Path to Dual Cultivation - Chapter 29: Stepping Stone

Happiness of the family >>>>>> World peace!? The curtain rises on another fantasy slice-of-life tale, brought to you by the “Hataraku Maou-sama!” team.

On that day, an emergency family meeting was called to order at the residence of the Kenzaki family, an ordinary family living in Tokorozawa City. A blonde beauty named Dianaze Krone, Diana for short, had appeared from a different world, in the living room of the Kenzaki family. “I, an envoy, have come to summon the Hero of Salvation, Kenzaki Hideo.”

Wait, Hideo is my dad! To think such a game-like situation would fall upon me, Kenzaki Yasuo, an ordinary high school student.

My father is a hero, and he saved a different world in his younger days!? There’s no way I can believe that this ordinary, middle-aged father of mine is a “Hero.” Diana looks at me, “The Son of the Hero” with a gaze filled with longing. My sister who saw that looks at me with a cold gaze… Before bringing back peace to the other world, the peace of our family is in big trouble! What is going to happen to my peaceful everyday life!?

He married the daughter of the Lancaster family purely for revenge. He expected her to be obedient and submissive, not to resist or show emotions—a perfect pawn in his plan for vengeance.However, when his gaze locked onto the third daughter of the Lancaster family, the one who barged into the living room was her—disheveled and stained with blood. She seemed ordinary, but beneath the surface, she hid an unknown sharpness.“Do you love me?” he asked coldly.“You're crazy!” she rolled her eyes in disdain.In that moment, he smiled with satisfaction, believing he had everything under control.But she fought back. Marrying him was merely one step in her own plan.Four years later, with the Lancaster family completely destroyed, she threw the divorce papers in his face, smiling like the final victor:“Albert Wilson, have you finished using me? Thank you for making me think I once loved you. Now, never see me again, even in death.”Just as she turned to leave in triumph, she accidentally walked into a gang's arms deal, and an explosion forever separated her from him.It was only when he found the two-month pregnancy test result among her belongings that he realized he had lost the only salvation of his life.

Once upon a time, the Land of Promise thrived under the cycle of the four seasons change. Until a vengeful enchantress cursed the land, and divided it into four realms each with a ruler to bear its burden.The people suffered for years under the endless heat in the Summerlands, the bitter cold in the Winterlands, the never changing bloom in the Springlands and the constant fall in the Autumlands.A prophecy whispers of a marriage between a king and queen that will release the land from its curse and unite it under a single kingdom.Princess Caroline is forced to marry the Summer King, will she be able to fight for a peace amidst a court full of power hungry nobles and will she succumb to a burning love in the arms of a fiery warlord?

...[Inside an underground basement]“You are going to die for nothing, hahahaha,” the old man's voice thundered through the room, sending chills down my spine.Step.With a swift and ruthless motion, he lunged forward, his sword slicing through the air and slashing my throat, crimson droplets staining the darkness.“We'll see,” I whispered defiantly, my final words escaping as a mere breath against the impending darkness.Slowly, inexorably, my consciousness slipped away, and I descended into a deep, unfathomable slumber.“Huh!?” My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself seated in a bustling tavern, the air thick with laughter and the clinking of glasses.In front of me stood a captivating lady, her beauty juxtaposed with an angry furrow upon her brow, threatening to shatter the harmony of the jovial scene.“Don't follow me around!” Her words pierced the air like shards of ice, the intensity of her emotions palpable as she cast a resentful glare in my direction, before swiftly departing from the tavern....Am I trapped within the confines of a game? The fragments of my shattered common sense scattered before me, leaving me to question the very fabric of my reality.