Chapter 7

A day had passed since the last quest, and Samuele was sitting comfortably in the sofa watching TV. Usually, he was not really the type to watch television. Rather, he preferred other entertainment platforms.

It was simply a chance to be together with his family. Every now and then it was good for us all to watch a movie together, he thought.

Samuele watched his sister next to him in the sofa eating endless snacks.

"You're a food dump, you know that?" He teased with a smile.

"Shut up! I'm practicing later anyway."

Her sister has been practicing volleyball, now, for three years. She really liked it and aimed to become a professional volleyball player. Speaking of volleyball, Samuele thought of one thing.

"When does the tournament start?"

"Next week. Will you come and watch me, then?" He asked both his brother and parents.

"Of course, honey. We won't miss it for the world." Said the mother with a reassuring smile.

Then Anna looked at Samuele with pleading eyes. At those eyes she sighed.

"Of course." How could he say no to her?

At one point, amidst the commercials, a news item appeared on TV.

"A portal has opened near Milan and several monsters have come out and are attacking the city! The nearest Adventurers headed to the area and started fighting those creatures!"

"I feel sorry for them, but good thing it didn't happen near here." Said the mother, watching the footage of the fighting between the Adventurers and the monsters.

In fact, Rome was in Lazio, in central Italy. Milan in Lombardy, in northern Italy. As the crow flies, the two cities were a few hundred kilometers apart.

"If it opened, it means they didn't complete the portal quest within 30 days. Damn them, I would say. Thirty days is hardly a short time!" Said the father in a gruff tone.

"What does 'their cabbages' mean? There must have been a reason why they couldn't complete the quest."

"Then why didn't they send help? The whole thing stinks, I tell you!"

"Here we go again, the usual plotter. Even so, the citizens don't deserve any of this."

"Ah, I agree with that. Besides, I'm not a plotter. I'm just saying that it is not normal to fail to complete a portal in the 30-day time frame. The Association, or the Guild that took ownership of the portal, should have realized that something was wrong."

Samuele decided to intervene.

"You're right, Dad. But we don't even know what happened. The only thing we know is that a portal opened."

"What do you mean by 'the only thing we know'? This information in itself means that they failed to complete the quest!"

Samuele remained silent. His father, in a way, was right. The quest had not been completed, but the reason was unknown. Had the Adventurers failed? Sure, it happened from time to time, but only with high-level portals.

And the monsters he saw in the news did not look like creatures from a high-level portal at all. In any case, Adventurers would never enter a portal unprepared. He had seen it firsthand. Even in the lowest-level portals they would take healing potions there, even though they knew they would never be used.

That then what had happened in his first portal was something strange, that was another matter. Speaking of which, even a few days later he thought that what had happened was real. He couldn't think of it all as a bad nightmare.

"Are you all right, big brother?" His sister asked worriedly, seeing his brother's gloomy look.

"Hmm? Ah, yes. All good." He replied with a half smile. Then he went back to watching the news, being drawn in by the reporter's voice.

"Ah, Look! It's one of the strongest Adventurers in Italy! Michelangelo Rizzo!"

At this name, his eyes focused right on him. Michelangelo Rizzo was a maximum level 90 limit. Basically, he was the strongest Adventurer in Italy, along with one other. Watching his fight against the monsters, his heart seemed to ignite.

He wanted to become even stronger.

He wanted to level up even more, until he reached the upper limit.

His heart beat faster and faster. At this he smiled. He had really become addicted to portals like all Adventurers.

"I'll be right back." Samuele said, getting up from the couch and walking away, with his sister watching him in curiosity.

Arriving in his room, he picked up the phone and called the Association.

"Hello, this is the Adventurers' Association. How can we help you?" A female voice asked.

"Hello, this is Samuele Rua. I would like to have a quest."

"Let me check ... but, sir, I see that you have already completed a quest just yesterday."

"Yes, so?"

"We can't task you with another quest a day after the last one."

'Seriously?' He thought inwardly.

"For what reason?"

"After the Adventurers' continuous requests to participate in other quests, it has been decided that it is no longer possible."

'Ah, right. Addicted to portals...' He was not the only one affected by this addiction. So he could do nothing but accept the young lady's answer.

"If you want a quest, then you'll have to wait for a call from the Association, sir."

"All right, thank you anyway. Have a nice day." He finally closed the call and sighed in disappointment. As the young lady said, he could do nothing but wait for a call from them.

Five minutes earlier, near Milan, civilians were desperate. They were running away everywhere, trying to escape from the battle between the Adventurers and the monsters that came out of the portal.

Those monsters, more precisely, were trolls. Among the mid-level Adventurers, those who faced them always said that they were very strong, but slow of mind. It was as if they did not reason. They fought and destroyed without thinking about anything.

At that moment, they were just destruction machines whose only goal was to cause chaos and kill as many people as possible. Their numbers were nothing to joke about.

More than fifty trolls came out of the portal, and so far only five of them had been shot down. The Adventurers gathered there were also not very strong. The highest level among them was 40.

A troll usually required a level 50 to be killed with ease.

So their role in that situation was to limit their damage until reinforcements arrived.

And they hoped they would arrive as quickly as possible. Fighting against all of them was not easy at all.

Having to limit the damage of fifty trolls, all the Adventurers had to split up to stop them as much as possible. And there were only twenty of them.

Fortunately, their inner cry for help seemed to have reached someone.

As a troll was about to head toward one of the Adventurers to crush him to the ground with his huge wooden club, a spear pierced from side to side of his head at a hallucinating speed. The rumble of the troll falling to the ground could be heard hundreds of meters away.

