The face of Payne when he realized that he was giving his own daughter the quest somehow made me want to laugh.
It took some time for Mya to finally ask her father, but Payne gave her her first quest.
However, before Payne handed the quest over to Mya, I checked whether or not Mirai and Behemoth had Payne in their quests list.
Unfortunately, we all didn't have the same quest as Mya on this one, so I was feeling rather down, considering that I prefer to complete 2 quests quickly.
But alas, it was fine.
Currently, the father and daughter were having a conversation with each other.
Although I shouldn't be listening to whatever they were talking about, I was rather curious after I saw Payne's solemn expression.
Thus I couldn't help myself and started to listen closely to every word Mya and Payne spoke.
"Mya.. I know I'm being overprotective of you.. But I hope you'll know that I'll be with you, even if you're far from me."
"Dad..? Are you saying you approve of me going?"
"I would have said no forever, but your mother wouldn't want that, would she?"
"Yeah.. Mom was always supportive of me."
Payne smiled sadly while looking at the amulet on Mya's neck, moving his hand to seemingly hold the amulet.
"I'm sure your mother will protect you."
"D..dad.. Thank you for letting me go out.. You're the best dad I could ever want!" Mya sobbed before hopping toward her father to embrace him affectionately.
'Just a moment ago, Payne was stubbornly keeping Mya here, but look here, he's now letting her be a player.' I exhaled a sigh, watching the sudden change of Payne.
'How did he suddenly change his mind? Also what to do about the–'
"B-But what about the deal, dad?" Mya asked the question that I was thinking as well.
"The deal is off. I only want my daughter to be able to survive in the outside world.. So for this quest, please come back alive and well."
Payne ruffled Mya's hair as he patted her head with all the affection he could give to his daughter.
"Don't worry, dad! I have Uncle JoonChul and his friends to protect me!"
When Payne was about to look at my direction, I shifted my eyes on Behemoth and patted him, pretending I was doing something.
"Right, I hope you'll be a good teammate in his team, Mya."
After Mya received her quest, I held her hand and began leaving the tavern as quickly as I could.
'How strange.' While I set my foot out of the tavern, I had a glimpse at Payne for a few seconds before averting my eyes elsewhere.
———
Payne watched as his daughter was exiting his tavern in the hands of the man named JoonChul.
The thought of imagining Mya when she was younger came rushing into Payne's head.
"She grew up so fast. Isn't that right, Rosalina?" Payne spoke in a soft tone before shifting his eyes over to the family picture which was on the countertop.
[Thank you. As a compensation for not restricting a player in this world, 500 coins will be delivered to the NPC, 'Payne Wayne'.]
The unexpected voice of an angel whispering into Payne's ears caused him to startle a bit.
"I don't need that 500 coins! I only allowed my daughter to go not because of you!" Payne grumbled while clenching his fists and grinding his teeth.
He could remember that time so clearly. It was when yesterday's midnight that a strange angelic voice instructed him to let Mya go.
That voice threatened him to allow his daughter to do as she pleased even if Payne didn't agree.
Not only that, Payne still recalled the horrifying words when he heard that the punishment for not allowing Mya to leave was a death sentence for Payne and his two other daughters.
He was reminded how long that midnight lasted for an hour or so, he was swearing and cursing at the strange voice for forcing him to let his daughter go.
Eventually he was planning to not care about the weird angelic message, it was then that Payne had witnessed his wife standing right in front of him, begging him to grant Mya permission to leave.
Without a doubt, Payne couldn't help it when his deceased wife was begging on her knees to plead. It was enough that it made Payne cry while holding onto his wife's hands.
Even if it was a hallucination, he still believed it was his wife at that moment.
Now back to the present, while Payne was thinking and remembering last midnight, he muffled. "Rosalina.."
"I'm only doing this since I can't stop our daughter from going.. Since she took so much after you."
During when Payne was speaking melancholy, 500 coins materialized beside the family picture, including a picture of Rosalina with her brightest smile etched on her face as if she was telling her husband to live happily.
"It's so cruel.." Payne's hand trembled when he recalled how the system just used his wife as a toy to beg him to let Mya go.
