Daily Life RPG System

Chapter 59: What’s Your Worth?

Hiro thought about it and replied with an uncertain tone, "I think I can put it this way; he eloped from his family with a secret lover. All in all, whoever is behind the Odins, their bottom line is Theo, not the family of three."

In a sense, whoever is protecting Theo doesn't extend the umbrella of protection to his wife and daughter, leaving their safety up to Theo's ability.

If Rosaline thought about it this way, it would make sense as to why most of the attacks on the Odins recently were targeted toward Theo's immediate family, not Theo himself.

It's like they're testing the waters—testing the tolerance limits of whoever is behind the Odins.

And from the looks of it, the mother and daughter pair, Sheba and Bella, didn't fall within the scope of a bottom line.

However, even if that was the case, no one would dare go overboard for fear of triggering the cesspool that was Theo's unbridled counterattack, which could pull everyone into the deep waters.

Thus, the survival of the Odin's so far wasn't a matter of excellence, but a matter of some awkwardly established, delicate balance.

The Odins was just a small chess piece between two behemoths; anyone could destroy it casually, but no one dared to do it.

That was until a new chess piece in the form of Babylon was introduced, allowing both parties to divert their attention elsewhere.

When Rosaline's thoughts reached this point, something clicked in her mind as she blurted out, "You've kept in contact with Babylon, haven't you?! No, you most likely joined him or them, right?! This explains why you know so much…"

Rosaline had an 'enlightened' expression as her thoughts raced at light speed.

Hiro stared, dumbfounded.

Did I just expose myself by repaying kindness with kindness? No, that's it, I'll have to be an ungrateful bastard in the future—I can't risk getting myself exposed for something so stupid again!

Hiro coughed, fixing his sharp glare on Rosaline. It was the typical "You talk too much" type of glare—a flat-out warning.

Hiro wondered if he should get Arabella to hypnotize and wipe away Rosaline's memories of this particular conversation.

Rosaline realized that she was overreacting, and she could feel an invisible noose slowly closing in on her neck.

She began to sweat profusely.

If the entity behind Babylon was so powerful that it could draw the attention of the two behemoths that caught the Odins family in the middle, all while evading the Rosch family's investigation efforts, it wasn't something for her to meddle in.

She could very well disappear from the face of this earth by midnight, let alone make it into the New World's new expedition party.

An awkward silence descended in the private room, and Hiro just stared silently at Rosaline.

His eyes were getting darker and darker, and it seemed that he was about to act at any moment now.

"I won't say anything," Rosaline could only say this much, but she knew that this verbal guarantee wasn't worth anything.

Just as she was sweating on what to do, Hiro sighed and shook his head. "Forget it, saying anything now is useless."

Hiro stood up from his seat and prepared himself to leave. The atmosphere was no longer suitable for a conversation.

"Wait," Rosaline gathered her courage and stood up, taking a deep breath. "Let me meet with Babylon, I can prove my sincerity to him if we meet face to face. At worst, I'll immediately disown my family and join him."

Hiro gave her a silly look, "Without your family's extended influence, what's the point of keeping you? Maybe if you became the family head and handed the Rosch family as collateral, he might be interested."

Leaving those words in the air, Hiro left.

Rosaline was stunned on the spot.

Use her family as a bargaining chip to become a subordinate? Is her Rosch family so little in their eyes?

For a moment, she stood there in a daze, her mind whirling furiously.

…

After an arduous struggle, Hiro finally made it through the crowd of enthusiastic teenagers and entered his car.

Without hesitation, Sebastian drove off into the distance, and only then did Hiro heave a sigh of relief.

Then, his phone buzzed with an incoming text message, and it was from Rosaline.

[Rosaline]: If I represented my line of the family to invite you to join my party, would you join me?

Hiro thought for a moment and replied that it wouldn't hurt to take a look. At the very least, he might as well help her climb the ladder of power in her family.

