The Hero Returns

Chapter 421: Chapter 421

The four children including Millie all clamped their mouths shut after discovering Su-hyeun's presence.

Someone actually followed them into this dark, smelly, out-the-way back alley?

Not only that but it was also rather strange to see someone claiming his gold coins have been stolen to be grinning like that.

"Is it true?" the leader of the pickpockets, William, asked Millie.

Millie stared straight at Su-hyeun's face. Although he only saw that face in passing, he still clearly remembered it, as their encounter happened just a while ago.

However…

"Nope. It's my money, you know?" Millie obviously feigned ignorance, but that reaction only reaffirmed William's suspicions. Those three gold coins in Millie's hand? Those definitely belonged to the stranger.

A pickpocket would never admit to stealing money even if the original owner managed to catch up to them.

William smirked deeply; things would've been troublesome if the money he wanted to forcibly take away was returned to the victim after the latter caught up to them.

"Look here, uncle. He says it's not, so what now?" William ordered his two cronies to surround Millie so that he couldn't escape and then took large strides toward Su-hyeun.

The boy was blessed with a much faster growth spurt compared to the kids his age, and he nearly matched Su-hyeun's height. Not only that but he also had some muscles on his frame, and as he had wandered around in these dark back alleys for a while, he was rather confident of his fighting skills.

Su-hyeun stared at William as the boy's face got real close to him.

"This kid is also hiding a blade, huh," he thought.

It wasn't just William, either; the other two kids were also hiding a short dagger each.

Although faint, there were some traces of murderous intent permeating in their eyes, too. It seemed that they wouldn't hesitate to take a person's life in a location as isolated as this one.

And sure enough, the boy expressed this.

"If you don't want to end up in a bad way, mister, I advise you to get lost right now. If you don't, you might get a knife scar on your face or something," William confidently pulled out the knife and aimed it at Su-hyeun.

This boy wasn't just bluffing. Su-hyeun could tell since he was looking directly into William's eyes. His Insight was telling him that this threat was genuine and that the boy would really stab him if he didn't get out of the way.

"You have stabbed someone before, haven't you?"

William flinched at Su-hyeun's sudden question because the latter was just too nonplussed even after spotting the knife.

Only then did William discover that there was a sword attached to Su-hyeun's hip.

"T—that's right! That's obvious! But so what? F*ck! You want me to stab you, too?!"

William was scared. Su-hyeun could clearly see it and feel it. He was scared by the fact that it wasn't just him but the target was also armed with a blade. Even then, the boy waved the dagger around to appear more threatening, all because of his childish pride.

However, the words he spoke just now didn't simply come from some immature pride. He definitely had stabbed someone before; that really happened.

Su-hyeun glanced at the two other kids behind William and asked, "What about you two?"

They didn't answer. They weren't as ballsy as William, but that didn't mean they hadn't answered him at all, either.

This ability called Insight was quite convenient but also rather forceful. One could see the inner thoughts of someone simply by looking into their eyes, after all.

"I see. So that's how it is."

Step—

Su-hyeun took a step toward William. "Kids shouldn't behave like that. No, wait—never mind one's age, a person shouldn't be like that at all."

"What dogsh*t are you—?" William abruptly stopped talking.

That was because his arm had already been caught in Su-hyeun's grip. Even before he realized how, his body had been spun around, and his arm was bent behind him. William, totally panicking now, cried out, "N—no, wait…!"

Snap, crack—

William's arm was bent in a bizarre angle.

Kkeuh-aaaaaaahk—!

William screamed while holding his broken arm and rolled around on the ground.

Even if he had a knife, even if his physique was much bigger than his peers, in the end, he was still a child. William couldn't withstand the pain.

His legs were fine, but he couldn't remain standing up and pathetically rolled around on the dirty floor.

Step—

"Hey, you two? Come over here."

"Euh, euh…!"

"Uwahhh…!"

The two other kids stumbled back when Su-hyeun called out to them. They were reaching out to their own daggers hidden by their hips just now, but then, they urgently turned around to escape from here.

But then…

Cruuunch—

Crack—

Aaaaahk!

Su-hyeun twisted their arms behind their backs and broke them, too.

Clatter—

After he finished doing that, he stepped on the dagger that had fallen on the ground to break the blade. He then addressed the kids, "Don't think that this is unfair. If you were resolved enough to stab someone, you should've also resolved yourselves to get your arms broken, too."

What he meant sounded logical: If one was planning to take a life, then one should also be ready to lose one's life.

Most likely, these kids won't get to use their broken arms ever again, which obviously meant that they wouldn't be able to swing knives around and stab someone else to death.

"Well, then…"

Step—

Su-hyeun began walking toward Millie, who was shivering in fear in a corner. "Why don't we finish our discussion from earlier?"

"U—uwah…"

Trickle—

When Su-hyeun said that, Millie's pants became soaking wet. The boy then plopped down on the ground while shivering even more in fear. Su-hyeun could only scratch his head after seeing his reaction while inwardly going, "Oops…"

"Ugh, this…"

It seemed that he got frightened by how scary the atmosphere had gotten just now.

Su-hyeun had a feeling that it might take a while before their chat could proceed normally.

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Su-hyeun had a lot of trouble trying to calm Millie down. Trying to pacify a young child, especially a scared one, was one of the hardest tasks out there, that's for sure.

Despite reassuring Millie that he meant no harm or he wouldn't get angry at him, none of it worked. The reason why he did something to William and the two other kids was that they wielded knives, and they didn't even hesitate to harm other people.

