[Hidden Quest Completed]
[New Quest Issued by the System]
The moment those words bloomed across my vision—cold, mechanical, utterly indifferent to the heat still surging through my veins from victory—I froze in place, my breath hitching as excitement and caution collided inside my chest, because a hidden quest being completed and a new one being issued at the exact same time was not coincidence.
It was the System’s way of smiling without a face, and when I focused on the notifications and read through the details, a slow, deliberate grin crept across my lips as I realized how perfectly the pieces were aligning, as if the world itself had decided to make things easier for once.
’Could this be any better?’
I thought, my mind racing ahead of itself. Two birds, one stone... I knew it—somewhere deep down, I knew things would turn out like this.
The days that followed, however, revealed something I hadn’t anticipated at all, because Gustav’s disappearance from the family didn’t bring relief or peace the way I had imagined—instead.
It hollowed my parents out, leaving behind a grief so heavy it bent their backs and dulled their voices, and watching John and Elina suffer like that stirred something sharp and uncomfortable inside me, because no matter how I tried to justify it, they didn’t deserve this kind of pain, not from a b*stard who had never once treated them as family.
Even as they mourned, that loss forced them to cling tighter to us, to understand—perhaps too late—the importance of staying close to their children, and it pushed them to hasten the escape plan they had been quietly nurturing, because living in this village, surrounded by mindless, smiling wolves, required careful analysis and even greater distance.
It broke them in ways they didn’t voice, realizing that the child they had tried so desperately to raise as their own had seen them as nothing more than pests, beings worthy only of hatred, and more than once I caught them staring into nothingness, silently wondering if there had ever truly been a child named Gustav to begin with.
What happened—the incident where Gustav and a pack of feral children nearly killed me out of nothing but grudge and spite—shattered whatever fragile trust they still held for anyone outside our family, and worse, it planted a poisonous thought in their minds: that the villagers themselves might have orchestrated everything, from the whispers to the violence, as if our existence had always been a mistake they were trying to correct.
When I thought back to the insults, the venomous gazes thrown at us when Elina gave birth, the barely concealed hostility that never faded, it became terrifyingly easy to believe they were planning something again, another attempt, another failure they wouldn’t forgive.
I had never once considered Gustav my brother—not even for a heartbeat—so whatever worry gnawed at me wasn’t for him, but for my parents, and that was why I resolved to lessen their burden as quickly as possible, no matter what it took.
’That bastard really deserves applause,*’ I scoffed inwardly.
’Even after leaving, instead of freeing this family, he managed to drown them in grief.’
Everything was proceeding better than expected, yet impatience burned in my blood, because I wanted—no, needed—alone time with Gustav, and time was something I no longer had the luxury to waste.
It was hard to imagine anyone in the village daring to adopt him after what he had done, unless they sent him to some distant orphanage, or worse, sold him off as a serf to a noble, and considering I had always hoped to erase him from our lives, this was the perfect opportunity—one the world itself seemed to be offering on a silver platter.
In the dead of night, beneath a crescent moon slowly dissolving behind drifting clouds, three pairs of dark red pupils stared upward in silence... before fading away just as quietly.
I had left the house minutes ago, but not for my usual training—no, this night was different, carved out for something else entirely, and before stepping outside I had altered my appearance, masking myself until I looked more like a shadow than a child, a ghost slipping through the village like some half-baked ninja from a forgotten tale.
My destination was clear: the dungeon—little more than a crude jail cell—where prisoners were kept, and the very same place Gustav and the other boys were being held, and with several dungeon locations mapped out in my head, I planned to search them all if necessary, because by morning Gustav would leave this village for good, and I had decided that tonight would also be his last night in this world.
I wanted to give my dearest brother a farewell gift before he went to meet his maker, and now—right now—was the only moment I could set everything into motion, because by dawn there would surely be a carriage waiting to take him to gods-knew-where.
As I ran and climbed through the forest, I restrained myself from using Dash unless absolutely necessary, careful to erase every trace of my passage, and although my skill had grown far stronger than before, my mana was not infinite, so conservation was survival.
The forest became my ally, my cover, and I leapt from tree to tree, pausing only when something felt wrong, because even with the massive trunks and dense leaves cloaking the land, nothing could escape my perception—or the gaze of my Cursed Eyes.
Nearly an hour passed before certainty settled in my bones: Gustav was in the last dungeon cell, and I was already closing in.
As I moved, I sighed inwardly, because none of this would have happened if that b*stard hadn’t tried—again and again—to harm my family, and if he hadn’t crossed that line, I would have gladly left him to rot somewhere far away.
The dungeon lay within a mountainous stretch of forest, where towering trees whispered as their leaves fluttered, not with peace, but with an eerie silence that gnawed at the nerves, and from the crown of a massive tree, three faintly glowing eyes observed the structure below.
This was it—the place where Gustav would meet his maker.
’Please don’t let there be guards,’ I muttered internally as I studied the odd, ancient building surrounded by tall bamboo fences sharpened into crude walls, enclosing it on all sides like a primitive coffin.
I moved closer without descending, using my height to scout the area thoroughly, watching for patrols, memorizing patterns, because discovery was something I had to avoid at all costs.
Compared to the other dungeons I’d seen, this one was smaller, almost forgotten, and after twenty painstaking minutes of observation, I identified the only two guards on duty—both slumped in place, dozing off without a shred of vigilance.
Once I confirmed there were no others, I locked their positions into memory, and in the next instant, I dropped soundlessly from the tree and sprinted toward the inner side of the dungeon, the exact opposite direction of the sleeping guards.
They never saw me—but for just a moment, three pairs of dark red eyes glanced their way, sending an inexplicable chill crawling up their spines, one they dismissed as nothing more than the night’s cold, convinced that no one would dare approach this place unless they were seeking their own doom.