Cora’s reaction didn’t stop at a change of color. A second later, her legs gave out under her and she collapsed to the floor, landing hard on her behind. For several seconds, she slowly looked up at me, then back to the tablet, back to me again. She kept it up on and on, I was beginning to feel like I broke her for good, when her screaming voice echoed in the room out of nowhere.

  “W-what the actual fuck were you doing for the last seventeen years?!”

  Her look said it all; her worldview had been shattered to pieces. She couldn't cope with the fact that a person with a mythical tether had come out of nowhere at thirty-two. Nobody sits on a mythical tether in silence for seventeen years; it simply isn’t possible.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I was taking care of a family business out in the boonies?” I answered with a chuckle.

  This answer almost made her pass out. It was as if someone was trying to persuade you that one plus one equals five. And yet, here I was, standing in front of her. She became catatonic once again, looking at me like I just ate the moon, opening and closing her mouth without making a sound for what felt like eternity.

  “So, this is why she was always blabbering to me that you were ‘special,’ a ‘one of a kind’ man. Not because she wanted to get into your pants.”

  Alrune chuckled in my head. “Well, she definitely wants to get into his pants, girl!”

  I did my best not to laugh and gave Cora space to pull herself together. She eventually did, rising to her knees and bowing deeply until her forehead touched the ground. Tears were welling in her eyes.

  “I apologize for my actions, Mister Shrier! Please don’t hold it against me; I am just a worried sister. She is the only family I have! Please, Mister, have mercy on me!”

  Seeing her like this, I sighed, crouched down in front of her, and spoke.

  “Calm down. I get it. You love your sister—maybe a little too much—but I understand where you’re coming from. Let’s make a deal. You stop with shit like this, and I’ll forget it ever happened. What do you think?”

  She slowly raised her head, her eyes red and puffy, her face tear-stained and filled with shock.

  “For real?”

  “Yep!” I extended my hand to her, wanting to help her up. “Let’s forget about it.”

  “You won’t ask me or my sister to... serve you in your room later or something?”

  “Do I really look like I need to strong-arm women to sleep with me?”

  She just took my hand and let me help her up. Now that we were standing, I pointed to the table behind us.

  “How about we sit down and check out some bounties?”

  “S-sure!” Cora nodded with a small, almost imperceptible smile, looking much calmer than before.

  As we sat, she took a moment to clean her face with a handkerchief and calm down, turning extremely professional.

  “So, what kind of assignments are you interested in, Mister Shrier?”

  “Just Victor, please.” I pointed behind my back toward the wall where the dagger was stuck, smirking a little. “We’re well past the point of ‘Mister Shrier,’ don’t you think?”

  She actually chuckled, relaxed quite a bit and nodded. “Then please call me Cora, Victor. Back to the topic: what jobs are you interested in?”

  “I’d love something that can be done quickly. I don’t care about much else. Ideally, stuff where I don’t have to spend time looking for the targets.”

  She nodded. “I understand. In that case, I have plenty of contracts just for you. The best one would be, for the elimination of a bandit camp above the northern road. The place is well-mapped and the bandits are just common thugs with shitty tethers. Their camp is in the gray zone between cities, the guards of either city won’t ride that far on their own, and the bandits haven't pissed off anyone important enough to force the issue. Normal E-rank bounty hunters don’t like to start with a job that asks them to off twelve assholes, but that should not be an issue for you. On the other side, in addition to your normal pay, you get to keep anything you find in the camp as long as you bring back the neck stoppers from all twelve of the cunts.”

  “Sign me up for that.”

  “Just a reminder: despite there being twelve targets, it still counts as one mission for your progression to Rank D. You’ll still need nine more jobs to rank up, along with reaching level twenty-five. Since you’re in the Delver’s Guild, you might wonder why it only takes ten missions to rank up here. There normally are only two types of missions we get: the ones where you have to track a person, which takes time, or 'bad' missions—risky and dangerous ones. At least for us normal people without mythical tethers and all.”

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  I nodded without a word. After taking the job and giving her my goodbyes, I grabbed the map showing the camp's location. I made sure I had the missive for the guard station—now all I needed were the heads.

  I was getting nervous from the task before me so I decided to have an easy day. I properly rested during the day, so that I would be fresh during the night. I stashed some rations in my inventory, just in case the job took longer than I expected, and left the inn at nightfall. I rented a horse at the northern gate and rode as close to the camp as I safely could, tied him to a tree, and proceeded on foot.

  It took a little bit more than an hour for me to finally spot the campfires through the thick forest. As I got closer, I started to look for an optimal way to approach this. I looked for so long that the two men guarding the entrance started talking.

  “What do you think? Will the boss let us test-drive the new slave?” one of the bandits asked.

