kid as well and get some spare changes of clothing in case he soiled himself.

He would run off for sure and get killed by a monster. I had no doubt about that. Rope wasn’t really a thing and chains would be too heavy. Maybe a chain handcuff. I could easily bend the metal but the child wouldn’t be able to.

That way he could move and have blood circulation. I wasn’t letting him run off or out of my sight for a second. I gave up a lot to save this kid and had a hell of a fight. I wasn’t looking forward to when I had to face off against the Inquisitor again. That teleporting skill was a nightmare.

There was no warning. My danger sense was struggling as well until the moment she appeared and trying to reorient was hard. I had to practice a lot more with my higher Body stat to get the most out of it.

But I had managed to get her, but targeting where she would be. The same way that assassin had stabbed me. We had targeted something other than the person. I had always thought it was complete nonsense that a person could learn things from fighting.

One was focused on the fight itself. But reflecting on how things went, it was an interesting way to get around danger sense. Target the space where a person would be and not the person themselves. It was simple yet ingenious.

I had never considered it before. The monsters were always straight forward. Even level 4 monsters. But I could easily see the higher level monsters making things a type of chess match. Where you move out of an area you feel danger to another area but then are hit with something that was targeting the space behind where you moved to.

It would add an entirely new layer to combat. It wasn’t something that I could practice by myself either. It would be a tricky stat to train. With Body it was just about moving and controlling the force expelled and negated.

Combat would now involve feints. That was something I thought wasn’t very useful before either and I would need to work that out with danger sense. How much danger did a feint give? Could it be scaled? Again, I would need another person to train this with to work out the nuances of the Perception stat.

Each stat had hidden nuances beyond what the Almighty System gave. People got the starter package, but going beyond that was on them. The thousand point threshold was where more control or the understanding of scope of the stat was increased it felt like.

It was hard to put into words exactly, but the stats had a lot of depth to them. I was mentally kicking myself for missing all of those nuances before. I had to figure all this out on my own, which made it much harder. I might have game knowledge, but you don’t feint in games.

Feints, it made me shake my head at the concept of them. I personally would prefer overwhelming damage. Crushing my foes before they even had a chance. That meant the Divine Empress had something like that in her arsenal as well.

The gap between us seemed both smaller and larger at the same time. The child finally woke up and began shouting in Chinese. “English. I speak English,” I said.

The child clearly didn’t understand and began screaming and trying to wiggle in my grasp. It was a massive hassle to keep running and to make sure I didn’t squeeze him too tightly and pop him like a grape.

I reached the road finally and didn’t see anyone nearby. I got on the road and began heading West. I wish I had left the Forbidden City to the East, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I kept running and I felt the kid piss through his clothing on me.

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I didn’t care, he would be getting new clothes. I was going to strip him of everything. No keeping that precious pendant or some other nonsense. Everything would be stripped off him and tossed away, without exception.

There was just too much risk. My main hope was the Divine Empress hadn’t been willing to cut her own child open and put something inside of him. There was nothing I could do about that. I had been scanning the kid constantly with my Sense stat, but nothing stood out in the slightest compared to a new arrival.

It honestly confused me why the Almighty System wanted to save him. So the Astrologer used a skill and the Divine Empress became pregnant, big whoop. Wait, did that make this child Jesus, since the Divine Empress had to be a virgin.

Great, just great. If the kid grew up, he would probably think of me as the Devil. Kid, your mother is the biggest piece of scum to ever exist and almost everyone would want to kill you, torture you, or use you as bait.

It was honestly a bit ridiculous how the Almighty System had gone out of its way to instruct me to save this child and make a deal. That was something I was still unsure about. Could the deal be enforced. I wasn’t sure.

I saw a lot of soldiers coming down the road for me. Well I wasn’t going to hide and made sure the child was safely held with one arm. I unleashed acid at them as I kept moving forward without stopping. They melted, screamed, and scattered.

The kid was looking over my shoulder and quieted down after he saw all the screaming and melting people. I had no idea what was going through his head. He had to be around 5 years old give or take a year if I had to guess.

I wasn’t very good with ages, but I had seen the kids in Purgatory, and the son of the Divine Empress was a bit older than them by a couple of years. It had been over two years since I had first arrived here. So, the timing of his birth made sense.

Well, the main thing was to get him changed, fed, and watered, and to heal myself up for our trip back. I paused when I saw a cart the soldiers had been bringing along. A tribute cart. I grabbed a chest under one arm and kept moving.

My arm dug slightly into the chest, but I would need to give the kid a restoration. That meant points. All this traveling and the fighting had been rough on his body. Internal injuries could linger and make him grumpy. Better to just fix everything and be safe.

I didn’t want to go around killing monsters trying to figure out how much the kid needed. Better to just loot some soldiers and an army on the road. Even if it was 50,000 points, the kid could have them all. It would ensure he had enough to keep himself healed up.

That one thing I would need to get in New Hakarata was a translator. I felt bad for Fuyuka. She had done an amazing job making plan audacity work so well. That cloaked assassin was on the list I decided. The Divine Empress, Cloaked Assassin, and now in third place was Ruth.

She just felt so small and pointless now. It would be amusing if we ever met up again. What could she even do, scream at me? It would be pointless, since I wouldn’t even let her speak and just kill her. Once you were on the list, you were kill on sight for me. Except the Divine Empress, she was flee on sight.

It was about mid-day when I saw the city of New Hakarta ahead. I went up and over the wall. Some soldiers standing on top shouted, but they didn’t do anything. I rushed for the plaza over the rooftops.

I reached the plaza and saw soldiers and people moving about to get supplies. I landed near the pillars. “Who here can speak English?” I called out. “Hurry up, or I start killing people.”

“What is the meaning-“

“Acid Shot!” I melted the man who had begun screaming at me in English. “Let’s try that again. Who here speaks English?” I asked loudly.

“I do sir.” A person in rags stepped forward.

“Good, tell this kid to cash in the points and get a restoration. Make sure he understands.” The man didn’t hesitate. I saw soldiers gathering and set the chest on the pillar and held the kid up. He was not leaving my hands for a single instant no matter what.

Even if the Divine Empress showed up, I would hold onto him no matter what. There was going to be no shenanigans of him escaping or someone trying to rescue him. The points in the chest disappeared along with the bruises on the kid. Good the translator had done his job.

I moved the kid away from the pillar and set him next to me and put a hand on his shoulder. “Acid Shot,” x100. “Keep away!” People died and screamed as they melted. I didn’t have time to deal with idiots. I needed to get moving.

I slammed my head down on the pillar with my one hand. That kid was not being let go for an instant. I purchased kid sized clothes and a set of metal handcuffs with a chain. “Translator, tell the kid to strip. Now.” He quickly began saying something in Chinese. The kid gave me a look. I glared at him and used my Aura stat to push the feeling of danger onto him.

The kid quickly began taking off his clothes. He hesitated at his underwear but I gestured at the translator to tell him to hurry up. One he was stripped I lifted him up and spun him about making sure there was nothing hidden or attached to him.

He appeared to be clean. He hadn’t pooed himself thankfully. I had the translator who was quivering nervously to tell the kid to get dressed. The kid listened. I then carefully put a collar around his neck. No hand or foot for the kid.

A leg or arm might be cut off and I was taking no chance in him getting away. It wasn’t like the Divine Empress could get any more pissed at me or want to murder me more.