"Then, I ended up running all the way here." Paul finished recounting the rough outline of his experiences over the past year. He had gone through many things he never would have encountered in the Notos family.
After hearing Paul's story, Dan Feng felt quite shocked.
"Night assault..." Upon hearing that term, Dan Feng was momentarily at a loss for words, unsure how to respond.
After all, this was a completely unfamiliar other world—one still steeped in a medieval style—and such actions were indeed rather scummy.
But he had long grown accustomed to such things. As long as it didn't harm those close to him, he wouldn't bother intervening.
There were far worse things in this world. He didn't consider himself some omnipotent being capable of policing the entire realm.
Roxy, standing nearby, was equally stunned. She could hardly believe that a child so young had already experienced something like this.
By comparison, at 28 years old, she herself had yet to truly experience it.
In this world where people generally matured early, such phenomena weren't exactly rare.
Seeing their reactions, Paul continued with disdain: "You have no idea what kind of person that dojo master really is!"
"At first, because of my outstanding talent, he treated me fairly well. But who would've thought that just because he listened to a few idle rumors from others, he started ostracizing me in every way possible."
"A dojo run by someone like that definitely won't last long!" As he spoke, Paul's eyes were filled with contempt and scorn toward the dojo master.
After listening to Paul's account, Dan Feng had a rough understanding.
Thus, he said to Paul, "Mm, I've pretty much heard enough about your story. So, do you have any specific plans moving forward? If not, we still have other matters to attend to and might need to leave first."
The reason Dan Feng was in such a hurry was that he and Roxy needed to reach the royal capital Ars before nightfall.
Time was tight—he didn't want to waste too much on the road.
"My plans? I want to raise my adventurer rank first, then find some people to form an adventurer party. Wandering alone is still a bit dangerous. What about you two?" Paul stood up, stretched his somewhat stiff body, and looked toward Dan Feng and Roxy.
Since Paul had already stepped outside the bounds of nobility, Dan Feng figured it was fine to share some of their plans. Perhaps Paul even knew some useful information.
Thus, Dan Feng slowly said, "We're heading to the royal capital Ars in the Asura Kingdom to gather some intelligence."
"Intelligence on Ars!" Paul's eyes lit up the moment he heard it. "Ask me—I should know some things!" His voice trembled slightly from excitement.
Since Dan Feng and Roxy had helped him several times already, he wanted to help them in return. It would ease his strong sense of pride.
In the future, he was sure to become a powerful adventurer. If fate brought them together again, he could repay that gold coin twofold.
"Then do you know about Darius?" Dan Feng decided not to beat around the bush and asked Paul directly.
Paul thought for a moment, a sneer curling at the corner of his mouth as he replied, "Darius? You mean that disgusting guy? Oh, I know quite a bit of dirt on him."
Dan Feng and Roxy exchanged a glance, both seeing curiosity in each other's eyes.
Paul cleared his throat and began recounting what he knew about Darius.
"Once, I personally saw a young daughter from a lower noble family being taken away by people around Darius. They said they were going to discuss promoting her to mid-tier nobility with her. After that, the young lady vanished from public view as if she had evaporated from the face of the earth."
At this point, Paul's tone grew somewhat heavy, as if he felt regret for the girl's fate.
"So, I guess Darius must have done something unspeakable to her." Paul continued, "But even if we knew the truth, there's nothing we could do about it. After all, he's an upper minister, while the Notos family only has a duke."
In this world, nobles more or less had some strange fetishes.
For example, the Notos family preferred women with curvaceous figures, while Darius was an outright pedophilic pervert.
Hearing this, Dan Feng and Roxy couldn't help but show expressions of disgust.
"And also, there are constant reports of young girls disappearing within the Asura Kingdom. I bet it's all that Darius's doing." Paul went on.
'No wonder when we attended that banquet before, Bloody Kant warned us to stay away from Darius. So it was because of things like this?' Dan Feng thought to himself.
After all, Roxy's appearance was very much that of a loli, and from what Paul said, Darius had a particular fondness for that type.
With that thought, Dan Feng solidified his resolve to kill Darius as soon as possible. He could no longer allow innocent children to fall under the gaze of such a pervert.
"So, are you planning to kill Darius?" Paul asked Dan Feng in confusion.
"That might be somewhat difficult. He lives near the palace, and there are numerous guards protecting him around the clock."
"But if you really do kill him, you'd truly be ridding the people of a scourge. Of course, you'd also be wanted by the Asura Kingdom." Before Dan Feng could reply, Paul continued speaking on his own.
What Paul didn't know was that Darius also had ties to the Water God Reida Lia—so killing Darius would also draw the Water God's attention.
"Thanks for the information. We'll be going now." After obtaining some useful intelligence, Dan Feng took Roxy's hand and prepared to leave.
"Oh, sure. Good luck to you both. I'm planning to stay in the Dragon King Kingdom for a while and take on some quests there." With that, Paul walked off into the distance.
However, just before leaving, Dan Feng quietly bestowed a Dragon Spirit upon Paul as payment for the information on Darius.
Then, after walking forward with Roxy for a while, he transformed into his Vidyadhara form and flew with her toward the Asura Kingdom.
...
Just as Paul had said, all the incidents of missing girls within the Asura Kingdom were intricately linked to Darius.
Those kidnappers, without exception, were delivering their "goods" to Darius in exchange for generous rewards in gold coins.
And at this very moment, in some remote, rarely visited corner of the wilderness, they had successfully captured a group of "premium goods" that Darius particularly favored.
These pitiful girls had been stuffed into dozens of burlap sacks, treated like mere cargo, awaiting delivery to Darius.
"Rotkeber, how much do you think this batch of 'goods' is worth in Asura gold coins?" The fat man gazed greedily at the dozens of sacks beside him, then turned to ask Rotkeber standing nearby.
Rotkeber glanced expressionlessly at the sacks and replied indifferently, "Probably more than ten. After all, there are some rare beastmen in there. Lord Darius will definitely be very pleased."