  Instead of a response, I heard a disgusted grunt, followed by a spit on the ground and punch to the speaking bandit's gut.

  “She’s a kid, you sick fuck. I’m not above some forced fun or murder, but this makes me want to vomit, you psycho!”

  He left after that, entering a nearby cavern and leaving the punched bandit alone by the two campfires.

  I decided to use the opportunity and charged forward from the flank. Before the man could stand up, I was already upon him, thanks to my Body Enhancement. I sliced his head off in one clean motion. The moment the head hit the ground, my nervousness vanished; it was like somebody flipped a switch inside of me, a very scary switch.

  Surprisingly, the only thing I felt after putting down the first bandit was how disgusting he was. The conversation I’d overheard had likely helped tremendously in that regard. After I stashed the head, I stepped towards the cavern, my steps calm and deliberate.

  The cave was damp and spacious, with water dripping down the natural, rounded walls. Visibility was poor; the only light came from patches of bioluminescent moss. I had to proceed with caution.

  Ten meters in, I spotted the next target. By the looks of it, I had found the one who had thrown the punch outside. I took a deep breath and charged. Same strategy: Body Enhancement, close the distance, one decisive cut. The only difference was that I retreated immediately after the strike to avoid the spray of blood.

  Once the body stopped moving, I returned for my proof. Interestingly, neither of them had anything of value on them—just mundane arming swords and daggers. I took them anyway, though I’d hoped they would be better geared.

  With two down and ten to go, I continued deeper into the cavern, stepping carefully to avoid compromising my presence.

  “You’re taking this well! I was worried, but it didn't move you at all,” Alrune remarked.

  I stopped, backed up a bit and made sure the area was clear. I took a deep breath and whispered back. “Exactly! That’s what I was worried about since I put down the first one. I feel bad for taking it so well. Am I some kind of monster?”

  Alrune sighed in my head. “Firstly, you are no monster. The vermin you’re taking out are the monsters here. The first sick fuck wanted to force a child; the second thought murdering adults was fine but drew the line at kids. How are these 'people'? Secondly, didn't you mention that the voice that reincarnated you tweaked your character?”

  “She mentioned erasing my memories and tweaking me so I'd 'fit in better,'” I replied.

  “There you have it! That’s likely why you’re fine now.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m sure. I spent centuries killing; I’ve seen it all. I know a monster when I see one, and you aren’t it. I would be the first to tell you if you were. So just calm down, trust me, and thank that weird-voiced bitch for giving you such a handy gift.”

  Just listening to her—hearing her assurance that everything was fine—calmed me down entirely.

  I proceeded further into the cavern until I came across a rather spacious natural chamber. It was circular, with a ceiling about three meters tall at the sides and about five in the middle. It had two entrances, the one I was standing next to and a second one on the furthest side of it. I could see nine men sleeping inside.

  I backed up a bit, I didn’t want to raise alarm so I needed to think this through a bit. If it was just the bandits I would not mind a lot, but I knew they had at least one hostage, there was no way I would allow them to harm her.

  “Planning how to do it in silence?”

  “Yes!”

  “How about you just bypass this ‘sleeping quarters’ for now and clear out the room with the last one? Hostage is most likely with the last bandit. Then you would be able to go nuts, with hostage secure!”

  “Let’s do that! Thanks!”

  With the strategy in place, I carefully sneaked across and went deeper into the cavern looking for the last bandit. I didn’t have to look for long. He was about twenty meters further down the cave, sleeping in a makeshift bed placed in the room about the same size as the previous one.

  Next to the bed was a large chest on one side and metallic cage on the other. In the cage, chained, beaten and sleeping was a little girl, probably around nine years old. Seeing the kid with my own eyes, I had an urge to go quarter the bastard in front of the cave and piss all over his remains, but I managed to calm down.

  I quickly approached and pierced the last bandit’s neck, severing his vocal cords entirely. Then I grabbed the chest and, once the nasty pig in the bed stopped leaking, I took his weapon, pouch of gold, key to the cage and of course the trophy I needed to get paid.

  Now that the bandit was taken care of I made sure to properly cover him; the last thing I wanted was for the kid to see the headless fucker. Then I carefully unlocked the cage, approached the little kid and woke her, making sure to hold her mouth. Just enough to make sure she wouldn’t wake up the whole cavern, but gently enough not to hurt her. As she woke up, I signaled to her to be silent and whispered.

  “I came for you, no worries everything is going to be fine! I will get you out of here!”

  She took a moment to calm down and process the situation then she nodded in understanding. I released her mouth and handed her a blindfold, I’d fashioned from the bedding earlier. “Please put this over your eyes.” I whispered.

  The little girl with her blue eyes and short blond hair, fear and hope mixing on her face just nodded and tied the blindfold over her eyes. She didn't have much choice but to trust me.