Aldred was taking a walk around the area. He got bored of playing chess. Since he had the highest intelligence, he easily defeated Mary, Mareona, Sophia, and Mira. Especially Mareona. Defeating her was too damn easy.
He had some close calls against Mary though. Her creative maneuver in moving the chess pieces shocked him at times. Thankfully, he had the godly eyes to predict the possible scenarios that might happen.
Suddenly, Aldred heard a shout.
"You bastard! Unhand me!"
The leader grinned and laughed. "Not until you take off those clothes." His eyes glanced at the snow white thigh of the girl, and was about to grab it.
Raff stopped his hand and stared at him. "You've gone too far. We will leave now."
The leader glared at him. "Leave your woman here. No need to lose your life for this."
"She's my sister." Raff's expression turned dark.
"You sister?" The leader grinned. "That's even better. Leave her here, and you will live."
Raff was angered and slapped the man's hand off from his sister's arm.
Aldred and Pongo were watching this from a distance.
"Seems like they have a little conflict, Pongo."
"That dude obviously lusted for the girl," Pongo said, finally talking with proper language.
"Well, she does look beautiful," Aldred said.
"Shut up, you degenerate. Your brain is filled with too much stain."
"Said a penguin who rubs his own head against' women's breast. You also did that to the female soldiers right?"
Pongo snorted. "You will never understand a cultured penguin like me."
Suddenly, a powerful clash resounded and Aldred saw the brother was fighting against the leader of the adventure group.
"Eat this, you fool!" The leader shouted as he swung his sword.
The brother gritted his teeth and blocked.
BOOM! An explosion rang out, startling a lot of people in the area. When they saw that it was a fight, they ignored it and returned to what they were doing.
It was none of their business anyway.
Clang! Metal against metal resounded through the air. A gust of cold wind swept the place, blowing the snow into the air.
"I didn't come here to fight another man," the brother said.
"Haha. If you don't want to fight then leave your sister. I can already imagine my hands on her, ripping her clothes and ravaging her."
The brother's eyes turned bloodshot. "I have tolerated you enough. The old priest didn't give me this power to kill, but to survive."
Clang! Clang! Clang!!
The brother's body glowed brighter and brighter as his attack become stronger with a powerful aura rippling in all directions. The fight seemed to tilt to the brother's advantage.
"They're not bad. Not as strong as Bartrem and the soldiers, but they're fine," Aldred commented.
"You're not going to help?" Pongo asked.
Aldred looked at the battle with a frown. This had nothing to do with him, but something inside his heart told him to do something. He smiled inwardly. It must be because of Mira. Her teaching had struck him deep.
"If the situation escalates, I will help. I don't think they're going to kill each other. Look, the brother is winning anyway."
"Die!" The leader shouted. "Rock Breaking Slash!"
The ground under their feet cracked and it cascaded to Aldred's little snow hill before blowing up a lot of snow.
Aldred and Pongo were fully covered by snow before they shook it off.
"That bastard," Aldred said. "I will bury his tent with snow later."
"You're a vengeful spirit. Mira's teaching doesn't do enough to clean your soul?" Pongo asked.
"Shut up, Pongo."
"Divine Slash!" A powerful golden light enveloped the sword before slashing against the leader. The leader gritted his teeth and took out a small trinket that created a magic shield to block the sword.
Crack! The transparent magic shield shattered along with the trinket.
"It's very interesting what those small trinkets can do," Aldred said. "How do they make them?"
The fight continued for hours with the brother slowly getting more advantage.
"This is boring. The brother is going to win sooner or later. I am leaving," Aldred said.
Pongo shrugged and followed him.
Suddenly, Aldred heard another scream.
"NO! Brother!"
Aldred looked back and saw the leader's sword went through the brother's chest. At first, Aldred thought it was impossible, but then he saw the subordinates were using chains to lock the brother's limb.
"You cheated," the brother said before coughing out blood.
The leader grinned. "I never said it's going to be a duel."
"Bastard! I will kill you!" The sister pulled out her white swords and slashed.
The leader laughed, pulled out his sword from the brother's body, and parried. He easily blocked her strike one after another, before grabbing her shoulder and then ripped a layer of her armor.
The leader's eyes turned to lust. "I cannot wait to get you in bed tonight."
"Alright, this has gone too far."
Everyone looked to the side to see a boy and a penguin approaching them.
The leader narrowed his eyes. "A boy?"
