Chapter 11: Before the Dawn
(Chapter 2 arrives!) Thank you for the tips of the two book friends, "Shorts Helper" and "I Love OP", ~~~~~~~)
With the successful conclusion of Rod's Courage Trial, a luncheon and a dinner were held in the Lord's Mansion to celebrate Rod's successful Courage Trial and celebrate Rod's twelfth birthday.
So for a whole noon and an afternoon, Rhodes himself was in a state of instoppability, and all kinds of people he knew and did not know needed him to talk to, and to show his ability to be the first heir of the Ernst family. Although Rhodes is reluctant to engage in this kind of social activity, it is not up to Rhodes himself in this case.
In the face of those boastful and tentative questions, Rhodes had to maintain a reasonable attitude to answer. If it weren't for Rhodes' memories of his previous life, if Rod was really only twelve years old, he would definitely be a little unbearable about this situation.
But even then, when the dinner was over, Rhodes felt like he was limp all over his body, much more tired than he was from fighting the old gnoll for the first time and then training all day.
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At night, in Rod's bedroom
After taking a shower and lying on the bed, Rhodes soon entered a meditative state, entered his consciousness space, and unexpectedly saw that the translucent ball floating in the meditation space changed!
Originally, the glimmer of gold on the translucent sphere had shone a little brighter, and the gold displayed on the translucent sphere was obviously a little more than the motionless situation of the previous few days.
After a careful examination of Rod for a while, he determined that the translucent orb did indeed have a little more gold, roughly the same as when he killed the old gnoll, which was less than one percent, and became about one percent more.
After estimating the approximate number of kills if he wanted to make the gold completely bright, Rhodes himself's face was very ugly.
"TMD! According to this trend, at least more than 100 jackals will be killed."
Looking at the translucent orb, Rod felt that his head hurt, and he couldn't help but burst into a foul mouth in the meditation space.
More than a hundred gnolls!
Not more than 100 sand alders (Note 1) or bighorn antelope (Note 2)!
Rhodes was sure that if he was going out to hunt alone, not to mention more than a hundred gnolls, even three or five adult gnolls would be enough to chase him. Even if you're not too lucky, you probably have to go into the belly of the jackal to serve as food for the other party!
This is not a sensational thing, in the Far North mountain range near the Ernst territory, I don't know how many mercenaries venture into it every year but there are no bones left.
Rod, a little gray iron subordinate, if he dares to run out alone and take risks? Hmph, not to mention other factors, just those goblin groups that are not even at the lowest level in the wild are enough to kill him!
As for the gnolls, most of them are a dozen or dozens of them wandering together or entrenched somewhere, and basically belong to the group of monsters in the lower rank of gray iron when they become adults? Well, those who dare to face it alone are not sure unless they are those powerful stores of the peak of gray iron or even the red bronze rank. Otherwise, most adventure stories will hear more than one hot-blooded unlucky guy who ran out and ventured into a group of monsters, and they were directly buried in the mouths of those monsters and became each other's food!
Rhodes seemed to be able to take out the two gnolls without much effort, but that was one-on-one and fairly secure. If it is replaced by a person in the wild, the results will definitely not be very optimistic in the face of those plural gnolls!
After all, Rhodes is only a twelve-year-old boy now, and even if the experience of traveling through his past life can make him more precocious, it doesn't mean that he can survive in the wild as a little kid who has just reached the gray iron level!
Not to mention, if Rhodes wanted to turn that translucent ball into gold, it was certain that at least a hundred monsters similar to gnolls would die in his hands, and the difficulty would not be ordinarily high!
Without considering anything else, even Baron Ernst would not have let his eldest son, who had a great future, venture out, let alone engage in such a course of fighting and killing outsideβjust kidding! The little guy who is only twelve years old is in the early stages of knightly training, and in this case, it is murder to send him out for non-stop killing in the wild, right?
The biggest headache for Rhodes is that the true situation of his idea can't be said, and there is no completely reasonable excuse for his family to accept that he wants to kill more than a hundred gnoll-level wild monsters with his own hands!
