NOVEL WEB Chapter 4: Companion
Chapter 4: Companion
At night, the caravans set camp in the forest. The Big Mouth Lizard has already finished being dismembered. Several mercenaries are keeping a lookout for any monsters and intruders.
"How long do we take to reach the Vebia Kingdom?"
"Three weeks or a month."
"We've already been traveling for a week."
"Because we are taking a detour to avoid the monster nest."
While the mercenaries are talking, many black-clad figures come out of the woods and begin attacking the mercenaries.
"Enemy attack!" The yell wakes up the sleeping mercenaries.
The mercenaries try to stop the intruder from entering. However, a few intruders manage to go through and go straight to the camp belonging to the blonde-haired man. Without wasting time, stab the sleeping blonde-haired man.
"AHHHHHH!" After the scream, the blonde-haired man's body becomes lifeless.
"Retreat!" While the intruders retreat, a middle-aged man secretly opens and puts a sachet bag on one of the intruder's clothes. The mercenaries, who were half asleep, sigh in relief. But when they find out one of the employers has died, they can only feel shame.
The weird thing is that the middle-aged man is calm. And order them to continue their journey. During their journey, one of the servants wearing a metal mask enters the carriage.
Why do you not kill them all?" The metal mask man spoke.
"Impossible, with my condition right now. Don’t worry, they will not survive. I found the thing that caused the monster to go into a frenzy and put it on the intruder."
"It’s a shame my double is dead." Although he can replace the double. It is going to take a few or several years to find and train people with similar faces and behaviors.
-
Several days later, the White Ghost assassin is almost wiped out. They have been attacked by many monsters. By the time they found out the cause, it was already too late. While escaping, they entered monster nest territory and have been hunted down by the monsters.
"Damn it!"
"Leader, what should we do now?" The White Ghost assassin remains only with four people; the others are dead or being left behind.
"Let’s keep moving; we might find caravans or mercenaries."
While walking, they suddenly heard a cracking noise. Suddenly, they all fell into a deep hole.
"AHHHH!"
"My leg!" A sharp wooden pole pierces through the assassin's leg.
"Bastard, who made this hole?"
The assassins fall into a sharp wooden pole buried in the ground. Because of that, all of them are injured.
"Leader, no. 3 is dead!" Near them, a sharp wooden pole pierces the assassin's body.
"Whoever made this hole is dead."
-
Levi is having a problem. Beside him is a horned bear that acts like a dog.
"Food."
Levi tries to chase the horn bear away and even threatens to kill it. However, the horned bear has become attached to him. The only good thing is that horn bears have a good instinct for detecting danger.
The horn bear begins to growl, and in front of them is the trap Levi has set. Something has fallen inside.
Suddenly, Levi heard someone shouting. "Whoever made this hole is dead!"
Hearing that Levi is disappointed, he thought he caught a large animal. Going near the hole, he can see four black-clad men that look like assassins.
"You help us!" The assassin shouted when they saw someone above the hole. However, what fell was not a long rope.
"Noisy, fireball!" Levi raised his hand and created a red magic circle. And he conjured a ball of flame and flew it inside the hole.
"Ahhhhh."
"Help!"
"BOOM!" The flame engulfs and covers half of the deep hole. Inside the hole are dry leaves and wood. That Levi put in case he couldn’t kill the prey. He is not stupid enough to save suspicious people.
After the flame calms down. In his mind, he suddenly hears a monotone voice.
[The corpses meet the requirement.]
[Do you want to convert corpses to activate a unique ability?]
[Yes/No]
‘Yes.’ He answered in his mind. Even if the ability is useless. He doesn’t lose anything. The charred corpses inside the hole turn into a light particle that only Levi can see, entering his body.
[The unique abilities of the travelers of the world are activated.]
[Calculating the death point and transferring information]
[Death point: 59]
[Unique ability, traveler of the world: Offer an offering and convert it to death points. [Travel to different worlds and complete a mission to get a reward.]
[Mission: Assassination]
[Reward: Beginner stage of Adept rank mana energy.]
[Death Point required: 1000 DP]
[Further information will be given when the mission starts.]