"You never heard of me?" Aldred asked, surprised as everyone usually had heard about him.
"Leave this place, boy. I don't mind giving your face a kick if you stay."
The sister glanced at the boy. "What is a boy doing in this place? Leave this place, child. You might get hurt."
Aldred was slightly surprised. She still had the thought to think about others' well being? She started to sound like Mira now.
That made him more motivated to help her.
"Hey," Aldred called. "We all know where this is going. I will defeat you. You cried for your mom and requested to drink her milk, so why don't you guys leave and preserve your dignity?"
Someone noticed Aldred was confronting another group and ran to call for his friends. These people knew Aldred's power, because of that, they quickly ran to not miss the show.
Suddenly, the place became buzzing with onlookers.
The leader was uncomfortable with a lot of people showing up. What if they want to take the woman as well?
"Hey, I am talking to you, dipshit."
The leader's face turned dark. How dare the boy humiliate him in front of a lot of people. "Men, kill him."
One man walked up to him with a calm smile. He thought nothing of the boy.
He was a fool. He should have thought of how a normal boy could climb this mountain.
Everyone that managed to reach this height must have exceptional power or treasures.
When the man reached Aldred and was about to attack, his head fell off before a straight line of light appeared horizontally on his neck.
The onlookers were shocked. What happened? They did not see the boy moved yet the man's head fell just like that?
The sword master among the audience were even more shocked as they realized the high-level of mastery needed to execute that strike.
The leader frowned. "What did you just do?"
Aldred smiled. "I did nothing."
The leader called out for his men again, and three of them charged at Aldred. When they reached five meters in front of him, flames suddenly engulfed them and they turned into black dust.
Now it was the fire magicians' turn to become shocked. Fire combustion was not a simple spell, and to turn a human into dust in less than a second was nothing but incredible.
The leader was shocked again. This boy wasn't ordinary. He glanced to the sides and noticed his subordinates were trembling in fear.
This was no good. He had to show them the confidence of a leader. "You did it now boy. I will be the one who kills you."
The leader's body shone with a powerful aura and his feet leaped off the ground.
Aldred smiled. "Blood Manipulation."
Suddenly, the leader's body bent in a weird way and it snapped his bones.
"AHH!" The leader screamed before he fell to the snow. "What did you do to me?"
"I did nothing." Aldred smiled. This time, his smile was that of a demon torturing the sinner.
The leader felt great fear in his heart, and suddenly, his limbs were bent even more. "AHH! It hurt!"
Aldred summoned Nicky, Will, and Teethless. The three giant creatures in their undead form stared at the leader.
He was scared out of his life when he saw them.
"Now, if you don't want to get eaten by these beasts, give me all of your money."
The leader gritted his teeth. "Men, save me!"
His subordinates flinched and their feet trembled. After a few seconds, they all ran away.
"Sorry, leader, but we still want to live."
"Traitor!"
"You're asking your subordinates to save you from these beasts?" Aldred laughed. "That's like saying you want to bring them to death along with you. Of course they will refuse, you balls sack."
"I love balls!" Someone shouted from a distance.
"You shut up or I will throw you off the mountain."
Aldred coughed and pretended he heard nothing. "I don't have all day. Give me everything you have or you will be eaten by these beasts."
The leader frowned, and then grinned. He believed the boy wouldn't kill him. Otherwise, he would have done it by now. "Kill me then."
"Okay. Nicky, eat him."
"Eh?" The leader did not expect that.
The giant velobra chomped on his shoulder.
"AHH! You ate my shoulder, bastard!"
The velobra was about to continue eating before the leader told them to wait.
"Wait! I will give you everything I have."
Aldred smiled. "That's more like it. By the way, I will also bring your subordinates back."
The leader looked behind him and noticed that a large pack of Gold Rank snow wolves were biting on his men's collar and brought them next to him.
"Now pay up or become a feast! Each of you has to give me at least 10 million gold coins or you will become wolf food."
Some of them flinched, while some sighed in relief. They walked up to him one by one and gave him their treasures and transferred the money to his adventurer card.
One man tried to be smart and said: "Sir, I accidentally locked my adventure card."
Aldred waved his finger and Nicky, the giant velobra chomped on his head.
Everyone there was shocked by his decisive action. There wasn't even a slight hesitation in there. With that as an example, no one tried to be smart and they became obedient pigs.
Aldred was smiling. 'Trying to trick me? Foolish. The one thing you should not try to trick is the demon.'
