In the Kingdom of Kaivan, a massive event was unfolding.
Many homes in the poorer districts were suddenly set ablaze, and numerous families were brutally slaughtered—particularly those belonging to the Jones family. Many former knights were hunted down and killed; it was a massive massacre the kingdom had not witnessed for a long time.
The reason was simple, or so the newspapers put it:
"Margret Philip, daughter of the late former king, was furious at her father's final will appointing his brother Roselle as king in her place. She planned a coup, intending to kill the king and reclaim the throne she believed was rightfully hers. The king monitored her movements, and, through his secret channels, uncovered everyone who had participated in or supported Margret's coup; they were all executed on charges of treason against the kingdom."
When people read the newspapers, they all cursed and reviled Margret, saying she was the cause of this chaos; some laughed at her death; others spread rumours that she had been working as a nightclub prostitute and had gathered a following of lustful men who fulfilled her every whim; whilst still others claimed that she had married Athtar merely as a pretext to win over the entire Jones family. But where the rumours had come from, and when they had begun, no one knew.
All that remained of this incident was that the late Margret had been branded a great traitor to the kingdom.
....
A few hours passed, and the sun began to set. The carriage carried Athtar, Christie and the maid, whilst the portly coachman drove off with the head butler.
The carriage came to an abrupt halt. There were two horsemen from the Kingdom of Kaivan. The coachman began speaking quietly with the horsemen; he had already revealed Christie's identity to them. So, after some back-and-forth, and a warning that Athtar was in the vicinity, the carriage drove off, and the two horsemen continued on their patrol.
Silence reigned in the carriage. Christie and the maid were chatting, whilst Athtar stared straight ahead as if lost in thought, although he was not.
[ Mission 1 ]
[ Successfully evade the horsemen and stay alive until nightfall ]
[ Difficulty Level ]
[ Medium ]
[ Reward ]
[ Location of the fragment of consciousness ]
[ Progress bar – 80% ]
Upon seeing the progress bar, Athtar thought the mission would end around midnight or thereabouts, given that it had begun at roughly dawn.
With that in mind, he closed the window and opened the window for the other mission.
[ Mission 2 ]
[ Rescue Lady Christie, daughter of Duke Williams… and return her safely to her home ]
[ Reward ]
[ Unlock Body Path ]
[ Progress Bar – 0.7% ]
After noticing the slight changes, he sighed briefly. The Kingdom of Seiya lay to the south of the Kingdom of Kaivan, which was situated in the north of the continent, so the journey there would take some time.
"What do you say, Mr Athtar?"
Athtar heard a voice and raised his head to look at Christie; with a thought, the system screen vanished.
"Hmm?"
"We were talking about the possibility of staying the night in the next town we come across… I've heard they serve delicious food… rivalling royal cuisine."
Christie seemed eager to try some delicious food, and Athtar replied with a slight nod.
"I'll be taking a short trip into town whilst you're there. Let's agree on a time to meet before you leave, as I have somewhere to go…"
"Won't you be coming with us?"
"I'm a wanted man… If I show my face, someone might recognise me, and that would only cause you trouble…"
Christie understood what he was saying, and it did make sense. Sometimes she forgot that this man was so wanted that he had become a top priority for the kingdom he came from, and there was no other large kingdom nearby apart from Kaivan.
"All right, I understand…"
Christie seemed a little sad; Athtar didn't seem to mind, because if it weren't for the mission, he wouldn't have agreed to come all this way just to travel with them or accompany them—he would have been content simply to help them and then leave.
[ Notification ]
[ Lady Christie seems sad, and this may affect the journey in the long run. Do something to cheer her up. ]
[ Reward ]
[ Purify part of the mana corruption spreading through your body ]
When Athtar read the new mission that had suddenly appeared, his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
'When did I become infected with mana corruption? I've never faced a demon in my life! How is this possible?'
Athtar raised his hand, then gathered a small amount of mana from his body. When the mana coalesced into its original, unaltered form, Athtar opened his eyes to see a faint purple aura surrounding his mana.
'What?!! When did this happen? How did I become corrupted?'
