The First Store System

Chapter 266: The Golden Key(1)

After Aakeshʼs deal with the system, he decided to leave for the town since he had work to do before leaving for other towns.

Aakesh didnʼt forget to tell Lily about leaving Panagae daily for at least two hours.

It had been too long since she had training, so Aakesh had no idea to let this continue.

It would take years, if not decades, to reach the level in Panagea, where Lily is in the actual world, so Aakesh couldnʼt allow her to miss the training from now on.

Lily also agreed as it had become her habit to train with her ancestors for the last tens of thousands of years.

Several times she had felt that it was a waste of time and torture, but getting stuck here for weeks with such a weak body and power made Lily remember those days.

She had also learned a skill, Time Displacement, that made her different from other Epochal Felines, due to that, the other felines of her race had begun respecting her instead of bullying her all the time, but then before she could enjoy their respectful gazes, she had gotten stuck here.

Aakesh didnʼt expect Lily to agree right away, and now that he remembers about the training.  Even he had not been to the training since that day, as he had spent the entire night in Panagea, while the entire day at the store.

He also decided to return to the previous schedule of beginning the day with the store, then training(a battle), and then finally Panagea from tomorrow onwards.

He played with Lily for a few seconds and then turned around to leave. After Lily ordered the cubs and the young wolves, they wagged their tails and then howled as a bye, forgetting about what the man had just done with their family members several minutes earlier.

Aakesh ignored the wolves and rushed to the town with his full speed.

The town was only a few hundred miles from where Aakesh was, so it only took him around 40 minutes to reach the town.

When Aakesh reached the town, a surprised expression appeared on his face as he noticed that there were no guards at the main entrance of the town; there wasnʼt even a door.

He thought it must be the effect of the Townhead dying and having no other leader since the system had told him that low-level areas like this town couldnʼt survive without the Townhead. He ignored it and entered the town.

”Eh!” He exclaimed in shock after entering the town as he noticed two men attempting to steal a man with the swords they had.

Aakeshʼs exclamation alerted the two men. They angrily turned around to look at who dared to interrupt them. The next moment, the anger turned into a fawning smile, seeing the adventurer looking at them.

Both men were only Level 3 and Level 5 beings, so they didnʼt dare to fight the adventurer, who had killed a group of radicals a week back. They didnʼt wait for Aakesh and escaped the area right away.

Aakesh had no interest in catching low-level thieves, so he didnʼt try to catch them.

The man heaved a sigh of relief, seeing the thieves running away. He looked at Aakesh with fear after the scenes he had seen yesterday.

”Thank...thank you, adventurer,” The man thanked Aakesh with a bow, but Aakesh could clearly hear the tremble in his voice.

Aakesh became curious to know about what had happened in the town after the death of Mark, so he called the man.

The manʼs face turned pale, seeing Aakesh calling him. Aakesh smiled wryly, seeing the petrified look on the manʼs face.

He had no interest in making a well-grown man act in terror in front of him, so he didnʼt call the man forward again, but instead, he told the man to speak about the events around the town standing from there.

The man didnʼt dare to refuse and began telling the events, with a tremble in his voice.

Aakesh killing the Townhead had already become a fact to the citizens of Wolfden. It was the will of the world that informed the citizens by showing them the last scenes of the Townhead, Mark.

The beings above Level 40, who initially acted afraid of Mark, came out in open and divided the area based on their level after learning about the death of the Townhead.

Since the army didnʼt have enough numbers to control all of them, they took control of the central area, while other Level 40 or more divided the areas by their strength.

The army wanted to control the entrance of the town. Without entry or exit, they were like strong chickens surrounded by butchers. Even though the chickens were strong, someday, the butcher would get the chance to snap their necks and kill them since the chickens could neither go forward nor backward.

The entrance area was in control of the next strongest party in the town of Wolfden, a Level 43 being. He was the second to the army chief, a Level 45 being.

Whenever the army chief tried to control the entrance area in the last 24 hours, the other strongmen in Wolfden collectively resisted the armyʼs attempts.

A cornered army was always the best case for them. After the death of the Townhead, the townspeople did not know about the golden keyʼs dropping.

So, the idea that the adventurer could become the next Townhead never emerged in their heads. As for worrying about the adventurer being stronger since he had killed the previous Townhead, they didnʼt care. It was all due to the will of the world.

It blindsided the citizens of orphan towns with greed, creating a situation where the town was certain to get destroyed if another Townhead didnʼt rise. And the only condition of becoming a Townhead was having the ownership of the golden key.

The man then further told about how the battles between the higher-level* citizens in the town had been going on continuously for the ownership of the lands.

(A/N: Higher-level here signifies any citizen over Level 10 in Wolfden.)

Aakesh nodded after hearing about the events that had happened in the last several hours.

He then told the man to leave.. The man heaved a relieved sigh as if he had survived a terrible ordeal and left the area right away.