Each of them gave Aldred all their treasure and gold coins without saying anything.
And then someone came with cold sweats all over his body. "I don't have 10 million gold coins."
He closed his eyes expecting to be killed, but Aldred told him to stand beside him instead. That worried him even more. What would the boy do to him?
Those who could not give him 10 million gold were told to stand to the side. This was to scare the others to not trick him.
After a while, the extortio— the payment was finished.
"Okay, you guys can leave now."
The leader and his men let out a sigh of relief. Aldred glanced to the side, staring at the men who couldn't pay. They trembled in fear under his gaze.
"You guys can leave as well."
Same with their comrades, they were very relieved to hear that.
"But your leader has to pay the price for your release."
"What do I have to pay? I gave you everything."
"You still have your life, no?" Aldred glanced at him with demonic eyes.
"This is not fai—" His head was exploded by Will using his tentacles.
When the leader died, Ivette ran to her brother and hugged him. Her brother smiled as the wound on his stomach slowly recovered.
Aldred approached both of them. Raff smiled. "Thank you for helping us. You are a good person."
Ivette looked at the boy still with tears in her eyes. "Thank you. We are forever indebted to you."
Aldred looked at the siblings. His godly eyes detected divine energy within their bodies, and the both of them only recently came into power. This meant they both reached Gold Rank at such extreme speed. It wasn't as fast as him, but the comparison wasn't that far off.
Suddenly, the brother coughed out a mouthful of blood and his wound worsened.
"Brother!"
Aldred detected a small black energy running around inside the brother's body. Did the enemy use some sort of magic trinkets to put this spell? It seemed to be a curse type spell.
The golden energy tried to destroy the black energy, but it dodged swiftly while destroying anything in its path.
Aldred ran up to him and tried to save the man, but the black energy was too quick, and the brother coughed his last blood before he died.
Ivette looked at his hollow eyes in disbelief. Tears welled up inside her eyes and she hugged him. "Brother! Please save him! Anyone, please save him!""
Aldred bit his lips. It was too late to call Mira for help, the man had died. Even she couldn't bring back the dead to life.
But he can.
Aldred hesitated. Would it be fine to resurrect the man? What would the sister think about it? After all, becoming an undead changed their thought process slightly.
The sister cried on top of his brother. Aldred felt pain in his heart as he was reminded by his own sister. What if it was Dina who was crying on top of his corpse?
He would never want her to cry like this. With a sigh, Aldred put his hand on Ivette's shoulder. "I can help."
He raised his hand. "Arise."
Aldred manipulated the black mist to turn into golden light beforehand. He didn't want her to think that her brother was an undead. When the golden mist enlarged, a man stepped out with a smile.
Ivette ran up to her brother and hugged him. "Brother! You're alive!"
"I am alive." Raff laughed.
Aldred smiled as he looked at the two siblings reunite once again. "Tell me. Do you guys want the treasure?"
Raff shook his head. "We're just here to sell the astrolabe and pay our debt."
"How much is the debt?"
"It was supposed to be 12 copper coins, but the noble increased it to 20 million gold coins because of interest. I don't understand how interest works, but the noble said that it's supposed to be that way."
'What the hell! Even I isn't evil enough to increase the debt to more than 10 million times. That noble deserved to be killed.'
"What will happen if you fail to pay it?"
"Both of us will become his slave for sixty years." What Raff did not tell them was the noble did not want them to pay the debt at all, that was because the noble wanted to take his sister as a sex slave.
He trembled just by thinking about it. He had to protect his sister, but he wasn't strong enough. Raff glanced at the boy. When he was resurrected, all of his memories, emotions, and experiences entered him.
The boy was a good person, talented, powerful, and wealthy. A perfect criteria for his sister. If there was any man who fit for his sister, it had to be the boy. He hesitated whether to do it or not.
"Only 20 million? Consider it paid, but both of you have to help me in my journey. Do the both of you agree?"
The two siblings looked at each other and Raff nodded.
"Are you sure about this, brother?"
"I am sure,"
Ivette glanced at the boy. "But we are weaker than you. How can we possibly help."
Aldred smiled and said nothing. That was when she realized that the boy did not want their help at all. It was him who wanted to help them by letting her and her brother come along with him.
What a kind-hearted person. Powerful and kind. The boy was handsome as well. She blushed when she finally took a detailed look at his face.
"Ivette," Raff called.
"Yes?" Ivette looked up at him.
"What do you think of marrying the boy?"
"…"
