A week after Hecate arrived, she arranged for a carriage for them to go to Demetria, the region she would rule as Viscount.
Percy was happy for her, but he wondered if they could get a better carriage because the one they were in sucked, and gave him motion sickness.
He was trying to understand the system that Nyx had given him, but his dizziness made him sick. It was simple in practice, a simple white game screen with black bezels and his stats in black.
✧────────✦ [ Status Window ] ✦─────────✧
༺ Name: Perseus Amphene
༺ Age: 1
༺ Race: Human
━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Attributes ✦ ━━━━━━━━━
༺Strength : 10
༺Agility : 10
༺Constitution : 10
༺Stamina : 10
༺Spirit Energy : 10
༺Intelligence : 10
━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Skills ✦ ━━━━━━━━━
• Spiritmancy : Rank 0 (untrained)
• Arete : Rank 0 (untrained)
━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Quests ✦ ━━━━━━━━━
– Daily Quest : [ Daily quest complete! ]
– Optional Quests : [ none available ]
━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Rewards ✦ ━━━━━━━━━
– Rank 1 Customisable reward.
– Rank 1 Customisable reward.
– Rank 1 Customisable reward
━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Storage ✦ ━━━━━━━━━
– Piece of bread
– Plier
– Paper
✧────────────────────────────────✧
The system was meant to give him daily quests but it was still slowly adapting to his daily routine so he only received quests occasionally.
And the rewards were Rank 1 customisable rewards that were about one kg in mass. So he could create one kg of anything as long as he knew how to make it, or he knew all the components that the object was made of.
He had mostly been practicing using it these last few days before he started making anything. It needed a strong visual image and certainty.
It also needed his parents to not be around when he used it or they would be confused. Unfortunately, they were always with him, especially Hecate.
In more pressing news though, his stomach was already starting to rumble. The sound of it nearly brought him to tears.
Hecate had insisted on breastfeeding when she returned from captivity, but that was only an option when Percy was half blind.
I will not stand for this! Breastfeeding is child abuse in this situation.
"I can feel his belly rumbling," Hecate grumbled. "You think he'll still be fussy?"
Thalos flinched.
"He's very used to the bottle. He might not want to switch to breastfeeding after so long. We can fill some bottles—"
"I don't want to use a bottle! I'm his mother. How am I supposed to be a mother if I can't feed him?"
Relax, fatherfucker. I don't hate you. I'm a freaking man, let me eat with some dignity at least.
She unfortunately was very insistent and constantly tried to bring his face to her chest till he started crying and fighting her.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, Perseus." She tried to stay calm, but her jaws were so tight she could barely speak.
"I'll fill enough bottles till we get to Dema."
Nice, let us have peace, he thought smugly.
Thalos and Hecate were given a city called Dema, in the region of Demetria, by the king to rule. The small region once fully belonged to the Count of Yarol, till the ruler of Dema decided he hated paying taxes.
Honestly, that was kind of relatable.
"When I was in the dungeons," Hecate began suddenly, shocking both of them, "that bastard, Viscount Sion, would come to my cell and insult and poke at me like a zoo animal."
Thalos released a low hiss that made Percy shiver.
"That pig. I'll make sure he eats my sword."
"Don't worry, we'll get our chance." Hecate smirked. "Demetria was his land."
Viscount Sion must be the former ruler of Dema, and hater of taxes. If he wasn't such a scumbag, Percy might have felt pity for the fortune he just lost.
Thalos nodded.
"I've heard a lot about it. They say children never go hungry there. I remember trying to buy some vegetables imported from Demetria in the Grey Mountains. It was so stupidly expensive that I thought the children never go hungry because they already died from starvation."
"Grey Mountains are too far, that's half a year's journey, of course they'll be expensive."
Hecate stared out of the front of the carriage. The rolling green fields and the blue skies seemed endless. Percy had never enjoyed breathing more than right now.
The air was clear and crisp. He stretched his body, feeling tired after all that fighting and eating. But he wanted to hear more from his parents.
"Dema was built on the Crean River thousands of years ago," Hecate explained. "The city and the Fortress of Dema are older than the Crona Kingdom, maybe even older than the Heracles Empire that came before us."
The Crona Kingdom was where they currently were, somewhere in the Human world that Nyx said she would send him to.
It sounded peaceful and prosperous. So, based on his memory of history, the fall of the kingdom would come from within.
"The King really took Sion's fief just because he was assisting your father?"
"He was actually what I was counting on," she said. "He crippled Neraste when he caught me, not knowing she was the King's servant. Together with the evidence I had that he probably killed Galan…"
Thalos nodded.
"That sounds bad, but is it enough for the King to take away land that Sion's family has ruled for generations?"
"Of course not. But the King isn't stupid. Even if he doesn't have evidence, the rumors around Sion are too bad to ignore. And Dema has made the pig bastard as rich as a Count."
Hecate's purple eyes grew very serious.
"Can you imagine the wealth they've accumulated in the last two hundred years? How would anyone respond to losing so much? We haven't escaped yet, all the King did was set the table for us to clash."
"And made Sion our biggest enemy."
Hecate nodded.
"The King can't get rid of Sion by himself, so he'll have us do it."
Thalos smirked.
"Fine by me. As long as I get to carve up that pig bastard."
The evil smiles on his parents' faces made Percy grimace. These crazy people need to take a chill pill.
They were casually talking about hidden murders and torture like it was natural. And it was annoying to be born and already have a mortal enemy.
Percy thought about it as he slept off. There was no way this Baron Sion left the land in a good condition.
How blessed were his parents? To have a son that is well-versed(mostly for fun) in city planning.
Well, that was a hyperbolic question. Anyone was blessed to have him as a son.