As soon as Kyle saw the person who walked from behind the trees, he understood the reason why the mission that he received on the system panel was only about rescuing Marcel Salts and the optional part that required him to only track him and scout the surroundings was not included.
The burly man who revealed himself in the smog was a soldier, but what made him different from other soldiers of Aseles city was the insignia on his clothes. He had seen this exact insignia on the pouch that Reiler Salts had thrown towards him as the payment of the first mission
"Is she not coming out?" Kyle asked while looking in the direction in which the man had been hiding earlier. The man was visibly shocked when Kyle asked this question and could not help feeling that somehow, he had messed up his own plan.
"Mr. Kyle please, we didn't mean any harm to you. It's just that the young miss was too worried about master after, so I proposed to come here and search for him. We saw you when you were walking out of the building run by one of the ascender organisations and decided to follow you since you must have found some clues."
'Of course, it was him who proposed it.' The girl was too muddle-headed when she heard that her father had disappeared along with the other inhabitants to be able to think of using Kyle as a bait to lure out the danger and check the path for them.
While the man was speaking, the nearby bushes rumbled and Reiler Salts, the girl who had issued this mission, came out from behind the man with a guilty expression. Kyle gave her a mocking smile and turned back to head towards the direction that the tracker was taking him towards.
"I…I just…" The girl who had only now realised that she had been using Kyle as a meat shield was overcome by guilt and wanted to explain that it wasn't her intention to do it, she only wanted to find her father. But before she could speak more than two words, Kyle had already walked away after giving her a mocking smile.
Kyle had no intention to listen to her apology. He was in it for the mission and would only focus on his mission. He was no fan of playing the selfless hero and if he got the chance, he would show them that he did hold his grudges.
Kyle continued to move ahead, followed by the girl who was walking a few steps behind him and the man who was walking closely behind her. They reached near an old dried up well by following the tracker. Kyle moved in a circle around the well to make sure that the tracker was attracted in the direction of the well and jumped in without any hesitation once he confirmed it. The well wasn't too deep and Kyle was easily able to land safely by stepping on the steps made in the walls every few metres of depth to decrease the speed of his descent.
After landing, Kyle looked around, but found nothing out of the ordinary on the walls or the floor of the well. Just as he was about to return back to the ground, his hand carrying the tracker in felt a strong pull and the tracker got struck at one side of the wall of the well.
Kyle knew that Marcel Salts would be in close proximity for the tracker to have such a strong reaction. He immediately pulled the tracker from the wall and distanced himself from the wall.
Kyle slashed his sword in the shape of a cross and mana was projected in the air as it struck at the wall of the well.
With the sound of rocks crumbling, a portion of the wall fell down, revealing an underground cave. Kyle was sure that the presence of the cave behind the wall was just a coincidence, otherwise it would have long been discovered by the ascenders who came here previously if there was even the slightest hint that the wall was different from the other parts of the well.
Even he found nothing strange with the wall and if it hadn't been for the tracker getting struck on the wall, he would have long left the well.
When the wall crumbled, Kyle immediately spotted a man with dishevelled looks lying on the other side. One of the man's legs was cut on his knee and a cloth was wrapped around the wound as a makeshift bandage. The man looked weak and his face was pale from the loss of blood. When Kyle looked at the man's face, he spotted many similarities between the face of the man and Reiler Salts.
Without a doubt, this man was the target of his second mission. When Kyle looked around for what could have caused the man to be in this condition, all he could see was an empty path leading deep inside the cavern. When Kyle looked towards the depths of the cave, the chills that he was feeling ever since entering the city magnified hundred-folds and he visibly shivered.
At that moment, Kyle could feel and smell death from the depths of the cave. He immediately grabbed the pale looking Marcel Salts and jumped out of the well by stepping on the steps while also carrying the injured man on his back.
When he was jumping out, he saw a rope descend inside the cave from the top. Without wasting another moment, he immediately tied the rope with his waist and also around the man. Kyle grabbed the rope and began running vertically on the cave wall while occasionally jumping upwards with the help of the steps.
