Honey, I've Leveled the Kids [Family-Focus, LitRPG - COMPLETE]

With us safe on wet ground and grass at last, I bent over, catching my breath. Naiad poked me with her bow.

"You can't stop. They can come through the wall," she explained.

"What? How do you know?" The moist air felt comforting in my dry, rasping throat.

"The notification about the debuff mentioned sight and Leith told you about it too. Keep walking, at least until we get to the water where we can hide our footprints," she lectured, the whole time avoiding looking at me.

I looked at the notification again, gasping in annoyance at the exact words. Her attention to such details was clever. Grumbling, I forced my feet to take higher steps, or at least it felt that way, just to move forward on the wet ground. I was exhausted and needed stamina potions.

"There!" I pointed at an indentation in the ground that looked like a snake—or a pile of worm snakes—made to get to the land of the dead. "Follow it back to the way we came."

This place was in between earth and hell, a purgatory. Naiad and moved through the growing fog. It filled the silent space between us and kept us safe. It also divided our relationship more. She kept her back to me, avoiding looking at me, and I could her mumble, but not what. I didn't know if this was the moment I gave her space or tried to ask her what was wrong. I was right here next to her, and I could say something. Or was that crossing the line? Too bad there wasn't a real life dialogue option warning me if I had enough skill to unlock the conversation with her.

Our boots sloshed as we found our first pond by following the worm snake trail. In the thick fog, we couldn't see where it ended. Which meant neither would the minions of hell.

I had to break the silence and find a neutral conversation starter piece with Naiad. "According to the forums, this place is how wayfinders traveled to get around the world quickly. If we could figure out how to leave it, maybe we could enter it the same way. You could use those intelligent points and unlock the path with the right quest."

"You're the one who's supposed to be saving us," she snapped back.

With a breath, I reminded myself that I we just dealt with a high-stress situation and hadn't rested. She needed time to calm down. "Let's just look for that portal again. My map still has our walking paths marked," I said.

Naiad stopped walking. "Then why are we bothering going back there? We already did that and didn't find the portal."

"Don't stop. Maybe the portal came back."

Naiad turned ninety degrees to walk away from me.

"Where are you going?" I softly called after her. I swore I could still hear snarls of the imps in the distance. The sound was too similar to our boots sloshing in the ponds.

"Oh, now you care what I think," her voice raised up, threatening to call the monsters.

Keeping mine level, I asked again, "So, where are you going?"

"I'm going to a safe place to log off," she replied.

I brought the camping gear out from my inventory, but the system declared it an invalid land location. "Can you give me details? I can't use the camping gear."

"I'm going to the town," she stated.

"What town?" I was concerned about her. I changed the conversation and followed her to make sure she didn't get attacked. "It was so cool how we made it out of hell. We definitely got lucky. A goddess of death saving us?"

She ignored me and remained focused on her goal. The silence sucked. I wanted to know why she wasn't excited after that fight. The viewers were, even though the fight ended, the numbers still went up. I gave them two thumbs up.

As I waded through the water, I looked along the edge of every pond for any sort of sign of the worm snake root. Nothing wiggled in the water. I kept kicking, finding skulls, bones, and lots of mucky ground.

I was ringing the dinner bell for the newts.

"Ah crap!" I said as two newts nipped at my leg in the murky water.

I had experience against the newts and knew their fighting patterns. However, it also took longer to kill each one without the range damage.

I called out to her. "Naiad, aren't you going to help?"

The sound of my axe hitting a newt's mouth muted out her reply. "Naiad?"

The second newt took advantage of me being preoccupied with its friend and lunged at my head. I ducked low, but its tail still pushed me over face first into the mud. Yanking my other axe free, I chopped at the second newt with both axes to confirm it was down. By the time the fight ended, I was alone looting the bodies.

On the edge of the water near some knocked over reeds, I spotted Naiad's soaking wet footprints walking off.

I jogged to catch up to her. She didn't get far. My soaking socks and boots sloshed from the swim in the water.

My patience was short with Naiad and her teenage angst. "Answer me. Why didn't you help?"

Naiad was bent over the edge of the water, filling up a canteen of the water. She stayed silent until she put the canteen away. She waved a hand, emphasizing the quiver slung across her shoulder. "I only have a few arrows right now."

I didn't want to argue how I didn't see it. Instead, I spent my building frustrated energy, and growing stamina, looking around on the ground for the root. "Did you find any clues about the root? It's the main reason we are here, the *ROOT* and Seeds of the Problem is the name of the quest."

"Nope. But YOU got one seed." She dodged the conversation again.

One or multiple, it didn't matter with how mad she was right now. I pulled out the leaves I got from the vine, "Are any of these for your quest?"

