Chapter 5：The Commission

"Mr. Halle, are you sure that he will be able to do it?" the middle-aged man said as he frowned. There was great distrust in his eyes.

Sean was a bit helpless. [Malice] was the side-effect that came with his profession. Back inside the game "Miracle," the side-effect had only impacted the prices of things such as repairing equipment and buying potions. Even though it also affected the attitude of a few NPCs, it was not very serious. However, when the data appeared in the real world of the Miracle Continent, the situation became completely different. Although Sean was not hated by everyone, most of the time, no one dared to go near him at all. This situation had continued until Sean had brought Cecilia back with him. That was when things had started to change slightly.

Now that a month had passed since then, Sean had finally managed to improve his reputation in the Sivir Region. He had done this by completing several commissioned tasks.

The attitude of the middle-aged man made it very clear to Sean that the man was not from the Sivir Domain. Otherwise, he would not have treated Sean like that to his face. Since Sean was already used to the cold attitude and the mistrust the world had towards him, he was not very angry about it. However, he decided that if whatever matter they had brought had to be taken care of by him, then it was necessary to severely hurt them at least once. His eyes shifted from the middle-aged man to Halle.

"He is the only one who is qualified to do this." When Halle saw Sean looking at him, he immediately knew what Sean was thinking at that moment. It was not the first time that he had dealt with Sean. Halle said with a bit of a wry smile on his face, "This is Mr. Drouin. Strictly speaking, he is the real person who wants to hire you for the task."

"He is too young." Drouin still had a look of distrust on his face. The aristocratic attitude from him could be seen at a glance.

"He is indeed very young. However, in the entire Suriname Region, he is the only one who can help us." Halle frowned for the first time. It was obvious that he was a little bit angry due to the attitude Drouin had displayed. "Mr. Drouin, please do not forget the purpose of our visit."

Drouin glanced at Sean once again, but this time, he did not talk. Instead, he permitted Halle to do the negotiations.

Sean suddenly smiled when he saw that Halle had turned his eyes towards him. However, the smile had made Halle shudder as Sean said, "Something in the entire Suriname Region and I am the only one able to help with it… It's the Starfall Forest, isn't it?"

"Are you going to raise the price?" Drouin immediately reacted.

Sean squinted at Drouin, then looked back at Halle. "Let us talk about the commission first," he said with a smile.

"We want to pass straight through the Starfall Forest." After Halle and Drouin looked at each other, Drouin finally said, "I heard that this place is where you came out from…"

"Pass straight through?" Sean was stunned for a moment. "Are you two going to the Minord Region?"

"Not the Minord Region, but the Portoroa Kingdom."

Sean's eyebrows furrowed as he finally frowned when he processed what Drouin had said. "This will be a little bit difficult."

The Starfall Forest was located in the Serian Kingdom. Legend said that it was a powerful and magical forest formed from the falling stars during the Twilight Era. The trees inside the forest had unexpectedly grown extremely tall. They were so tall that they blocked out the sun and covered the entire sky. No matter what time of day and what weather patterns were occurring outside the forest, after entering the forest, the view above was always a starry night sky. It was as if the stars had all gathered there.

Logically speaking, such scenery should have turned into a very famous tourist destination. However, the reality was the complete opposite. The forest was filled with disorderly and violent magic. All the wild beasts that lived inside the forest had been enchanted with magic and had turned into extremely terrifying beings. Also, because both the Serian Kingdom and the Portoroa Kingdom had once wanted to claim the forest as their own territory, a prolonged war had broken out. The soldiers who had died there during that war had been affected by the magic inside the forest and had turned into Undead Spirits. Thus, the news regarding the danger of the forest had spread a long time ago.

Passing northeast through the Sivir Domain, which was located in the Suriname Region, from the Serian Kingdom would allow the traveler to reach the Minord Region from the Serian Kingdom. However, heading southeast on the road would lead to the Portoroa Kingdom.

If the first option was chosen, then it would not have been a very difficult task for Sean, who knew about all the secrets of the Starfall Forest. After all, the highest level of those Magical Beasts inside the forest was only at level 40. Even if the group of guards that Halle had hired did not go inside with them, Sean and Cecilia alone were enough to send them safely to their destination. However, if they were to head towards the Portoroa Kingdom, then the road would be very difficult. Not to mention that along the way, the creatures they could encounter were basically all at level 50 and above. The most important thing was that to head towards the Portoroa Kingdom, they had to pass through a 'dungeon.' That was the reason Sean had frowned.

"Will this be difficult to complete?" Surprise flashed across Drouin's eyes for the first time.

Before they had gone to Sean at Halle's suggestion, Drouin had already asked a few other people to take up the commission. However, no mercenary teams had dared to accept it. Whether it was the Sivir Domain or the Sanchi Domain, as soon as the mercenary teams had heard they would have to pass directly through the Starfall Forest, they had all rejected the commission. The big and famous mercenary teams did not even humor such a commission at all.

That was why Drouin had been a little surprised when he heard Sean say "a little difficult" instead of "no."

"Are you sure that you are qualified to take this commission?" He was skeptical that this man was any different from the other teams he had approached.

"Just now, what did you say your name was?" Sean ignored the words from Drouin and asked him to repeat his name. "Please say it one more time."

