Chapter 204 - Dagger The Competition

"Huh? Huh?" Mei Mei looked around in confusion. Both she and Shen Yue had no idea what was happening around them.

"Brother, what the hell is happening? Who is this angry snake lady? Did you do something weird to her?" She then realized that Shen Yue was near them and quickly changed her question.

"I meant did you take some item from her. Ha Ha." 

Liam chuckled awkwardly, his gaze still fixed on the spot where the naga had been standing just a second ago. 

He made a mental note not to use the other pearl he had in his possession using which he could summon her one more time.

"That's a long story. Leave it be. How did you both get here?"

"Ah. No idea, brother. We were-"

Liam abruptly interrupted her, thinking of something even more important. "Shen Yue, can you check if your quest is failed?"

Shen Yue could guess what quest he was talking about and quickly opened her system interface to take a look. "Umm. No," she replied, checking it a couple of times.

"Hmmm." Liam checked his own quest as well and didn't see any progress there. He immediately became more alert and stood up.

"This can't be right. The snake said she took care of the enchantress, didn't she?" 

Puzzled by this development, he turned to look at the debris of the temple that had completely collapsed. "Was she still alive somehow?"

As if answering his question, some of the bigger chunks of walls started moving slightly and then more violently. From within two dark mages stood up, wobbling unsteadily.

They also looked heavily injured. 

Liam instantly unsheathed his sword and dashed forward. "Send me a party invite now." Shen Yue was the leader of their party so she hurriedly sent him one.

Liam did not know what was happening but if by chance that witch was alive, he needed to kill her ASAP!

The two Level 50 dark mages crumbled under his attack as they already had very less health left. After that, Liam started haphazardly looking around for more survivors.

And before long, he came into contact with the feeble body of the enchantress. She was buried under a mountain of rocks, only barely alive.

Looking at her in that state, Liam felt a pang of sympathy in his heart. 

He bent down and gently picked her up in his arms. Even that small action, made her wince. She looked like a flower wilted because of the rough winds.

Anyone's heart would ache at such a pitiful sight. It was moving to see someone so beautiful look so sad. Liam wanted to kiss her frowning lips and make all her worries go away.

He leaned closer to the mesmerizing woman in his arms and was only a breath away from closing her mouth with his when suddenly a dagger came flying, directly aimed at the beauty's throat.

Spurt.

Blood gushed out of the wound and Liam as well snapped out of his trance. He instantly dropped the witch in his arms down to the ground.

[Ding. Kingdom Quest Completed]

[Ding. You have received 100000 experience points]

[Ding. You have received 1000 gold coins]

[Ding. Your reputation in the Gresh Kingdom has increased.]

[Ding. Visit the King to obtain the rest of the rewards]

"Oh. It looks like she is finally dead." Liam looked up after observing all the details of the quest reward.

However, as soon as he did, he met a pair of angry simmering eyes that made him clear his throat awkwardly. Am I in trouble?

"Yes, she is dead." Shen Yue curtly replied, her dagger flying back to her.

"It has a return effect. Should be a good dagger?" Liam completely forgot about the angry gaze, now looking at the shiny new dagger.

"Yes, it is an Epic ranked dagger." Shen Yue again curtly answered.

"Wait. What? Did you just say epic-ranked?" Unable to believe her words, Liam once again looked at her, only to be faced with a pair of angry eyes again.

He cleared his throat awkwardly and did another attempt at changing the subject. "Your quest is now completed?"

Before Shen Yue could answer, Mei Mei, unfortunately, spoiled his plans. "Brother! Stop trying to change the topic!"

She also looked wronged for some reason. "What the hell, brother? What were you doing?!" Now Liam was facing two pairs of angry eyes threateningly staring at him. 

"It's a mental attack. It's a mental attack." He tried to explain, but sighed and gave up. It looked like his image had been completely ruined.

These kinds of unique-type of attacks were too indeed powerful!

"Let's not talk about that. I have other things to do. Your quest also should be completed right? Let's get out of here."

He quickly looked away and whistled, as if he was searching for something in the sky. 

A couple of seconds later, Talon came flying down and Luna as well came running out of some bush nearby. 

The little fox saw that the two women had returned and she quickly jumped onto Liam, hiding behind him.

"Ok. Looks like everyone is here. So we can leave now. Technically, the two of you can first go to Yleka using Talon. I will join you later. Okay?"

