To the city at the heart of mountain.

As Aiden stared at the forest, he could see the outline of the bear that was charging at him.

To his surprise, however, the outline was green. 'Something recognized by the ESS as being friendly!' It was then that he realized the bear's tag.

[Kaiser]

Looking at the friendly entity, his taunting nerve relaxed a little, and a smile appeared on his face. But the girl next to him was anxious. She was trying to run away, but Aiden stopped her.

'Why are you running away? It's your dad.' Aiden thought as he spoke, "Don't worry, believe me."

"What are you doing? Release me." She screamed in anger.

"I will protect you…"Aiden said.

"... It is not like you will need protection from your father." But before he could say those words, a roar shook the ground.

"Let her go. Otherwise…" Kaiser roared again.

"Didn't see you for a long time, Kaiser," Aiden said with a smile. The bear was surprised, but the other person was more shocked than he was.

Aiden let her go as soon as he felt the tug in his hand. Like a toddler to her father, she jumped on a bear, and in a blink, Kaiser turned back to normal. And the expected rainfall followed.

"Ahhhahhh…" There was neither any arrogance nor was any fear. Without shame, she cried her eyes out.

Moment ago, she was scared, very scared of her fate. She was so afraid that she couldn't stand on her legs. But she couldn't give up knowing that what was waiting for her was a life worse than death.

Gritting her teeth, drinking her fear she struggled. She struggled till she couldn't move at all.

When she was ready to give up on her life, someone came to protect her. But she knew she wasn't out of danger.

Even if the man had said that he was a friend of her father's, she was cautious. But when she saw her father again, her brave outer shell shattered like broken glass.

It took quite a while before she could control her again. To Aiden, the violent bear was transformed into a perfect father who waited patiently until the whole ordeal was over.

When the girl looked at Aiden, her eyes bulged and her face flushed red. She was quick to hide behind her dad.

"You are Aiden, right?" Kaiser's voice wasn't confident.

"Yes," Aiden said with a smile. "It is good to meet you again."

"Father, he had saved me from the Minotaur." Hearing the words of his daughter, Kaiser turned to see the dead body. And there was not one of them. There was also a crocodile woman.

Kaiser recognized them very well. They were part of the bandit skull forest group. The minotaur was a captain on top of that. His strength was just under the boss.

'Did he take care of them on his own?' Kaiser couldn't help but take a look at Aiden. However, thinking about the fight with the boss of a mutated human being, he felt it was a natural outcome.

Kaiser gave a deep bow, "Thank you for saving my daughter. Thinking that you're saving someone whom you don't..."

He couldn't finish his sentence before Aiden shook his head and said, "I saved her because I know she's your daughter."

His words surprised Kaiser, but his attitude was more shocking. For a moment, Kaiser did not know how to respond to Aiden 's straightforward attitude.

Yet he smiled, "I am happy that you had saved her, knowing that she was my daughter."

Aiden returned his smile and chose not to say anything about it.

"We should move. This is not the place where we can have a nice chat." Kaiser looked at Aiden before asking, "Are you not going to the city?"

After receiving the confirmation from Aiden, his smile grew bigger, "Jewel will be happy to see you. We should have a banquet. You've not only saved our lives, but also Remi's. There's no way we can just let you go."

"He saved you and Uncle Jewel, too?" asked the girl with curious eyes. 'How strong could it be that he could save my father?'

She wanted to know, but she was ignored by both her father and the boy who was called Aiden. When she asked her father again, he said, "We'll talk when we get back to the city."

Although his voice was calm, Remi knew there was some serious punishment waiting for her when she returned to the city. Even if she knew her inevitable future, all she could do was follow her father.

Aiden soon reached the intended place while following Kaiser. Even before Aiden was able to have a visual, his nose twitched due to an invasion of blood stench.

Body with a smashed head was the first thing Aiden saw when he reached the clearing. Body with no arms and no legs was a common sight. He even found the upper part of an unknown body, but the lower part of the waist could not be seen.

Looking at the ground dyed with blood Aiden could have understood how serious the battle would have been.

And a dead bear's two-metre-high body lay in the middle of everything. Aiden could understand from the deep claw and bite marks on his body that it was Kaiser's victim.

"Why are you here, dad? "The girl asked in a low voice.

"Is that what you are supposed to ask?" There was little anger in his voice, "running away with the caravan without telling anyone... Do you know how worried your mother is?"

