Orion arrived at the burning Harewood house and immediately began calling for Gion in a panic.
He was about to venture inside the burning house to search for the little girl when he heard a scream behind him.
"Orion! Here I am! Orion!"
He turned around and saw the little girl, standing in the distance with her parents, waving her hand happily. She was truly happy to see Orion was okay; during the time they had been apart, she hadn't stopped worrying about her best friend, and now her troubled heart could finally rest.
Orion moved with surprising speed and appeared beside her in an instant. He dropped the cutlass he had stolen from the pirate, which fell to the ground with a clatter that woke Gion's parents from their surprise, and then he hugged the little girl tightly.
In his daily life, he never maintained intimate contact with the little girl while his adult mind was present. He felt it was immoral to do so, but his feelings had been influenced by those of his younger self, who considered little Gion one of the most precious people in his life.
Therefore, when he saw her safe and sound in front of him, all the worry he had been pent up exploded, sublimating his emotions and culminating in a strong hug. At this moment, he didn't care about morality or anything else; he was simply happy that little Gion was okay.
Gion was surprised for a moment, but soon his eyes filled with tears, and he hugged him back, tightly.
Seeing the two children embracing, and their house burning behind them, the Harewoods could only sigh.
The pirate attack had happened so suddenly that no one had been prepared for it. Now that the danger had passed, they felt a mixture of emotions: relief at having survived, but also bitterness at having lost their home, and above all, fear of a possible new attack by pirates.
Until now, the small, peaceful village had never suffered an attack since its founding, so the people had a false sense of security. But now that there was a precedent, the people who lived in this village would have to start considering the possibility of new attacks in the future.
.........…
March 22, 1494, Age of the Sea Circle
Lira and Paul were treated by the village doctor, and their lives were not in danger. They simply had to take care to prevent their wounds from becoming infected and rest for a while. Orion was finally able to put aside the worries that plagued him, once he confirmed that his parents would not have any major health problems.
In any case, the brief pirate attack had taught Orion a valuable lesson: This world was ruthless.
It seemed obvious to say such a thing; after all, the world of his previous life was also ruthless, although perhaps in a more subtle and macabre way.
This world he now found himself in, however, was more direct. Here, the risk of dying at the hands of any pirate was a real possibility, and only by becoming stronger could he eliminate that threat and prevent anything bad from happening to his loved ones.
He needed to gain more power as soon as possible! He had to obtain more system points and improve his skills; only then could he sleep peacefully at night.
In this attack on the small town, 75 people had died as a result of the pirate attack, and many were injured, although fortunately, none were seriously injured.
Speaking with Gion, Orion had learned what had happened at the Harewood house after he had left to find his parents. Apparently, the family of three had hidden in their house, trying not to make noise and attract the pirates' attention. But they were discovered anyway when two of the pirates broke down the door and entered to search for valuables inside the house.
Upon meeting the family inside, the two pirates immediately fixed their gazes on Mrs. Harewood, their eyes exploding with lust and lasciviousness. The cursed beasts in human skin had even looked at little Gion with the same eyes!
The pirates were preparing to knock out Mr. Harewood so they could then humiliate the mother and daughter before their eyes, but before they could make their move, little Gion grabbed her wooden sword, which had been carved by Orion, and, taking advantage of the pirates' carelessness, finished them off.
The torch they had been carrying to set fire to the houses and cause chaos in their wake fell to the ground and started a fire they couldn't stop. They had to watch with resignation as their wooden cabin was consumed by the flames.
Upon hearing that Gion had saved her parents and defeated the pirates, Orion's mind began to race.
He considered the various possibilities and came to a conclusion.
The fact that he had given a wooden sword to Gion, who had an innate talent for swordsmanship and an extraordinary body that was stronger than that of an ordinary girl, would likely have prevented a great tragedy.
What would have happened in the original timeline? Gion wouldn't have trained with the sword, and she wouldn't have had a weapon to defend herself… The outcome was imaginable; the situation would likely have ended in a great tragedy, which would forever mark the little girl's life, perhaps distorting her personality and shaping her values.
That explained why he had obtained so many system points the moment he gave the sword to Gion on her birthday. That involuntary act had slightly changed the history of this world and had prevented the little girl from having to go through great suffering.
