Chapter 74

It was underground, out of the reach of the outside worlds light. Only some pale, and dim artificial light sources were lighting up the place.

Moreover, those sources original purpose was not to give off light, they were pods filled with a solution that just happened to give off a glow. The pods were arranged in line at a regular interval, and most of them had human bodies in them.

There were no common points between the ages and genders of the bodies, if there had to be any common points to mention, it would that they were all naked and unconscious. And there was one other common feature that one couldnt tell based on their appearance, they were all from the Stellar tribe.

Cutting through the atmosphere of that dark, ominous space were the sounds of weapons clashing and flashing. Each time the weapons turned, the pale lights were reflected on their blades.

The real source of those lights and sounds were a young man and a young lady who were crossing blades with each-other.

The young man, who had slightly purple hair, was holding in his hands a long spear, as long as his own bodys height. Even a grown adult would be unlikely to be able to wield the spear like the youth did, freely manipulating it while taking into account the spears weight and centrifugal force.

The weapon of the young woman facing him was a scimitar that she held in a reverse grip. The sword was already short as it was, let alone when compared to a spear. Moreover, even for a scimitar, the blade was quite short and it had a large curvature. And yet, despite being in such a disadvantageous situation, the young woman, who was holding the scimitar with both of her hands, was actually rivaling against the young man and was making many more attack moves than he did.

However, in contrast to that intense battle, both of them were fighting with expressionless faces devoid of emotions. They had no fear of pain or death, nor did they have any killing intent to show their will to kill each other. They were so indifferent that it almost looked as if they were apathetically carrying out some simple task.

Observing them as they did so was the owner of this place, Justus Freund.

Upon being given a certain signal by Justus who had been looking at the scene for a while, the two young people halted their extremely fierce fight and all their movements, as if they were robots who had received a command to stop their actions.

......That was so-so. Their fighting ability has room for improvement...

Justus had rather not continue developing them right now, not wanting to end up reducing the number of bodies he had in hand. Though the output of their strength was insufficient to start up the device, putting more efforts in getting more members of the stellar tribe would waste too much time. But there was someone who was fit to support those two, and Justus believed that if he put that someone in charge of managing them, then there would be no problem.

Having come to that conclusion, Justus decided to apply his decision to the development he was working on. If that person was able to get their abilities up to Justus expected standards, then it would show that his actions followed Justus wishes.

The moment Justus was longing for was finally coming. That was what he remained more than ten years in the dark for.

He was finally reaching the point where he could realize his dearest wish. Justus spontaneously leaked a laugh out of his mouth.

Hehehe, just a little bit... Just a little bit more until I can meet you... Just you wait.

Justus looked at an empty space with an ecstatic expression on his face. And his usually calm and almost emotionless voice was now quite differently filled with madness.

And so, the despair brought upon by the total destruction of the world was secretly starting to come to life.

Right now, there was a child in front of Harold. More accuaretly, it was a very recently born baby.

Of course, it wasnt Harolds child. Sleeping soundly in his crib, was Huey, Harolds younger brother born of a different mother.

Harold got to know of Hueys existence shortly after returning from the celebration of the engagement between Itsuki and Silvie held at the Berlioz familys residence. In one of the letters that Harolds father regularly sent him to persuade him to reconsider the break off of his engagement with Erica, he added one sentenceYour little brother was just born, so come by to see him one of these days.

Upon reading his letter, Harold first admired him for being energetic despite being almost fifty years old, but when he thought about it carefully, he, who was originally supposed to be the Stokes households heir, had a bad reputation that was spread far and wide and had selfishly broken his engagement, so it was only natural that his father would get another son as an insurance, just in case.

Although it was a rare concurrence, it was allowed within the kingdom for nobles to get a concubine, and his wife, Jessica, was already over forty years old. In consideration of her health and the childs, perhaps making an heir with a concubine instead was a reasonable choice.

Putting that aside. Harold believed that, if he were to return home now, his father Hayden would certainly nag him, once again trying to persuade him not to break his engagement. Besides, even if he were to survive until the end of the games story, Harold didnt know how the Stokes family would do.

Though some parts of this world were different from the game, fundamentally, it was still very similar toBrave Heartss world. Although the LP farming method had made some profits for them, there was no change to Harolds parents pure-blooded principles and the behavior that came with it, leading them to oppress their population. No matter how Harold thought about it, there was a high probability that their household would be crushed.

Therefore, in case he survived until the end of the games story and yet was still unable to return to his former world, Harold had considered the idea of leaving the household and throwing away the name Harold Stokes.

Fortunately, he had obtained strength that would make it easy for him to make a living as an adventurer or a mercenary.

Therefore, he had no interest in doing something as troublesome as voluntarily going back there, however, as Harold worried about that and looked at his brother, he realized something and froze up on the spot.

If the Stokes household was crushed and Harold left it, what would happen to Huey, who was only a newborn? He would be left in the street, and at worst, he would likely die.

The original Harold had no younger brother. He might have had one, but at least, there was certainly no depiction of such a setting within the game. In other words, there was no denying the possibility that Huey was born due to Harolds actions that differed from the games story.

And even if it wasnt for that, his brother was his brother no matter who his mother was. Thats how Harold felt in the part of his emotions that had no regard for reason.

Done with his worrying, Harold dealt with negotiating with Justus and got permission to return to his home for a few days, and so, Harold went back to the Stokes mansion after five years of absence. And as expected, he ended up receiving a huge scolding from his father and kept fending off his words for over an hour, until he finally got to meet with Huey.

But, standing on the other side of the crib, there was also a woman, Hueys mother and Haydens concubine. She looked young and was probably of the same generation as Yuno. It looked like there was a difference of over 20 years between Hayden and her.

She did come to the rescue of Harold who had no idea what to do when Huey got unsettled, but, except for the exchange of greetings she had