Above the well, the man in guard uniform tied the rope around a tree so that he could descend into the well with it. Just as he was about to jump into the well, he felt the rope tighten as if something heavy was tied to it. The man took a peek inside the well to see what exactly was tied to the rope. It was at this exact moment that Kyle leapt out of the well with Marcel Salts tied to his back.
The guard was scared by the sudden appearance of something right under his chin and jumped back in fright.
'Aaaahhhh!' the guard involuntarily shrieked as he lost his balance and fell on his butt. Kyle, who had already landed on the ground, gave the guard a disdainful look.
'Such a brave warrior!'
Without giving the guard another glance, Kyle swung the sword in his hand and cut off the end of the rope that was tied around the tree, leaving only the part of rope which tied Marcel Salts to his back.
"Run!" Kyle screamed at the girl who was looking at her dishevelled father in a daze and began running without waiting for. Reiler snapped out of the daze and immediately began running after Kyle without asking the reasons for running away.
The guard stood up with a dark expression on his face and began running after Kyle and soon ran past Reiler Salts. Kyle looked back at the girl who was having difficulty in running due to her long skirt and sighed. Since he was already carrying the father for the sake of his mission, how could he leave the daughter who had given him the mission and would later give him the mission reward behind.
Kyle turned back and lifted up the girl in his arm, placed her under his sleeve and resumed running towards the city, while ignoring the shocked yelp of the girl whose face was reddening every passing second as she processed what was happening. While carrying two people, it was inevitable that Kyle's speed decreased and the guard was increasing the distance between them every passing second.
'Interface' Kyle whispered and the holographic system interface appeared before him.
[Name: Kyle Zehern ]
[Ascendant level: 1]
[Exp : 0]
[Life tokens: 4]
[Status:]
[HP:10/10]
[Mana equivalent: 20/20]
[Exp: 970/100]
[Stats:]
[Strength: 2] [Agility: 4]
[Stamina: 2] [Endurance: 1.5]
[Energy affinity:5][Intelligence: 2]
[Skills: tap to expand]
[Abilities: tap to expand]
[Equipment: Doppelganger blade]
[(Sword/mortal/tier 1)]
'Add four points to agility, two to strength and two to stamina.' Kyle said in his mind. Immediately afterwards, three new notifications appeared before him.
[800 exp consumed.]
[Agility: 4---->8]
[Strength: 2---->4]
[Stamina: 2---->4]
[EXP: 170]
As soon as the stats were raised, Kyle experienced the same feeling of everything slowing down for a second while he also felt a large amount of strength and vitality flowing through his body. Kyle's speed increased to more than double as he easily overtook the guard in a few seconds under the surprised looks to the guard and the girl held in his underarms. When the guard saw Kyle catching up to him from behind, he immediately changed his posture such that he covered the entirety of the narrow path in the forest. He was sure that whoever was behind would become the prey of the danger which Kyle was running from.
Kyle could tell the thoughts of the guard as soon as he changed the stance and smirked.
[Wink leap.]
Kyle appeared before the shocked guard as if teleporting and began to pull distance between them. After running for a few seconds, when he was about to reach the clearance before the city gate, Kyle heard a long piercing screech.
'Kreeeeeaaaahhhh!' A loud screech full of rage and madness was heard across the entire forest and even spread through the entire kingdom of Yeselvia. Everyone who heard this screech, be it the inhabitants or the ascenders felt their hearts shiver as the feeling of death shrouded them. Some of the people who had weaker hearts immediately fainted while foaming from their mouths.
Kyle, who was expecting something dangerous to happen was still taken aback by the shriek. There was no way that this screech was made by any creature from the first floor of the Ascendence Temple, hell he had seen many people on Ascendant level 10, even their attacks didn't give him this kind of pressure which was radiated from this screech. Within half a second since he heard the screech, Kyle felt an intense feeling of danger from the direction ahead of him.
Looking ahead, Kyle saw a vague silhouette standing before him.
[Detected potential apocalypse tiered danger.]
[Issuing special mission..]