Subhumans are not good at fighting.
At first, Fang Zheng didn’t really understand what the sunglasses-wearing merchant meant by this, but when the reality hit him, he quickly realized.
It’s not a problem of physical constitution, but an internal one... To be precise, it pertains to the spiritual level.
Although the two little girls initially acted bravely, just drawing their swords made them tremble all over. Even when being hit, they did not dare to fight back. It’s unclear if this is the subhumans’ long-standing nature or an aftereffect of their previous enslavement.
Under normal circumstances, Fang Zheng would have had them retreat. But before they left, he received another piece of information from the bald shopkeeper...
"I know you don’t want to fight, but as the shopkeeper mentioned, when the waves come, the hero and his companions will be teleported to the site of the waves. However, we cannot ensure that we’ll be teleported together. If we are together, I can certainly protect you. But if we are separated and teleported to different locations, you’ll have to rely on yourselves!"
Fang Zheng tightly gripped the shield axe and shouted loudly.
"Now, you have only two paths to choose from. One is to pick up your weapons and fight, the other is to leave me and disband the party. That way, when the waves occur, you won’t be teleported to the battlefield!"
According to the system settings, disbanding the party should be manually operable, but Fang Zheng tried it and found that the two little girls couldn’t disband the party.
It’s like those unavoidable NPCs in RPG games during storyline quests, where you can’t change characters.
It feels like a thick cloud of malice.
"Um..."
Hearing Fang Zheng’s words, the two little girls exchanged glances, then nodded determinedly. Then Raphtalia shouted loudly.
"I, I want to fight!"
"Me too, I want to stay by the Hero of the Shield’s side!"
As they shouted, they gripped their daggers and stabbed towards the balloon-like creature in front of them. Seeing this, Fang Zheng nodded, then he immediately released the Dragon Might that had been restraining the balloon creature.
"Screeeech!!"
Freed from the oppression of Dragon Might, the balloon creature screamed and lunged towards the two.
Though a bit clumsy, they managed to kill the balloon creature in front of them with all their strength and gained experience points, smoothly leveling up.
By the way, people in this world seem different from those in general game worlds. Like in the world of SAO, to make it closer to reality, NPCs don’t know about attributes and levels, only players can see them. Because this enhances the "sense of reality".
However, in this world, even ordinary people seem to understand game terms like "level", "teleportation", and "attributes".
Perhaps people born from a game-like world are like this. After all, they have been accustomed to concepts like levels since birth, so they naturally see it as ordinary.
Only those who have traveled from other worlds would be surprised by this.
Although, to be fair, for two children to fight is indeed harsh, Fang Zheng, who has traveled through many worlds, didn’t become soft-hearted because of this. In the end, everyone can only protect themselves. If they can’t even protect themselves, they can’t protect others. What Fang Zheng can do is assist them in growing and gaining strength. However, if they don’t pull themselves together to face reality and merely hide behind others, it won’t work.
Even Sora and Yoshino have begun to work hard to communicate with others.
The training on the first day only took half a day. After all, they are still children. After reaching level three, they were too tired to continue.
"Alright, let’s stop here for today."
Seeing that the sky had darkened, Fang Zheng clapped his hands, then reached out, pointing at the air. Soon, an aura appeared in front of Fang Zheng.
"Let’s go."
"Ah, yes..."
Although they didn’t know what it was, the two little ones obediently followed Fang Zheng into the aura.
Soon after, they widened their eyes in surprise.
On the other side of the aura was a quite warm and spacious area. Flames burned in the fireplace on the side, and the sofa and rocking chair nearby also seemed very comfortable. Not far away, shelves held various books and a series of game consoles, with a LCD TV hanging on the wall.
That’s right, this was the Mage’s Mansion!
Of course, a normal Mage’s Mansion recreates scenes from a mage’s memory. For ordinary mages, they only manifest places like taverns, but Fang Zheng had more to recreate.
Of course, Fang Zheng’s favorite thing was leaning on the rocking chair by the fireplace, reading and thinking, feeling the warmth under the dim firelight, listening to the crackle of burning logs, which always brings peace of mind.
"Master."
Soon, a magic servant came out from inside and respectfully bowed to Fang Zheng.