The spear, as if having a life of its own, broke away from his head and flew in another direction not far from the slain troll, stopping in front of a person who picked it up and looked at the shocked Adventurer. The person who had killed the troll was none other than one of the two strongest Italian Adventurers, Michelangelo Rizzo.

He had short dark hair and a light beard that covered his face. A scar ran vertically down his right cheek. He wore golden armor that was impossible to miss because of how much it glittered.

"Are you all right?" Michelangelo asked the Adventurer he had just rescued.

"Y-yes... I thank you."

"I will take care of the trolls from now on. Tell the others they can retreat and thank them from me for slowing them down."

"Y-yes, sir!" Immediately, he did as stated and left.

Michelangelo Rizzo wasted no time and went to kill all the remaining trolls, making sure to do as little damage as possible to the already over-damaged city. One by one, the trolls were all put down.

Those who watched the scene from TV or live with their own eyes could not help but be incredibly impressed by the speed with which they fell to the ground. In a very few minutes, forty-five trolls had been killed by one man.

A man who bore the name "Italy's strongest" could not fail to make such a gigantic show of strength.

Everyone cheered at his victory. The city had just been saved, and the one who deserved an ovation was him.

When the fight was over, those in charge were busy carrying away the bodies of the trolls.

As Michelangelo watched the work of those workers with special machines carrying them away, another figure appeared behind him, whom Michelangelo immediately recognized.

"Oh, already finished? What a pity." He said with a huge smile.

"If you're late, it's not my fault, Leonardo." He said tartly, looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

The man he was talking to was, along with him, Italy's other level 90, Leonardo Pisano. He had shaved hair and dark eyes.

"What can I tell you? The main character always arrives at the last minute to save everyone and receive applause from the spectators." He said, chuckling.

"By now many people would have died if they had to wait for your arrival..." He said glaring at him. Then he asked a question.

"By the way, what are you doing here? Your guild is in Turin." Looking at him, Michelangelo noticed that Leonardo was not dressed as he would normally dress, that is, in casual attire when he was out and about or in his Adventurer's armor. He was wearing a smart suit, as if he had business to attend to.

"In fact, I wouldn't normally come here, but today is a special day."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Today I might recruit someone in my guild. It's still a level 15, but if I think that's what he really is, I plan to take him for myself before someone else gets their hands on him."

Michelangelo raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He knew Leonardo well and was not one to randomly choose Adventurers to take for his Guild, especially a level 15.

"What is so special about this Adventurer." At this question, Leonardo's smile grew even bigger.

"There is a probability that this Adventurer is a future level 90." He said in a very confident tone.

Michelangelo made a stunned expression. At this, Leonardo smiled even more. That was exactly what he wanted to get from him.

Michelangelo thought about how the man in front of him could know that someone is a likely upper limit of level 90. Then he remembered how lately in his guild he had been recruiting low-level Adventurers who had also reached levels over 50. Then something occurred to him and he spoke.

"The Gift in your guild...?" It was known by all how his guild had a Gift among its members, but it had never been revealed what it was. Perhaps Michelangelo had just figured it out.

"Who knows." Said Leonardo mockingly. Then his expression turned serious, giving off an oppressive aura that would have made anyone but Michelangelo, who looked at him with icy eyes, feel uncomfortable.

"In any case, very soon no one will see our guilds as equals. The day when my guild and I will crush you is near. And when that day comes, I will watch you crawl to the ground. I will destroy you."

"Then do your best." Anyone who heard this would have received an icy sensation coursing down his body. Fortunately, no one was near the two Italian "monsters," otherwise they would have already fainted.

After an intense staring contest, Leonardo turned and went on his way.

After an hour, the deputy head of the Association's Investigation Department, Alessandro Pacini, had arrived at the battle site and was now talking to Michelangelo.

"Has it already been found out which portal they came out of?"

"Yes, sir. We followed their trail and found they came out of a level 30 portal." Said Alessandro Pacini with a slightly nervous expression. The eyes of Italy's strongest Adventurer went wide.

"Level 30? How is that possible?! Trolls are creatures that can only be found in portals level 40 and higher!"

"That's exactly the problem. The guild in charge of completing the quest didn't make it. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the first case."

Michelangelo's eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean?"

"A few days ago in a portal that Newbies entered was discovered only after being controlled by orcs. Fortunately, everyone was saved."

"How did they do that?" He asked in a surprised tone. Newbies who had won against Orcs was not at all normal. They would have been lucky if they had killed even one, but to survive even going so far as to kill them all was beyond extraordinary.

"We don't know, the Newbies were all found unconscious with the Orcs already dead."

"So they didn't kill them."

"That's what we think." Alessandro Pacini nodded.

"I see." He lowered his shoulders, slightly disappointed. If Newbies had beaten the orcs, he would have wasted no time in recruiting all of them. After Leonardo Pisano's recent "declaration of war," he had no intention of standing still and waiting to be so easily defeated by him. He was disadvantaged by the fact that his rival had with him a Gift that apparently could detect the Adventurers' upper level limit. 

Very soon, Michelangelo's Guild would begin the selection process for Adventurers to be recruited. He decided that he would make the most of that selection.

Something, however, told him that the portal the deputy head of the Department of Investigation had told him about was too abnormal. He therefore turned to the said man and asked a question.

"Could you give me copies of every Newbie who participated in that portal, please?"

END OF CHAPTER. 

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Well, what can I say? It's been a long time since I last posted. I never change, huh? xD