After getting the information, Levi showed no reaction. It's not like he can use the ability right now that required 1000 DP. "It’s better to find food and train."
The horn bear just sits behind him. Levi turned around and spoke. "From today onward, your name is Ben." Since the bear doesn’t want to live, he decided to name it.
"Ben?" The horn bear looks confused at first, then understands. Monsters usually don’t have an individual name. Unless you are an intelligent species similar to humans, "Ben wants food." Inside a dangerous forest, one human and one monster are growling at each other.
After that, Levi followed the same path that he considered safe. He already knows that certain areas are dangerous and that he needs to be careful. At first, he thought to go to the human kingdom. In the end, he decided to wait until he was strong enough to defend himself and escape if anything happened.
Levi is not stupid; he thinks that because he was reborn, he is special and stronger than other people. Life is cruel, and humans can’t be fully trusted. Just like him, how many people has he killed to gain power in his past lives? To prevent being betrayed, he backstabs people who are close to him. But he still dies, and he doesn’t blame them for what he has done.
Levi also doesn’t know where the human kingdom is going. He only gets basic information about this world from the voice. If he is not careful, he will enter monster nest territory. At that time, it was useless to cry. Levi, while thinking, arrives at the river where he normally catches fish.
"Ben, you wait here and catch fish while I try to hunt some animal."
The horned bear's growl and jump into the river to catch fish. Ben, when his mother died, had nowhere to go, and suddenly he smelled something delicious inside a cave and found a human. The weird thing is that Levi understands horn bear language. Since then, Ben has decided to stay close to him.
-
Vebia Kingdom's capital city palace. The room is fully decorated with expensive furniture and item. If sold, could feed one poor family for several decades. An elderly man wearing a crown is sitting and talking to a middle-aged man and a blonde-haired man, the Leston Kingdom's second prince.
"I understand your father's intention, but many kingdoms have already defected. It’s hard to do what your father planned." The plan is to make many kingdoms form an alliance, but this plan is doomed to fail. Because it’s happened in the past. Humans are selfish and greedy creatures.
"You need to reconsider this; the royal power has been weakening ever since the Federation, Mage Nation, and Warrior Alliance were created."
"If only you can pull the big kingdoms into this conflict."
"They have the same intention as them: to conquer weak kingdoms to become an empire."
"I have my difficulty; please leave. I am tired." After saying that, the king's attendant showed the middle-aged man and the second prince the way out.
Inside a carriage. "Something must have happened before we came here." The Vebia Kingdom King is the same as his father. They hated that their influence was getting weaker with each generation of the king and tried to stop it.
"Yes, I already ordered our people here to send us the information."
After returning to the inn, a document is on the table in the room. The middle-aged man takes the document and reads it after rubbing his forehead for a while.
"How?" The second prince asked. He doesn’t want to return home empty-handed.
"There has been a problem with the Vebia Kingdom king succession." The middle-aged man put the document on the table.
"What is the problem? Normally the crown prince will succeed to the throne."
"The problem is, the crown prince's background has some problems."
"What is it?"
"The queen has secret lovers."
"Can’t they verify the crown prince bloodline?"
"They have, and the crown prince is his son; however, the king doesn’t like the queen."
"Who is the candidate for the next king?"
"The youngest prince, however, was born from a concubine."
"That means it will be impossible for the youngest prince to become king." The second prince shakes his head. The son of the concubine compared to the queen is different. Unless she comes from an influential family,
"Not necessarily."
"How?"
"From the information that I got, the youngest prince is in contact with people of the Mage Nation."
"Has the Mage Nation started making moves?"
"We still don’t have enough information."
"What about the Federation?" This is the power that most royals and aristocrats dread. Their hatred toward the monarchy runs deep. Most of the spies who enter the Federation become traitors. Even now, most serfs and peasants try to escape and enter the Federation.
"No, they don’t show any activity in the Vebia Kingdom."
"What is the crown prince's reaction to this?"
"Nothing; he plays with a woman and disregarded his duty as crown prince."
"It's hopeless; let us return home." The second prince gives up. He has done what he can.