Naiad looked, rolled her eyes and got out of the water, hell bent to go somewhere. "Do you think we lost track of hell monsters already?"

There was no yipping or howling chasing after us. Only our wet shoes made sounds as we walked. I followed her through the thinning fog and the path between ponds and reeds.

"Where are you going?" I inquired again.

"I found a safe place."

There was nothing out here. Unless you count the water, the grass, oh look a newt. So swampy.

The newts wanted to eat us. We could log off safely here if we set up camp. I tried pulling out the camp equipment again to see if it would work, but stopped as a dark looming shadow grew in the fog. Dark purple lights flickered up in the sky above us and near the ground. The shadows grew and a wall with defensive towers and tall city buildings appeared suddenly out of the fog.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Our path became muddy and filled with footprints and cart trail tracks.

"Is this a city?" I asked.

Naiad walked over to a wooden signpost that was next to our path.

["Welcome to the city of Purge. Current mayor, A. Tory. Current population: 333,333.]"

For a medium-sized city, it had a lot of guards loitering around outside of the city. While five pointed their charged up spears and halberds at us, ready to launch a combination of attacks and spells on us, three other guards were in the towers with their fiery arrows, plus one chanter casting already. The closest guard to me was level twenty.

"Halt. State your business," the guard in front spoke through his helmet. He sounded muffled.

"We want to seek…" Naiad started before I cut her off.

"Hell's chasing after us, and we're looking for protection."

The guards glanced behind them, studying a giant deep blue sapphire gem that was embedded in the wall by the gate entrance. He held his weapon steady and asked, "You're the fools who stirred up the god? Going to cost you a steep price to hide you here."

>>><<<

[Quest Notification: Prove You're from Middle-Earth.

You can cover those ears with cosmetics and illusions, so pointing at them is pointless as your lack of demon horns. These guards need to know you're not from this realm or the neighboring one in order to enter. Figure out how to make the crystal glow blue.

Time Remaining: 4 minutes 58 seconds]

My DNA would make that easy to prove. Standing this close to the realm of hell, I didn't want to leave my blood readily available for whatever curses could happen. There had to be another way to prove my humanity. I had no way of saying I was one of them because the fog was too thick and the guards too burly to see what the city life was like.

"You must answer these questions truthfully. If you don't, our chanter will tell us." The guard used his halberd to point to the tower above the gate.

"I won't lie," Naiad replied.

While she distracted the guards, I dug through my inventory for something that screamed, "I'm human." Did the rabbit god, Chiliam, or the game starter pack give us anything? Maybe our weapons had something.

"Do you devour meat?" The guard asked.

Naiad crossed her arms, making the guards only bring their weapons closer. "Only when cooked properly."

That was a lie. I cooked chicken so it wasn't dry and she still wouldn't touch it.

"Do you consider your companion meat?"

"Yes," she answered quickly, "to other predators, not to me."

"Would you save a hell spawn over your fellow mortals?"

Her deep eyes met mine for a moment. I nodded, not sure what she was looking for beyond approval. She returned to the guard. "I don't know. If the mortal was hurting me, and the hell spawn saved me…"

Oh jeez. My stomach turned; I felt the sweat break on my hand. Today I flung my axe around so much, I had callouses being built on my palms from it. I built similar callouses around my stony heart today when I was pushing her in hell… and before, too. I had to talk to her, but it was so hard if she didn't want to talk back. If only she said this sooner.

I also had meant to apologize when things calmed down, but then we got caught by Leith and had to run for our lives, and then we got here. During that walk, Naiad didn't talk to me because I screwed up too much. I didn't want time to create a bigger rift, either. If she didn't want words, I had to show her she could trust me and I would keep her safe.

The guards nodded in agreement, then changed their focus to me. Two and a half minutes left on my quest.

I jumped through the answers. "To answer the same questions truthfully… Yes, I eat meat… um, I don't know who the monster is and uhh. What was the second question?"

"Are you saying that you don't know who the monster is between the two of you?" The guard threatened me, poking his halberd closer. The others joined in.

"Look, I don't think well under pressure. What were the questions?" I quickly replied.

The guards repeated the three.

"One, yes, I eat meat. Two, no, I wouldn't consider my companion meat. Three, I would save the mortal after the rough day I had in hell." I spewed out my response.

Naiad grumbled next to me. "What do we owe to enter?"

"Two hundred gold each." The guard answered, weapons still pointing at us. "And a tri-holy seal agreement."

A scroll appeared in front of me and Naiad.

>>><<<

[Scroll of Agreement with the city Purge bound to the mayor A. Tory.