The situation with Millie was, of course, quite different. In the end, Su-hyeun had to physically prove that he wasn't planning to hurt him. That task was surprisingly simple in nature, however.

Millie asked, "It's not really because of the money?"

"That's right, so if you answer my questions, I'll even add this one on top." Su-hyeun placed one more gold coin in Millie's hand.

With this, he had proved to him that he didn't follow him here to take the stolen money away and to punish him for the crime.

From the get-go, Su-hyeun had no attachment to money. As for the gold coins, he still had so much that they were forming a literal mountain within his subspace, anyway.

"I don't know why you're pickpocketing, but that's none of my business. You must've been to pretty much everywhere, so surely you know quite a lot about how this world operates, don't you?"

"Y—yes, of course. Besides being a pickpocket, I also sometimes work as a news seller, you see."

"News seller?"

"I sell the news regarding all accidents and incidents that happened recently, regardless of their scale. Lots of news that the regular people don't know about can easily be heard in the shadier part of the streets, you see."

Su-hyeun nodded at the fact that this kid, Millie, knew more than he initially expected. He inwardly guessed, "So, this was no coincidence, is that it?"

He made the right call not catching Millie right away for stealing and letting him be on his own for a while.

Every little thing that happened within a trial had context, a probability, to the overall goal. There were no such things as meaningless and random incidents within trials, such as a pickpocketing incident that happened right off the bat.

The reason why Su-hyeun appeared in this place at this time was probably a machination meant to help him acquire information through this child, Millie.

"Since that's the case, let me ask you a few things. First of all…"

Su-hyeun demanded an explanation and general information of this world, the kind that even a common citizen would know of. Learning about such things took precedence above all else for the time being.

Millie asked back why Su-hyeun would ask about stuff like that, only to start his explanation nonchalantly when another gold coin was waved in front of his face.

The name of the continent they were on was Pangaea. According to Millie's explanation, this world didn't seem that weird at all. The level of scientific understanding was comparable to Medieval Europe; as Su-hyeun had seen quite a few varied worlds, he could say that this sort of setting was rather common.

Although there were no magicians, knights did exist. It seemed their overall skill level was quite excellent.

"There's nothing special to note here," Su-hyeun initially deduced. He didn't see any special trait that immediately jumped at him, but there was something that did sound strange. "But the size of the continent is stupidly large, isn't it?" he thought.

That was the most surprising information of all so far.

"To think that the population of this world is in trillions…"

The scale of this world was by far the largest in Su-hyeun's memory.

The overall population here reached several trillion, and the population density seemed quite low as well, much more so than any other world that Su-hyeun knew of, which could only mean that this planet had to be at least several hundred times larger than Earth.

As a matter of fact, this planet could very well be as large as the Sun.

"That's well beyond my imagination, alright."

He initially thought that there was nothing to note about this world, but as it turned out, the world itself was the most special part. Out of all the civilizations he had encountered so far, this had to be the largest planet he had ever seen.

"One day is nearly three thousand hours. Around 62 days and nights exist in this world, while four days constitute one year."

Something about this felt off. Up to this moment, this place looked far too peaceful to him, and he couldn't help but think that it didn't exactly suit a trial taking place on the 200th floor.

But to think that this was a world filled with a population several thousand times higher than back on Earth…

"Okay, then. In that case, can you tell me what an altar is?" Su-hyeun asked Millie about the next lead of the trial, the "altar."

However, that caused the child's expression to change once more. "Uncle, you also don't know what that is? Really?"

"Yeah, I don't know. And I'm not an uncle, you know—" Su-hyeun abruptly stopped talking right then.

If it was at all possible, he didn't want to use Insight on normal people, but right now, he had been relying on that very skill just in case Millie was lying or left something out inadvertently.

And that's how he learned about the truth of the "altar" through his eyes.

"Oh, I got it. I won't call you uncle anymore. You don't have to be so unhappy about it—"

"No, no. That's not it," Su-hyeun hurriedly shook his head.

Millie cowered a bit at that and continued to speak, "The 'Altar' means the city where we send our offerings for our various gods. I'm a follower of the Brahma Order, but unfortunately, I still haven't been chosen even after 13 years of life in this world."

"Wait, what—? You said it's unfortunate?"

"Yes," Millie continued to explain himself, but what he said next made Su-hyeun bite his lower lip, "Going to the side of Lord Brahma by surviving no matter what and becoming an offering, that's my dream, you see."

"Offering…Just how many people get offered up like that?"

"Once every year, around one out of every hundred people get selected as offerings. Some people are so unfortunate that they never get chosen throughout their whole lives, while some very young lucky kids get chosen early." He then pointed at Su-hyeun, "As for you, uh, big brother, you still haven't been chosen despite your age, so…Well, normally, people get chosen by the time they are around 40 or 50 years of age, so you'll be fine."

He spoke in a soothing tone as if there was nothing to worry about, and that flabbergasted Su-hyeun indeed.

If this was before, he would've thought that this kid was not quite right in the head, but his Insight told him that Millie was being genuine, that he was truly devoted to his belief. This child genuinely wished to become an offering and die.

There was no hypnosis here, not even a mass delusion. This was a type of brainwashing done to him since his birth.

"Is everyone in this world the same as him? What the fu—?" he thought.

It had been a while since he last swore, but he nearly swore out loud just now.

Even if he wanted to say it was all wrong, this world had been structured in this way seemingly from a very long time ago, so, to this child, there was nothing wrong with this situation.

"Big brother, which religious order do you believe in?"

"I'm an atheist," Su-hyeun said. He didn't even have to think about his answer.