Orion thought, if he had watched the series instead of avoiding spoilers, he might voluntarily perform similar actions to change events in the original story, helping many people and earning system points in the process!
However, there weren't that many "what ifs" in the world. The reality was that he knew nothing about this world, and he couldn't use the trick that the protagonists of the stories in the web novels he read in his past life usually used.
This morning, almost 20 hours after the pirate attack, a marine ship from the nearest base, about 200 kilometers away, arrived to assess the situation and provide assistance.
Orion knew that Hound should be on the ship that had arrived, as the system had issued a notification about it.
*The character named Hound (15) is 10 km away from the Host*
Apparently, the system only notified about named characters within a distance range of 10 to 500 kilometers. If the distance was greater or less than these limits, the system wouldn't issue notifications. For that reason, he knew Hound must be on the marine ship that had arrived in his village, but he couldn't clearly identify who it was, and he didn't dare start asking questions about a person he didn't know; that could get him into trouble.
The marines surveyed the situation, recording the material and human damage the village had suffered. Beyond that, they didn't offer much additional help.
They said pirate activity had increased slightly in the area, and that it was likely a similar incident could happen again in the future.
This news completely terrified the inhabitants of the small village, who began clamoring for help from the marine officers.
However, the marines captain in charge said the they couldn't provide any assistance at the moment and that the villagers would have to fend for themselves.
The villagers of Pacific Town fell to their knees begging for help, and finally the captain relented a little.
He told them that while the marines couldn't help them directly, they were willing to help them move to the nearest town to the marine base in the area, where pirate attacks were practically nonexistent. After all, an attack in that area would mean directly confronting the marines.
Driven by fear, a large number of people decided to leave the town that had been their home all their lives to migrate to a safer place.
However, not everyone was willing to go, as doing so would mean starting from scratch.
The marines would provide no support, and they would have to become refugees in a strange place. Many people preferred to stay on their home island and try to find another solution to the problem of pirate attacks.
Thus, a mass exodus of people took place in the small Pacific Town, and among the group who had chosen to leave were the Harewoods. Their neighbors' house had been burned to the ground, and they had lost everything. Furthermore, just remembering the danger they had been subjected to during the pirate attack made any desire to remain in the village disappear.
Orion's parents, on the other hand, had decided to stay. They felt great affection for the town their parents had founded, and believed it was not yet time to leave.
Therefore, the two children, who had been together their entire lives, were faced with a sad situation: They had to separate!
Gion cried for hours. Refusing to speak to her parents, she fled to Orion's house and spent the entire day in his arms, crying and begging him not to let her go.
Seeing her in that state truly brought Orion to a state of utter sadness. Both his child and adult selves took turns comforting and accompanying little Gion.
However, the decision had already been made.
That night, the villagers who wished to emigrate boarded the large naval ship, carrying only one or two bags filled with their personal belongings. They couldn't carry many things with them, and some had lost everything during the attack, as was the case with the Harewoods.
Orion saw Gion off by the ship and promised that he would look for her in the future and that she would not forget his friendship.
The little girl, whose eyes were swollen from crying, looked at him firmly and said she would never forget him. Then she made him promise to find her so she could marry him!
Hearing her demands, Orion could only smile bitterly. The little prodigy's mind wasn't as simple as one might expect; she was thinking about how their relationship would continue in the distant future.
He took her small hands and, looking into her eyes, promised that he would find her in the future to take her as his wife! Just as she had demanded.
Only upon hearing the boy's solemn promise did her turbulent emotions calm down.
Gion took the wooden sword and promised that she would continue practicing hard, that she would become very strong and would wipe out all the pirates in the world.
Orion and his parents watched the great marine ship move away until it disappeared into the horizon.
.........…
December 5, 1494, Age of the Sea Circle
It has been eight months since Gion and his parents left the village.
During this time, there were no new pirate attacks, and the daily tranquility that people enjoyed seemed to return to the lives of the people of this remote village.
Orion didn't rest a single day. He continued to train tirelessly to improve his fighting prowess and be ready for any problems that might arise in the future.
Now that little Gion was no longer by his side, the number of points he could earn by interacting with her was reduced to zero.