He tried to ask the system, a thought forming in his mind, but a specific screen appeared before him.
[ The source of the corruption is currently unknown. The host is requested to update the system first ]
The message was cold, and Athtar felt slightly annoyed; he had to find a fragment of consciousness to be able to update the system, and then he would know the cause of the corruption that had afflicted him.
'It doesn't seem as though this system is merely a tool, does it?'
His thoughts about the system seemed to be changing completely.
To Christie and the maid, Athtar simply seemed distracted; and since neither of them had opened any of the Mana Paths, they would be unable to see the Mana—unless it was something immense, in which case they might even sense it.
Athtar raised his head and looked at Christie, who noticed his gaze and looked back at him with some curiosity.
"Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to have dinner together, at least…"
He said coolly, looking at Christie, who opened her mouth slightly in surprise before smiling at him and nodding.
"Yes, that would be fine with me…"
As the carriage descended the hill, and as the daylight slowly faded, the walls of a small town came into view before both the portly coachman and the elderly servant, who informed Christie and Athtar that they had finally arrived.
Christie opened the window, looked out at the town and smiled slightly.
When she sat back down in her seat, Athtar asked a question that had been intriguing him for some time.
"By the way, since you're from the Kingdom of Seiya, what are you doing here? So far away from your kingdom? And without any guards, too…"
Christie listened to his question, then closed her eyes and looked away, as if recalling a memory she desperately wanted to forget. She sighed, then said in a voice full of disgust.
"I was on a secret mission to meet Duke James Michelle, of the Michelle family, regarding certain matters concerning trade between the two kingdoms. My father was unwell and bedridden, so I went in his place. Although the journey there was smooth, the return journey proved extremely difficult."
"Duke James Michelle?"
Athtar remembered him only vaguely. He was a fat man with blue hair and blue eyes, a pervert who loved young girls and kept dozens of young girls as his harem.
"Were… you all right?"
As soon as Athtar asked this question, Christie felt a little more disgusted and her face turned pale.
"Yes, I rejected him outright, but he didn't do anything suspicious—at least not to me…"
Just remembering his palace, which was filled with girls her own age or younger, made her feel deeply disgusted, and although the negotiations had gone well, all Christie wanted to do was leave the mansion as quickly as possible. She didn't stay there a single night, spending every night in a hotel despite Duke James's attempts to show his goodwill towards her by hosting her properly.
Athtar didn't reply, merely looking away. A few minutes later, they finally reached the city.
To avoid any mishaps, Athtar hid amongst the provisions at the back of the carriage; the mere mention of Duke Williams's name was enough to tell the guards that this girl was not someone to be trifled with, and the fact that she was from the Kingdom of Seiya would make it difficult to link her to the fugitive the Kingdom of Kaivan was searching for.
After they entered the city, Athtar emerged from his hiding place and returned to the room where Christie and her maid were sitting.
He sat alone with his eyes closed, whilst Christie smiled at him slightly.
They arrived at a rather upmarket inn, and the elderly servant spoke to the innkeeper to book two rooms: one for Christie and her personal maid, and one for the elderly servant and Athtar.
Athtar had no intention of staying the night there anyway, so he didn't mind whatever arrangement they agreed upon.
In the lower hall, Athtar and Christie sat at a table, whilst the maid and the elderly servant sat at another table nearby.
The dishes on the table consisted of various kinds of food, and Christie was delighted to try food that was new to her, whilst Athtar ate in silence, responding to Christie's enthusiasm with a slight nod from time to time.
Dinner ended, and they both went to their rooms to sleep. At exactly midnight, whilst the elderly servant was fast asleep in the bed next to his, two notifications arrived for Athtar.
[ Notification ]
[ Lady Christie seems sad, and this could affect the journey in the long run. Do something to cheer her up. ]
[ Completed ]
[ Would you like to claim your reward now? ]
[ Yes / No ]
Athtar considered hiding the notification; the window disappeared, then the other window appeared.
