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Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Pride

Lake was ecstatic as he scrolled through the system\'s interface.

[RP Points = 1497.634]

Seeing that his total RP points had increased by more than 500 in the last 24 hours, Lake couldn\'t help but smile. During his short time in the Garden, he had kept himself busy farming RP points.

Normally, even if he were to busy himself all day hunting in a normal field, he would be hard pressed to even gather a hundred RP points, and even that was a high estimate.

This wasn\'t to say that Lake was slow when it came to hunting, on the contrary, he was extremely swift, finishing off most of his prey in one blow. The problem was with the strength of the creatures and the distance between them.

Out in overworld fields, Lake would have to waste countless hours just running around in search of monsters to kill and even if he found them, they would most likely be low tier monsters that would only provide one RP each.

However, things were different inside the rift. There were monsters everywhere and of varying strength. Behind every blade of grass there was something lurking, waiting to be culled.

To a normal hunter, an environment like this could only be described as hell, but to Lake, this was nothing less than a paradise. If Lake could, he wouldn\'t mind staying inside the rift for a few more weeks until he fully cleared it out.

However, Lake still hadn\'t forgotten his original intentions.

Turning his head to the side, he gazed at the island in the middle of the lake. He could see the glimmering golden leaves of the white tree that towered in the sky.

While hunting, he had been keeping an eye on the island in the middle of the lake.

He knew that the Wolf King and the Spider Empress were already here and were most likely just waiting for the opportunity to rush in and take the fruit. From what Lake knew, the Empress and the Wolf King should have already fought by now as a full day had passed since he saw the Empress\' future.

He hadn\'t seen any activity or signs of a major battle anywhere in the southern region so he guessed that the two must have fought somewhere else. As for who won the battle, Lake couldn\'t be sure. Although the Wolf King was already a rank three creature and the Empress was only at peak rank two, Lake couldn\'t get an accurate grasp on the Empress\' true strength.

Logically, a higher ranked creature should be able to easily subdue and defeat a creature at a lower rank, but in the case of the Empress, Lake wasn\'t so sure about that.

The Empress knew that she was up against a creature of a higher rank yet still chose to fight, Lake couldn\'t help but feel that she had something up her sleeve.

However, none of this mattered to Lake, as regardless of whoever won, Lake was going to rob them all the same.

After thinking about it for a while, Lake decided to finally upgrade Steel Body to its final level. The upgraded skill would give a huge boost to his stats which would also have an effect on his other skills as most of them scale with his stats.

After securing his surroundings and finding a suitable hiding spot atop a tree, Lake opened the system interface and immediately began the upgrade.

[-1000 RP points]

[Beginning the upgrade process…]

Lake felt his heart ache as his points dropped by a thousand but he had already prepared for it.

Soon his senses were stripped from him as the upgrade process began.

…

By the borders of the southern region and the eastern region, a horde of beasts could be seen crossing the border.

All of these beasts were crossing into the eastern region in a frantic state. A few hours ago news had spread to every creature in the south of a terrifying predator that had popped up out of nowhere.

This creature was extremely fast and had the ability to suddenly vanish out of thin air, earning it the title of The Ghost. Its attacks were quick and precise, usually killing its prey in one blow.

The Ghost was also extremely vicious, killing any living creature in its path. The only creatures that seemed to escape its massacres were the flying creatures up high in the sky that only barely got glimpses of the Ghost when it killed its prey before disappearing.

However, just this alone had frightened all of the weaker creatures of the south as they were horrified to find out that among the Ghost\'s previous prey, some of them were at the peak of rank one! If the Ghost could kill creatures of that level, what was going to stop it from killing the rest of them who were even weaker than that?

This revelation among the lower rank creatures led to the current stampede to cross the border. Without exception, all of them were hoping to find shelter in the other regions as the south had become far too dangerous for them to survive in.

The only creatures that were brave enough to remain in the south were those who were either rank two or had the protection of a rank two leader.

Romero and the rest who watched the ongoing stampede from atop a high ledge felt a chill go down their spine. Over the last day, they noticed a sudden boom in the population and density in the creatures they encountered in the woods.

When they noticed this, they decided to investigate which led to their current position of watching the horde of migrating beasts.

"Interesting…" Professor Sun spoke as he looked on.

The rest didn\'t speak but instead turned their heads to look at Professor Sun.

"Professor Sun, you seem to know a bit about what\'s going on here. Do you think you could enlighten the rest of us?" Eliza asked with a curious expression on her face.

Hearing her question, Professor Sun shook his head as he replied, " I don\'t know much about the specifics, but it seems that creatures seem to be running from something."

When the rest of them heard that, their expression immediately turned grim.

All of them were intelligent people and could already understand the underlying meaning behind his words.

As if to confirm his doubts, Romero spoke out, "Does that mean…"

"Indeed, it seems that a powerful creature seems to have entered their habitat forcing them to run away."

"Could it be other hunters?" Harper suddenly asked with a small glimmer of hope rising in her eyes. In her mind, this kind of occurrence was a normal thing when hunters enter a rift. They start killing the creatures, forcing the remaining few to flee in order to survive.

"Under normal circumstances I would have said yes, but this situation is a unique one. Do you still remember where the entrance of the rift was?" Professor Sun said as looked towards his granddaughter.

