Chapter Five A Clear Morning
2014-11-28
Author: Zhuseng Futu
Soren quietly returned home. Vivian was still sleeping peacefully in bed, a faint smile on her lips, but then suddenly, as if dreaming of something unpleasant, a trace of fear appeared on her fair little face, and she murmured, “Brother! … Don’t go!… Don’t leave me!…”
“Don’t!”
“Don’t catch me! … You are all bad people! …”
“Hess … bite them! …”
“Wuwuwu.”
“Hess … what’s wrong? … Don’t scare me …”
Vivian waved her little hands around randomly, her eyes still closed, but her slender arms seemed to want to hug something.
Soren, who was about to change out of his blood-soaked clothes, hurried over and gently patted the little girl’s back with his palm, but it seemed he touched something, and pain immediately flashed across Vivian’s little face. Soren quickly lifted her clothes and immediately saw a dark purple bruise gradually turning black on her back. It was a scar from being beaten hard with a stick, the blood inside becoming black as it could not dissolve.
In an instant!
Soren’s expression darkened immensely, and a strong killing intent erupted in his eyes. He lovingly caressed Vivian’s cheek, carefully lowered her clothes, and murmured, “Silly girl!”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
Such a heavy injury.
She actually endured it without telling him, probably because she was afraid he would worry.
The bruise on her back had already turned black; she must have been injured for some time. The little girl was actually able to take care of herself with such an injury for so long. Soren thought of this, and the corners of his eyes couldn’t help but moisten slightly, a warmth he had never felt before within him. The welfare of the interstellar age was good enough that children didn’t need parental care, and familial affection was very familiar yet strange to him!
But in this little girl, he felt a warm current in his heart.
He was a person who went with the flow.
The bits and pieces of the past half a month had already formed a deep bond between him and the little girl in front of him, and he didn’t miss his past lonely life as strongly as before.
“It’s alright.”
“Tomorrow you will feel better.”
Soren gently stroked Vivian’s little head, calming her as she was having a nightmare, and whispered, “Tomorrow I’ll help you find healing potions, this little injury is definitely not a problem, there won’t be any scars.” Vivian gradually quieted down.
Soren stood up and took off his clothes, revealing a body of lean and solid muscles. He threw the blood-soaked clothes into the stove and then looked at the many scars on his body in silence. It seemed that Soren had also lived a very hard life before. A young boy had to take care of a three-year-old sister, a normal way of living was almost impossible.
He had fought and killed people!
At just eighteen years old, the young man had densely packed dozens of scars on his body, who knows how many times he had escaped death.
These scars were all left from street fights, and some were whip marks from being caught while stealing.
Although he was just an ordinary boy, what he had experienced was probably more battered than many professional adventurers!
Faint firelight flickered.
Soren changed into a clean set of clothes. Vivian was a very diligent little girl; though only eight years old, she often did what she could manage.
The house was always kept spotlessly clean, and the clothes were neatly folded.
He reached out and touched his own cheek, feeling his handsome features; his ears were a bit sharper than the average person because Soren’s father had a quarter bloodline of half-elf. So he must also have one-eighth of elven blood. This was why he was nimbler than many ordinary people, as the agility of elves was almost innate.
The darkness could not obstruct Soren’s vision!
Almost all half-elves had a certain degree of night vision; they were the best assassins in the shadows.
“Not a bad foundation.”
Soren moved his wrists as the dagger danced on his fingertips, drawing arcs of cold light. “Although there isn’t a professional hero template, and attributes cannot be redistributed, the overall quality is better than many.”
“The only drawback is strength.”
“The attributes of ordinary people are around 10 points; 12 points of strength is roughly comparable to workers loading at the docks.”
“He probably hasn’t intentionally trained, relying entirely on skills to face everything!”
“Agility is very high!”
“But if there’s no formal combat training, high agility is not as useful as high strength.”
“At least strength can directly solve the opponent!”
Soren switched the dagger to another hand, the rapidly dancing dagger almost turned into an afterimage, and his left hand was extraordinarily agile, even stronger than his right hand.
This was a natural talent!
If he could train a little, he could master the dual-wield specialization, which is a nice combat ability.
“Skill improvement requires experience.”
Soren’s figure gradually became hazy in the darkness, and he whispered, “It seems there are no tasks for now, so the ways to gain experience are much fewer.”
“But killing should still be able to gain experience.”
“Who knows.”
“Whether the rogue’s lock-picking skill and trap-disarming skill can gain experience.”
Killing experience.
This is a high-level experience, which can be distributed to all professions, part-time jobs, and job templates!