[ Mission 1 ]
[ Successfully escape from the horsemen and stay alive until nightfall ]
[ Completed ]
[ Would you like to claim your reward? ]
[ Yes / No ]
Athtar thought 'Yes', and suddenly all the windows closed. Athtar's eyes narrowed slightly, but suddenly another screen appeared, displaying a white progress bar.
[ Checking... ]
The white bar continued to move slowly but steadily, and after three minutes, the download finished. The screen went blank, and a new screen appeared, showing two locations linked to one another.
Athtar immediately realised that these two locations—his own and that of the fragment of consciousness—were interconnected.
He got out of bed, went to the window and opened it quietly, then jumped down from where he was standing.
The floor he jumped from was close to the ground, so Athtar was unharmed. He calmly brushed the dust off his clothes and studied the map.
He identified which of the two locations was moving—which he assumed was his own—then began to walk. Noticing that he was moving away from it, he changed direction, and in this way he followed the correct path.
Once he had found the correct direction on the map, he began walking in that direction.
Unfortunately for him, someone spotted him—someone who was not a complete stranger: the bandit leader, who was now holding a newspaper. He smiled slyly and began walking towards the authorities' building to report Athtar. The twenty knights Athtar had previously evaded had already arrived in the city with wanted posters and were resting there.
As for Athtar, he continued on his way, oblivious to everything happening around him; he did not believe that anyone would recognise him straight away, and newspapers had not yet become widely circulated in this city.
When Athtar left the city, he realised that the place he was looking for was still a long way off. He'd expected this journey to take him some time, and he'd hoped to manage it and be back before morning at the very least, so he walked calmly through the forest.
As he walked, he opened the window for Lady Christie's completed quest and, on a whim, pressed the 'Yes' button, causing the system screen to change slowly.
[ Notification ]
[ Part of the corrupted mana is being purified ]
Athtar suddenly felt the mana within his body, as well as the mana in the surrounding air, begin to violently clash; a quantity of violet-coloured mana was drawn out from within his body.
As soon as the corrupted mana entered the air, it seemed as though the pure mana rejected it; it began to fade slowly, and the corruption vanished from it.
Athtar's aura ceased to surge, and the mana within his body settled. He sighed slightly as he looked at his hand, gathering a small amount of mana, and noticed that its colour had become less intense than he had seen before.
'What an astonishing ability! It might take a month to purify even a small amount of corrupted mana under the strict supervision of the Bishops at the church, but this system purified the exact same amount in a single second?'
Each time, Athtar was increasingly astonished by this strange system, and found himself wondering more and more about the entity that had created it and placed him within it.
Athtar wasn't concerned with trying to understand it just yet; he had to become strong enough to do so first.
As he began to walk, a sudden notification popped up from the system, and for the first time, the screen turned red.
[ ALERT!!! ]
[ Host is being targeted ]
[ Please leave the area immediately ]
These alerts made Athtar much more cautious, and he immediately ran into the forest, hiding from whatever might be causing this unusual alert.
He found a small ledge, threw himself onto it quickly, and lay completely still, only to suddenly hear the sound of several horses approaching, as if they were shaking the ground.
"Did he go that way? Are you sure?"
"Yes, I saw him with my own eyes!"
When Athtar heard the familiar voice, his eyes narrowed slightly; he recognised the voice of the bandit leader from that morning who'd caused him trouble and then fled.
The sounds of the horses began to recede and fade until Athtar could no longer hear them; nevertheless, he remained silent for a little while longer, and when he emerged, everything was quiet.
Athtar examined the tracks and felt a twinge of anxiety. There had been around twenty horsemen—a number against which Athtar would be powerless, and he would end up dead, just like the first time.
'The only solution is to reach the location of the fragment of consciousness before they do and update the system. There might be a chance to escape or put up a fight…'
As he thought about the map, the red screen vanished, replaced by a blue one showing his location and that of the Fragment of Consciousness. He was still a long way off, but if he took the longer route, he might arrive first—and, at the very least, it might throw them off his trail.
"Right then… it's time to get the Fragment of Consciousness…"
He whispered encouragingly to himself, then began walking towards the location, this time taking care with every step he took.
.
.
.
To Be Continued.