Chapter 66: Acquiring Arabella’s Reward

She can't be serious. Hiro was amused with Berlin's reaction.

He didn't know whether she was inherently shy or if this was a byproduct of the church's teachings.

"I'm just being polite, you don't have to mind it so much," Hiro waved his hand dismissively and looked around. "We should hurry up. The sooner you reunite with your peers, the better."

Hiro only exposed himself to prevent the girl from killing herself, he wasn't planning to stick to her side from this point onwards.

Berlin calmed down, and after giving the broken spear a reluctant look, she fixed her disheveled hair and turned to leave.

She wanted to tell Hiro not to follow her and that she'd be fine on her own, but the words wouldn't leave her mouth.

Then, she gritted her teeth and chose silence.

As in, she didn't start a conversation with Hiro nor did she respond to his initiative. After figuring that out, Hiro also stopped talking with her.

Instead, he summoned the various pages of the system shop while walking, searching for items of value.

Weapons and versatile spells were in high demand for Hiro at the moment. However, it was weird for a Sorcerer to use melee weapons, that wasn't the case for magic weapons.

For example, the spear from earlier could be used as a magical item, not a pure melee weapon.

Continue your story on m-vl-em,py-r

Hiro also searched for weapons or items that had an augmentation effect on his consciousness, as these would benefit his usage of the Infinite Sword Matrix.

This feeling is too uncomfortable, Berlin thought to herself as she hoisted the tattered helmet under her left armpit.

She snuck glances toward Hiro from time to time, but she couldn't tell whether he was acting oblivious to the awkwardness in the air or not.

Suddenly, Hiro stopped as clarity returned to his eyes. He turned his head to look up and far away, his eyebrows raised.

"What?!" Berlin's train of thought was disrupted so suddenly—she involuntarily cried out and took two steps back.

Then, her cheeks flushed a little in embarrassment.

Hiro didn't care, it was natural for Berlin to feel insecure next to a male stranger, especially when she lost her weapon—the only means by which she could defend herself.

Hiro said, "Your peers have returned, it seems like they were worried about you."

Of course, he couldn't see or sense them from so far away. It's just that his treasure-scanning range was 1,000m and thus, Hiro's system notified him when the bridge of light reappeared.

It was approaching at a fast speed, too.

"Really?!" Berlin was excited, but she didn't doubt Hiro's words; it was as if her first instinct was to believe him no matter what he said.

When she noticed that something was off, Hiro had already turned around, wind magic surrounding his body.

Obviously, he was preparing to leave as soon as possible.

Berlin frowned and asked, "What are you doing?"

Hiro glanced back over his shoulder, thinking that this was quite a silly question. He knew in his heart that this battle priestess must have some high prestige or popularity among her peers.

If they saw her unsightly image in the presence of a man who wasn't among their circle of faith, who knew how those zealots would react?

Thus, he left without hesitation. Hiro didn't even bother responding to her question, immediately speeding away like a violent gale.

As the wind kicked up in her face, Berlin stood there with a dazed look on her face.

Did he ignore her just now? She was stunned. seaʀᴄh thё NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Moments later, she noticed the trace of a golden hue on the horizon, realizing that her peers had indeed come back to check on her.

However, for some reason, she didn't find it in her to feel excited anymore. Although she didn't know the specific reason, she understood that Hiro must have left because of their return.

Somehow, she felt a sliver of resentment, unknowingly murmuring, "Why did they come back so quickly…"

…

"Phew," Hiro sighed in relief when the light bridge was no longer within the one-kilometer range of his treasure-scanning feature.

That was a close call, Hiro commented lightly in his heart.

He didn't wish to get entangled with the Holy Church over a woman, even if she was a battle priestess.

He would much rather get together with an ordinary woman who was obedient and stayed out of trouble.

So far, Hiro's only attachments to this world consist of his little friendship with Bella, Elvin, and Vanti.

Everyone else was a mere acquiescence at best. Especially now, since he earned the {Planewalker} title and was provided with the ability to extract the coordinates of any pocket dimension, realm, or world he stepped into.

It was quite obvious to Hiro that the government and the Greater Deities of the Holy Church had long since started migrating their core assets to the New World.

Since his perspective changed, it was easy for him to guess that the second devastating war would occur when those behemoths had no more attachments to this world.

Once they found a suitable realm for humanity to migrate, and once they shifted their core assets to the new territory, the countdown for a great war unlike any other would begin.

This was Hiro's current window of opportunity to milk the tens of billions of humans throughout the three continents dry of all resources and benefits, key among them being faith energy.

I've already completed my objective of coming here by getting my hands on the coordinates of the Demon Realm, Hiro's thoughts shifted, and he was at a loss.

He thought that he would need to infiltrate the demon camp, and join them in a few battles against the humans, and only then would he earn enough trust to visit the Demon Realm.

However, he hadn't expected them to put so much emphasis on the purity of demonic energy.

I wonder how pure was the demonic energy that corroded the dimension's core. Hmm, I promised Arabella a reward, should I bring back that demonic energy?

With his innate gluttony physique, it shouldn't be a problem to extract that demonic energy and store it in the system's inventory at the cost of paying achievement points.

It's just a question of how many achievement points he needed to pay for such pure demonic energy.

"Whatever," Hiro shook his head. "I should be generous to my subordinates. Even though we're bound by a contract, their ability to think and feel isn't restricted at all. The happier they are, the more productive they'd be, and they might start taking initiative without needing to receive my orders in the future."

This was something Hiro noticed when he compared Arabella's attitude to Juvia's attitude.

Obviously, since the latter enjoyed great benefits from his dimension, she exhibited greater enthusiasm, sometimes going out of her way to share some gossip and unconfirmed information she caught wind of.

As a beautiful young lady, many leaders in social circles and meet-up parties would share some internal gossip with her.

What family's master had declined in some field, losing authority to another family's master?

What business is going to receive aid from the government with policies and taxes?

What factions are fighting openly and covertly against one another, or joining hands to form new alliances through the exchange of benefits?

Hiro never asked Juvia to do all of this, but she personally made the judgment that this would be helpful to her Master, and so she proceeded with it.

As Ei, the artificial intelligence powered by a quantum processor was helping her from the dark, no one could find out about her little antics.

Thinking about this, Hiro decided that he needed to give this sliver of demonic energy to Arabella, and then give her a short seven-day vacation to roam the Demon Realm.

Her professional team can take over the company's affairs in the meantime.

After he affirmed his decision, Hiro turned around and followed the map in his memories, heading toward the dimension's core.

With his treasure-scanning activity, he easily avoided the regions with active treasures of fairly high quality, allowing him to avoid any unnecessary conflicts.

On the way, his treasures encyclopedia also grew rapidly, further extending the range of his treasure-scanning at an interval of 10m increments.

Soon, it shot up to 1.1km, 1.2km, and 1.3km, and it stopped at 1.5km when Hiro's treasure-scanning range suddenly spiked up, highlighting many high-level treasures.

The colorful array of various attributes almost blinded Hiro.

Light, dark, wind, lightning, water, chaos, gravity, kinetic, frost, blood, moonlight, earth, smoke, plasma, etc.

This signified that Hiro had mostly likely stepped onto an active battlefield, and the fighting was intense.

With that in mind, Hiro understood that he could no longer circuNovelFireent the conflicts to approach the dimension's core unnoticed.

Perhaps, the active battlefield had something to do with this core, as nothing else would justify the intensity of the battle.

Suddenly, two treasures highlighted by Hiro on the priority list were caught within his scan range, and Hiro raised his eyebrows.

One of them was Rosaline's twin short swords and the other was, unsurprisingly, the light bridge.