Child of Destiny

After waiting for quite a while, Shin finally saw the pair of siblings running toward them.

He immediately spotted them and waved his hand in their direction. That was also when he realized that an extra person was accompanying the two.

Seeing that person, he could not help but laugh before turning to Leonard. “Yoh! It seems like you will have some problems this time.”

Leonard looked at Shin confusedly before turning toward the direction of the city gates. That was when he saw Lorraine jogging toward them. The corner of his mouth twitched as he saw her before sighing helplessly.

“At least, she is not doing anything excessive inside the game,” he said.

Shin raised his brows when he heard that before asking. “Excessive? Like what?”

Leonard could not help but groan when he heard that as he knew that he had dug his own grave. “It is nothing.”

Seeing that Leonard was trying to dodge the topic, Shin grew suspicious and squinted his eyes. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me-…”

Before Shin could even complete his words, Leonard quickly denied it. “It is not like you what you think!”

“Let’s just say that she finally managed to crack the stone heart of this dude?” Arthur quickly chimed in, joining the fun.

Leonard quickly turned toward the other side and glared at Arthur before saying. “You-… How about you also tell Shin the hidden story behind you and Flouree?”

Arthur frowned as he responded. “I have already told you everything about it, don’t I?”

Leonard shook his head and quickly added. “That is not what I’ve heard from our old friends in the Earners Mercenary Group. They are also from the old team that you worked with Flouree.”

“They are just making up something!” Arthur tried to deny it.

But the stronger he denied it, the clearer for Shin and Leonard to know that there was more to it than the so-called ‘promise’ that Arthur had told them.

Shin shook his head as he saw the two start bickering with one another. They were even about to start a fight as they were pulling out their weapons.

Fortunately, Lorraine already reached the trio at that time alongside Samael and Huahua, preventing the fight from breaking out.

“What are you guys talking about? It sounds like a gossip!” said Lorraine as looked at the three with her suspicious gaze.

But after seeing that they had no intention of answering her, she put all her focus on Leonard. “How can you forget about me when you guys are about to go out and have some fun!?”

“You are the reason why I insisted on coming here!” she added, not bothering to hide her intentions and feelings at all.

Samael looked at the scene with a stunned face, still unable to believe how Lorraine proactively chased after Leonard despite seeing such a sight whenever he saw the two meet each other.

Huahua, on the other hand, looked at Lorraine with admiration. She was thinking that this big sister was quite impressive for being so open about her feelings.

Shin ignored everything else and turned to the pair of siblings. “We are going quite deep in the wilderness, so there is a high chance that we will encounter quite a lot of powerful monsters.”

He paused and pointed at Lorraine, who quickly snatched Leonard’s arm and hugged it. “But since this big sister of yours is around, we don’t have to worry much about your safety.”

“Eh~!? You want me to babysit them during this adventure!?” complained Lorraine, understanding what Shin was trying to say.

“You are already here, so it will be more efficient if you look after them. This can let the three of us focus on dealing with the frontlines,” refuted Leonard as he was trying his best to retrieve his arm from being squeezed between two soft mounds.

Unfortunately, Lorraine refused to back down and continued to cling to it.

Shin ignored them once again and continued to explain their formation to the two. “The two of you will only be focusing on supporting us.”

“Samael will be providing the healing and buffs at the backline while Huahua can summon her auxiliary totems to further enhance our strength and cast a couple of curses whenever you have the chance.”

Hearing this, Huahua quickly added. “I can heal too, vice commander! I have learned quite a lot of healing spells during our last mission in the Sacred Light Kingdom! I have even learned how to summon a Healing Totem and Mana Totem from the elves!”

Shin smiled and patted her head as he said. “That’s good then. But make sure to follow your big brother’s lead during the battle.”

“And you don’t have to call me Vice Commander. Just Big Brother Shin of Big Bro Shin will do,” he added.

“Un!” Huahua nodded while smiling.

Shin then turned to Lorraine. “Since you have experience in being a commander, take command of these two during our battles. I want to focus on fighting since I have to consolidate my newly improved techniques as well.”

“You can leave it to me! I will train them well!” said Lorraine with confidence.

