At the tea house situated at the center of the garden, surrounded on all sides by beautiful, vibrant flowers.

  Lucien took a sip of tea, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his right leg over his left.

  He gazed out through the transparent glass walls at the beautiful flowers blooming in the garden. The teahouse’s walls were made of sturdy glass, allowing those inside to look out at the flowers and enjoy the scenery while sipping their tea or coffee, whichever they preferred.

  He had not visited this place much since his mother fell ill, for it held the childhood memories of eating cookies while his mother told him stories of heroes.

  Lucien had tried to avoid this place as much as possible, rarely visiting the tea house, and even then doing so only with great reluctance. But after seeing his mother recover, he felt an instinctive desire to return. He gave in to that desire and found himself here, drinking tea in the very chair where, as a child, he had listened with wide-eyed wonder to his mother’s tales of heroes.

  A wave of nostalgia washed over Lucien, something he was not accustomed to feeling. Over time, he had hardened his emotions and concealed his expressions.

  But today, he had nearly cried upon seeing his mother speak smoothly again. Her voice, which had once been barely a whisper, now carried the same strength it had before the black miasma overtook her. Her thin, sunken cheeks had regained their youthful vibrancy, and the skin that once stretched so tightly over her face had filled out as her muscles returned, erasing the hollow around her cheekbones.

  The saintess was truly powerful, far beyond anything he could have ever imagined.

  He sighed and rubbed his brow. “To think the saintess would awaken this early. She awakened two weeks earlier than in the original story.”

  How did he know she had awakened exactly two weeks earlier?

  It was because of a status window message he received when Melissa awakened her powers as a saintess. He had been so shocked at the time that when his mother asked whether he liked Melissa or not, he had not even registered the question at first.

  ‘Status Window’

  ***

  Achievement: Hooray! Saintess awakened her powers two weeks earlier

  Bonus: Access to Shop

  Additional Bonus: 500 Coins

  Achievement: Duchess Duskbane has been brought back from the clutches of death

  Bonus: 500 coins

  ***

  What kind of weird status window is this to say ‘Hooray!’ Is this status sentient?

  “Are you sentient by any chance, status window?” Lucien asked, genuinely wondering if some goddess might be behind it.

  He waited, and waited for a full thirty seconds, but received no response from the status window. He shook his head and called out, ‘Open Shop’.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  ***

  Shop

  Balance: 1000 coins

  Name: Primordial Core

  Rank: Legendary[Upper]

  Price: 5000 coins

  Description: A core that can harness the true power of ambient mana, it can store twice the mana that a normal core can.

  Name: Sword of Hatred [Half-Sentient]

  Rank: Epic [Upper]

  Price: 1000 coins

  Description: A sword that can devour the black miasma out of beasts and become stronger, and supplies the owner with filtered mana. The previous owner lost his wife to the beast, and in hatred, he killed so many miasma beasts with the sword that the sword gained the ability to devour miasma. Alas, the previous owner died at the hands of the miasma beast. The sword still holds intense hatred toward the miasma beast for the death of its master and wants to bathe in the blood of the miasma beasts.

  ***

  There were only two items in the shop, and the first one he saw nearly made him jump, though only inwardly; his face did not so much as twitch. Lucien was not someone who would outwardly display such excitement, but it did excite him; his heart wanted the core for himself.

  The desire to become even more powerful boiled in his blood, but the price of the item made that excitement freeze. It cost a staggering 5000 coins, while he possessed only 1000, leaving a gaping deficit of 4000 coins.

  If he had been only Evan from his previous world, inhabiting Lucien’s body, he might have cursed at the system. But that was not the case. He had lived as Lucien since birth, and he knew that as Lucien, he was not the sort of person to curse at the status window for making something so expensive.

  Instead, he felt a thrill at the challenge of earning more. It was as if the system was encouraging him to change the future, for the achievements were clearly aimed at altering the course of events and saving the world. The system, or whatever it truly was, seemed to be incentivizing him to make changes in the story that could possibly rescue the world.

  So the achievements were aligned with the main quest of saving the world. It wanted him to alter the story in positive ways, such as awakening the saintess earlier so she could become more familiar with her new powers more quickly and save herself from a tragic future. And things like healing his mother would prevent him from going berserk in the future, which would help him in fulfilling the main quest. He thought for a while about the achievements and how they clearly aligned with his main quest of saving the world, which he got when he remembered his past life.

  This was clearly orchestrated by someone to make him follow them. He hated the feeling that someone else was pulling the strings. For now, he would follow it and reap the benefits. And then once he became stronger, he would kill whoever dared to reincarnate in the story.

  For now, he decided to purchase the Sword of Hatred, which cost 1000 coins—the exact amount he had just earned. He was intrigued by its description: a sword that could devour miasma, something unheard of in this world. As far as he could recall from the story, there had been no mention of such a weapon, though he had not read for long, so perhaps the author had added it later. Regardless, from the description alone, he knew he had to buy it.

  He tapped on the sword, and a confirmation window appeared, asking whether he truly wanted to make the purchase. “It did not ask me before reincarnating me here, yet it asks for confirmation before letting me buy a sword,” Lucien muttered, his voice tinged with restrained anger at the irony of the system. He had a hunch that whoever was responsible for his reincarnation was also behind this status window, which was a half-formed system unlike the ones other main characters received in stories—not this story, but the other isekai tales he had read in his past life, where characters would receive systems letting them gain new skills every day and so on.

  After confirming that he indeed wanted to buy the sword

  Immediately, his balance became zero, and, out of thin air, the sword appeared. Lucien caught it before it could fall to the ground. Thankfully, there was no one to see a sword that appeared out of thin air, though he knew they would not dare to ask him. Knowing Lucien’s personality, they would go about their lives and remove this memory from their heads.

  Lucien gripped the sword tightly in his hand. He could feel hatred radiating from the weapon, and it was clear the sword was not pleased with its new master.

  Lucien exited the tea house, heading to the training grounds to test the power of the sword.