"Hyaah!" Chen Li kicked open the door of a sealed stone house.
"Hiss." Because he had used too much force and underestimated the sturdiness of the stone door, Chen Li, who was supposed to be a magnificent figure silhouetted against the light, was instead hopping on one foot.
That hurt a bit.
Chen Li felt that even with the [Allocation] skill, he really needed to strengthen his physical attributes; otherwise, he couldn't even strike a proper pose.
His slowly developing physical stats were becoming more and more mismatched with the rapid growth and improvement of his various skills.
The hardware couldn't keep up with the software. If this continued, it would lead to major problems.
Perhaps it was time to forge a dedicated Curio.
Not a Curio to grant him immense power directly, but one that would allow him to acquire immense power quickly.
After all, buffs from Curios weren't included in the allocatable list.
"Who are you?" a hoarse voice sounded.
Inside the stone house, a figure hidden in the shadows looked at the man who had suddenly appeared. The newcomer's entire aura was completely different from any of the villagers he had ever seen, and he found the man's presence almost blindingly bright.
"Me? A kind-hearted outlander passing through, looking for a companion," Chen Li said after putting his foot down.
"Outlander? Companion?" The figure, whose voice had been as calm as stagnant water, couldn't help but speak a little louder, a hint of life returning to his tone.
"As they say, a lonely stranger in a strange land longs for his kin all the more. I can tell at a glance that you, like me, don't belong to this world. So... want to save the world together? Of course, before we save the world, we have to save you first." Chen Li took two steps forward, extending a hand to the figure wearing a crude mask.
---o---
Kalpas had forgotten how long it had been since he had last seen the sunlight.
He wasn't usually lonely, not really. The people guarding the stone house would always talk to him every so often to check if he was dead yet.
Thinking of this, Kalpas looked left and right but saw no sign of any guards. In fact, the entire village had fallen into a deathly silence.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Just as Kalpas turned to ask Chen Li about the village, he found the man staring at him intently.
"I was just wondering what you look like under that mask," Chen Li said with considerable honesty.
So Kalpas's annoying habit of wearing a mask started this early?
Hearing Chen Li's words, Kalpas couldn't help but touch his mask again.
What is this person trying to do?
"Did you... destroy this village?" The emotion in Kalpas's voice was extremely complex.
"What? Grown attached to this place? If you ask me, they were just taking advantage of you because you're an honest man, Kalpas. If it were me, I would've turned them to dust long ago," Chen Li said with his arms crossed.
This village had indeed been bullying Kalpas; he was an honest man, and Chen Li wasn't wrong.
At first, Chen Li had been worried that the story he knew might differ from reality, so he had grabbed a villager for questioning. He then discovered that he hadn't wronged them at all.
Since their sins were tallied, Chen Li didn't hold back.
Truthfully, if Kalpas had wanted to escape this village, it would have been quite easy. After all, Chen Li had just witnessed him tear apart his iron shackles with his bare hands and then smash the stone house with a single punch.
Honestly, if Chen Li had Kalpas's strength, he'd have been ruling this village as its ancestor long ago.
"Are they... all dead?" Not receiving a direct answer from Chen Li, and thus arriving at the wrong conclusion, Kalpas felt an indescribable emotion welling up inside him.
He could have left this stone prison long ago, but... where else could he go?
Just as this supposed companion beside him had said, he was an outlander.
He might as well just stay wherever he could be kept.
"Oh, don't misunderstand. They're not dead. After all, you can't just waste labor like that. Some of the villagers were sent into the Longbow of Peace for labor reform, and the rest were simply put to work right here in the village," Chen Li said.
"Work?" Kalpas looked around but heard not a single sound of human activity.
Oh, wait, there was a little noise.
Kalpas's gaze suddenly locked onto the corner of an alley. Three seconds later, a round, blob-like thing rolled out.
"What is that?"
"Those are the villagers with lighter sins. I turned them into Slimes to clean up the filth of this world. They can change back when their labor is finished," Chen Li explained.
Kalpas then watched as the creature Chen Li called a Slime swallowed a bag of trash from beside a corner garbage can.
Inside the Slime's body, some of the trash was being continuously broken down and dissolved until it was transformed into a slime trail that the creature secreted, leaving it behind on the ground it moved over.
"This creature, called a Slime, can decompose any form of filth and convert it into nutrients to give back to the world. That slime trail is the nutrients," Chen Li continued.
This was the punishment Chen Li had devised for those villagers whose Sin Values didn't meet the standard for the death penalty, but whom he was still very displeased with.
They may have escaped the death penalty, but they couldn't escape a living punishment.
