Niklas mused, 'There is no point for me to hold on to ownership after I recover the lands. I will be constantly pursued, and I will eventually have to run. *sigh.* I don't know the extent of my powers. If I did know, I would know for sure if I should prepare myself to flee.
'Ah, darn it! I need to get enough money to get good medical care for my family.
'Calm down and make a plan, Niklas.'
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The commotion in his mind came under control.
'I don't need to go and get all at once. No, that will force the enemies to look for me because I will be a natural suspect. Even if I flee with my family to another settlement, it won't be long before I'm found because of the connections that bastard has.
'I have to go about it slowly. A small win at a time until it cumulates to a big win, and the first step I have to take is to find a buyer. Once a serious buyer enters the picture, people will begin talking. From the noise, I will know who is with the documents.
'I will first start with the hog farm. I know how it operates. They supply it to a buyer in Klaxin Mini City. Too bad that the farm's contract to supply the buyer expired last week and they haven't renewed. That traitor at the farm is responsible for signing contracts on behalf of Chief Idris.'
The traitor at the farm was a lady named Claire. She used to work for Niklas' parents at the hog farm as the farm's manager. When Chief Idris snatched Niklas' family properties and took control over the hog farm, she quit the job in support of Niklas' family. At this point, she still had control over the farm's bank account. The account was loaded with tempting figures of 560,000 Eks. Claire betrayed Niklas' family; she stole the money, went under the protection of Chief Idris through the village captain, and resumed working at the hog farm.
Niklas devised a ploy that will see Claire incur the wrath of Chief Idris, and he (Niklas) bags cool money. The probability of his plan succeeding was high. This was because the buyer at Klaxin wouldn't be available for a month because of issues they had to settle at Main-city-4.
'I will need a phone, a VPN, a decentralised crypto-currency account, and some tech-savvy person who won't ask too many questions,' Niklas calculated.
'I will need more funds to get these in place.'
He thought about ways to get more money. He cancelled out, returning to his old job of being a sales boy at the village's central market. As he thought, he remembered his deceased friends.
'If only they were here, they would have helped me secure money. *Sigh*'
An idea ticked in Niklas' mind. He wondered if he should try hunting down uncharted beasts. Uncharted beasts were beasts that roamed the deserted lands. These were powerful beasts that could have the combined strength of ten elephants, and they were so sturdy that they could survive three shots from an anti-tank rifle on a spot of their body.
No country or power owned the deserted land. It was a neutral area on earth. It was the home of uncharted beasts. It was a dangerous place to be for anyone.
DING!
'Huh?'
The system interface popped up in Niklas' view with a single line of words on it.
[New Mission: Go to the secret cavern of Amadi and find the weapon—the lightning blade.]
"Hmmn. This is odd. Perhaps this weapon can help me slay an uncharted beast."
Another line of words appeared below the previous one.
[Mission type: timed quest. Time left: 12 hours. Timer— 11:59:59.]
"What in the world is happening?" Niklas said in confusion.
A third line of words appeared.
[User activates punishment when the user does not complete the quest within the stipulated time.]
"I must be going crazy," Niklas said in disbelief.
He closed his eyes and shook his head, thinking that he was malfunctioning. But when he opened his eyes, the texts on the interface were still there.
[Punishment: You instantly lose the blessings from Amadi's legacy.]
Niklas protested to the interface, "No, no, no. You can't send me back to that cave. No."
The interface just floated lifelessly before Niklas, like an automated visual prompt.
"Niklas?" A familiar voice called on him, making him freeze in place. It was his mother.
"What cave? Niklas, who are you talking to? Niklas, what is happening to you?"
Nnedi was so worried. Niklas' talking woke her up, and she saw him protesting. Her mind immediately went back to earlier, when Niklas revealed to her that he went artefact hunting with his friends. She was worried that something connected to the hunt was worrying her son.
'Oh my god! I messed up here. I should have controlled myself,' Niklas thought.
Niklas lied, "It is nothing, mom. I just had a bad dream."
"A dream?" Nnedi asked.
"Yeah, a dream. I dreamt about the artefact hunt I went on. I guessed it gave me PTSD."
"Niklas," Nnedi said with pity.
"I promise that I'm never going on another hunt, mom. Just go to sleep, and don't worry about me. I'm going to be fine."
Nnedi believed Niklas. She felt guilty for his 'nightmare'. She felt that if she wasn't in bad shape, Niklas wouldn't have dared to go on the artefact hunt.
She said, "Ok, I'm going back to sleep."
She turned her head away from Niklas and wept quietly in pain and guilt, wondering when this suffering was going to end.