In anger and despair, Payne slammed the counter with his fists as his tears dropped down onto the counter like rain clouds.
———
Meanwhile..
After asking for the second person on Mya's quest list, Mya finally got two quests that needed to be done.
Surprisingly, Behemoth also had the same quest as Mya on this one.
"Mya. Could you tell me what your father's quest is about?" I asked Mya, picking her up to put her back on sitting onto my arm.
Mya was stunned for a bit before accepting what I was doing, along with answering me honestly.. "Well… it's to g-get bones.."
"Bones? What is that for?"
"It's to make bone meals.."
"I see. Do you know where to get those bones? Also how many bones do we need?"
"My dad always hunts animals to get their bones.. And the bones should be over 777 or so."
After I heard the number 777, I just couldn't restrain my frustrations, thus I was trying to calm down by talking with Mya.
Of course, I made sure to show no sign of anger in my tone of voice as I was speaking.
"Getting 777 bones.. That would be difficult, considering that I haven't seen any creature outside. Plus I'm sure the other players may have the same quests as you."
"Then.. how should w-we get bones?"
"Hm.." As I was thinking of what to do, I proceeded to leave the 'Kingless' kingdom.
When I walked past the entrance of the kingdom and was moving along the riverside, I asked Mya who appeared to be observing the sky. "First off, tell me about the second quest you got."
Mya became bashful and flustered after I disturbed her. "A-Ah.. Well, it's about getting 77 bluegill fish and one 'Redgill' fish from a pond."
"Pfft." I could sense my frustrations dying down just from hearing that the quest Behemoth got was catching fish in a pond.
It was enough that caused me to chuckle while jogging through the riverside.
'Was that why Behemoth was expressing his agitation earlier when he was checking the quest? Pfft.. haha.'
"Uncle.. W-Why are you laughing?" Mya was wondering why I was suddenly laughing, so she asked.
"Cats hate water, don't they?"
I smiled at Mya before shifting my gaze over to Behemoth who was probably pretending to sleep. As if Behemoth could take a cat nap after knowing he would be going to dive into the pond soon.
Mya looked at Behemoth while I was musing, she then finally figured out what I said before.
"Oh no.. poor blacky.." Mya, being concerned of Behemoth, gave him a stroke on his back.
After I stopped chuckling, I started going toward my destination, boosting my legs with my skill.
[You have activated the Skill, 'Discharge' Lv. 2.]
Before I ran, I gave Mya an apple just for a snack to eat. Next, I sprinted normally instead of using my full strength.
Thankfully for me, I didn't have to worry about dust and things like that getting onto Mya's body and face.
Because with Mirai's silks subconsciously spotting those stuff and moving them away while I was dashing, I had no worries.
I wasn't tired at all when I dashed since I didn't use much strength, thus while I was running, I pondered a question that I had since leaving the 'Bouquet' Tavern.
'There's no way Payne would change his mind overnight.'
Surely I should forget about this, but my intuition was telling me that the 'Helpers' had something to do with Payne's sudden change.
'Those bastards really love forcing craps onto innocent people like the NPCs.' I scowled while I was hopping over a fallen tree.
"I-I wonder if.. Uncle HwanGi is okay.. I didn't see him leave yet.." Out of the sudden, Mya began to talk to me.
"HwanGi-ssi must have left already, so why don't we finish your quests quickly to surprise him?"
"Will he praise me?"
"Only if you do a good job on your quests." I grinned toward her as I was leaping through the trees of the dense forest.
Since I didn't want to bore Mya by staying in the forest for too long, I got on a tree branch and poured my strength all in for this one jump.
In a blink of an eye, I finally released it all by jumping upward, passing through most of the taller trees.
With this, I was slowly but surely descending downward, and I could see Mya admiring the top view with her eyes seemingly looking like they were sparkling so much from just feasting her eyes on this sight.
'It's good to be young, isn't it?' I smiled, gazing down to find wherever the place I was searching for was.
And when I found it, I rotated myself as if I was falling face flat, then I used 'Wave Vortex' to launch myself straight toward east.
"W-Woah!"
"Are you enjoying this ride, Mya?"
"Yes, y-yes! This is fun!" As Mya was being gleeful, I had already landed onto the ground in the process.