"NO!" Both Shen Yue and Mei Mei replied in unison.

"Then how about I go first since I have a lot of things to do. Ha ha." This time the two did not even answer and only gave Liam a narrow look.

"Alright. Alright. We can walk and go. It's not too far." Liam gave up in the end. 

He looked around to see if there was any loot but it didn't look like the witch had dropped anything. 

Feeling the two eyes on him, he even kicked around her corpse a little rough. 

"Nothing." He then smiled back at the duo to gauge the results.

Thankfully, it looked like his efforts were not wasted as both of their expressions had softened up quite a bit. 

The three of them then quietly walked side by side for a while.

But the invisible tension did not last long as Mei Mei started happily chatting about everything they had been doing these past couple of days.

It seemed that both of them had managed to collect an impressive amount of recipe scrolls, skill books, and raw materials. 

Not to mention, Mei Mei was now at Level 25 and Shen Yue as well was at Level 25. They had caught up very fast to the current average level of the players.

As they chatted and walked along, they soon arrived at another nearby town, something that was not scorched down to earth.

"Let's take a carriage here." Liam walked over to one of the carriage rides and hired them for 1 gold. 

Since the distance was considerably long, the carriage ride was also equally expensive.

But on the plus side, it would save them a lot of time and allow them to rest, so he did not hesitate and splurged.

The three of them boarded the ride and were on their way to Yleka city. 

Almost immediately, as soon as the carriage started moving, Mei Mei flopped onto the wooden surface, falling asleep in tiredness.

With her already tired condition, the rhythmic movement of the carriage put her right to sleep. 

"Were you guys continuously playing all this time?" Liam asked Shen Yue, to which she slightly nodded.

"Okay." This looked like it was his mistake once again. He forgot to tell them to log out and take proper breaks every now and then.

He decided to let her sleep for a while and silently started doing other things. He took out an old rusted sword from his inventory and started feeding it different herbs, one after the other.

As their carriage moved, if he spotted any herb on the way, he immediately asked Luna to grab it and fed that to the sword as well. 

In this way, the journey continued very silently with one person doing his own work, the other one sleeping peacefully, and the third person sulking on the side.

After a while, looking at all the different beautiful scenic places they passed through and at the fox running around here and there, Shen Yue completely forgot why she was angry in the first place.

"I also have some herbs with me." She took out some herbs from her inventory and handed everything over to Liam, helping him feed his sword.

"Thanks." Liam replied. He needed a thousand high-grade herbs to remove the first seal and what he had was not nearly enough. So he genuinely appreciated the help.

This helped lessen the burden he had.

And as he inspected the herbs, one by one, this gratitude only increased. 

"How many high-grade herbs did you manage to harvest? This is quite a bit. You must have been very busy?" 

Shen Yue blushed at this sudden compliment and shyly replied. "Not too much. All the places you marked gave out good rewards. That's why we were able to get so much."

Actually, before everything went to shit and somehow they got kidnapped, the two of them had managed to obtain quite a big harvest.

They had grinded different mobs and rare elites with a fervor, wanting to make up to Liam for ending up in jail and wasting his time.

But somehow they had once again ended up needing his help.

Shen Yue also took out the recipes, skill books, and other materials she had and gave them all to Liam. Everything formed a huge heap of dazzling things.

Even the carriage driver noticed this from the corner of his eyes and gulped enviously. As a small-town person, he had never seen so much wealth in his eyes.

Even for Liam, this was a lot. These two women had managed to hoard more items than the lesser dragon Niria. Seeing all of this, Liam felt a little guilty.

"Sorry. I should have paid more attention to your special quest. Can you tell me what happened with it?" He tested the waters, hoping he wouldn't bring up the shameful incident again.

Thankfully, Shen Yue seemed to have forgotten about that and looked like she was in a different mood. She nodded and quickly shared the quest and the rewards in the party chat.

"I also want to ask your opinion about this."

[Ding. Congratulations. Quest is completed]

[Ding. You have received 50000 experience points]

[Ding. Ruthenia Alzaeria's dying wish is to pass on her heritage to you. Do you wish to accept it? Y/ N]

Liam's eyes widened as soon as he saw the word 'heritage'. He was indeed correct in guessing about this quest! 

While he was grinding for days together just to get a glimpse of the necromancy heritage, this girl got lucky and obtained a gift item that resulted in a new heritage quest?