You will not use your weapons. Only approved knives for cooking or crafts. See Form 2H.E. (Lower Level) for information.

Purge prohibits citizen magic use. If you need it for apothecary or portals, the approved board members must build a circle. See section K.A. section B.O.O.M. for further instructions.

Communion with the gods of all forms is forbidden.

If you break any of the above rules, Mayor A. Tory will harvest your lives and souls for the city's protection.]

>>><<<

Keeping to the rules was easy. The last line made it terrifying.

Naiad signed it, like it was a normal privacy license agreement on the internet.

"Would you wait before you just sign everything away?" I hissed at her. The guards now had every single weapon pointed at me. "Who determines that we have violated a rule?"

"Your own soul does. By agreeing to it, A. Tory will know the moment you are guilty." The guard poorly explained.

"That doesn't make sense. How?" I prodded again.

>>><<<

[Time remaining 40 seconds.]

>>><<<

This is how those scams get you.

"Dad, just sign it." She waved as she walked past the guards after transferring the gold.

I didn't have the gold. I grimaced. "Okay, I will. But I need to borrow your gold…"

She looked at me, shook her head, and went over and paid the guard again. I still wanted more answers about the soul connection.

"Does the mayor stare at our souls all day? Like what gives away?"

The weapons got a lot closer, itching my armor. The guard growled. "If you don't want our protection, then turn back now. You don't ask how our protection works, but how to break our laws? Turn back."

My charisma was crap and failing on these guards. I put my one hand up and signed the document as Boulder, as fast as I could. Didn't even add the signature rock at the back.

A second after I finished signing, the paper scrolled rolled up and vanished. The weapons of the guards went to rest and one even waved me in. The magic that the chanter charged up dispersed about like petals on the wind, clearing away the fog. With the lifting of the fog, the city seemed to glow.

I ran to catch up to the half-elf in front of me. "Hey, Naiad, wait up. We're a team."

"Oh, now you share the credit?" She stomped further into the city.

"Yeah, I'll pay you back. I'll hit a market right now and sell some items I have." It wasn't my favorite thing to do. I wanted to hold on to everything. You never know what you might need down the road, but I would do anything for her.

She groaned, "What? No, that's not what I'm talking about."

"Then talk to me more. Let me know what's going on."

"I'm going to the guild exchange and logging off."

"No, tell me more about this. We were being such a great team out there and then…" then I scared you with my axe. There wasn't a nice way to say that. I wanted to be blunt and get to the point of the problem. But she was a little girl. I needed to explain my mess up to her.

"Yeah, try again later. C'ya." She logged off, her character pixel by pixel as she vanished out of the game, leaving just her shadow until even that vanished in the purple light.

"Never hesitate or else it's too late," I mumbled to myself. This I lost this chance to build a bridge across the rift to Naiad.

It was late and she would likely go to bed or finish her homework. I had to talk to her and apologize. Same with Triangle. Even the game registered something happening that I was unaware of, leading Leith to say I would destroy my family. Something obvious in front of me, like the street sign next to the road pointing to the center of town.

Four pillars of various heights stood in front of me, with the smallest being a quarter as tall as the tallest. Was this some obvious clue, too? That my family were these four crumbling pillars I tried holding up. But was I also just chopping them down?

Clay pavers lined the road and a few people gathered in the central area of the city of Purge. There were multiple people using newts from the swamp nearby to pull the carts around. The biggest obvious difference in this city was the constant running around of players compared to Fanamel. The rest of the NPCs went about on their daily coded tasks.

I grabbed on player's attention. She wore a balaclava wrapped around her face and neck, exposing only her dark eyes, like all the players did in town. "Hey can you direct me to a merchant and the guild exchange?"

Her deep blue eyes looked me up and down. She carried a halberd on her back, zapping with magic, and wore chain mail armor. Her gear made it obvious we had a drastic level difference between us.

"You're pretty fresh meat for this area," she judged. "Anything in particular you are looking for? I suggest equipping better gear so the dead don't sense your spirit." She tapped at the side of her head. "You can pay a lot for the item at the shop or get it for free by visiting the mayor in central town past those pillars. Guild exchange is over there, too."

"Thanks."

"Mind me asking something?"

I nodded. "How did you get here without meeting the mayor? They're fairly adamant about strangers wandering into the city."

"I had to prove I was a mortal and didn't lie," I explained.

"Hmm, and did you?" The woman inquired.

"Not then. I was afraid of dying and spawning in this realm," I said honestly.

The woman laughed. "That's a good fear to have. But don't worry, you would be on some other continent on middle-earth. Bye!"

I didn't lie to the guards at the gate. Neither did Naiad. What she said to them felt like a stone of guilt sinking into my gut.