The sky churned with black clouds like a vortex, as if about to shred the earth below into pieces…
Among the broken walls and ruins, corpses of various races were scattered everywhere.
As far as the eye could see… such devastation stretched for a thousand miles.
Black matter rose from the cracks in the ground—sticky, scorching… like tentacles reaching out from an oceanic trench, trying to drag everything into this endless Purgatory.
And at the center beneath this pitch-black vortex, where the viscous black substance was most concentrated… a petite black-haired girl knelt in place.
She faced the sky, and the pitch-black tentacle-like matter was rising from her seven orifices…
It was utterly unimaginable that such a small girl… could unleash energy from her body capable of affecting the entire World.
Just the energy spilling out alone had turned everything within a thousand miles into a dead zone.
Whoosh!
And it was then, from within the broken rubble, a bedraggled figure burst forth from the earth!
It was a disheveled young man, but his face carried a faint trace of excitement.
He walked slowly toward the center of that sticky black mass…
Gulp… And that black sludge, which seemed to bring Death to all it touched, was instantly devoured and absorbed the moment it touched his body.
“Heh… heh heh heh… Finally, finally it’s mine.”
The young man let out a manic laugh completely unfit for the scene, and in the next second reached out to grip the slender neck of the girl before him…
Whoosh—!!
The next moment, black matter filled his vision!
“Huh?!” Franlot jolted upright from his bed at that very instant!
That dream… what had he just dreamed?
What… was that?
[That is your mission.]
Before Franlot could even think it through, a cold, synthetic-sounding voice rang out in his mind.
“Huh?!” The young man was startled once again!
He instinctively looked around—the room was still the same room, an ordinary room at the Mercenary Guild, no more than ten square meters in total.
And thinking back, that voice had indeed come from inside his own head!
“You… are you the System?!”
In the next second, Franlot reacted instantly!
[You’re not too dim-witted. I just… didn’t expect you to have fallen to such a state.]
“What do you mean, fallen to such a state… I… I just had a temporary setback!”
If it were the Franlot of before, he might have made up many excuses to avoid continuing to oppose Ileya.
But now… his mindset seemed to have been influenced by something without him even noticing.
So even if he lost again and again, he didn’t believe he would keep losing forever, nor did he think he was inferior to Ileya!
After all, he was the Fated One! He was the Transmigrator who should be the Protagonist to burst onto the scene in this era…
“Anyway, System, how come you can suddenly talk now?”
[Energy… because I have absorbed enough energy.]
Absorbed energy? Franlot was a bit puzzled.
He hadn’t touched anything special recently… except to satisfy Xue’er’s desire for killing, and of course to earn money to keep staying at the inn…
He didn’t plan to leave the Mercenary Guild for the time being.
“Could it be… that you were sleeping and gathering energy all this time?”
[…You… could say that.] The System paused for a few seconds before slowly replying.
“Then… does this count as an upgrade for you? Did you gain any new functions?”
Franlot felt a sense of anticipation.
[It’s not an upgrade, just recovery. You need to accomplish one thing before I can truly reach my complete form.]
Although the System’s words disappointed Franlot somewhat, they also ignited a spark of hope within him!
The System was his Golden Finger on this “Dark Continent”—the stronger and more complete it became, the more benefits he would reap!
“Then… what should I do?”
[What you need to do is very simple.] The System’s voice remained cold, fitting Franlot’s stereotype of what a “System” should be.
Unlike the character Affection Points panel that had popped up before, a blurry figure gradually materialized in Franlot’s mind.
At first, it appeared to be a tall humanoid with white hair and a single tuft of black in the middle.
But for some reason, the figure began to shrink in the next second.
The white hair, which seemed to emit a faint holy radiance, gradually turned black, leaving only a single tuft at the corner of the forehead.
And only then did Franlot gradually make out the face of the person before him.
Though delicate and cute, there was a certain trace of crystal-clear foolishness about it.
This person… why did she look so familiar? Had he seen her somewhere before…
After thinking for a moment, a figure flashed through Franlot’s mind—that little girl who was always following Ileya around, constantly eating without pause?!
“System, what does this mean? She… seems to be… uh, the Maiden who only knows how to eat, right?” Franlot scratched his head in confusion.
Those women around Ileya… even if Franlot was reluctant to admit it, they were all formidable warriors in their own right.
Only that somewhat silly little Maiden had nothing particularly special about her besides her cute looks.
And she… was the key to his future fate? And the energy needed for the System to upgrade?
[There are things you don’t need to know. What you need to know is that if you can make her your companion, I can complete my upgrade and become the Golden Finger you imagine—one that can make you invincible across this continent.]
“Invincible across… this continent…” Those words seemed to ignite something within Franlot’s heart, quickening his pulse and boiling his blood.
“Then, what should I do?” Franlot asked instinctively.
[That question is yours to answer. Don’t ask me. Thinking consumes energy, and I will do my best to help you rapidly increase your Power. If there’s nothing important… don’t disturb me.]
The System’s voice gradually weakened until it disappeared entirely.
Then, a translucent quest panel appeared before Franlot.
