SPIRIT SOUL

Carrying a total of eight carcasses at a time was certainly not an easy task.

It became even more difficult when he told Selene that each of the boars roughly weighed more than 80 kilograms, giving her a reality check.

Thus, Selene's earlier joy of having helped Kyle in killing such a large number of beasts dissipated into thin air.

In the end, Kyle could barely store one of the younglings' corpses after he had devoured the souls of the deceased.

At the same time, he had used up half of the stored soul particles to empower the Nurture ability, in an attempt to further cure Selene's cultivation veins.

This reduced the pain felt by Selene considerably and allowed her to use her remaining strength to squeeze one boar in the medium-sized backpack that was almost torn apart, looking extremely hideous.

After forcibly stuffing the boar inside, she dragged two more through the soil, grasping their hooves tightly.

Meanwhile, Kyle had to take their large backpack out of the spatial pouch to store one large boar and one of the younger boars.

The large backpack was torn at several spots, but the holes were not large enough for the carcasses to fall through.

Having filled all of their backpacks to the brim, he was left with no other storage space to utilize.

Hence, like Selene, he was also forced to drag the last two corpses towards the town, smearing the wet soil with blood.

Killing such a large number of beasts had already made them weary and both of them looked miserable while dragging the heavy carcasses through the outskirts of the forest.

A part of their mind was occupied with the constant thought of getting attacked by stronger beasts who would want to snatch their hard-earned kills for themselves while killing them as extras.

This thought made both of them hastily drag themselves along with the corpses.

Luckily, they weren't ambushed by any beast lurking in the dense thicket and soon they reached a settlement.

Sweating and panting, they entered the small plains area in which the Vila town was constructed.

They could be seen by the guards well before they neared the town's borders.

This was in fact the reason why Vila town had been constructed at this exact position.

Its unique placement and elevation made it impossible for an enemy to attack through the air or from the ground without being spotted by the guards first.

As the terrain was quite difficult and challenging, it added another hurdle in front of Kyle and Selene who had already started to limp.

Having this advantage was essential in the Sadorla forest.

Unfortunately, this made the additional weight of the backpacks thrown on their backs feel like they were dragging a behemoth behind them.

They were also taking extremely long to pass through the plains which made the guards think that something bad had happened!

Thus, when Dirk, who had returned to the gates, saw them, he couldn't help but feel that he should not allow the children's saviors to die needlessly.

Rushing towards them, he hastily took two recuperation acceleration potions out of his spatial ring.

He was afraid that they were severely injured but upon nearing them he saw that the two young people were dragging dead corpses towards the town.

Seeing how miserable Kyle and Selene looked made Dirk chuckle.

They had left a trail of deep footprints in the wet soil causing their feet to sink in.

Additionally, they were smudged in mud and blood and their faces had a slightly annoyed look on their faces.

Seeing that made it hard for Dirk to suppress his laughter, and dispersed his earlier worry.

Kyle was astonished to see Dirk because the Emerald Fox who was lying on his shoulder hadn't alerted him about the guard who was approaching him.

But before Kyle could even complain he felt his Spirit Soul's thoughts defensively telling him that he had just told it to warn him about hostile beings!

The guard was by no means hostile or a threat to them.

As such, Kyle could only sigh as he smiled lightly at Dirk, who told them to stop.

They did as Dirk said, and stepped away.

Only a moment later, Dirk's spatial ring glowed faintly before he grasped the boar carcasses.

"I'll help you, otherwise, this will take an eternity!" Giving them an amused smile, Dirk transferred the carcasses into his spatial ring.

Dirk's morning had a rough start and was extremely tense due to the children who had disappeared, which had made him feel restless.

And, Kyle had not only rescued the kids but also given him a moment of respite from his boring and mundane job.

As such, he decided to help out a little.

Kyle was thankful for Dirk's help and the thought of the guard deceiving them didn't even cross his mind.

There was simply no need for the guard to steal a mere seven dizzy boar corpses which he could hunt in no time.

Because of that thought, Kyle also handed over the large backpack while telling Selene to do the same. Freed from all the burden he was carrying around, Kyle stretched his body while adding,

"Thank you for your help. You saved us lots of time! We might even be able to hunt another beast group...a smaller one this time..."

His arms were sore and the backpack's buckles' marks had been etched onto his skin, causing Kyle to sigh deeply as he began to question his own words.

Dirk just nodded his head in response before turning around after everything had been collected.

"You don't seem to know the Guild's regulations and functions well, do you?" He suddenly blurted out as they headed back to the town.

Kyle just shook his head with a little frown as it was the truth.

Even in his past life, he had never paid any attention to the Guild because it was a place for Cultivators.

As someone who had been unable to cultivate, the Guild was just an organization like any other to him, and Kyle only knew the most common things about it.

"This explains a lot. I don't know how often you'll go out and hunt, but if you use the Guild's leasing function, you can even lease strong weapons, armors, or what you two probably need the most, spatial rings with various sizes.

It's relatively expensive, but the dizzy boars are on the overpopulated beast's list, right? Seven of them should be enough to lease a small spatial ring for a whole day!"

When Kyle heard this, he couldn't help but exclaim in shock, recalling some of the Guild's rules from his past life!

