News on the Roads

X—X—X—X—X—X

"Status... Quests... Inventory..." Kaplan murmured the words to open the system interface, but it was avail. There was only one time he saw the system and that time he got rewards to finish a quest or achieve a condition.

Kaplan was sitting on the bench while Seyit went to look for horses.

'Do I see them when I finish the quests?' Kaplan thought. He looked around and saw many people was looking at him with pity. 'Of course, you will show that emotion after all this...'

Kaplan eventually relaxed at their gazes and took a relaxing breath; he closed his eyes and thing what he could done to open the system.

It was a funny, really. Kaplan did not like system tags when he read novels in the past; sure, there were good ones, but most of the time system made the protagonist way too overpowered. Since, the authors did not know how to make it challenging, they made some silly nerfs to protagonist, or made the enemy powerful in an absurdist way possible.

It was becoming disturbing to read them, really; but he did not mind if he had a system like those. At least, he knew how to get stronger easily.

'I know some of the item's location... A pity I did not remember all of them' he thought sadly. 'I must take notes to not forget the items I remember; it will be foolish otherwise.'

Amidst to his thoughts, Seyit came with two horses. He stood in front of the Kaplan and greeted him.

"Hello, Kaplan. Are you ready to depart?" Seyit asked.

Kaplan looked at the horses.

The horses, if he recalled correctly, called Stormers. They have immunity to all kinds of wind; thus, they were the perfect breed to ride in storms. Aside from that, they have no other qualities except being faster than a regular horse.

If they did not evolve into the Hurricane Riders that is.

"I mean, yes, but why stormers?" Kaplan could not but to ask.

"They were the fastest in here," Seyit said sadly. "So, I had no choice, unfortunately."

Kaplan put his hand on the horse and caressed it gently. The horse whinnied and closed her head towards Kaplan's hand.

"I like her," Kaplan muttered.

"Then you can ride it," Seyit said as he climbed to his horse. "Come on now, we have a long road ahead. And I cannot go that far fast enough this time."

"This time?" Kaplan raised his eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Seyit closed his mouth and tsk—ed. "Never mind," he said dismissively. "Come on, ride on," he gestured him to climb the horse.

Kaplan took a note to himself about what he was hiding from him and climbed the horse. He knew the road was dangerous, so he prepared himself for the worst.

X—X—X—X—X—X

[Abray]

Abray found the history class as boring as usual.

She already read all the book in the library about the kingdom's history, and she was even sure she knew more than the most. She did not break her façade though, she knew she had to look like listening; after all she did not want to disrespect to her teacher, unlike her other siblings.

"...Thus, that leads to the end of the war. The peace treaty signed by the Osman bey and Ali Pasha, then we live in the western continent peacefully," said the teacher.

The ring emerged as the teacher finished her words. The teacher smiled and looked at the students in front of her. "If you give me why it was beneficial to accept such a peace treaty, your exam results will have plus 30 points," she said as she closed the books and went off.

Abray inhaled a relaxing breath and yawned. The history was great, but continuously repeating the same subject became boring for her.

Sometimes she regrated to read all the history of Western Beast Empire.

'Well, the peace treaty about to end,' she thought and looked outside the blue sky. 'We are ready, just waiting for them to attach, but why wait?'

Abray, after the thoughts, stand up to look some food. She needed to certain nutrient to regain her fit body.

Abray was a clearly blessed child. She was 15 years old, and already one of the most beautiful girls in the continent. In addition, she was a perfect spear user and magician, and that made her a magic warrior; the most talented one in the Western Continent.

...She did not know about the other continents. Yet, she was looking forward to national tournament to show her powers.

"Oh, isn't that beloved little sister of mine?"

Abray felt disgust with her brother's words. She always felt he was creepy and dangerous; later she found some non-solid evidence that he was doing some illegal works, in the underworld, and use crown influence to enchant his position.

A pity he was smart enough to not leave real evidence. It was as if he was expecting her, aside from his little brother Selim, Ulukan was smart; at least that was what he showed thus far.

"Oh, dear brother. How can I help you?" Abray asked with such a fake smile that even an idiot would tell she was disturbed in Ulukan's presence.

"Come on, don't be mean..." Ulukan pouted. "I just want to spend some time with you," he said sweetly.

"So, you just did," Abray even sweeter, and turned back towards the restaurant. "Do not follow me, please. I need some private time," then she added.

"How cold," Ulukan muttered. "Well, I just have to try harder then," he chuckled.