Since he couldn't silence her for eternity, he might as well drag her down the path of stabbing her family in the back.

As for how to do it? Hiro's eyes glinted coldly.

Since he already agreed to help Rosaline in the pocket dimension, Hiro returned home and locked himself in the study to prepare.

His preparations were simple.

First, he exchanged one of the game vouchers for a game with demonic lore, and it was another sandbox open-world game called Return of the Demon Ancestor.

The plot follows the story of Sitri…

A Great Demon with the Celestial Demon bloodline who exhausted his demonic powers trying to save the demon realm from crashing into the Divine Kingdom of the Heavenly Emperor.

After exhausting his potential to the extreme, he is left wandering the cosmos together with the remnants of the demon realm, eventually ending up in a chaotic region that is engulfed in total anarchy.

The demon realm ends up as a floating island in that region, and demons are enslaved by the powerful races who had a foothold in that chaotic region.

When Sitri woke up to find his people enslaved and treated like toys, practice dummies, and even cheap currency—his anger stimulated his dormant bloodline.

From then on, he walks a path of blood and slaughter to replenish his lost bloodline powers, eventually turning the chaotic region into the new Demon Realm, where he plans for the next war against the Heavenly Emperor.

…

Hiro didn't hesitate to get his hands on the game, and for the following days, his lifestyle alternated between playing Transcendent Daoist, Return of the Demon Ancestor, and secluding himself in the private cultivation room to get familiar with the Infinite Sword Matrix.

His favorite combination of elemental swords was the wind and lightning formation, where he would construct three lightning swords and six wind swords.

At this moment, nine swords were his limit unless he wanted to sacrifice control and accuracy for a wider destructive range.

What Hiro found pleasing was that his personal cultivation room was an extension of his pocket dimension, which means that the attributes and laws of the pocket dimension determined the environment of his cultivation space.

Soon, a week in real life passed.

…

A gray vortex appeared in the study room, and Hiro slowly walked out.

His crimson hair had sparks of neon blue interlocking within, and one of his ruby eyes had also turned pale blue momentarily.

He slowly calmed down the rioting, robust spirituality within his body, suppressing his aura to the extreme with his eyes closed.

Thin, transparent swords swam around his figure like fish in water, slowly fading into his body after kicking up a gust of billowing wind.

Although it was just one week in real life, Hiro spent close to 50 days in either mindless training or leveling up in the new game.

He quickly checked the status window for his Sitri character.

[Name: Sitri (Hero)]

Level: 40 (Tier-7 Rank-S)

Gold: 13,456

Race: Demon

Bloodline: Celestial Demon

Special Abilities: Purgatory Domain, Rampage, Blood Ignition, Bone Armor, Bone Sword, Demonic Bewitchment.

…

The progress couldn't be called slow, but it couldn't be called fast either. This was the drawback of not having any teleportation circles in the chaotic region.

When Hiro's army of demons wanted to move from one area to the next, the logistics and transportation would always hinder their progress.

Furthermore, Hiro learned his lesson that excessive killing and indulgence in the {Simulation Space} would affect his mentality in the real world; hence why he didn't go all out.

Another reason was the limitations of the pocket dimension—it can't withstand a power level above Tier-7.

Also, another factor was the unlikely possibility of meeting with a demonic squad inside the pocket dimension.

Just in case, Hiro used the five cosmetic keys in the shop to get himself a Demon Mask, Hellflame Tailcoat, Demon Gloves, Demon Boots, and a demonic-looking haircut.

With the aura from his synchronized game character, no one would be able to differentiate him from an actual demon.

With these preparations, Hiro was looking forward to the expedition. If he could worm his way into the demon world with his disguise, he could obtain that world's coordinates and obtain a Holy Land for Arabella's training.

Hiro thought about it, and he didn't wish to imbue his pocket dimension with demonic attributes, even if he did complete the game.

As he was stretching, Hiro's phone began to ring loudly. After confirming that the call was from Rosaline, he smiled.