"Well, would you look at that, what a coincidence" old man David tapped on Milo's shoulders.
There were no coincidences.
Milo would have liked to just sink into the ground and disappear right at this instant, just teleport at the top of a mountain and be left by himself.
David's daughter, Helena was standing right there, the old scourge must have asked her to come from the city.
Milo had always thought that she was too busy with her scholar and mage classes and that thus, that he would never actually get to meet her.
'Oh no, she's hot!' Milo tried backing away, right out of the room but David had already taken out the exits.
Milo had to admit, he had a hard time believing this was the old man's daughter, not only did he must have already been old when she was conceived, he had clearly partook in her creation with a woman way above what he should be able to achieve.
The young man rubbed his chin in thought, maybe she was also adopted.
Lost in thought, he turned and actually looked at Helena, who seemed similarly bothered by her father's antics.
She had long brown hair, a somewhat similar colour to that of Milo's but that was to be expected since it was the most common hair colour around.
Though her eyes were a gorgeous dark blue, which was definitely not common at all, Milo had never seen that before.
Wearing a long and neat dress, as well as a hat that Milo could only describe as silly looking, she was in complete antithesis with the inside of the barn turned house, even though she had used to live there in her younger years.
"You must be Milo" she extended her hand toward him and he instinctively shook it, David cheered in the background at this casual greeting.
He had expected her hands to be all soft but they were similarly calloused to his, she had still spent most of her youth working at the farm after all, in fact, Milo was realising that she had pretty big hands for a girl.
In fact, now that he was just in front of her, he was realising that she was taller than him.
And her handshake grip was pretty strong actually…
'Huh'
'Why in damnation did he not mention that his daughter was like this?!' Milo thought as he turned to the old man.
It would have made everything so much simpler, to hell with the scholar and mage stuff!
Milo would have been instantly sold had he mentioned that!
He took a few steps back and calmed down, it seemed like something had just awakened in him, and he wasn't fighting it.
"Yes, your father spoke a lot about you Helena, but I see that he wasn't very honest, you are much prettier than he described"
'Smooth' Milo thought.
'Not bad kid' David shrunk back in a corner, seemed like he had succeeded in getting Milo on board with his superb idea, now he just needed to see if Helena was similarly interested.
"Do you have rats in the attic?" much to everyone's disappointment, she instead looked up at the ceiling.
"No, there hasn't been anything up there for a while, not even a marten or anything…" Milo looked up at the ceiling too "Why do you ask?"
"There's some weird mana fluctuations up there, like something odd was there for a while, by the way dad, are you not worried about the strings of murder recently? It has already been a week since it started and there hasn't been a single day without victims" Helena didn't show it on her face, but it was clear in her tone that she was worried.
"Bah, nothing more than a lunatic on the loose, I would like to see him come here!" David, much like most farmers, wasn't afraid of this guy, despite the fact that the killer's kill count was already racking up in the dozens.
"The people that were living on the outskirts, in the old towns have also all vanished, I heard that the guards found a well filled with corpses, some having already been decaying for a while they said" unlike farmers like her father and Milo, Helena was more keenly aware of XP and of the workings of the system.
She knew very well that even a regular person, after slaughtering so many people, would have accumulated much enough strength to be a threat to even the strongest of men outside the city.
It wouldn't be farfetched to say that even guards should be careful and move in at least groups of two at this point.
"My instructors are busy, I'll stay for a little while" she didn't if it was necessary, but she preferred staying close-by, just in case something did happen.
The attic was also worrying her.
"Let's go check what's up there" she grabbed Milo and he allowed himself to be led around, he was also curious to see what she had been talking about.
Unfortunately for them, nothing was to be seen within the attic, in fact, the cobwebs indicated that nothing had disturbed them in a long while, still, Helena could still clearly feel like something was wrong, like something had been missing.
It was like an object had been laying somewhere around here and preventing mana from moving on its position, and only now that it was gone was the ambient mana allowed to move freely.
"That reminds me of the man that stole a machete, not too long before the murder started actually" Milo had almost forgotten about this event, but now he felt like he should perhaps speak to a guard about it.
Him and Helena began speaking about it, not realising that they had missed Loimos by barely a minute.
Night was falling and he was going on the prowl once more, this time, heading in the opposite direction from the habitations and the city, heading toward a still illuminated and loud building.
Like on most other constructions, the windows were no more than small openings for the most part, if they were actually large, they had already been shut with flaps.