Calamity Upon This World

Knock~Knock

As William knocked on the door of the house with a blue roof, there was no response, even after a few minutes.

After a bit more knocking, finally a middle-aged woman with visible wrinkles and dark circles opened the door.

The woman had an empty expression on her face, as if she had lost her meaning in life, which, considering she was probably the mother of the missing girl, made sense.

As William saw her, he started by introducing himself.

"Good afternoon, maam. My name is Edge Lord, and I'm the adventurer assigned by the guild."

Hearing his words, the woman's pupils visibly expanded, and the light that her eyes had lost rekindled as she asked.

"Really? So you'll find my Maya?" Her tone contained desperation.

William felt bad for the women, but he didn't let it show on his face.

As he doubted, the woman wanted his pity.

"Don't worry, maam, I'll do everything in my power to reunite your daughter with you," he reassured her.

Hearing the masked man's words, the woman smiled as she spoke.

"Thank you so much; our whole family is forever indebted to you. Ah, where are my manners? Please come inside."

With that said, the women led William inside.

As William entered the house, he observed that the house was quite small and didn't have much furniture. While he kept this in mind, he didn't point it out.

'It seems the loss of their daughter has affected both parents quite hard,' he thought as he noticed how disorganised the house looked.

Even the dishes seemed unwashed; overall, there was a suffocating, gloomy atmosphere inside the house.

Anyone else probably would've found it suffocating inside, but William had experienced worse things in his past life, so he didn't mind.

As the women led him inside the bedroom, he saw an old man lying on the bed.

The man had brown skin with wrinkles and black spots, and his eyes were open wide as he stared at the ceiling.

It was a bit weird seeing an old man just staring at the ceiling with an empty mind, but at the same time, William didn't think he could relate to a grieving father.

"He's been like this for the past few days ever since sending a commission to the guild; he barely even eats or speaks nowadays and instead just keeps staring at the ceiling," the woman said as she welped looking at the condition of her husband.

She didn't know just who they had offended to have to go through such tough times, but she just hoped that someday her family could return to normal, and for that, her hope was in the masked adventurer.

She didn't really have any reason to have such blind faith in a complete stranger, but she was desperate, and he was perhaps their best bet.

"I see," Edge Lord commented as he heard the woman's words.

"Hi sir, I'm the adventurer who has been assigned to this mission. It's a pleasure meeting you."

Hearing the masked adventurers words, the old man sat up so suddenly that it almost startled William.

"Show me your ID," the man said coldly.

William was a bit impressed by the man's ability to stay rational despite his state.

He was honestly expecting him to be like his wife and just instantly believe him, but he was pleasantly surprised.

Hearing his words, William took out his ID and handed it to the man.

"A-ranked adventurer, huh? Not bad," the man commented.

After a few minutes of scrutinising and confirming the authenticity of the card, the man returned the card.

"Since you've now confirmed my identity, how about you tell me a bit about what's going on?" William asked.

The man took a deep breath before he started narrating everything.

"Due to my status as the village chief, everyone in the village loved my daughter."

"But with all this love, people who were envious of my position and hers were quite common."

"But I never paid them much attention; after all, I never expected them to do anything."

"Instead, I just focused on making the village more prosperous and saving my own money to send Maya to an academy so she could get educated."

"Neither me nor my wife have been educated; it's always been our dream for our child to not be uneducated like us, which is why we even sold our old house and instead settled for this modest one so we could save money."

"But my daughter Maya was smart for her age, and realising our efforts to send her to an academy, she started studying whatever she could find and even started training."

"And to everyone's surprise, last year she actually managed to awaken."

"This was simply unbelievable for everyone in the village, as we haven't had a new awakened among our population in years."

"And if her mere awakening wasn't enough, she even awakened a Tier II aspect."

"Hearing the news, everyone around the village was elated to hear such a genius arise from among us and ended up placing a lot of expectations on her."

"Obviously, me and my wife were perhaps the most excited, and we encouraged her to hone her talents so we could get her admitted to a good academy."

"With all these newfound expectations on her, she started pushing herself during training to not disappoint us; however, even despite knowing this, we chose to ignore it as we believed it would only benefit her in the future."

"But if only I could go back in time and beat up past me for his stupidity and tell him to take care of his daughter more."

"Tell her that it was fine for her to not push herself so much and that even if she never attended an academy, me and her mother would still love her more than anything."

"Now she's been gone for a whole 5 days with no contact."

"At first, we thought maybe she was just training harder than usual, but after she had been missing for a whole day, I got worried and led a search party around the village, but to no avail."

"In the end, I had no choice but to commission the guild as a last-ditch effort."

"Now as I lay in bed, all that's left is guilt and regret as I keep thinking about different what-ifs."

"I've failed my daughter as a father and failed my wife as a husband for not protecting our child," the man welped, tears flowing down his face.

The more William heard the man speak, the worse he felt for the fate of this family, as he found his throat getting dryer.

Not able to take the feeling anymore, William finally said something.

"Don't worry, sir. I'm sorry to hear that happened to you, but now that I'm here, I promise to reunite you with your daughter, so apologise to her in person."

When he first came here, he was only interested in the rewards, but not anymore now that he had promised the village chief that it was now his responsibility to complete this mission, and he, for one, wasn't one to go back on his words.

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