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Boferou could not help but lament the decision he had taken a few hours ago, when he and his lackeys had decided to tail those naïve-looking kids and steal off their properties, which even later on evolved into kidnaping them, feeding such plan the belief that because of their rich items and the capabilities that they possessed were due to being the children of rich aristocrats. ​​

However, the expectations of what the children he had thought to be an easy target were shattered into pieces.

It was not as if he had underestimated them, he had even felt like it would not be as easy as they had originally thought, reading his weapons and magic for the confrontation, and even moving slowly and stealthily to get a nice first hit.

It was not that he underestimated them, he simply lacked knowledge about them, especially about what Frank really was…

If Frank had shown a bit more of his prowess, perhaps Boferou, the Wild Cat-kin Beastmen, leader of the party of thieves would have reconsidered things out and had rather escaped.

In fact, he had already considered doing so since he was trapped, but even as he tried his hardest to free himself, it seemed impossible.

Now the boy was back, but only him.

His presence was completely different than anything that Boferou had felt nor sensed, it was a completely different being altogether.

Before he had met him in person, Frank's presence was only that of an Initial Stage Rank 1 Adventurer, the bottom of the barrel, the weakest of them all, an easy prey, and a newbie Adventurer.

However, although he still had that feeling of being of Initial Stage, he possessed different types of energies fluctuation through his body.

Alongside a large Mana density, large enough to produce an Aura of its own, there was also the power of a golden glow, representing a strong vitality.

And even more, from within those two, the presence of Fire and Light converged, combining with the two previous Auras to generate something terrifying, akin to someone in the peak of Rank 1, or even grasping Rank 2!

Boferou was only Rank 1 Upper Stage, while his lackeys were all Rank 1 Middle Stage. Every Mana Core Rank had four stages, initial stage, middle stage, upper stage, and peak stage, and each stage came with a vast difference in power from each other, even to the point that someone of the middle stage could be several times stronger than someone at the initial stage at a minimum, and as the stages progressed, this difference became even larger.

This is why it was often unthinkable for someone of a lower stage to be capable of having a chance against someone higher than them… this also applied with Ranks themselves, where the differences were even larger and overwhelming.

"What could he be…? I can clearly sense his mana quality, it still within the Initial Stage! This is ridiculous, why with such mana quality, his strength is higher?! What tricks had he used? What spells are these?! The only thing I know is that my death is near… I can only hope, beg for mercy… And make sure to answer anything he asks me for… I might be part of that damned guild, but my life sure is more of a priority than those bastards!" thought Boferou, gnashing his teeth as cold sweat dripped from his neck.

Frank closed his fists as the threads that bind all of the thieves were suddenly tightened several times over.

Boferou noticed that the sticky threads were being enhanced by the same aura that covered Frank's entire body, making them as hard as steel, if not even more, and because his Mana was being constantly drained somehow, he could not even hope to escape now.

"From where you come from?" asked Frank, his aquamarine eyes flashing eerily.

The other three bandits were trembling, barely mustering any words, Boferou, the only one capable of maintaining himself by Frank's Aura spoke.

"…W-We come from the Thief Guild…" he said.

"Thief Guild?" asked Frank.

"Y-You don't know…?! It is an immensely powerful organization in the underworld of this town… And we got connections with various aristocrats inside the city as well as other criminal organizations…! Y-You're better off letting us go, or you might end up being tracked by them and assassinated alongside all of your beloved ones!" said Boferou, trying to intimidate Frank with something very obvious, which Frank had already considered.

"A criminal organization? It happened faster than I imagined… (I have to extract as much information as I can from them before doing the deed…)" thought Frank.

"Tell me your names, and also that of your organization's boss and the strongest members you have there… Also, tell me any secrets that could be useful regarding them," said Frank.

The four bandits glanced at each other with strange looks, although they had underestimated Frank's strength and were now lamenting this, they were still underestimating his intelligence and perspicacity, which immediately showed up the moment he dropped such words.

Boferou could not help but spit everything out. Although he did not know about the real names of the Guild's Boss nor any of the strong officials, there were five of them, each one was from Rank 2 to Rank 3, while the Boss was rumored to be Rank 4.

It was certainly an organization packed with power, with such people in them, it would be impossible for Frank to win against them, their strength was vastly superior to his.

The Thief Guild, aside from doing, well, the obvious thing that was stealing and accumulating wealth in this way, was also an organization that dedicated themselves to contraband of products brought from the dungeon, items, potions, even grimoires, monster, and people's corpses as well, and even Mana Cores from both monsters and also people.

In the world of Terra, even the corpse of a person had some value, especially those who had awakened their Mana Core, their bodies would suffer an increase in quality and mana capacity, serving as good materials for alchemy or obscure arts of magic.

Even more were Mana Cores, which could be harvested from people incredibly easy compared to monsters. Frank could not help but gnash his teeth in rage as he heard the bandits speak about how their organization assaulted small villages and whipped them out, using every person's corpses and mana cores as materials to sell and gain wealth and a position within the underworld of the Westwind Nation.

Even small children were valuable, people that have not awakened their Mana Cores still had Mana Cores, and certainly, killing a little kid instead of going to hunt for a Goblin was incredibly easy as well.

Even more when the Mana Core quality of people, specifically the beast-kin who were direct children of a God, Abraddon, whose Mana Cores had an incredibly higher quality than mere F-Rank monsters, to the point that even a non-awakened person's Mana Core quality could be considered to be similar to a D-Rank, and even getting to C-Rank when awakened.

This was because people had a natural greater affinity and quality of mana, even if they were not able to wield it, as they needed to awaken their Mana Cores first. And of course, Mana Cores could have their Mana extracted or be used for a variety of purposes, even if the original possessor of it could not even conjure a simple spell.

This was a harsh reality within this world, although everything seemed to be masked behind a peaceful society, it was truly a dog-eat-dog world, where only the incredibly wealthy and strong reigned.

Someone weak and poor couldn't do anything, aristocrats could easily manipulate their lives, and do as they pleased with the poor, and seeing by how even the criminal organizations worked alongside those who seemingly ran the entire nation, it seemed that the entirety of Westwind was already rotten to the core.

Frank was not a hero, he did not want to take revenge on these people nor begin to protect millions of people that were being affected, but at the very least, he wanted to protect those closest to him, the little group of friends and 'family' that he had forged in Terra.

"(So this world is like that… I wonder if Gwendolyn knew this but never wanted to tell me the whole thing completely… This is… I want to be honest with my heart. This is awful. I hate this. But… That is reality. Reality is never as you think, it is simple and always worse. But as I have said earlier…)"

"(I am a positive realist, and such things were already within my consideration. Sigh. Well, there is no point in internally crying over such injustice, I have to simply grow strong and make more connections, more allies, and increase not only mt own strength but those of the people in here that I care about…)"

"(And if possible, to create some kind of safe space for them, and well, for me in here. Even if I can run away and just forget about this world, I believe that it is not the correct thing to do, I don't want to be a coward and run away from this world, I've already grow fascinated with it, I want to explore it, I want to meet more people, and I want to cultivate and become strong in this world as well… After all, I need to do all of this and more to heal my own world from destruction, Gaia is counting on me…)"

Satisfied that he had extracted all of the information he could from these bandits, Frank glanced at them one last time.

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