Waking up to the chirping of birds as sunlight lit up the room, Richard opened up his eyes and looked at the unfamiliar ceiling in confusion.
Where am I? I guess… wasn’t it just a bad dream…?
Ding!
Title gained: He Who Refuses Charon’s Call
Vitality increased by 10 after returning from almost certain death. +1000 Experience.
Regeneration LV1 acquired.
Nah, it’s still a fucking nightmare. Maybe I should try close my eyes and see if I can wake myself up. Richard closed his eyes with optimism and started to pray.
“You’re finally awake!” a young girl’s voice sounded out next to him forcing him to end his self-delusion prematurely.
Turning his head, depression drowned him as he gazed at the cute girl in her later teens that sat at his side. At that moment the hope that all of it had played out inside his head died. It wasn’t a nightmare, was it? Please don’t let them beat me up for nothing again…
”What happened? Why did Fiona almost kill you? Why doesn’t she want to speak to me about it? More importantly, why did you call us whores!? How rude! You’re lucky I’m a magnanimous person or otherwise you’d have been flayed alive,” Her curious barrage of questions turning into indignant declarations midway.
If I wasn’t thinking quickly you would be questioning why there was a flayed corpse… He held his retort as he wondered where he should start.
“Well? Explain yourself!” She scowled at his non-responsiveness as he blankly stared at her.
“I … got kidnapped… and dropped off in the forest after which you picked me up. One of my talents angered Fiona to the point she wanted to kill me and so I threw a tantrum when she carried me out of the carriage quite roughly. When I said ‘whores’ however I was referring to her and… the person who kidnapped me… I was angry when I said such and I was quite out of line as she was faithfully fulfilling her duty despite being influenced. My apologies, your highness,” He explained his circumstances with hesitation when trying to describe the bitch who landed him in this position. It’s those restrictions huh. Maybe I should just show her my status to confirm the situation at least.
Noticing her looking at him sceptically he sighed and held out his hand.
“Your highness, please let me show you that I’m not making it up at all…”
Looking at his hand timidly with mistrust she slowly reached to grab it. Getting frustrated with her unnecessary vigilance he quickly grabbed her soft hand. Show status to Abigail.
Freezing as he grabbed her hand she opened up her mouth to scream in surprise until she saw his status. Gasping in shock she stared dazedly at his class and title.
Sighing at her reaction, he silently wondered if Fiona was doing any better after remembering how frantic she had been. Now for the proof. Show talents to Abigail.
The young girl started at first before reading what was listed.
“So that’s why! Hehe, you can’t help but infuriate others when they look at you! Your presence demands a beating and a tragic idiot’s luck that increases the chance of it happening…Hehe, despite yours being higher, even this princess has better luck than you do…” she started to giggle at his misfortune, forgetting that a strange man was holding her hand.
Yeah, yeah… Laugh it up why don’t you… such lame jokes are my life’s misfortune… quite fucking literally they’ll be the death of me… Feeling bitter he let go of her hand as he tried to figure out what to do next to piece his life back together.
Noticing his dissatisfied expression she giggled again and stood up.
“I’ll inform Fiona to let her know you’ve awakened. You know, she’s been quite worried these past few days. Maybe she’s worried that she hasn’t punched you enough,” she teased as she exited the room.
She said a few days huh… I must have been out for a long time… Grimacing as he watched her leave his thoughts clouded over before descending into confusion. That was a romance flag wasn’t it? Somehow I feel like it’d be a tough love. Speaking of romance, what was that colossal bitch on about when she said I’m a great grandfather? I had children? Since when? My sister is the only person in my family just about to have another kid though? I’m not even a father, let alone been in a relationship in years…
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“Do you know what you did?!” the skies trembled as an old man’s voice yelled. Seated on a white, wooden throne, mist permeated the white expanse surrounding him. His features twisted by angst as he held his head in his hands.
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”No need to thank me father, I took care of the situation and sent the man’s soul to deal with it. You’ve been really busy so I decided to help…“ A cheerful girl’s voice sounded out before being cut-off.
“YOU SENT HIS GRANDSON!” her father roared as he stood up from his throne and moved to step in front of her. Glaring at her he continued to vent. “Not only did you not sent the right person, you didn’t even do it properly!”
“Father… I…” she fearfully stepped back at the rage that was directed at her. “I just wanted to…”
“What!? Mess around? Make this situation worse? Do you know why there was a specific person chosen in the first place? It’s because he was an Archmagus! In a world where mana is next to non-existent no less! Talented enough to make gods envious, a person so suitable for that battlefield and then you go and send his useless grandson!” He yelled in frustration.
“But, but, he’s…! He’s still alive! And… and you should watch him father, I’m sure he’s able to…!” She tried to defend herself knowing that she’d made another mistake.
“Watch him?! I SHOULD WATCH YOU!” He roared again as he raised his arm to stick his finger in her face. “YOU are the reason he’s almost died three times in less than a day! He’s lucky to be alive! He got so close to dying that I had to bend the rules slightly so that he’d be able to wake up in the first place!” He vent the last of his surging anger. Panting slightly he turned around and sat back down on his throne.