Fortunately for him, now that his body is three times stronger than that of a normal human, and he's about to turn 5, he has the physical capacity to perform more complex tasks, and is no longer limited to the household chores he once performed.
During these months, he was actively helping with the reconstruction of the village, as well as on the crop farms.
Thanks to his efforts, he managed to increase the number of points he earned monthly, even in Gion's absence.
His parents recovered after a month of rest, and suffered no after-effects from their injuries. Despite having been in an extremely dangerous situation, they had finally been able to emerge from it without major complications. Orion was grateful every day for the luck they had that day
On the other hand, he continued to converse telepathically with Shyarly remotely, using the system's ability.
Despite interacting with her daily, he hadn't earned any system points. Perhaps his effect on the little mermaid was still limited. For her, he was simply a mysterious voice in her head, with whom she could chat about her daily routine. And while she considered him a friend, his words didn't carry enough weight to guide her actions and introduce noticeable changes to the original story.
Over the months, they had been talking more and more, and he had heard wonderful stories about her life underwater.
Orion had started talking to Shyarly almost two years ago. At first, he knew nothing about her, only that she was a named character from the original story and that she lived in a kingdom called Ryugu. But over time and through countless conversations, he gradually learned about the little girl's situation.
Shyarly was a year and a half younger than him and was a mermaid. The knowledge that mermaids existed in this world made Orion fantasize for several days about other mythological races and wonderful places that might also exist in this world.
The little mermaid had told him about the things that happened in her daily life.
She had been abandoned by her father recently and was now living under the guardianship of her 15-year-old half-brother, Arlong. They lived in a place called Fishman District, and the little girl hadn't described the place she lived in in detail, but from her tone of voice when she spoke about it, Orion could get an idea: it probably wasn't a very good environment.
To Orion's surprise, the little mermaid had discovered she had the gift of predicting future events. This prophetic ability allowed her to make prophecies, although she couldn't control this power. The prophecies came to her, and she simply passively received them.
She had tried to predict Orion's future during one of their talks, but she hadn't succeeded. According to the little mermaid, Orion's future was seen as an infinite number of strings that were constantly being tied and untied, and no clear picture of his future could be glimpsed, as the images were obscured by these strange strings that pervaded everything.
Orion surmised that she probably couldn't make predictions about him because he wasn't a native person of this world, therefore he didn't appear in the original story and didn't have a determined future like other people in this world could.
Last month, Shyarly happily told him how she had met a human pirate and predicted the birth of the mermaid princess ten years in the future. She spent several days bragging about how this was her greatest prediction of the future, and that she was waiting to see the birth of the mermaid princess in ten years, so everyone would know her predictions were true.
In reality, she herself wasn't sure of the veracity of her predictions, and that's why she wanted to see some of them come true. Only then could she continue to make predictions with confidence.
Time passed quickly each day, immersed in his training and chatting with Shyarly in his free time.
Today, Orion was training as usual in his backyard, using the short sword he had stolen from the pirate. He gave a final thrust and stopped; today's training was over. He took a towel he had prepared beforehand and wiped the sweat off his body. Then he looked at the system screen and saw his skills.
*Skills:
Swordsmanship(1)
Drawing (2)
Carving (2)
Strong Body (2)
Medicine (0)
Hand-to-Hand Combat (0)
Herbalism (0)
Unused Points: 1094 *
He had a large amount of unused system points, but he wasn't in a hurry to increase his skills. He preferred to wait and keep his options open, just in case something like the pirate attack happened in the future.
The only consistent investment he made was in his innate talent. He didn't know the numerical value of his innate talent, or how it compared to other people's talents, especially named characters like Gion or Shyarly, but he had made it a rule to invest his points into his talent periodically anyway.
As for the reason he had so many points, it was because of the mission he had completed months ago during the pirate attack.
As a reward for confronting the pirates, helping repel the attack, and saving the townspeople, he had obtained the Herbalism skill (0) and 1,000 system points.
With so many points at his disposal, he felt confident that if the town were attacked again by a group of pirates similar to the one before, he could eliminate them without much trouble!
Just as he was looking at the skill screen and thinking about his progress over the past few months, a system notification sounded in his mind.
*Ding*
*A named character has been found within 500 kilometers*
*The named character Giolla (35) is moving towards your location*