The achievements Chen Li had gained from cleansing one Earth's worth of ghosts were more than enough to turn the entire population of this planet into Slimes!
As for those whose sins reached the death penalty standard?
Forgiving them was God's business. Chen Li was only responsible for sending them to see God.
Their souls would be continuously squeezed within the Longbow of Peace, adding brick by brick to the miracle that could be achieved by the next "Reckoning."
He had used up all the evil souls inside the Longbow of Peace yesterday; it was time for a refill.
"..." Now, the look Kalpas gave Chen Li was even more complicated.
Is this guy really an outlander, just like me?
"I told you, they were just taking advantage of you because you're an honest man."
"Shut up. It's annoying," Kalpas said, then fell silent again, observing the village.
"That's more like it," Chen Li nodded.
He was a bit unused to seeing the perpetually angry big brother not being angry.
Chen Li also remembered why he had subconsciously assumed Kalpas was tied to a pillar. When he played Honkai Impact 3rd and challenged Kalpas in the Elysian Realm, his deepest impression was of him smashing people with a pillar.
Chen Li didn't disturb Kalpas, instead accompanying him on a tour of the entire village.
"Alright, Kalpas, stop reminiscing. You may have lost this home, but you still have me. Stick with me, and you'll eat nine meals in three days. Let's go, let's go." Chen Li patted Kalpas's shoulder and walked directly towards a car in the distance.
He didn't force Kalpas to come with him, because he knew that besides following him, Kalpas had nowhere else to go.
Who would have thought that Kalpas, the angry big brother, was arguably the easiest of the Flame-Chasers to satisfy.
All he needed was a place to stay. Or more accurately, a "place to belong."
A "home."
Whether it was the stone house just now, the sanatorium on Dusk Street, the Deep End (prison), or the Flame-Chaser's black-ops organization, the Cocoon, it was all the same.
And his explosive temper was likely forged through the bizarre events he had experienced.
Starting off by being imprisoned and bled—what kind of hellish start was that?
If it were Chen Li, he'd be angry too.
Though if it were really Chen Li, he'd have razed this village to the ground long ago.
And just as Chen Li thought, Kalpas did indeed follow him, trailing after this temporary companion who claimed to be a fellow outlander.
"So... you really won't let me see what's under the mask?" Chen Li sidled up to him again.
"..." Kalpas met his question with silence.
If it weren't for the fact that Chen Li was also an outlander, Kalpas would have given anyone else a one-word answer.
[Scram.]
"Fine, then you keep it on." Adhering to the philosophy of "if I can't see it, no one can," Chen Li began to encourage Kalpas.
Who knows, he might even get a new Entry out of this.
Through the little elf's spoilers, Chen Li had successfully learned what the professional skill rewarded by his fourth novice quest would be.
[Extraction]
At that point, Chen Li would not only be able to extract Entries from items but also from events.
Items could carry a lot of meaning, but they were ultimately limited.
Events were different. Real-life events were often more absurd than fictional ones.
Novels require logic, but reality does not.
"I'm really looking forward to it," Chen Li's heart was filled with anticipation.
He was now even more motivated to complete his fourth novice quest.
Novice Quest (IV)
Forge 10 Curios √
Forge 100 Curio Embryos √
Complete Seven Miracle Check-ins (5/7)
Raise Professional Level to LV3
Raise Fame to LV2 √
As Kalpas looked out the car window at the rapidly receding scenery, he began to contemplate his future home.
And then... he chose to stop thinking.
As the saying goes, when Brother Jie thinks, God laughs.
Although Kalpas's mind was still very sharp, he preferred not to use it most of the time.
Right now, Kalpas was just thinking about protecting this companion who called himself an outlander until he found the next place to rest.
From the very beginning, Kalpas never believed they were from the same world.
Because he was too weak.
Seriously, dude, you feel pain from kicking a stone door?
Despite this, the other party was ultimately kind-hearted.
Since he had nowhere else to go anyway, he would just see what this fellow outlander, Chen Li, would do in this world.
If Chen Li had any mind-reading abilities right now and heard Kalpas's thoughts, he would have, at the very least, flipped the middle finger at this berserker who, in a mortal body, solo-killed the Herrscher of Ice suffering only severe frostbite, fought evenly with the MANTIS Sakura, and remained unfazed even after being stabbed through the heart.
Brother, are you even human?
However, for the sake of the 10 Crystals and 200 Star Stones gifted by the world for [Saving Private Kalpas], after flipping the bird, he'd have to follow it up with a thumbs-up to balance things out.
Speaking of which, does this world have some kind of rule where outsiders either have to kill a Herrscher or create one?