SPIRIT SOUL

The battle had ended in no time and Kyle only threw a single glance at the injured girl, traces of worry gleaming in his eyes.

He knew that the children weren't in mortal danger, but one could never know for sure.

Nevertheless, the lethal threat was right in front of him.

As such, he immediately rushed towards the killer ant he had killed first.

The dead ant's soul had already started to ascend into the air.

Noticing that, Kyle barely managed to reach it before it flew away from his grasp.

Wasting no time, he and the Emerald Fox grabbed and devoured every single soul that detached itself from the corpses, acting like black holes.

After that, the Emerald Fox jumped on his shoulder and transferred the soul particles to Kyle.

Despite being one entity, the Spirit Soul couldn't fully utilize the Nurture ability.

As such, after every soul had been devoured in less than a minute, Kyle returned to the children who had stopped crying.

Only the injured girl was sobbing while preventing herself from looking at her leg that ached heavily.

Her face was buried in her hands and she was trembling.

There were two vertical slashes on her leg, similar to a claw mark, where the ant's pincers had cut through her skin.

"I mean no harm! Can you brave kids step aside, please? I want to help the little girl." Kyle spoke in a gentle voice so as to not startle the kids that were still shocked about what had happened.

Upon hearing him, the children stepped aside as if they were in a trance.

Because Kyle had saved them and the fact that he seemed to belong to the same race, they believed him without a shred of doubt.

Smiling at the girl he tried to calm her a little before releasing his Nurture ability.

He only used some of the soul particles that were overflowing inside his body to heal her.

Thus, Kyle touched the girl's leg with the tip of his finger gently.

No sooner had his finger touched, the girl immediately felt relieved.

Soothing energy was spreading through her leg.

She felt her pain reducing drastically and she finally found the necessary courage to look at her leg.

The bleeding had stopped and the wound looked a lot better than before.

While the girl looked at her leg, Kyle took out the rest of the anti-inflammation paste before applying it over the wound to prevent any infections.

She gave him a hesitant smile as he helped her get back on her feet.

After that, he stood up, only for his gaze to sweep through the group of children.

"Why were you outside the town? Don't you know that it's dangerous?!"

Kyle wanted to lecture them even more, but when Selene tugged at his shirt, he stopped abruptly.

Turning towards her, he saw a small group of beasts behind.

They were still far away but seemed to be moving forward in their direction.

As such, Kyle took a deep breath and shared a piece of advice.

"If you want to leave the town again before learning how to defend yourselves, be prepared to die. You should either be trained in weaponry, awakened your cultivation vein, or learn how to handle an affinity...That was enough lecturing for today.. now we have to leave quickly!!"

Lifting the injured girl in his arms, who was still limping, he rushed towards the town. Selene, who was next to him, hurriedly said, "Quickly, go!"

The young girl had been perplexed to be picked up by a stranger and felt a little uneasy.

Just when she was about to show her unwillingness, she realized why Kyle had done so.

Her eyes went wide as she blurted out, "There is another group of beasts!!"

Pointing towards the large group advancing towards them, she tried to hide herself in Kyle's shirt.

Hearing her, the little girl's friends turned around, to see what had terrified her.

As such, they quickly followed Kyle and the others.

This time they didn't need another warning, as the killer ants had already taught them a lesson.

Another wave of terror spread through their bodies, scaring the already petrified kids who ran for their lives.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the town's outer walls that were a mixture of a wooden fence and stone wall.

Luckily, all of them reached the safety of the town and everyone was fine.

The gate was secured by four guards that had seen Kyle, Selene and the bunch of children running towards them.

"Isn't that Nina in the man's arms? She seems injured!!" One of the guards exclaimed all of a sudden.

It was not difficult for the guards to figure out what had happened by looking at the strangers and the kids, but it still astonished them greatly.

As such, Kyle and Selene were immediately let in through the gates along with the other children by their side.

Looking at Nina's injury, the guards decided to ignore the commonly followed protocols of verifying the strangers' identity.

The Emerald Fox had already merged with Kyle's body and was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, Kyle bent to place the little girl back on her feet.

A moment later, one of the guards approached Kyle with a warm smile on his lips.

"Hello, my name is Dirk Kyl. I don't know what happened, but it looks like I have to thank you! The kids are troublemakers and had always wanted to leave the town... Today, they seem to have accomplished that.."

Dirk let out an audible sigh before continuing, "...fortunately nothing happened."

Kyle just nodded his head before giving a short introduction.

"My name is Kyle, and the young woman next to me is Selene."

Dirk didn't seem to pay much attention to Selene, but that was not something Kyle had expected, to begin with.

The children had displayed the same behavior after all.

From the looks of it, the Sadorla forest had a rigid hierarchical system.

At the top, the Aldra race seemed to reign, while the Lohars were considered to be lower and less important.

But they were still better placed than the Nasga race that was at the bottom.

Kyle didn't really like such systems but he had to adapt and accept them to some extent.

After all, he was currently a mediocre and ordinary person- a nobody.

So if he wanted to live inside the Sadorla forest, he had to abide by the rules and customs.

This differential treatment only further fueled his desire to become stronger.