He cursed himself for not taking his time to know more about the Guild and its facilities.

It would have saved them all the trouble and efforts they had gone through to kill and drag the boars.

Time was of the essence and he had lost almost half a day on just killing seven boars when he could have killed several more in the same time.

Looking at Dirk, who smiled dryly at his reaction, it was evident that the young man had been oblivious to this feature.

Not wanting to repeat the same mistake, Kyle asked Dirk many questions.

He answered in a calm manner while asking himself why he was being so courteous to the two young adventurers.

'Maybe I'm getting old and feel like talking to others?'

Shaking his head, Dirk ignored his thoughts and it didn't take long before they passed the town gates before they arrived in front of the Guildhall.

Entering it reluctantly, he got a feeling that he had forgotten something important.

Because of that, he wanted to walk to the first counter, but he saw that Kyle had already rushed towards a woman he was overly familiar with.

The guard's lips twitched but he ignored the discomfort and guilt surging within him as he followed Kyle and Selene.

After that, he accessed his spatial ring to take out the dizzy boar carcasses.

Guard Dirk couldn't get himself to say anything at all and wanted to leave quietly, only to hear an overly familiar voice.

"Dirk, don't you want to greet your former captain?"

Kyle hadn't realized that anything was off until he heard the female receptionist's icy voice that caused him to flinch.

Only a moment later, he saw that she had raised her head to look straight at Dirk who seemed to be trembling a little.

However, Kyle didn't even realize this as he stared straight at the female receptionist whose eyes looked odd to him.

As he observed intently, he realized that her right eye looked lifeless.

Her left eye was similar, but he could sense faint mana fluctuations from it, indicating that she was still able to use her left eye.

'Is she partially blind? And why do I feel a sudden tension around us?'

It was not difficult to comprehend that the female receptionist and Dirk knew each other.

The way she had said 'former captain' made it obvious that the woman had been a guard captain.

Selene was still staring at the receptionist, only to avert her attention towards the boar corpses a moment later.

As a former slave, she was used to seeing and living with cripples so the receptionist didn't make her feel nervous.

Selene would rather get down to business instead of wasting more time.

Unfortunately, she had to wait which urged her to tug at Kyle's sleeves.

Meanwhile, Kyle was intrigued by the awkwardness and the tension between the receptionist and Dirk, who had already turned around.

"Hello Gaby...how have you been? Has it been...3 years already?"

Gaby, the receptionist, just let out a short mirthless laugh before her expression turned cold again.

"It's not like you cared about that before. Haven't you avoided the Guild because of me? Does avoiding me help you feel less guilty about the mistake you made?"

Dirk was nervously moving his hands behind his back while looking at Gaby. He was completely aware of what he had done, and that everything she had to endure was nothing but his fault.

"I….I just wanted to save Milli and Nina at that time…." He blurted out, unable to look into Gaby's eyes as a frosty aura permeated the room.

Gaby was releasing the ice affinity she had awakened as she hissed at him.

"AND I would have loved it if my husband and parents were still with me!!! While I almost sacrificed my life for everyone during the Blood Nasgas attack, you selfishly disregarded my commands and left your spot, only to rush towards Milli, Nina, and her husband, just because of your unrequited love!!

EVERYTHING IS YOUR FAULT!!! And now PISS OFF before I kill you!!!"

Her voice climbed an octave with each spoken word and the last words rang through the room like a shrill cry, bouncing off the walls.

To say that she was angry and disgusted by the sight of Dirk would be an understatement.

Her eye had bulged and she had shot up from her seat to let out the frustration bubbling inside her.

A pin-drop silence fell into the massive Guildhall as every single person inside it had heard her angry outburst.

Kyle could even hear the sounds of someone walking down the stairs that lead to the Guild's second floor, which caused him to be intrigued as his gut feeling warned him to gaze in that direction.

Nevertheless, he had turned around to see the stranger, but only caught a fleeting glimpse of fiery red rabbit's ears peeking from the corner.

A moment later they disappeared and Kyle averted his attention back to Dirk.

He was nervous and had bit his lower lip so hard that it had begun to bleed.

Even though he wanted to say something, he couldn't find the right words to express himself.

As such, he turned around and softly whispered "I'm so sorry…" before leaving.

He had inserted all the emotions in those three words that he hadn't revealed for the last three years.

Accompanying Kyle to the Guild was something Dirk had offered subconsciously.

In the end, he had completely forgotten that his former guard captain, Gaby was still working in the Guild, only to be served a harsh reminder of what he had destroyed.

Dirk's shoulders sagged as he dragged himself outside the Guildhall.

The massive hall was slowly heating up after the icy aura was retracted.

Kyle was simply staring at Gaby, the former guard captain, and receptionist while comprehending what was going on.

He forced himself to offer her a weak smile in an effort to calm down the visibly enraged woman.

It took her a while before she had finally regained her composure.

The rage and hurt were now replaced with emptiness, Kyle could relate to as she averted her attention back to him.

He knew how it felt to lose someone you loved and the memory of his mother resurfaced.

"Sorry for the inconvenience...you wanted to sell the dizzy boar corpses, right? Do you want Pryr or Maest crystals as payment?

*

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