Then Shin turned to Samael and continued. “We will also find a good time to let you fight in the frontline later, so you have to be prepared when that opportunity arrives. It will be a part of your training.”

Samael nodded his head repeatedly, feeling quite excited. From his perceptive, this was a good chance to officially become a member of the Empyrean Talons.

“Alright, let’s go!” instructed Shin as he summoned Whitie, who was currently in his white tiger form.

The others also summoned their respective mounts before dashing toward their destination.

…

After a couple of hours of journey, the group finally left the ‘safe’ area surrounding Divinity City.

What they call ‘safe’ was the border between the regions that were filled with regular monsters and the one infested with higher-rank monsters.

For their group, regular monsters of this place were nothing. After all, four of them could handle one or two monsters on their own despite these ‘regular’ monsters having the strength of King-Class Monsters from the Aurora Continent.

The group grinded a couple of monsters along the way. But since they were quite in a hurry to reach their destination, they had avoided some monster nests or packs along the way.

Arthur was already familiar with the topography of the region since he had already investigated the place previously, so the group had an easier time when advancing.

But they drastically slowed down them they reached the region where the Elite Monsters were located.

“This should be the place, but we still have to advance a little deeper since the cave where my quest is pointing us is at the inner region of this map,” explained Arthur as he reached the edge of the map.

Shin observed the place with his enhanced senses along with Leonard before saying. “Tsk! This is quite troublesome. This region is indeed infested with a lot of Elite Monsters.”

Elite Monsters of the Awakened Continent were comparable to Emperor Class Monsters of the Aurora Continent, so the group had to be extra careful when advancing since they would not want to be surrounded by a group of such monsters when they were advancing.

“We will stay on formation. We will be treading our way as slowly as possible to avoid any accidents,” said Shin, warning the group.

This was where the real challenge would start.

They just spent a couple of minutes traversing the forest when they encountered their first Elite Monster on this continent.

————–

Monster Name: Iron-Skinned Wild Boar

Rank: Elite

Life Rating: None

Level: 165

Health Points: 1,000,000,000

Description:

A wild boar that has evolved through a high concentration of mana. It has mutated to have an iron-like skin due to the high density of metal elements in the habitat where it lives.

It has a very sturdy defense due to the iron skin that it possesses and a strong charging power.

Its tusks possess a deadly power that can pierce through boulders and crush any rock.

Note 1: Its skin and tusks were good materials for creating armor and weapons.

While the flesh is inedible for humans and other races; it was an ideal food for dragons or metal-related creatures.

Note 2: Due to this creature living in a place filled with a high density of Metal Elemental Mana, there is a high chance that it will form a Beast Core (Metal).

————–

Seeing the basic description of the monster, Arthur’s eyes could not help but turn bright as he realized something. “These updated features when observing the monsters through ocular skills will be very helpful in the future.”

“It has become more convenient since we can now know which are the possible materials that we can harvest from every monster we encounter.”

After the most recent update, gathering the materials from the hunted monsters became more common, especially when hunting in the wild.

After all, high-level and high-quality equipment and weapons were required to be crafted as the monsters could no longer drop any items or equipment after dying. Unless they were humanoid monsters that wielded certain tools before they died in battle.

Items, weapons, and pieces of armor could only be found in the wild through chests and humanoid monsters, which was why the monster materials became in high demand after the most recent patch of ‘World Metamorphosis’.

However, the conditions in the Awakened Continent had become somewhat different compared to the Aurora Continent.

Instead of listing out the skills of the monsters, the players now had to figure out the possible skills of their targets, which would make the battle a little tricker.

“Go test it out,” said Shin to Arthur, waking up the latter from his fantasies.

“Tsk! Isn’t it just a wild boar? What’s the need to make a big deal out of it?” complained Arthur as he walked toward the monster after making sure that it was alone.

“Don’t underestimate it. Don’t forget that you almost died in the hands of a little bunny earlier,” Shin chuckled recalling how a single bunny managed to sneak an attack at Arthur earlier.

Arthur groaned when he recalled such an incident. “Don’t worry. I will not let my guard down this time.”

He then glared at the wild boar in the distance and said. “This big guy should be decent enough to test my current style.”

…