Two days have passed since Ren and his group reported about the elder lich Alfred. When Nezzard heard Hilda's report on the situation, he felt his head hurt. The situation with the villagers was bad enough, but the news about an Elder Lich appearing in this area where one of the three knight schools of the kingdom was located wasn't really something he wanted to hear.
...
An Elder Lich was a powerful being. Usually, a Lich was a powerful human magician that wanted immortality or when a necromancer becomes too powerful. Then there's the Elder Lich this is a more powerful version of the Lich. To become an Elder Lich a Lich needs to survive for a hundred years to gather enough mana and supposedly become one with death.
Usually to subjugate an Elder Lich you need at least two S rank fighters, five A rank parties, and several B rank parties to surround the area of battle. The reason you needed this much to safely subjugate one Elder Lich was because of its ability to summon undead.
Unlike normal necromancers, the Elder Lich doesn't need any complicated rituals and can instantly summon undead beings as long as it has the mana to do so.
...
Nezzard first needed to gather information about any powerful magician by the name of Alfred in the past hundred years. Then he needed to call in a favor from the adventurers guild in the neighboring city to help subjugate the Elder Lich. He also needed to send an experienced scout to track the movement of the Elder Lich. He also needed to inform the principal of the knight academy about the situation, since if one of those glory-seeking young noble knights hear about this news they might be stupid enough to find the Elder Lich and try to kill it themselves, aside from those things Nezzard needed to do a ton of other stuff as well.
'Damn that guy! I thought that my job will be a bit easier if he became an adventurer, but instead, it got even harder.' Nezzard started cursing at Ren in his head as he started writing a letter.
...
After the battle was done and they reported their findings to the Guild Master, Ren told Lara and Hilda to do some quests by themselves. He explained that he needed time to think. He even requested Lara not to go into the room, and just sleep with Hilda for a while.
It has been two days and not once did he leave his room. He simply stayed in the room thinking about the recent events.
Ren realized that he thought he had accepted being human, but in truth every now and then he still thinks that he was still Demon Lord Kretos the strongest Demon Lord. He still fought as if he was on the top of the food chain, but he wasn't.
At the moment he was still a growing human boy in his teens. His mana flow and his physical body haven't even fully matured yet. Not only that he was also dealing with a lot of overflowing emotions. Being a human child and demon child was a totally different experience.
He was too invested in his emotions as he fought, back in his previous life the only emotion he had when fighting was excitement. Yet now when he fights he felt a multitude of emotions, yes he still does feel the excitement, but at the same time, he feels fear and anger.
These feelings that he was having during a fight only slows him down, but he didn't know how to control them properly. At first, he thought as long as he satisfies his urges he would be able to control his emotions better, but it wasn't as effective as he thought it would be.
Overall the main problem was he was weak. He needed to get stronger, if he was stronger it doesn't matter if he felt a lot of things during a fight he would still win. Actually, if he was stronger maybe he might not feel fear and anger anymore.
Ren smiled as he thought of something. 'Humans and their emotions, it's their weakness as well as their strength. I wonder what kind of emotions those heroes had when they faced me.'
...
As Ren was deciding what to do next to get stronger, Valdel, Lara, and Hilda were talking in the pub.
"I see, so Ren lost..." Valdel was shocked as he heard Hilda explaining what happened during their first quest. His best friend that he always thought was invincible actually lost a battle.
"It was my fault." Lara couldn't accept the idea of Ren losing. In her mind, if she and Hilda weren't there Ren would've done something to win. The only reason he retreated was because of the two of them.
Hilda who came to understand some of Ren's peculiarities knew that if he was by himself he would have never retreated. The mood in their table suddenly became a bit depressing. It was at that moment they heard a familiar voice.
"Good you're all together, this saves me the time." The three of them looked at the direction the voice came from, and as expected there was Ren waving at them with his usual smile.
Seeing Ren go out of his room after two days staying in there, Lara couldn't hold it in anymore and charged at Ren hugging him. Even in this situation, her face remained stoic, but her actions conveyed what she truly felt. Valdel stood up as well and approached Ren patting his shoulders.
"It's alright buddy, one loss isn't the end of the world. You can still get back at that monster, next time I'll be there to help."
Hilda looked at Ren pleasantly surprise. She wasn't sure if he was eating or drinking inside his room. She was a bit worried about him since no one saw him go out of the room to eat. So seeing him alive and looking very healthy made her feel like a weight was lifted from her shoulders.
Ren standing there stunned while being hugged, was surprised by everyone's reactions. "I don't get it but it's alright Lara. Also, Val, I know that losing one time is not the end of the world. You talk like I -" Ren didn't finish that sentence since he remembered that this was his actual first loss ever since coming to this world. So instead he changed the topic and told the people present what he wanted to say.
"So I just wanted to tell you guys, I'm going Dungeon hunting by myself," Ren said this with a carefree smile on his face, unaware of the impact this news brought to Valdel, Lara, and Hilda.
...
Alastair had gone around the whole town of Grenton but none, not even the lowliest of scum would take the job of attacking Ren and his group. This vexed Alastair and forced him to go to a nearby town were there too he was rejected.
It would seem that information of what happened in Grenton's underworld was passed to the nearby cities. They knew now of the dreadful existence known as Ren. They didn't want to mess with him for the time being, the big wigs of each organization decided to strengthen the fort instead anticipating Ren's arrival. They still needed to gather more power to prepare for the worst possible situation.
Unaware of what was happening in the underworld, Alastair journeyed back to Grenton irritated that he couldn't find anyone to do the job. Was he really going to just wait for his family to deal with this?
While he was contemplating what to do next, someone approached him. "I heard that you wanted someone dead."
Hearing this made Alastair smile.