"Ah, the things getting really interesting~"

X—X—X—X—X

[Kaplan]

The road towards the Koylucity was dangerous. It had 6- or 7-days long distance with stormers.

'This is a bit slow but,' Kaplan muttered as he was looking on the road with boredom. 'Seyit said Koylucity is 1230 km ahead of us, so I guess a week is fine.'

Kaplan was travelling with Seyit, going towards the Koylucity with a great pace. Stormers usually ran 200 km per day, so if they went without an interruption, they would arrive Koylucity in a week.

"Hey," Seyit said next to Kaplan. "I was wondering... Do you know how to fight?" he asked with interest.

Kaplan glanced at Seyit and sighed. "I do not know any martial arts if you are asking that. But I consider myself stronger than the most so far."

Seyit hummed in acknowledgment. "I see," he said. "I was wondering if we can spar... I really like to see your powers," he then added.

It was true, he was curious. He wanted to know if Kaplan was naturally talented at fighting.

"We will see when we camp," Kaplan said, rolled his eyes, and looked the road ahead of him. They were still near the Thrim Town, they just went outside the town, hence they could see the town above the mountains.

Kaplan looked at his hometown and turned his back at a certain direction suddenly. "Did you hear it?" He asked to Seyit.

"Hear what?" Seyit asked, puzzled.

"I guess he meant us, soldier," a man's voice emanated behind the rocks as couple of men stepped in their eyesight.

They were wearing furry leather armor, standard wooden circle shields, and iron swords on their hands. Some archers positioned above the rocks the man had spoken.

"I do not think bandits have guts to attack the Beast Empire's soldiers," Seyit said coolly; Kaplan could saw in his tenseness, Seyit was rather unpleasant to the current events.

"Heh, soldiers? That is even better!" Another one said with a smile. "That means we will even more beautiful angel in the heaven!" He yelled in joy.

"Eh? Where did you hear that?" Another on asked.

"Lord Mortil said all the believers via communication crystal yesterday," he answered.

Kaplan was puzzled. 'Communication crystal? What is that?' He thought. He raised his eyebrow and looked at the bandits. 'There was no such a thing in game…' He was about to ask the crystal, but he could not manage to stop himself to mock them.

"An even beautiful angel, is it?" Kaplan sneered. "Will you sure they even looked at your ugly asses?" He commented happily.

"Our prophet said killing a soldier will, who do you think you are Empirean!?" Yelled one of them.

Kaplan raised his eyebrow and chuckled. "I don't even know what doe—," he could not finish his sentence as Seyit launched himself towards one of the bandits and crushed the bandit's chest into pieces with his horns.

The bandit fell to the ground and died painfully while could not even utter a sound.

"You fuckfaces talks a lot," Seyit growled and exhaled smokes in his nose. He glanced the shocked bandits and looked at them with a great disgust. "Normal procedures require me to bring you to custody, but I have no ability to drag you to one of the posts while Kaplan here," then he added and dashed at them again.

The outcome was what Kaplan have expected, but it was brutal than what he anticipated. Seyit crushed people's bodies with his sheer strength and no blade nor arrow pierced or cut through his skin.

Kaplan continued to look at Seyit with interest, he single-handedly killed almost entire bandits with ease, and the remaining ones were three people.

One of them had a silver armor, a great sword, and a rather boring look on his face.

The others had steel armor, battle-axes and long curvy red beards.

"How dull," the silver armored man sighed. He got up and his sword emitted a reddish glow; it released a crimson smoke around itself, on the below, and create 5 exact people just like silver bandit.

"Sir, may I?" one of the two red bearded men spoke.

"You may not…" the silver armorer man spoken. "I know they would be useless, but to this extend…" he said as he looked around the bodies.

"Disappointment these Beastistans, really," he sighed with sadness.

Kaplan narrowed his eyes at the silver armored man's comment. 'Beastistans? Why?' He thought as he tried to process the timeline of the game.

Seyit, in other hand, did not wait as he dashed towards the silver armored man; he positioned his horns and used his all mighty to break all the bones in silver armored man.

The armored man simply grabbed one of Seyit's horns and threw him to his mare, stormer. After a loud cry of pain later, stormer died in agony; leaved Seyit unconscious above it.

The silver armored man sighed again in sadness. "I did not even use my clones…" he muttered, looked at Kaplan, and narrowed his eyes.

"So… I had my pay to kill," he said. "And I can't leave you behind since you heard those fools." In a swift motion, he drew his glowing sword and pointed out to Kaplan.

"I'll be sure to kill you painless."

Kaplan sighed.

"Cliché all over in this world…"