"You!" There was a hint of anger in the expression displayed on Drouin's face. It was quickly suppressed, but the expression on his face had turned a bit colder. "Listen very carefully. I am Drouin de Royce!"

No one knew that right at the moment when Drouin said his full name, a touch of gold suddenly flashed across Sean's eyes.

[Name: Drouin de Royce]

[Race: Human]

[Identity: Viscount of the Portoroa Kingdom].

[Age: 37].

[Combat profession: Knight (rank three)].

[Personal attributes——Strength: 26(28); Endurance: 40(41); Agility: 20(24); Wisdom: 31(33); Will: 35(36)].

The moment when Sean looked at Drouin, a tab appeared and floated next to him. The tab was filled with all the information regarding Drouin's attributes.

That was another ability that Sean had obtained after he came into this world.

[Eye of Truth (Bloodline Talent): no history hidden within the passage of time can escape these eyes.]

Regarding the description of the ability, there were still things that Sean was actually a little unclear about. On his personal tab, the data about his bloodline had always displayed a question mark. That meant that Sean had yet to activate his bloodline. However, even without activating his bloodline, one of his bloodline talents had already been activated. The situation made Sean feel a bit confused. However, because Sean had the mindset of a player, the strange situation was not enough to dissuade Sean from using the skill whenever it benefitted him.

Finally, after a very long time of experimenting, Sean found out that as long as someone told him their real name, he could check that person's status. Also, the better his relationship with that person was or the more knowledge they contained, then the more content Sean could see about that person.

Cecilia had never revealed her last name to Sean. That was why Drouin's name had shown more information about him than Cecilia's did.

However, after Sean looked at Drouin's data, he had noticed something else. The chance of this middle-aged man in front of him breaking through to rank four was very slim.

That was something that the real world displayed, which was completely different from the world inside the game.

No one was able to stay at the top forever.

Although inside the game, the NPC would die after some time, their personal attributes would never be lowered. But on Miracle Continent, it was completely different. After having observed for about a year, he was pretty much certain that the people in this real world would gradually raise their wisdom attribute the older they became. On the contrary, their other three attributes of strength, endurance, and agility would all be lowered. As for the attribute of will, it would remain the same. Only a few people who were relatively timid or cowardly would cause their attribute of will to decline. On the other hand, people like the aristocrats who were used to scheming against other people would actually raise their will attribute as they grew older.

The man in front of Sean was one of those aristocrats. At the age of 37, he was in his golden age. Coupled with his aristocratic background, all of his personal attributes had been raised greatly. After all, according to what Sean knew, the growth limits of the five attributes on a normal [Knight] were 22, 30, 20, 24, and 24, respectively. However, Drouin had obviously gone beyond this scope. Even his current attributes showed that they were close to the growth limit.

However, considering that Drouin was just an "NPC," there were some differences between him and the players. Therefore, that kind of cheating was something that Sean could understand.

The world where Sean lived in right now was not a game. It was the real world. In this world, rank three professions were only the initial stages to the beginning of a formal profession. Many people had already made such achievements at the age of 20 or even earlier. Therefore, from the perspective of Sean's eyes, which were nurtured over the past year, if Drouin was unable to take up a rank four new profession before the age of 40, then even if he were lucky enough to advance to the rank-four profession in the future, he would not be able to train his personal attributes to their growth limit.

"How many of you will be going to the Portoroa Kingdom?" Sean already had a general idea of the real strength of the person in front of him. The next thing they had to do was talk about was the contents of the actual commission. However, there was just one thing that Sean was still a little unsure about.

"It will be 12 people including you," Halle responded. "You do not have to worry. They are all elites, and I can guarantee that all of them will obey your arrangements and command."

"Are all of the guards from your merchant group?" After Sean saw Halle nod, he suddenly felt that the future was going to be very difficult.

The people who were recruited by Halle to be part of the team of guards all had rank three [Guard] profession. They received the profession due to specializing in the rank two [Warrior] profession. The leveling-up occurred when the defensive skills that they specialized in advanced to a certain point. Therefore, the attacking methods of the guards recruited by Halle were completely imaginable.

"Mr. Halle, you will also be coming along with us, as well, right?" Sean asked. Only after getting an affirmative answer from Halle did he continue on to say, "if you want to travel straight through the Starfall Forest to go to the Portoroa Kingdom, then the number of people in the team cannot be more than ten. However, since I have to bring Cecilia with me, then the number of people you can bring on your side will only be six. However, I must give you two a piece of advice. The trip will be very dangerous. We will likely have to face a large number of the Undead Spirit creatures. Hence it would be best if you two can find a cleric to accompany us on the trip. Also, if it is possible, you should find two more skilled archers. They are not required to be able to shoot with absolute precision, but at the very least, they should not miss any targets that are within 50 meters of them."

"You sure request a lot of things." Drouin sneered.

"Wait until you guys are ready to leave, then we will talk about the problem regarding the remuneration." Sean smiled elegantly, hiding his true feelings, and then made a gesture to see off the guests. His movement was so accurate, polite, and elegant that it made him look as if he was a disciple born from a big ancient family. This gave Drouin, who emitted an aristocratic arrogance from his body, no choice but to restrain his imposing manner.