Hero

Lin Fan saw a few shadows outside Granny Lim's house.

He slowly crept towards them.

As he got closer, he saw Granny Lim on the ground desperately holding onto a gunny sack.

On the other end of the sack were three frail, scantily dressed men, kicking at Granny Lim, trying to get her hands off the gunny sack.

Precious grains of rice dropped out onto the ground.

The wanderers and vagrants finally couldn't stand it and resorted to robbery.

Finally, Granny Lim couldn't take the shock and abuse anymore.

She fainted and fell to the ground.

"Useless old fool. It could have been so much easier."

The wanderers and vagrants cursed Granny Lim and started to pick up the grains on the ground.

When Lin Fan got closer, one of the men saw him.

"Look boss, someone's here."

The men looked in Lin Fan's direction and sized him up.

In the dark of the night, they could faintly make out Lin Fan as a teenage boy.

The leader of the group drew out his knife, pointed at Lin Fan, and warned him, "Go back to your place. It's none of your business, boy."

Lin Fan shrugged and slowly bent down, preparing himself.

When the men saw him do this, they sniggered at Lin Fan.

"You think we would let you go if you knelt down?"

"Hehe, such a typical coward."

"Give us your grain and money, then we might let you go off."

Lin Fan couldn't be bothered by them.

[Ding!]

[Detected 3 souls with malevolent intent incoming!]

[Terminate person with malevolent intent for 30 vengeance points.]

When Lin Fan saw the system's notification, he knew it was time to act.

He took a deep breath and activated Magnificent Leap.

Crack!

In a flash, Lin Fan's knee came upon the leader's head, cracking his skull.

The leader fell and died immediately.

Before the other two men could react, Lin Fan activated his Iron Claw ability, slashing at one of them.

His fingers went into the person's neck like going through butter.

Blood squirted out of the person's neck.

Seeing this, the last vagrant cried out in fear; he turned and started to run.

Lin Fan didn't kill him, silently following him behind.

The vagrant ran without looking back.

When it got too dark for Lin Fan to see where the vagrant went, Lin Fan activated Hunter Instinct.

Immediately, the footsteps of the vagrant illuminated brightly inside Lin Fan's vision.

Finally, the vagrant stopped at the abandoned temple on the outskirts of the village.

"Has it been done?" a person in the temple said.

"No, there was someone..."

The vagrant stopped halfway as he panted non-stop to try and catch his breath.

"What do you mean there was someone? Housekeeper Lee paid; you'd better deliver."

"The person just appeared and killed two of us in an instant. It was not part of the deal. You said there would be no one to stop us."

The vagrant protested at Housekeeper Lee's minion.

"Hmm... Let me report back to Housekeeper Lee. You better lie low for the time being."

The Housekeeper Lee's minion then left the temple.

With the vagrant left alone in the temple, Lin Fan stepped into it.

"You..."

When the vagrant saw Lin Fan, he stammered and pointed his finger at Lin Fan, too scared to move an inch.

"Tell me, what was Housekeeper Lee's instruction?" Lin Fan asked.

"You promise to let me go if I tell you..."

"I promise," Lin Fan put down his axe on the ground and raised both his hands up to show that he was sincere.

"Housekeeper Lee wanted us to make life difficult for the villagers. Best if we could make the villagers become wanderers and vagrants like us."

"That's all?"

"That's all that I know of. Can I go now?"

Lin Fan smiled and said, "Go ahead."

The vagrant wanted to move but he couldn't.

It was like someone was controlling his mind.

He then walked up to the axe and picked it up.

"Wait... No..."

The vagrant tried to stop himself but couldn't do so.

Slowly, the vagrant's hand lifted shakily and placed the axe upon his neck.

"Argh..."

The vagrant slashed his own neck and blood spurted out non-stop.

Lin Fan shrugged and said, "I kept my promise. Not sure why you would kill yourself."

"You..."

The vagrant let out his last word and closed his eyes.

Lin Fan had used the Leader of the Pack ability on the vagrant.

"This ability uses up too much energy; I will need to be careful about when to use it."

Lin Fan thought to himself as he felt all his energy drained out of him.

He sat down to regain his energy and tried to piece everything together.

Housekeeper Lee wants the villagers out of the village.

But for what?

Land?

The Tan family is rich enough to take over all the land if they wanted.

There must be something else they are going after.

Lin Fan took note of this and decided to investigate more into it.

He summoned the system's information panel and checked out his status.

[Current Beast Ability: 2]

[Wild Rabbit Abilities Level: 1]

[Wolf Ability Level: 1]

[Current Physique Level: 2 (200 Vengeance Points to upgrade)]

[Current Vengeance Points: 30]

Killing the three vagrants earned him 30 vengeance points.

He needs a lot more to be able to level up his physique to level 3.

After he had regained his strength, he walked back to the village.

Some villagers had gathered around Granny Lim's house.

Granny Lim was telling them what had happened.

How the vagrants came in and tried to rob her and she had fainted when tussling with the vagrants.

When she woke up, the assailants had miraculously died, and her rice was still there.

"Some hero must have killed the vagrants."

"Who can be so brave to do so?"

"I can't think of any, maybe Liu or Ho Ming?"

"Yeah, most likely the two of them. One's a hunter, the other a martial arts fighter-to-be."

The villagers discussed who could have killed the vagrants without knowing the person responsible was just right in front of them.

"Silence! I shall organize the village defense force tomorrow. These people are getting desperate."

Ho Fu, the village head, puffed and said.