Sighing he pulled up the footage recorded from the seal that had been engraved on the poor man’s soul. Taking a deeper look he received another shock. Cringing at the shoddy workmanship and the damage still yet to heal he gave his daughter another glare.
“When he complained about being chopped up I immediately realised something was off, maybe I should say he’s lucky that he got a skill to keep his soul from completely dissipating. You also dropped him off in a dangerous spot… and you say you were helping!? Hah! That’s not even the worst of it; within moments of waking up he was nearly beaten to death by his saviours! Induce Anger! You gave him that ridiculous thing when you played around when engraving that cypher! No wonder he’s always complaining!”
He pulled up the man’s status and talent list and gestured in disgust. “Even I’m not sure enough to say whether or not he’s blessed or cursed. This is the only person we can send there at this point in time and he might end up meeting a powerhouse only to get swatted because he looks annoying. You’ve really screwed the pooch this time!” Shaking his head he felt a wave of exhaustion creep up on him as he reclined back into his throne.
“Sigh, my beautiful daughter, I love you and I do try fix your messes but this… I really don’t know where to start…” He said tiredly while fixing his gaze on her.
Looking down despondently she started to regret her impulsiveness. “I’m sorry father, I’ll try to do better. It’s my responsibility to fix this and I’ll make it work somehow.”
Sighing again, he resolved himself to fix another mess. “Celia, I think it’d be best to consult with your unfortunate hero before you go out and try anything. I’ll help if you need me to but please don’t be reckless. It’s only fortunate that the others don’t know about this yet since they should also have access to his cypher.”
“This matter is extremely important. It goes without saying that I’ll have quite a bit of trouble if they decide you need to be punished this time,” he warned her in a grim tone as he frowned down at her.
Paling slightly a worried expression plastered itself over her face. Wracking her brains to try to find a solution to situation she found herself in a train of thought caused her to stand taller. Her expression changing to a hopeful and excited one as a small smile made its appearance.
Worried at her change of expression her father grimaced. Oh no, I feel as if I was being too naïve to think this conversation would go well.
“Father, I think there’s a way to begin salvaging his situation,” she said as she grinned at him.
Sighing at her mischievous expression he wondered why she wasn’t born as a troll idly before deciding to find out what disaster she wanted to cause this time.
“His problem at the moment should be that he’s drawing aggression without intending to. His soul is busy healing but it won’t be complete before he decides on what his unique skill should be. That gives us a timeframe in which we can work on amending his talent. With a few tweaks-“ she started to explain her idea before he cut her off again.
“There’ll be no tweaks,” he stated without hesitation. Pausing slightly at his conditioned response, he felt the start was good enough at least before waving her to continue as he decided to listen to the rest of it.
Pouting slightly she continued after being cut-off all of a sudden, “We can turn his Anger Inducement into somewhat of an active skill using a soul seal through the tracking cypher. There’s only a small change that needs to happen and since his soul is now slightly more robust this will last until his soul is strong enough to control it. Unfortunately there’ll be a slight incompatibility which might make it misfire after lengthy periods but it’ll be a vast improvement over what it is now. It’ll give him a time limit to make sure he won’t be a punching bag until the seal unravels or until someone removes it.”
A dumbfounded expression crossed her father’s face before he muttered in disbelief. “That’s actually a good idea. She actually knows how to not cause trouble… Does she do it unintentionally…?”
“Ahem, that sounds like a good solution to his current predicament. I suppose we’ll start with that,” he cleared his throat before acknowledging her idea cautiously.
“Great! With this I can-!” She waved her hand excitedly with a bright and eager expression before her father stopped her in a panic
“No, no! Don’t! I’ll take care of it. Speak to him rather and make sure he knows what we’re doing at least.” He quickly interjected as he felt an ominous sense of danger for what would happen if he let her continue.
“Father… why don’t you trust me…!” She pouted tearfully at his panic. “I just want to… did you say… speak to him? Me?” She said worriedly as she remembered what she did to her test subj-… her hero.
After all you’ve done you ask me why I don’t trust you… He smiled wryly at her before responding. “You see my dear, this is your first hero, so you should get a bit of experience by interacting with him. Leave the hard stuff to your dad.”
“Can’t you be the one to speak to him…? He doesn’t have the best impression of me… In fact he’s said very mean things while thinking about me…” she whined before he looked at her sternly.
“Now don’t be like that. He just doesn’t understand you yet Celia. I’m sure he’ll like you if he just gets to know you better. This way you’ll both build confidence in your relationship,” he lied through his teeth, choosing the lesser evil with a warm smile on his face.
Her eyes lit up in excitement at his encouragement.
I’m so sorry hero. I’ve done what I can, so you’ll just have to survive my failure daughter’s personality for now. He thought in sorrow and pity while casually selling out the poor man.