She was probably about fifteen or sixteen years old, the girl had hair the color of cherry blossoms.
Her innocent face, slightly flushed from a good night’s sleep, was undeniably alluring, still carrying traces of youthful naivety.
Most strikingly, her slender, unclothed body was entirely exposed to the air, her fair skin on full display—especially those perky little buttocks, which were particularly eye-catching.
***
Li Xian slowly opened his eyes, and this was the scene that greeted him.
Memories of the previous night surfaced in his mind.
Still half-asleep, the girl furrowed her brows slightly, her hands fumbling aimlessly as if searching for something.
“Mr. Li Xian… don’t… don’t leave me… wah—”
‘This girl has really latched onto me,’ he thought.
“Ah, seriously…” Li Xian sighed, picking up the blanket that had been kicked to the floor at some point during the night.
Without hesitation, he delivered a sharp slap to those plump, pale cheeks.
“Wake up. It’s time to get up.”
“Wah—” The stinging pain on her backside made her eyelashes flutter.
She let out a pitiful whimper before reluctantly opening her eyes.
When she saw Li Xian, she gave him a dazed, silly smile.
“Mr. Li Xian… just five more minutes, please… just a little longer…”
Mumbling drowsily, she closed her eyes again and instinctively curled up, burrowing back into Li Xian’s warm blankets.
Soon, her breathing evened out once more.
Li Xian’s eye twitched.
He yanked the blanket away and aimed another firm slap at that perfectly rounded target.
SMACK!
The crisp sound echoed through the room.
“Wahhh—!” This time, the sharp pain finally jolted her fully awake.
Clutching her butt, she squirmed on the bed, legs clamped tightly together, until the throbbing finally subsided.
“Mr. Li Xian, you can’t just hit a girl’s butt like that!” she protested, looking up at him with teary eyes.
“Is that really what you should be calling me?” Li Xian raised an eyebrow.
“Ah!” Sara’s face flushed as she remembered their previous agreement.
Biting her lip, she uttered a soft, embarrassed whisper.
“M-Master…”
Stammering, she scrambled to sit up.
“I… Sara will get up right away…” Her face burned red as she fumbled awkwardly.
Li Xian’s expression shifted slightly, turning somewhat strange.
He took a deep breath, raised his hand high, and brought it down with another resounding—
SMACK!!!
This time, Sara was truly in tears.
She curled into a ball, hastily turning to hide her butt while clutching it with both hands, trembling in pain.
Her pitiful, tearful eyes looked up at Li Xian, but she didn’t dare speak, move, or even ask why—she just shivered helplessly.
Seeing her like this, Li Xian found it impossible to stay angry.
He rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“Before you say anything else, maybe take a look at yourself first.”
Sara blinked, then finally glanced down—only to see her own bare, milky-white skin.
“……”
Which meant that when she had lifted herself up earlier to talk to her master…
“WAAAHHH—!!!”
Her face, previously pale from the pain, turned beet-red in an instant as last night’s memories came flooding back.
She frantically yanked the blanket over herself and hid beneath it.
‘This girl…’
Li Xian sighed deeply, unsure whether to call her adorably naive or just plain stupid.
‘How had he ended up in this mess?’ If he had known, he never would have accepted that damn job in the first place.
As for how things had escalated to this point… well, that was a story from a few days earlier.
***
“This request is a no-go. Scram. Next.”
In a remote northern town of the Roland Empire, inside the local adventurer’s guild, a young girl stood dejectedly at the counter.
“Wait…” She tugged desperately at the sleeve of the guild receptionist, her eyes pleading.
“Miss, please… can’t you help me?”
The short-haired brunette gave her a sympathetic look.
“Listen, kid, I’ve already bent the rules by keeping your request posted for three days. In all that time, no one’s taken it. You should… get the hint by now, right?”
Sara’s shoulders slumped.
Defeated, she clutched the crumpled quest sheet and trudged away.
“Next.”
“Turning in a quest.”
Li Xian handed over a bloodstained parcel, but his attention was caught by the young girl who had just left.
The little girl was strikingly beautiful, with long cherry-blossom-pink hair that caught the eye.
Her youthful face and pure, innocent aura made her as adorable as the girl next door.
‘What kind of quest could she be posting?’