Chain Task: Kill creatures with power no less than double your own. Progress 0/5/10/50/100.
Each stage unlocks partial rewards.
First stage reward unlocked: Acquired skill [Spatial Movement].
Compared to those scattered tasks about raising Affection Points and such, this task was simple if you looked at it simply… and difficult if you looked at it that way.
But the reward… Franlot swallowed hard and tapped Spatial Movement in his action bar!
Whoosh! In an instant, he—who had been standing in his room—had teleported to a small alley!
“Wha?!” The sudden sensation of weightlessness nearly made Franlot trip flat on his face.
He looked around, then glanced up at his room diagonally above, and excitedly counted on his fingers.
Spatial Movement covered about twenty meters per use, and now the skill in his skill bar had entered cooldown.
Cooldown time: 20 seconds.
This move wasn’t just a god-tier ambush skill—it was also a life-saving god-tier skill!
Not just in real life—even in actual games, mobility skills were the core of everything!
“Do the task… right! I need to start doing the task immediately! This is the moment I transform myself…”
Franlot remained excited for a while.
Teres… maybe he couldn’t control her, but if he brought Xue’er to kill people… she’d probably be more than happy to go with him.
With that thought, Franlot’s face flushed slightly as he hurried back upstairs.
…
“Ah… achoo!!” The Goddess Young Lady, who had just speared a piece of Cake and was about to put it in her mouth, suddenly turned her head and sneezed!
“Hmm~ Why does my nose feel a bit itchy?”
Rubbing her nose, Veil went back to working on the Cake in front of her.
“Hey…”
Beside her, the recently idle Shire leaned against the edge of the table, watching Veil shove an eighth piece of Cake into her mouth.
At first, this Second Young Master hadn’t planned to observe her, but after watching for a while, he began to feel slightly surprised—and now, he was stunned!
Since just a moment ago, this “Veil” person—his little sister’s Maiden—had eaten eight pieces of Cake, seven puddings, two plates of crispy rice treats, and six cups of sweet iced tea.
And… most terrifying of all, she had now started on doughnuts.
Would she really not die from eating like this?
“Do you want to… take a break?” Shire’s voice trembled slightly.
Just watching her eat desserts had already made him decide not to have afternoon tea for the next three days.
“Hmm? Well… if I don’t eat now, I might not have an appetite when it’s time for dinner~” Veil responded to the Second Young Master’s concern with simple facts.
Huh? She’s… still eating dinner?
I’m already full just watching her… Shire nodded stiffly.
But then he suddenly heard Veil’s next words.
“If you don’t eat more, you’ll definitely never grow tall in the future~”
Grow… not tall?!
Those words seemed to strike a nerve in someone, freezing him completely in place.
“If I eat more… will I really grow taller?” Shire’s clear red eyes looked at Veil.
“Of course!” The girl holding a doughnut said with complete seriousness…
“I know someone… well, to be precise, she’d be my junior, I guess. She usually likes to eat desserts, especially drinking milk… and she grew up tall and big!”
Veil took a bite of her doughnut.
Back then, she’d actually mocked that girl for [eating mortal food despite being the Goddess of Rules].
But… she probably can’t see me like this now, right?
The Goddess Young Lady cautiously looked up at the sky, which was still fairly clear, and thought… wouldn’t she lose face as a Senior if she were seen like this?
Then she scooted her Chair further under the parasol, hiding her entire body beneath it.
Tall… and big…
Meanwhile, Shire had no time to notice Veil’s little movements, because a thought bubble gradually appeared above his head—and inside that bubble was an image of himself, two meters tall, with muscles all over his body.
“Give me… give me a glass… no! Five glasses of milk!”
At dinner time…
“Hic… hwaa… hwaa…”
Ileya blinked in confusion at her second brother, whose face was pale and who kept gagging occasionally.
She picked up her own cream, bacon, and cheese carbonara and gave it a sniff.
Hmm… it only smelled milky, nothing weird about it…
Could it be…
“Second Sister, are you pregnant?!”
“Huh?!” Everyone else at the table immediately turned to look at the bewildered Shire.
“Ileya… if you keep spouting nonsense, I’ll… hwaa—!!”
The young man barely got halfway through his sentence before he turned his head and spat out some… milky white liquid.
He deeply regretted listening to Veil’s advice earlier and drinking eight big glasses of milk in the afternoon. Now even his burps tasted like milk.
“Second Sister is spitting up milk! Looks like it’s true.” The Young Lady rubbed her chin and nodded with complete seriousness.
Huh?! What direct connection does spitting up milk and… hic… pregnancy even have?!
“When did this happen? Which family’s young master is it… do you want Mother to go propose on your behalf?”
Lady Shudrian walked over to Shire’s side, gently patting his back while asking softly.
“Mo… Mother!” Shire’s face instantly wore an expression of [if you keep bullying me, I’ll really cry].
Oz really wanted to laugh, but seeing how close Shire was to breaking down, he felt that as the eldest brother, he should save some face for his second brother.
No! Hold it in, I must hold it in.
“Pfft…”
“Big Brother!!”