Furthermore, Selene was already accustomed to being ignored, and she didn't mind it, as long as nothing worse happened!

The guard seemed to be friendly and approachable.

Thus, Kyle summarized what had happened in a few sentences.

After hearing Kyle, the guard looked at the children with a piercing gaze.

Then, he bent down to talk to the injured girl, called Nina.

"I'll take you to the healer. He will patch you up in no time!"

A moment later he picked her up and was about to turn around but stopped.

Staring at the other children with a serious expression, he added.

"Let's hope that all of you have learned your lesson. You don't want your friends to die a meaningless death, right? Once you guys become strong enough we can talk about leaving the town to hunt beasts! But that's for later and not now!"

Dirk's lecture was similar to Kyle's and his serious expression turned soft afterward.

Averting his attention to Kyle he added,

"If you need a place to stay, you can go to Milli's guest house. It's a small inn with a few rooms straight ahead. You just have to walk down the street.

By the way, Milli is Nina's mother. If you tell her that you brought Nina back, she will definitely be thankful.

I've never seen you two before, so I presume that you're adventurers. Milli will probably be more than willing to share the list of places you might want to visit as a way of thanks.

If not, just ask her where the Guild is located. That's probably the place you guys are looking for either way!"

Kyle nodded his head before thanking the guard for letting them in. After that, Dirk turned around before he rushed down the street along the wall with Nina in his arms.

She waved at them with a bright smile which caused even Selene to wave back at her.

This was something that caused Kyle to feel as if Selene was slowly starting to open up to others.

Now that the children were safe, Kyle and Selene wanted to find Milli's guest house before they would go to the Guild.

True to Dirk's assumptions, Kyle was looking forward to paying a visit to the Guild!

Even in his past life, the Guild was well known. Thus, Kyle couldn't help but recall his past memories as he walked through the town's main street.

Guilds were universally known as a place where Cultivators gathered to drink, gossip and complete missions to earn a fortune!

Everyone required money, but cultivating was the most expensive because of the constant need for better cultivation resources.

As such, it was a logical decision to register themselves with the Guild.

This allowed them to request missions and use many other perks the Guild provided.

Within the Guild, one could accept missions that were posted according to the requests from different groups. This included organizations, individuals, the town management, or higher entities.

Furthermore, one could build a small team inside the Guild and go on missions together or simply hunt beasts on their own.

Beast corpses and various types of ingredients were purchased by the Guild too, which was extremely helpful.

Their prices were not the best in the market, but that did not matter as they were still fair!

As such, it was not difficult to make a small fortune if one had an efficient team.

As for missions, they might be investigated by the Guild before they were made public.

This was done to figure out if the dangers were worth the rewards one could obtain.

But, Kyle assumed that most missions were barely worth the rewards they handed out.

'I will probably find the most basic goods inside the Guild shop...if they have everything I need'

Kyle was in his own world and didn't even notice that the group of children was following him and Selene.

They had eyed Selene weirdly before but their earlier discomfort had already dispersed.

She had also played a big role in rescuing them.

As such, she couldn't be that bad.

That was what the children's simple mind told them.

Thus, they began to play around with Selene, who was overwhelmed by the kids' behavior.

It was only a few minutes later that one of the girls exclaimed while pointing ahead.

"That's Nina's home!!"

This snapped Kyle out of his train of thoughts before he heard many children exclaiming in shock.

"NO!!! Why is mom and dad here?!?"

"AHH...let's run away!!"

"Hannah, quickly follow me!"

When Kyle looked in the direction at which Milli's guest house was located, he could see a group of worried women and enraged men.

They were all staring daggers at the children who were trying to hide from the adults.

After all, they wanted to avoid being punished for leaving the town's safe walls!

Smiling lightly, Kyle could barely suppress a laugh.

He knew that the kids were only worsening their own situation by trying to escape.

Only two children were left behind who had taken shelter behind Kyle and Selene.

One was hiding behind Selene, and another girl behind Kyle, who could only hear her faintly mumbling to herself.

"Should I run...or stay? Will it get worse, or will I escape the punishment?"

However, just as she finished mumbling, Kyle noticed that one of the women was running towards him.

In an instant, she grabbed the little girl from behind him and pulled her forward.

The girl exclaimed in astonishment, only to quiet down in an instant.

"Mell! Where were all of you until now?? Do you even know how worried we were??"

At that moment, another woman rushed forward with a frightened expression as she added worriedly,

"I haven't seen Nina among the group!! Where is she? Is she hurt...Oh noooo…!!!"

The woman, Kyle presumed to be Milli, seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that something had happened to her daughter.

Her legs gave in as the hapless mother began to wail.

Kyle could hear her sobbing and wanted to clear the confusion. However, before he could do so, Selene had already appeared in front of Milli.

Getting down on her knees, she informed her of her daughter's well-being.

"Nina is fine, she has only received a small injury from one of the beasts that had attacked the kids. The guard, Dirk, took Nina to the healer!"

Upon hearing her, a few men suddenly roared out.

"BEASTS you said?!? Did those little brats really leave the town??"

At that moment, everyone went silent.

A small sigh escaped Kyle's lips which caused everyone's attention to turn towards him.