"If I had told my mother, she wouldn't have let me come." Remi protested in a weak voice.

Kaise gave her an angry look, but he didn't say anything to her. "Clear the guest's car, gather some food and wine."

As soon as he shouted, the people who were working began to clean up the car.

It was Aiden's first time in the world to see a car. And to his surprise, it wasn't much different from the one he'd seen in the picture. Yet he was very curious about it.

Looking at his eyes, Kaiser smiled and said, "This is a specially modified 'Saurus.' It was a great car company from a distant land. It runs by the power of the sun, but..."

Kaiser pulled up the bonnet and the engine came out. "It can also run with mana crystal," he proudly added.

The point that the car could run with mana didn't attract him a lot. 'Are they running on mana? What's so awesome about it? A lot of things on Planet Will run on the tredecon, too.

{Author note: Tredecon is the scientific name of mana particles }

But it was the car itself that was more attractive to Aiden. It was his first time to see a vintage old planet car so close. He's been checking all about it.

'Why do you look at the body when it's all under the bonnet? 'Kaiser was a little surprised, and then he realized it.

'He was born after the mana apocalypse and lived in the mountain all his life. So it's natural that he hasn't seen one of them before.'

Understanding that Kaiser explained, "It's a car. As you use animals to move from one place to another, we use ...

"I know what a car is." Aiden 's sudden outburst frightened Kaiser for a moment. But when Aiden realized the problem, he was quick to correct himself, "the elder had taught us all."

"Oh!" Kaiser nodded as he understood everything, "what happened to your friend?"

"Ah? Yes, he has returned to the mountain."

"Sir, we need your help."A man came to Kaiser asking for help.

Kaiser nodded to Aiden, "Please wait a few moments before we leave. Remi, stay with him and don't dare to disrespect him.

'He's younger than me. How could I disrespect him?' Remi frowned at her father's words, but all she could do was nod. Kaiser left with the man, and Remi continued to follow Aiden.

Unable to control herself, she asked, "Are you from the mountain?"

"Yes," Aiden said without looking at her, as he checked every car of the caravan.

'No wonder he is so strong.' When she was able to discern the secret of the Aiden power, Aiden asked, "Who are they?"

"They are slaves."

Those nonchalant words poured a bucket of cold water over him. The happiness of finding so many old-fashioned vehicles went away in a flash. Aiden wasn't sure he heard it right, so he asked, "What are they?"

"They're slaves," she said with confused eyes, "Don't you know that uncle Jewel is a slave dealer?"

Instinctively, Aiden moved his hand over the blade, and a heavy voice spoke again, "We might be slave dealers, but we are human, too. We know how to be thankful."

Looking at Aiden's unconvinced eyes, Kaiser added, "I know you might not believe me, but Jewel never treated anyone badly as long as he wasn't betrayed.

"And after what you've done, he's going to treat you like his own family. Still..." Kaiser looked straight in his eyes and said, "If you want to take a different route from here, or if you don't go to the city, I'm not going to force you. This is your choice."

Without giving Aiden any time to speak, he said, "Let's leave in five minutes." Kaiser grabbed Remi's hand and walked towards the car arranged for them, leaving Aiden in front of cars full of slaves.

Aiden took another look at the slaves in the cage car attached to the back of the car. They were dirty, scared and crowded together at the corner of the cage.

Looking at them, Aiden didn't know how to react. Living on this hostile planet has changed him a lot. So, his mentality has also changed.

He was no longer that naive teenager. He had killed a lot of them, whether it was human or beast. He wasn't naive to believe that they were bad because they were slave traders, nor did he dare to believe them.

Aiden had understood that there was no such thing as good or bad. He had killed Alex thinking that it was the right thing to do. He did the right thing from his perspective, but was it a good deed or a bad deed?

Aiden didn't know.

Aiden saved his teammates from the control of the beast, but they tried to kill him. Is it a good deed or an evil deed?

Aiden didn't know.

And Aiden didn't want to think about all of that. For him, all that could help him survive are good deeds. All the choice that benefits him is the right choice, no matter what the result is.

And Aiden knew very well what the right choice would be for him now.

A few minutes later, a nine-car caravan moved through the bumpy roads of the forest to the city which was carved in the heart of the mountain.

Neither Aiden nor Kaiser had realized that a few people had heard their whole conversation. One with a pair of scaly hands and the other with a snout on his face.