READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 3: A deal with Aurora
Time seemed to stop as the tutorial guide revealed herself.
“How did you know I was here?” Aurora asked with sparkling eyes.
“That’s a secret,” Zyrus looked at her with a smug face. He knew exactly how to deal with this troublesome guide.
“Is that so? I’ll give you a reward if you tell me.” She hovered around him, flapping her butterfly wings.
“Still no.” Zyrus refused without a second thought. Her biggest weakness was her curiosity.
“Humph! Do you think I’m weak just because I’m asking you nicely? I can kill you with a flick of my finger you know.” she threatened Zyrus as she released a vast amount of mana.
“Bite me.”
“Urgh.. Why you little-”
“You’re one to talk,” Zyrus laughed as he saw Aurora puffing her cheeks. She pestered him a lot last time, but in the end he had figured out that she couldn’t use her powers to harm someone!
Not to mention she was also one of his allies, one of the many he wasn’t able to protect.
“Whatever, who wants to know about your crappy secret,” she grunted in annoyance and started to fly away.
“Wait! What about the deal?”
“Spill it.” Aurora couldn’t flat-out reject the deal even if she wanted to.
“I want to synthesize the goblin’s corpses.”
“Stupid. Why would you want this trash? Besides, can you even afford that? Huh?” She replied while looking at him with disdain.
‘Did I tease her too much?’ Zyrus sighed at her rude but truthful remarks.
“I need their blood essence. I’m willing to give up on my rewards for that.”
“All seven of them? With your strength, you’ll receive pretty decent rewards. You sure you want to give those up?"
Zyrus knew that the first-ranked rewards would be more than just “decent”. However, he had other means to achieve them.
“I need the blood more than those. Also, I’d like to make another deal. A personal one.”
“Oh? What would that be?” Aurora raised her eyebrows at his serious face,
“I’ll want to exchange a class selection scroll for 100C.”
“What do I get from that?”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Hehehe… you are a funny human. Yes, I’d like to see what you do with that,” She gave him a mischievous grin and waved her hand.
All of the goblin corpses disappeared from the site, replaced by a glass bottle filled with green blood in her hand.
“Take it. I’ll be watching you, fufufu…”
‘Success!’ Zyrus looked at the bottle in his inventory with satisfaction. He knew she would make the next deal, he just had to satisfy her curiosity.
‘First things first, I should distribute my SP,’ Zyrus decided and Spoke, “Status.”
He had to become stronger if he wanted to carry out his plan.
Status:
[Name: Zyrus Wymar]
[Race: Human]
[Class: None]
[Level: 3]
Exp: 490/3375
[Title: None]
[Achievement: First Blood in tutorial, Goblin Slayer]
[Talent: None]
[Strength: 7]
[Agility: 7]
[Vitality: 7]
[Intelligence: 7]
[SP: 10]
HP: 70
Crit rate: 10%
Crit damage: 100%
[Basic Spear]
ATK: 30
[Basic Armor]
DEF: 50
Currency: 38C
[Ration x1]
[Goblin’s Blood essence x1]
‘Let’s see… I’ll save three of them for emergency and use the rest of them.’
He wanted to save his SP for mana stat, but he decided to use them for now. He spent two points on everything except Vitality. He didn’t need more health for the time being.
He was thinking about where to go next when Kyle and Lauren came back with their rewards.
“You don’t want yours? We got some amazing stuff,” Lauren asked as she wanted to know his reason for not getting the reward.
“I made a deal with Aurora, so I can’t have any.” Zyrus shrugged as he told them the truth.
“Can we do that? How did you call her?” asked Kyle.
“Well, you just call her. It depends on her mood whether she responds or not.”
“Really? I thought it would be a complicated process,”
“And why are YOU so curious about her?” Lauren elbowed Kyle with a sharp glare.
“H-hey I was just curious about this place that’s all.”
“Is that so…”
“You two seem to be in a good mood.”
“Of course! We learned a lot about combat and survival thanks to you,” Kyle replied with enthusiasm.
“You’ll like our next destination even more than. I plan to train there until I develop the basic spear skills.”
“Can we do that? Developing a skill on our own?” Lauren was curious as she wanted a skill for her knives as well.
“Mhm. Sanctuary rewards all of your efforts. Leveling up is just a part of it. A good portion of your strength will come from your achievements.”
“Achievements? How do we get them?” Kyle was excited about anything that could make him stronger.
“By completing feats that are recognized by the system, like killing a hundred goblins, jumping from a thousand feet, completing missions and dungeons in a special way, exploring new regions there’s a lot of stuff,” Zyrus looked at them and continued,
“If you have a crafting class, you can create new weapons, potions, and even a variety of food to get an achievement. They gave out different rewards, the most common one being SP.”
“You know a lot of stuff despite being the same age as us.” Lauren looked at him with admiration.
“Look at you, behaving like a fangirl now.” Kyle retorted with a side eye.