"There are really pros and cons"
Looking at the golden light on the translucent ball in front of him, Rod couldn't help but think of a proverb from his previous life, and he felt that it couldn't be more appropriate to his current situation.
It is true that Rhodes was reborn in the family of Baron Ernst in this life, and has a much stronger status than on the earth in the previous life, and the supply of resources that are much more for those commoners and free people. But because of the status of the Ernst family, Rhodes had to be subject to some restrictions - for example, if he was a commoner or a free man, Rhodes himself would not at least have servants with him when entering and leaving the lord's mansion, not to mention that he could not leave the town without the permission of the baron.
Of course, on the whole, Rhodes felt that the advantages of being reborn in the Ernst family far outweighed the disadvantages. But the problem is that now Rhodes wants to do something dangerous and doesn't have a suitable reason, then this disadvantage is directly stuck in front of him.
When he saw a little bit of gold on the translucent ball, he couldn't think of a reason for his father to let his father out and cut hundreds of jackals or other monsters in his life.
"Could it be that these souls can only be absorbed by my own killing? And, perhaps, not just the souls of monsters, maybe the souls of livestock and other humans"
But when Rhodes looked at the dazzling gold on the translucent orb, other creepy thoughts popped into his mind.
So far, Rhodes is sure that this translucent ball is probably absorbing soul power and appearing golden, but is he not sure that this translucent ball can only absorb the souls of his own killed creatures or the souls of other people after killing opponents, or even the souls of those livestock and the like?
If Rode's judgment is correct and verified, then the time before Rod himself activates the translucent orb may be greatly shortened.
What the? What if it's the worst outcome? I'll rub it, how do you know what the situation is if you don't try it
So looking at the translucent ball, Rhodes secretly made up his mind in his heart, and carefully tested whether his thoughts were true.
If the best outcome that all souls can absorb or something a little worse, then Rhodes would have had a lot easier.
As for the morality of sucking the soul, especially the human soul, and so on
Forget it, this thing has been discarded by Rhodes! As long as it is not someone he knows or values, Rhodes himself is too lazy to dwell on this issue.
Having made up his mind, Rhodes set off on his own in a few days.
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After Rhodes' test of courage, the Ernst family and the servants in the lord's mansion found that Rod Ernst was acting a little strangely. For example, it's close to the kitchen in the lord's mansion, and I'm more concerned about the dead and dead monsters.
Fortunately, Rod Ernst's somewhat unusual actions stopped before they could attract the attention of Baron Ernst and other family members. And seeing that Rod Ernst, the promising little master, no longer paid attention to this, the other servants did not think of reporting to the butler. After all, as the first heir of the baronial family, as long as Rod Ernst's behavior is not too outrageous, those servants don't have the courage to report it.
Baron Ernst, on the other hand, was very happy, because on the tenth day after the test of courage, his eldest son took the initiative to mention him and asked for more practical training.
Baron Ernst was of course pleased with his son's self-motivation, so he ordered the Knights of Tamon and Ter to try to grab some monsters for their sons as the object of actual combat training if possible.
However, what made Rod, who finally came up with this excuse and persuaded his father with righteous words, felt that his father cared too much about himself and only had a chance to exercise every two or three months, and the object of combat training was not only jackals, but also scum such as goblins and kobolds appeared in front of Rod.
But what makes Rhodes even more painful is that this situation of only being able to rise a few percent every few months is even more tangled. But fortunately, after another year of training and courses on the command of knights' small-scale troops, Rhodes, who had stabilized his gray iron lower position and was vaguely advancing towards the gray iron middle position, finally got permission to go out, and began to be able to follow the Tamon knights and Tel knights to lead the garrison to start daily cleaning and patrolling of the territory!
In the occasional encounters and purge battles, in addition to truly feeling the atmosphere of the battlefield, Rhodes was also able to personally look forward to his translucent orb that could only be killed by himself to obtain the soul of the other party.
When it came to the year 1142 of the Dawn calendar, Rhodes finally saw the last light
(Note 1: Livestock of the same rank as domestic pigs, but twice as large as domestic pigs, and with the same thick skin as wild boars.) )
(Note 2: It is similar to a goat, but it is three times the size of a goat, and it is named after the two large horns on its head.) )