As for the experience gained from a rogue picking locks or disarming traps, that is merely a lower-level occupational experience, only usable for improving the rogue’s level.
Similarly, the experience gained from a wizard copying arcane scrolls is the same.
Gaining experience in “Gods’ War” is not an easy task. Relying solely on monster kills yields little experience. Sometimes a legendary-level adventure challenge may end with targets being adult dragons or liches, and the final experience gained would only be tens of thousands, barely enough to increase one or two professional levels. Back then, it took Soren several years to reach the legendary domain as a rogue, having killed three dragons and six liches along the way.
Out of those who worked together throughout this journey, only one-third survived!
The others were all forced into the cycle of the River of Underworld.
“Universal Skillful Hand.”
A gleam appeared in Soren’s eyes, and he said seriously, “I wonder when the weakness after soul resurrection will be eliminated. If I can master Universal Skillful Hand again, my strength should greatly increase!”
The night deepened.
Soren put the dagger away, placing it in a spot where he could grab it at any time, and then he carefully crawled up to the bed.
Vivian’s little body unconsciously nestled into his arms and then murmured in her dreams, wrapping her slender arms around his arm.
A night passed.
Soren was awakened by a slight movement. Vivian tilted her little head and looked at him for a while, then a sweet smile appeared on her lips.
She carefully climbed down from the bed, but when her back brushed against her injury, a hint of pain crossed her little face. Then she bent down to put on her shabby cloth shoes, picked up a broom, and began to clean the room, wiping down the simple furniture. When she saw the bloodstains on the floor, a trace of fear emerged on her little face, and she quickly ran over to lift the blanket, ensuring that Soren was not injured before she patted her chest and wiped the blood clean with a rag.
As long as it wasn’t Soren who was hurt and bleeding, that was enough; everything else she did not care about!
When she was very small, Soren had once fought with a group of older children over a silver coin he had found.
Soren was surrounded by a bunch of big kids, and as they kicked and hit him, she hid in a corner crying. She was too young to have any strength; gathering her courage, she picked up a stone and threw it at the oldest kid leading them. The angry big boy slapped her, and her face immediately swelled up; a baby tooth was knocked out.
She still remembered the situation, even though she was very small at the time!
Soren, seeing her lying on the ground, seemingly crazed, suddenly lunged at the big kid like a wild beast and bit down on his ear.
The bloody ear was bitten off!
With bloodshot eyes, Soren picked up a stone and smashed it onto the kid’s head, continued until he was drenched in blood, and terrified Vivian rushed over to grab him; it was only then that the big kid was not killed on the spot.
Although he still died in the end.
The corpse was found many days later, floating in a dirty ditch outside the slums, unrecognizable from its original form.
They had lived very difficult lives; they had nothing but each other!
Vivian didn’t care whether Soren was a thief, if he had committed crimes, or if he had killed someone because she was willing to bear half of all the sins he carried!
………………
Vivian carefully cleaned the room.
When she saw the empty rice sack, a hint of worry appeared on her little face, but she quickly murmured to herself, “Brother has already woken up.”
“Soon, it will be filled to the brim with rice and wheat!”
She believed in Soren; it was an unconditional trust!
She had gone hungry and even had periods of frequent hunger, but her brother had never let her down, even when eating food stained with his blood was very difficult for her.
Yet she still firmly believed that as long as her brother was there, everything would be okay.
Yes.
Everything would be okay.
So she quickly set aside that small worry, gently humming an off-tune song, cleaning everything in the room until it was spotless.
Soren slowly got up.
He put on his grayish-white worn-out clothes and lovingly touched Vivian’s little head, saying softly, “Stay home obediently today.”
“In a couple of days, we’ll move to live in the city.”
Vivian nodded gently, a hint of joy appearing on her face. She never thought about how difficult it would be to move from the slums to the city.
That required a large sum of money and a free citizen status!
She believed in Soren.
Because what Soren said he would always accomplish!
Even if there were some things he couldn’t achieve, it wasn’t his fault; it was because there were too many bad people in this world.
The morning sunlight spilled over the humble, dilapidated house.
Soren used a dagger to slice the hard, rock-like black bread from the night before into pieces of various sizes, while Vivian stood on tiptoe on a short stool, taking down the cooked rice porridge. Due to her small strength, her body swayed a bit, and Soren smiled and steadied her, reaching out to take the shabby ceramic pot from her.
The little girl looked up, her fair little face shining in the sunlight as she smiled sweetly at him, showing two shallow dimples.
Everything was so beautiful!