"Ready for dinner."
"Alright, it’s ready."
Dinner was naturally quite sumptuous, and the two little girls ate very happily. Not only that, but they ate such a large amount of food that Fang Zheng worried whether they would have a stomach ache... But after scanning with the terminal, finding no abnormalities in them, Fang Zheng was relieved.
As for the two little girls each eating twice the amount of food as a normal adult... well, it can only be attributed to a subhuman’s inherently high appetite.
After dinner, the two little girls took a bath and went to the guest room to sleep, while Fang Zheng sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace, watching the fire, and began to think.
About this world.
About this mission.
The rescue call heard earlier undoubtedly came from Raphtalia, as the voice was identical, and after rescuing Raphtalia and Liphana, the voice disappeared.
However, the mission was not completed.
Currently, the option to return to the Main World in the Dimensional Codex is grayed out, indicating that my purpose in this world isn’t completed. Although the "Support Mission" was activated, there is no specific task information, only a line of names.
So once again, it seems I’ve been tricked by this damn thing.
Of course, the support mission itself is a hint, and the only task I was summoned to this world for was to stop the waves and save the world as the Hero of the Shield.
But Fang Zheng is not like the other three chuunibyou boys who become smug and say "Alright, leave it to me" just after being praised.
The first thing he wanted to investigate was the specific situation of this world.
Having traveled through so many worlds, Fang Zheng understood that each world has different characteristics and reasons for those differences.
For example, in the SAO game world, since it’s a game world, the existence of skills, levels, and experience points is quite normal. Meanwhile, in the Main World, my Dimensional Codex System stems from the order seal of the Goddess of Order’s lineage, transforming into a system-like existence due to the qualification.
So, what about this world?
In this world, people are accustomed to levels, experience points, and attributes. And according to the bald boss, this world possesses something called the Hourglass of the Dragon, which predicts when the waves come.
When the waves come, the hero and his companions are teleported to the wave site.
Of course, if it’s just a game setting, there’s no problem at all.
After all, it’s a game, even setting it up as "having babies saves the world" is normal.
However, this is a real world, and that’s where the problem arises.
From the shield’s system code it’s apparent that all this is artificially made.
The so-called Four Sacred Artifacts, the so-called levels, attributes, experience points, the hourglass that predicts waves, teleporting to the site when waves occur.
All of this bears the marks of having been engineered by someone.
So here comes the question.
In legend, the Four Sacred Heroes will save this world.
But the system used by the Four Sacred Heroes was obviously not designed by them.
So, what about the guy who created the Four Sacred Hero System?
And the waves, although the people of this country consider it a disaster, if you look at it from a gaming perspective, isn’t it just like a large-scale battlefield or a demon beast invasion type of event?
Speaking of which, are the waves really a disaster?
The original Four Sacred Hero System was created to resist the waves, but if that’s the case, why didn’t the person who created the system just eliminate the waves directly? Why create such a system?
Or like a virus invasion, it can only be eliminated through antivirus software—so the Four Sacred System is like antivirus software and a firewall?
Is it because it can’t be completely eliminated? Like Chaos?
For now, let’s investigate first. If it goes well, it might be considered a rehearsal for resisting Chaos.
"Ahhhhh!!!"
Just as Fang Zheng was thinking of a countermeasure, suddenly a scream came, startling him. Fang Zheng quickly stood up and walked towards the source of the sound.
He pushed open the guest room door and saw Raphtalia sitting on the bed, frantically waving her hands.
"Daddy, Mommy!! Ahhhhh!!"
"Uuu... Uuu..."
On the other side, Liphana, though silent, was also curled up in pain, trembling without stopping.
Mental trauma?
This situation wasn’t unfamiliar to Fang Zheng; when he initially rescued the Cursed Children from the Pitch Black World, they reacted similarly. Although they have started a new life, the nightmares of the past still haunt the depths of their hearts. At that time, Fang Zheng had to go to great lengths to calm these children.
Thinking of this, Fang Zheng reached out a hand, gently stroking their heads, and soon, a touch of Holy Light emerged from his hand.