When she heard her Grandpa\'s words, the small glimmer of hope in her eyes quickly died out as she lowered her head.

Seeing this, Professor Sun sighed as he stretched out an arm to rub her head, "The entrance to this rift is too well hidden and as far as I remember, this rift wasn\'t on the rift database before we left so it should be one that hasn\'t been discovered yet. Under these circumstances, the chances of hunters finding and entering the rift is…"

Professor Sun didn\'t finish his words but his meaning was clear for everyone to hear.

Harper felt her heart gripped tightly by despair at this moment.

"If it isn\'t a hunter, then what is it? Creatures in a rift don\'t normally fight each other to the point where they frighten the rest so much that they start to run away." Eliza asked.

"I\'m not sure." Professor Sun shook his head as he stroked his gray beard, "What I can say for certain however, is that whatever it is, it isn\'t something that we can face with our current strength."

It was at this point, that Romero who hadn\'t spoken a word throughout this entire exchange finally spoke up, "It doesn\'t matter. We\'ll continue forward. With all the creatures running away from that region, we could finally have a safe space to rest if we reach it."

When the rest heard him, they were greatly surprised.

"You want us to take the risk? I hope you realize that there is a chance that we\'ll encounter a creature far beyond our capabilities if we choose to proceed." Professor Sun said in a calm tone.

"I know, but right now we need to take any chance we can get. All of us have been running for almost three days straight now. We\'re all exhausted and our mana capacity is running low. Eliza and I can make it for another day but I don\'t think Ms. Harper can survive much longer with her mana capacity. She\'s only a martial apprentice and her mana capacity is far lower than the rest of ours. It\'s already impressive and says much about her training that she\'s able to survive this long with us but we can\'t keep moving on like this."

"If we don\'t find a place to rest soon we\'ll be placed in a far worse situation than we\'re currently in."

After Professor Sun mulled over Romero\'s reasoning, he released a sigh. Turning his head to his granddaughter, he grabbed her hand before she could react. Letting his mana flow into her he was able to quickly find out her current capacity. When saw how little it had remaining his eyes turned slightly red as he looked at his granddaughter.

He knew his granddaughter well, so he didn\'t need to ask the reason why she chose to remain silent about her low mana.

Pride. It\'s something that ran in the family and it has caused far too many deaths for its worth, yet they still chose to stubbornly live by it. It was also this stupid pride that took away the life of his only son and his wife, leaving him nothing but two prideful grandkids to look after… and now there was only one left.

Professor Sun knew his granddaughter was prideful and wouldn\'t want to be a burden to the rest of them despite her harsh words. He felt his heart ache as a familiar feeling rose up inside him. A long time ago, he had felt this feeling when his son and daughter-in-law died. At the time he had simply suppressed the feeling as he now had two grandkids to look after and didn\'t want himself to be seen as weak to the kids.

He wanted the kids to grow up with the impression that their grandpa was the best and give them the emotional security and protection they needed at the time. Unfortunately, it was this same protection that created that stubborn pride in the two kids.

The second time he felt this pain was when his wife passed away. He was devastated at the time but still resisted breaking down in front of the kids due to his pride. The children wailed at the loss of their beloved grandmother but he only silently comforted them, hiding away his own grief and pain.

The time he felt this pain was only two days ago, when one of his beloved grandkids that he shouldered and hid so much pain and grief to let grow up healthily and happily died right before him. Torn apart by a pack of vicious beasts with his limbs and guts scattered about.

At that time, the feeling he felt was the strongest, the pain unbearable and his heart shattered. At the time he wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to grieve. He wanted to die.

He couldn\'t take the pain any longer after that. His mind went blank as a ringing noise filled his head. At that time he wanted to join his grandson and be torn apart by monsters along with him.

However, he felt someone grab his hand and call out to him at the time. His granddaughter, the only remaining survivor of his family, was looking at him with a desperate expression, screaming at him to run.

At that moment, he could see it in his granddaughter\'s eyes. She too was in pain but that accursed pride was keeping her going, not allowing her to die. When he was younger his pride was also like this, but after countless heartaches and losses, his pride slowly wilted away.

However, at that moment he still chose to take his granddaughter\'s hand and run. It wasn\'t because of his pride or his will to live, but his desire to save his only granddaughter from experiencing the same pain he went through. He didn\'t want her to have all that grief and pain bottle up inside her like he did. He didn\'t want her to suffer a lifetime of agony and pain because of a generational scourge of overbearing pride. What he wanted was for her to live. Live a long and happy life where she could cry when she wanted to, grieve when she needed to, and smile when she wanted to.

He didn\'t want her to be restricted by this same pride that had plagued him for far too long. This brought him back to the current situation.

He knew what would happen if his granddaughter exhausted her mana in this kind of situation which was why he didn\'t hesitate any longer.

"G-Grandpa… I-" Harper wanted to explain herself at this moment but before she could even start, her grandfather cut her off.

"It seems like we\'ll have to take that risk Mr. Romero and venture forth."

Hearing Professor Sun\'s agreement, Romero nodded as he turned to Eliza, planning their following path. They didn\'t wish to stay in the current area for too long as they could already hear the roars of some creatures coming from the nearby woods.

At that moment, Professor Sun felt like he had placed yet another heavy burden upon his shoulders.