100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 502 - I Love You

It held firm.

"Thanks, beautiful miss," he uttered. "So, what do you desire as payment? Gold? Treasures? Or maybe... myself?"

The man then chuckled mockingly at himself while raising both hands in surrender.

Her gaze fixed on him, utterly unamused.

"Honestly, I rushed here without bringing anything," he admitted, tilting his head to examine the battered blades, makeshift clamps, recycled thread, fractured ceramic bowls, and meticulously cleaned yet heavily worn tools scattered throughout the hut. "However, I know an excellent craftsman. If interested, I can arrange for a full professional set of tools to be crafted for you."

She remained silent.

"I'll consider that a yes," he replied.

In her thoughts, the task stood complete. His return or absence made no difference now. A fresh technique awaited documentation, a novel approach demanded analysis, and the whole procedure begged for review while memories stayed vivid.

He retreated toward the entrance.

Seraphine offered merely the tiniest nod.

The man grinned once again before departing.

The younger Seraphine cleansed the blood from her hands and started jotting notes right away.

Days slipped by.

Why would he bother?

Her solitary routine resumed its steady beat. Herbs. Notes. Injuries from villagers who feared her far more than they honored her. Silent meals. Chilly nights. The remedies tome. The workbench. Her tiny hut world.

He arrived shouldering a wrapped package, his face beaming with that same annoyingly genuine warmth as if honoring promises came effortlessly.

She cared solely about his delivery.

Within lay medical instruments.

Some she identified instantly, though far superior to any she'd handled before. Others proved entirely novel. Their forms, balances, pivots, blade angles, handles, and precise joints hinted at uses she'd never dreamed of.

The man observed her reaction.

He described each one's purpose. The ideal tool for precise cuts. The one that retracted tissue gently without damage. The vessel-clamping device. The stitcher for delicate seams. The one to avoid unless earning a patient's lifelong grudge.

Initially, her questions came brief.

Soon, they overwhelmed any casual chat.

With endless patience.

That impressed her even more than the instruments.

Yet their exchange stayed strictly medical.

Still, after his next departure, the hut seemed a touch less vacant.

She refused to let hope bloom from such a spark.

And return he did.

Then again.

And once more.

Each visit, Seraphine tended his wounds.

That remained the plain reality.

One day, he showed up with yet another detached hand.

No theatrics accompanied it.

As she bandaged and repositioned the hand, the question brewing inside her far too long finally escaped.

The young man stiffened.

"Would you believe I was off saving the world?"

"No."

Nevertheless, she sewed him up regardless.

Tales of distant lands past the village. Past the region. Beyond her wildest dreams amid her hut's confined views.

Certain stories rang so wildly exaggerated that Seraphine dismissed them outright.

And yet...

For she sensed it within him.

A weight she couldn't comprehend.

Something shifted in her because of it.

He shone like sunlight piercing her once-accepted drab existence.

What unbelievable peril he'd endure next.

She craved more tales.

She yearned, unnamed as yet, to witness that world firsthand.

For quite some time.

Before his arrivals, isolation had formed her foundation. Her life's framework.

The hut grew oppressively quiet.

The path beyond the grass appeared desolate.

His stories haunted her absence.

His odd wisdom lingered.

One day, slicing roots into even strips alone in the hut, words slipped unbidden from her lips.

They hung in the air.

Gradually, their deeper truth dawned on her.

For the first time in years, young Seraphine sighed not as a disciplined scholar, but as a girl.

Expectation had now crept in.

Then he reappeared.

Yet this visit felt altered.

His usual carefree glow had dimmed, strained as if the journey here had tested even his resilience.

And the smile rekindled.

They conversed deeply that day.

When quiet fell, he at last revealed the reason.

The world kept turning.

Seraphine stayed wordless for ages.

He never fit into this hut. These endless minor days.

She would endure here.

Even so, the truth stung.

He gazed at her, then let out a gentle laugh.

Seraphine's eyes grew wide.

"What do you say," he proposed. "Want to join me and help reshape the world?"

She had braced for farewell.

The offer pierced a profound, ancient core within her, drawing forth an answer from depths unprepared.

Right as the words escaped her lips, she nearly flinched away from her own impulse.

A long-forgotten memory stirred—her father’s tales of her mother, filled with joy, promises, and weaving lives together instead of just passing by—which suddenly merged with the present and spilled out before her mind could rein it in.

As though he recognized those words from somewhere far removed from this instant.

"Guess."

Inside the hut glowing with golden light, the grown Seraphine covered her mouth with both hands, laughing even as tears streamed down.

Ultimately, the younger Seraphine departed alongside him.

No one among the villagers attempted to block her. They held no such claim. Some stood mute. Others showed relief. Some bore shame. The village head wore the look of a man beholding a existence he’d once contributed to scarring now stride out of his influence forever.

The villagers witnessed it all.

Seraphine refused to glance back their way.

Even when certain villagers shouted after her, she paid them no heed.

After some time, he murmured softly, "You won’t forgive them?"

She simply gazed at him for a beat.

He understood.

Yet he refrained from condemning her choice.

Her response rang out sharp and icy.

The youth remained silent.

"I will never forgive them. They can spend the rest of their lives carrying the weight of what they did. They do not deserve peace of mind. Apologies and gifts do not erase the past."

Surprisingly, a pleased expression crossed his face.

Seraphine promptly pinched him.

She continued onward.

The existence that ensued proved grueling.

The path shared with him and the comrades who slowly assembled around them brimmed with peril, fatigue, and brushes with doom too frequent for mercy. Yet for the first time, Seraphine’s reality expanded beyond a lonely shack.

She transformed as well.

Surrounded by such folk, she shed the constant shield of composure.

The barriers erected for enduring village life started crumbling, now encircled by those who viewed her thoughts not as a flaw.

They depended on her.

They debated with her.

And that young man... he offered what the village withheld.

He beheld her true self without ever demanding she shrink to earn affection.

Dangerously blissful.

It turned into purpose.

It defined her essence.

Death loomed eternally near. Motion never ceased. Survival defied every fatal odds.

Within the hut, she sank to her knees.

This marked her history.

Belonging to someone else.

This one predated it.

The epiphany broke her anew.

Next arrived the closing vision.

Her demise.

Solely for his sake.

Solely against the despair set to devour him.

"Live for me," she murmured. "Don’t despair."

"I... love you."

The vision faded.

Tears poured from her.

Then the golden glow of the Will of the World surged back into her form, bearing fresh revelations.

The reality of Liberators.

Tied by truths, affections, griefs, and journeys incomplete, transcending any lone realm.