[Ding!]
[Quest detected.]
[Difficulty: Unknown
Objective: Infiltrate the Abyssal Bastion and free all the Beastmen.
Reward: Gain the loyalty of all Beastmen/ Unknown.
Penalty: Death of all Beastmen.]
[Accept.] [Refuse.]
“…” Arthur saw the panel that appeared in front of him and he could only frown visibly. This was by far the most ominous notification he had received so far. Everything about it conveyed horrifying danger. Even the goddamn objective sounds brutal and unknown difficulty? What does that even mean? Is it so brutally hard that even the game couldn’t give it a proper difficulty level?’
Arthur didn’t know if he was supposed to cry or laugh at such a piece of information. Instead, he simply rubbed the back of his head as he fell into deep thought.
‘What should you do, Arthur? I’m clearly nowhere near being ready to take on such a task. The rewards are bound to be insane. But, this also sounds like a dumb thing since I will probably die a thousand times before I can even make it inside once. I would lose all my progress.’
Quickly, he realized that this a particularly powerful situation of ‘Extremely High Risk, Extremely High Reward’. If Arthur could pull off such an insane feat, he was beyond to become to soar to a whole new level. But, if he failed, and that was the most probable situation, then he was going to lose a lot.
A logical person would just ignore this and simply move on. There are a lot of other opportunities to get stronger. While they might not be as good as this one, they still have a far better success rate.
But, that was the important part, Arthur never deemed himself to be that logical. He used logic, but he never truly followed it all the time.
‘Oh man, my insane side is acting up now. This isn’t funny, Arthur. Why am I even contemplating this?’ Rubbing his face, he quickly realized that he was indeed not only contemplating this offer but was leaning heavily toward accepting it. ‘I’m such a greedy bastard. I’m the greediest of them all! I put those rich billionaires to shame!’
“One question, Miro.” Arthur finally spoke after a long sigh. “Is your wish to simply save your people or are you seeking something else?”
“…” The old man’s eyes widened slightly as he stared into Arthur’s cold ones.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Arthur added, making the old man’s lips purse as he tightened his fists.
“I want those… I want those who caused our torture to die… I want to kill them all, one by one.”
His voice wavered as he spoke, but Arthur could feel the sheer hatred and anger Miro carried in his heart. The boy couldn’t truly fathom how he felt at that moment. He lived his entire life being tortured, then when he escaped, he had to sacrifice countless of his loved ones, only to have to live years hidden away from people waiting for someone to save them.
The patience one should have to do this is incomprehensible. Arthur knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it knowing that every single moment when he wasn’t trying to save his loved ones, they were being tortured, killed, or abused.
Without realizing it, he started feeling deep sympathy for this man and for Nina. His eyes slowly wandered to the ‘Penalty’ of failure in the quest.
‘Death of all Beastmen…’ He frowned. ‘You bastards… This game really knows how to play on my feelings.’
So far, Arthur had only interacted with two beastmen, and yet he had only received good things from them. They were kind and helpful and nothing about them was ‘Beastly’ as someone would expect.
“I tried to stop my grandpa from saying anything. I didn’t want to put such a huge weight on your shoulders when you barely knew us for a few days. You are a human so I understand if you don’t want to go against other humans.” Nina said.
“I already know that, girl. But, if I can give our people another chance, then I’m ready to prostrate in front of anyone and ask for help.” Miro replied. “They have helped us escape for one reason. I can’t let them down anymore. They have waited for too long.”
Then, Miro turned to Arthur and continued. “I have waited for your arrival for years now. If you do refuse this, then that is all fine. I will try to get them out myself.”
“Grandpa?” Nina was taken aback by what her grandfather declared out of nowhere.
“We have waited too long, Nina. It’s time to take action, whether we die doing it or not, I cannot spend the rest of my life not doing anything. I have been thinking about it for a while now, but I tried to keep myself from doing anything, hoping we would find the chosen one.”
“…” Nina lifted her hand to her mouth clearly shaking. She could see it in her grandfather’s eyes, he was being honest and a glimpse of death flashed across his eyes. He was indeed ready to die.
“I have wronged them for far too long, Nina. I can’t bear it anymore.” Miro continued. “I will be damned to the day I die.”
The girl didn’t know what to say at that moment. She understood what he was insinuating when he mentioned ‘them’.
For a moment, she realized the pain her grandfather was living through. Nina couldn’t remember what happened that night very well, but her grandfather did and he never told her what he saw. However, she could see that it was truly something awful.
Tears slowly welled up in her eyes. “Grandpa… I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his shoulder and gripped it tightly. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t notice that.”
She felt really horrible for not realizing the pain her grandfather lived with. She was completely blind to it.
“It isn’t your fault, child. You have done nothing wrong.” The old man shook his head.
“I will do it.”
At that moment, the two heard Arthur speak and turned to look at him. The boy had a serious look on his face. “I’m going to try and save your people. Though, I cannot really promise you anything since I don’t even know how I can do that.”
[Ding!]
[Quest has been accepted.]
“… You’re going to help us?” Miro blinked.
“You two have suffered a lot at the hands of humans yet you still treated me nicely. If I can truly do something, then I will try to do it. I don’t know about any chosen one or anything like that, but if you two believe that I can do it, then I will give it a try.” He shrugged.
Arthur knew that he wasn’t some kind of hero or leader to actually say ‘I’m going to save to them’. He simply decided to give this a try. Mainly because he truly felt bad for these two.
‘Besides, this sounds like something really fun. As hard as it may be. I wanted some exciting things. I doubt there could be anything more exciting than infiltrating a high-security prison and helping the prisoners escape. Hahaha, truly once in a lifetime experience.’ He thought to himself.
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“You better ready some good rewards for me when I come back.”