After two days of walking, Colin and his group came across their first village.
It was hidden in the mountains, far from everything and everyone.
Fearing a hostile reception, they approached the entrance cautiously—but the sight that greeted them was bleak.
The houses were in disarray, many partially destroyed, some still spewing smoke in sinister spirals into the sky.
“An attack?” Colin muttered.
Bodies covered in dark cloths were scattered across the streets. The vacant, melancholy look on the villagers’ faces was familiar to the three of them—the look of people who had lost everything.
Children played in silence, their laughter muffled by the shadow of tragedy that loomed over the place.
The few souls who wandered the streets looked at Colin’s group with a mix of suspicion and curiosity.
“Let’s see if there’s an inn in this place.”
“Who are you?” asked a tall man with brown hair and a patchy beard. “We’re not accepting visitors. And if you’ve got any sense, you’ll realize it’s dangerous to stay here.”
“What happened to this place?” Colin asked.
The man frowned and rested his hand on the sword at his waist.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“I heard you. But I still want to know what happened.”
“Why should I tell you? You’re a dark elf. Why would you care? Get out of here!”
“Mr. Colin can help!” Jamily stepped forward. “The village we were in… it was destroyed by a powerful demon. If it weren’t for Mr. Colin, my son and I would’ve…”
The man looked from her to the dark-skinned elf.
“Hm… I heard something about that. The mercenary village near the ghost castle?”
Jamily nodded quickly. “Yes—yes!”
“You were a mercenary, elf?”
Colin and Jamily exchanged a glance before Colin turned away.
“Let’s go. They’ve got their own problems to deal with.”
“We were attacked by a band of Bugbears,” the man suddenly said. “A nomadic group. I took down a few, but there were too many. They’re not that strong, but they win by numbers.”
Colin raised an eyebrow.
“Bugbears?”
The man slowly removed his hand from the sword.
“Can you really help us, elf?”
“I can. But not for free.”
“Tsk… bloody mercenaries… fine. I can find something for you. Come with me.”
Colin nodded. “Show me the way.”
The wet, squelching sound of mud beneath their boots echoed the sadness that clung to every corner of the village, a place scarred by misfortune.
As they approached a humble wooden home, its walls showed signs of decay, the paint faded and peeling with time.
“This is my house. You can come in.”
The door creaked as it opened, revealing a dim interior.
A single candle flickered on the table, casting soft shadows over the modest furniture.
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Faded portraits adorned the walls—memories of happier times that now felt impossibly distant.
“Daddy!” A little girl came running from the back. “Back already?”
He scooped her up, ruffling her hair.
“Daddy’s got visitors. Why don’t you show the ladies your dolls? All of them.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, all of them!”
“Okay!”
As he set her down, the girl ran over to Jamily, who was holding her baby in her arms.
“How old is he?” the girl asked.
“He’s not even a year old yet. And how old are you?”
The girl proudly held up five fingers.
“Wow, that much already?”
She nodded with a big, gap-toothed smile and grabbed the edge of Jamily’s dress, pulling her toward the hallway.
“Come on! I’ll show you my dolls!”
Sapphire exchanged a glance with Colin and followed after them.
“Finally alone,” the man said, sitting down in a chair and gesturing for Colin to take the one across from him.
“You can call me Renovich. And you are?”
“Colin.”
“Right, Colin. You must be pretty confident, walking around with a beautiful woman carrying a baby and a little girl. Your wife and daughter?”
“No. Are we going to talk about me or the Bugbears?”
“Relax, boy. I’m just getting to know you. Our lives might depend on each other soon—so it’s good to know who I’m dealing with, don’t you think?”
Colin shrugged.
“Whatever.”
“Well, I’m the head of this humble village. There used to be an old man in charge, but he left a few weeks ago, so I took over. A few men helped me protect the place, but the attacks ended up taking their lives. A tragedy.”
Colin glanced at the pictures on the wall and noticed a woman standing next to Renovich and the little girl.
“Your wife?”
Renovich stared at the photo for a moment.
“The plague took her last year. She was an incredible woman.”
“I’m sorry... Do you know how to use magic?”
“No. Do you?”
“Not yet. I’m heading to the university in Ultan to learn.”
“Really? That’s a long journey. Well, our village is a quiet one. We live simply, surviving off the land. There used to be some stones that protected the village, but the Bugbears destroyed them. If we can restore those stones, we’ll be off the radar again—able to live in peace.
I’ll be honest with you, Elf, I don’t have much money. But I do have a ring that might be useful.”
Renovich stood up and walked over to a drawer, pulling out a plain silver ring and tossing it to Colin.
“I used to wear it all the time when I was younger, but in a quiet village like this, it’s not exactly necessary.”
To Colin, it looked like an ordinary ring.
“What’s so special about it?”
“Skilled magic users can do something called an analysis. They can gather information about you just by looking at you. Try it.”
Still suspicious, Colin slipped the ring onto his index finger—and something suddenly surged within him.
?? Status system
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Renovich Ghindor.
Age: 28.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
?? Power Trees
Primary Tree: ?? Sky - Level 00.
Secondary Tree I: ?? Strength - Level 03.
Secondary Tree II: ?? Chaos - Blocked.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vital Attributes
HP (Vitality): 600.
MP (Mana): 80.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
??? Combat Attributes
Strength: 36.
Dexterity: 28.
Agility: 28.
Intelligence: 24.
Stamina: 48.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"Heaven's primary tree?" muttered Colin.
"Yes, that's my tree. Why don't you use it on yourself? Just focus your attention on yourself."
"Right..."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
?? Name: Colin Silva
Age: 23
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
?? Power Trees
Primary Tree: ?? Sky - Level 00
Secondary Tree I: ?? Pujanza - Level 01
Secondary Tree II: ?? Chaos - Blocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vital Attributes
HP (Vitality): 300
MP (Mana): 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
??? Combat Attributes
Strength: 25
Dexterity: 20
Agility: 18
Intelligence: 16
Stamina: 21
“I’ll leave this with you as payment in advance—what do you think? For someone heading all the way to the capital, an item like this is indispensable. Just one thing: there will be statuses the ring can’t read. When that happens, it’s best to run. That means your level isn’t even close.”
“Got it...” Colin removed the ring and slipped it into his pocket. “I think this will work as an entry fee.”
“Entry?”
“You didn’t really expect me to risk my life for just a ring, did you? I want everything of value in the Bugbears’ lair.”
“Tsk... fine... I’ll accommodate you. It’s already late, so I suggest we settle this matter at dawn.” Renovich stood up. “There’s a bathroom in the back with a magic stone that heats the water. You and your friends are welcome to use it.”
“Thank you.”
“I appreciate it. If you’re really as skilled as you seem, I’ll be deeply grateful.”
