Chapter 388

Chapter 388

Reincarnated User Manual.

Episode 388: W-IFSS: If This Were A Childhood Friend Story Instead (10)

“So…”

Kyrie blinked repeatedly at a story she simply couldn’t comprehend.

She had been dwelling on the grief of losing her parents in a corner of the village when the elder called for her. Rubbing her swollen eyes, she ran over bravely.

For a child who lost her parents, a new family usually awaited. So Kyrie thought the elder had summoned her purely for an adoption.

“I’m… a hero destined to save the world? But I’m only ten years old…?”

But what awaited her wasn’t new parents.

A pair of strangers—a man and a woman. They looked like a young couple, but it seemed they hadn’t come to adopt Kyrie as their foster daughter.

“Yes. Hard to believe, I know.”

Hyun-jun nodded calmly.

“Do you know what the word ‘hero’ means?”

“…Isn’t it something like a champion?”

“Close enough.”

Inwardly, he prayed countless times for his plan to work.

He could have deceived a ten-year-old child with lies, but the path he chose was to tell the truth as it was and appeal to her honestly.

Hyun-jun wasn’t the kind of man who appeared to be lying, but this was still a fantasy world. The presence of the old man sitting beside Kyrie as her guardian posed a threat.

“…That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Sure enough, the elder seemed to possess some kind of ability that let him tell whether Hyun-jun was lying. He looked at Kyrie with a conflicted gaze and took a deep puff from his long-stemmed pipe.

“May I ask how such a fate has fallen upon this young child?”

“I don’t know.”

This time, it was Yura who answered.

When Hyun-jun first declared that Kyrie carried the fate of a hero, her heart almost dropped. But at some point, as if she had made up her mind, Yura began to back up Hyun-jun’s logic.

“All I know is that she’s destined to kill the Demon God who awakened beyond the mountains.”

“The Demon God?”

“Yes. A dark deity who will plunge the world into chaos and destruction.”

At the words “chaos and destruction,” the elder’s expression turned grave.

The recent unrest wasn’t just due to the abnormal behavior of the demonic beasts.

A longer-than-usual winter.

A deepening murky aura.

The dwindling line of merchants passing through.

‘I thought there must be a reason… But to think the cause is an evil god…’

It sounded absurd.

There were many tribes in the north, and among them were those who borrowed the power of ancestral spirits or shamanistic magic to battle nature.

Those tribes might have been easily convinced by such stories, but the people of Silleya were different.

The Silleya were a people who revered pure physical training and the refinement of inner strength.

If even a speck of falsehood had been found on Hyun-jun’s face, the elder would have immediately dismissed the strangers’ words.

And yet, even if he accepted it in his mind, something still didn’t sit right.

‘If it’s her fate to save the world, that path surely won’t be smooth.’

What echoed in his mind was the weight of the burden this child would carry.

‘The greatest warrior in the village is Kuijin, and if there’s a promising warrior, it’s Kuijin’s nephew, Barar… So why this child?’

The strangers said nothing more to the pondering elder.

They simply waited for his answer.

The one who bore the fate of a hero was Kyrie, but whether she would walk the path of a hero or not depended on the elder.

It was because Kyrie was younger than they had expected.

‘I thought she was at least a middle schooler, but she’s basically an elementary kid.’

Hyun-jun’s heart grew more conflicted as he kept watching Kyrie.

‘She looked exactly like Yura when she was a little brat.’

Glossy black hair. Eyes that lifted at the ends with a slight sharpness. Lips pouty with discontent.

It sounded like he was listing her flaws, but in the end, her delicate features made her a very cute child.

‘Aren’t they too similar?’

So much so, she could pass for Yura’s daughter.

So much so that if Hyun-jun and Yura got married and had a daughter, she’d probably look just like that…

“What are you thinking about so deeply?”

Bored by the silence, Yura whispered.

“It’s nothing.”

Hyun-jun turned his head and feigned indifference.