Li Xian couldn’t help but feel curious.
***
“Fire Rat tails, right?” The receptionist at the counter opened the parcel and glanced at the handsome young man before her.
“Yeah, that’s right…” Li Xian replied absentmindedly, his gaze still fixed on the pitiful-looking girl.
Fire Rat tails were a common alchemical ingredient and one of the permanent quests at the Adventurers’ Guild.
Since Fire Rats were extremely weak, the reward for the quest was meager, making it popular only among novice adventurers.
The young man had been taking this quest for a week now, and the receptionist had already taken notice of him—partly because he was new to town, but mostly because he was undeniably good-looking, just her type.
“Here, your reward. Don’t lose it.”
Seeing Li Xian still staring at the girl, the receptionist couldn’t hide her displeasure.
‘Where did this little girl even come from, posting such an outrageous quest? Even Xizar, the strongest adventurer in town—a mid-tier warrior and Silver-ranked adventurer—wouldn’t dare take it!’
The more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed.
She shook her head helplessly.
If not for the girl’s adorable and pitiful appearance, she wouldn’t have kept such a ridiculous quest posted for three whole days.
Admittedly, the reward was substantial—a staggering 10,000 gold coins, enough to tempt anyone.
But the difficulty was far too high.
Even a Gold-ranked adventurer might hesitate to accept it.
***
“Wait—”
Just then, a burly man pushed open the guild’s doors and strode in.
“Is that…?”
The adventurers inside the guild gasped.
The newcomer was none other than Moray, a famous adventurer from the neighboring city.
Moray was incredibly powerful, an advanced-tier warrior and a bona fide Gold-ranked adventurer.
‘What was he doing in a small-town guild like this?’
“I heard there’s a quest here with a 10,000-gold reward?” He turned his attention to the pink-haired girl and spoke bluntly.
If not for the hefty sum, he wouldn’t have bothered coming to this backwater town.
“Ah… yes, that’s right…” The girl seemed intimidated by the towering man, avoiding his gaze.
“Good. Let me see what this quest is about.”
Moray narrowed his eyes.
As a renowned Gold-ranked adventurer in the region, he was intrigued by the idea of such a high-reward quest in a small town.
“O-okay…” After a moment’s hesitation, the girl handed him the quest slip.
Moray took it, scanning the contents with an air of indifference—
Then his expression froze.
His brows shot up, then furrowed deeply.
‘What kind of quest could shock even a Gold-ranked adventurer?’
Those who hadn’t yet grasped the situation grew even more curious.
Naturally, this included Li Xian.
While Moray remained silent, Li Xian stepped forward and snatched the quest slip from his hands.
“‘Escort me through the Northwild Forest to the Imperial Capital’?”
The moment he read it aloud, the guild erupted in murmurs.
‘Through the Northwild Forest? Was she insane? Everyone knew the depths of that forest were teeming with dangerous magical beasts. There were even recent rumors of demonic activity.’
‘Not even advanced-tier warriors or mages could guarantee their safety if they ventured too deep, let alone traverse the entire forest. It was a suicide mission! No wonder no one had taken this quest for so long…’
‘Yet this only made the crowd focus more intently on Moray. Such a perilous quest—would the Gold-ranked adventurer dare to accept it?’
Moray wiped the sweat from his brow, feeling the pressure.
Truthfully, he didn’t want to take it.
An advanced-tier warrior? Even a Transcendent-tier expert might not make it out of the Northwild Forest alive! But if he refused now…
Under the weight of everyone’s expectant stares, Moray found himself trapped between a rock and a hard place.
If he backed down now, he’d be humiliated.
Meanwhile, Li Xian remained oblivious to the tension around him.
His attention was entirely consumed by the quest slip—specifically, the reward listed.
10,000 gold coins!
He’d toiled for an entire week, hunting countless Fire Rats and completing the quest ten times over, just to earn a measly 1,000 copper coins.
10,000 gold was equivalent to 1,000,000 copper coins.
‘How many Fire Rat tail quests would he need to complete to earn that much?’
‘One hundred… one thousand… ten thousand times…!’
After doing the math, Li Xian didn’t hesitate.
He shot a wary glance at Moray, as if afraid the man would snatch the opportunity away.
“This quest—I’ll take it!”
“Huh…?”