“Oh my, Are you feeling jealous?” Lauren pinched his cheeks while smiling,
“Nope. He looks at us as if we were kids.”
‘Things will be more lively with these two around,’ Zyrus curled his lips as he moved towards the forest. Rather than the dangers of the sanctuary, he found interacting with others more troublesome. It had been centuries since he last talked with another human on the same level.
He hadn't thought that it would be so tiring to blend in with the others. He was used to act like a king, but now, he had to live again as a young man in his twenties. It wouldn't do him any good if he acted the same way when he was at his peak.
“Wait a minute! We need to talk,”
Zyrus frowned as he saw the blonde-haired man coming towards him with his 'followers'.
“Do you want something?” Zyrus asked but he knew the answer already.
“Can you tell us where are you going?” the man asked politely.
“To train.”
“You seem to know a lot about this ‘Sanctuary’, but shouldn’t we move in a group?” the man asked with a fake smile.
“I prefer moving alone. Besides, you’ll be safer if you stay here.”
“Alone? Aren’t these two coming with you?” he pointed his arm at Kyle and Lauren.
Zyrus was getting annoyed by this point as the man kept wasting his time. He didn't want to behave arrogantly, but how dare a mere nobody question him?
“Again, What do you want?” he glared at the man with cold eyes.
“Nothing much. It looks like you’re monopolizing information from us. It would be better for humanity’s survival if we moved together, no?” the man spoke as he looked at the crown behind him.
A lot of people agreed with him. They weren’t scheming like him, but they knew they had a higher chance of survival if they stayed with Zyrus.
“I suppose you’re right for the first part,” Zyrus spoke as he moved towards the crowd.
Kyle had a bad premonition so he held Lauren’s hand and moved away from the people.
*Clap* Clap*
“Listen up everyone. I’ll tell you how to survive in this hell.”
Zyrus waited till everyone’s eyes were on him and continued,
“You see that flame over there right? All you have to do is to keep it burning. Monsters like goblins and kobolds will come to attack that, and you’ll have to fight them.”
People listened, and he spoke again,
“You must kill them and become stronger. The more you kill the more rewards you get, Rewards will make you strong and the cycle will repeat, Pretty simple right? You don’t need me to tell you what’ll happen if you don’t keep up.”
Zyrus walked towards the blonde man who was staring daggers at him.
“Is that all?”
“Of course not, I’ll give them some practical training as well.” Zyrus smiled at the man and took out his spear.
“What do yo- ugh” his words were cut short as a spear penetrated his heart.
-4
-20
“Eeekkk”
“Wh-what are you doing!”
“Stop him!”
“It's impolite to interrupt someone who’s teaching, y'know that right?” Zyrus looked at everyone with the same smile.
People were terrified of his smile. To kill someone with that expression was just… creepy. No one dared to move a muscle and looking at that, Zyrus continued.
“Some of you might have figured out how weakness and critical hits work, did you look at the numbers here?”
-20
Zyrus pointed at the red number and everyone gulped. The blonde man had already fainted.
“You see at first it only dealt 4 damage, the rest being negated by his basic armor. However, once you strike a weak point, you can deal continuous damage as well.”
-20
Zyrus took out his spear and cleaned it with the man’s clothes.
“I’ve even removed this trash from your group. He would’ve led you to your death with his greed, greed without strength to back it up.”
He placed his spear on his back and stood up,
“Aren’t I a benevolent person? No need to thank me though.” Zyrus waved his hand and left the people behind.
…
The trio walked a few hundred meters when Lauren finally spoke, unable to keep quiet about the incident.
“Was that necessary?”
“Yes. Both for me and for them” Zyrus replied as he reminisced about his past, bittersweet memories kept flashing by in his eyes.
‘I had spent half of my life to help the weak and saved millions of lives. However, What did it give me? Nothing but wounds on my back,’ Zyrus remembered his last moment in the sanctuary very clearly.
He hadn’t forgotten the traitors who had betrayed him. The very people he saved had turned their backs on him. They told him to give up on his dreams, his love, and finally, his life. All for the so-called “Greater Good”.
He changed after that. He became the Void Monarch from that point onwards, the man who had fought against everyone and everything in the seven rings of the sanctuary.
However, he wasn’t the nice guy who had helped everyone on the tutorial anymore. His starting point was different compared to the last time.
“Where are we going by the way?” Kyle asked, trying to change the tense atmosphere. He wasn't bothered with the killing at all. The strong prayed on the weak, it was the same in human society as well. The only difference between the two was that here one can change their fate.
Zyrus turned around at looked at them. It wasn't hard to guess that they had their own struggles and hardships. Despite that though, they still had innocence in their eyes. He wished that they could keep that, but this shithole wouldn’t allow that.
“We’re going to ‘Celestia’s cradle’. It’s a beautiful place.”
“What types of monsters are there?” Lauren asked as she followed behind them,
“We’re going to fight the ‘professional punching bags’ of the tutorial.”