Wrapped in the Holy Light, the originally frantically screaming Raphtalia and the painfully moaning Liphana gradually calmed down. Gradually, they once again fell asleep.
This time, I hope they will have a good dream.
When Fang Zheng woke up, it was already the next morning. However, lying on beds on each side of him were Raphtalia and Liphana, still asleep.
"Hm..."
After a moment, Raphtalia twitched, then slowly opened her eyes.
"Hey, good morning."
"Huh?"
Upon hearing Fang Zheng’s greeting, Raphtalia was slightly stunned, and upon seeing the scene before her, she immediately showed a surprised expression.
This is no surprise; the scene was quite amusing—the guest room had two beds, with Raphtalia and Liphana each sleeping on one, and Fang Zheng sat on a chair in between. Yet his arms were tightly hugged by the two girls, creating this amusing scenario.
"Huh? Huh?!"
"Alright, looks like everything’s fine, so let’s just wait here..."
"Huwa..."
As Fang Zheng was talking, Liphana was also waking up. She yawned, then opened her eyes, and then...
"Huh? Hero, sir? I, I..."
"Alright, get up and clean yourselves; let’s prepare for breakfast."
Fang Zheng stood up, stretching his slightly stiff arms.
"Next, we still have to continue leveling up."
After breakfast, the two followed Fang Zheng out of the Mage’s Mansion, continuing through the forest and taking down all the demon creatures they encountered. If they encountered a high-level one, Fang Zheng would use his shield axe to chop it down for more experience points; lower-level ones, he would let Raphtalia and Liphana practice.
Perhaps because their stomachs were full, the two youngsters were quite hardworking. Thus, after walking through the forest, they reached a nearby place called Root Village.
There, Fang Zheng received the same treatment as elsewhere—most people had a look of disdain and indifference toward him, and the few who spoke did so without any emotion, seemingly hoping Fang Zheng would leave soon.
"These people are really too much, Hero, sir."
Leaving the village, Liphana finally couldn’t hold back and complained.
"Hero, sir, do you really want to fight for these people?"
"Depends on the situation."
Comparatively, Fang Zheng remained quite calm.
"You know what, Liphana, I’m not exactly a good person. Actually, these people’s reactions were expected and not surprising."
"But Hero, sir, you’ve been wronged..."
Yesterday during dinner, Fang Zheng had told Raphtalia and Liphana about what happened after he was summoned to this world. Of course, Fang Zheng told it as a joke, but apparently, the two were quite upset.
"So I will give them one chance."
"A chance?"
Upon hearing this, Raphtalia looked at Fang Zheng curiously.
"What chance?"
"Listen up, Raphtalia, Liphana."
Speaking here, Fang Zheng stopped and looked at them.
"I am indeed fighting to protect humans and the world, but it depends on the situation and circumstances. Let’s take those people just now—they treat me that way because of an order from that foolish king, thus it’s understandable. In reality, without interaction, you can’t casually trust others. It’s the same with you; if a criminal were to interact with you, you would certainly avoid them because you’re not sure whether they’re really bad or wronged, right?"
"This..."
"But..."
"So under these circumstances, I will give them one chance, but only this one time."
"Just once?"
"Yes, I don’t care about how people act when we first meet. However, if I fight to protect them and they’re still like this, then it’s a different story. If they dismiss my efforts without a thought, I’ll watch them die since they clearly don’t care about my help and protection. So I wouldn’t need to protect them. As for those who receive my protection and still speak ill, even opposing me..."
"What will happen?"
"I’ll kill them."
"Huh?"
Upon hearing this unexpected answer, both Raphtalia and Liphana were stunned.
"I said I’ll only protect those I wish to protect; I won’t protect those with cruel hearts and ingratitude. For those who receive my favors, not only show no gratitude but also attempt to repay kindness with malice, I’ll directly eliminate them. Letting such people survive in the waves is meaningless, it’s better if I do it myself—killing each and every one."
"But, but..."
"There’s a saying: treat enemies like the autumn breeze sweeping fallen leaves, as cold as a harsh winter. Dust won’t just go away unless swept."
Speaking here, Fang Zheng shrugged.
"I love those I love, I hate those I hate. You see, it’s that simple."

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