THE USELESS PRINCE

It had been two weeks since Furina's mother had fallen asleep, and until now, she was still lying there, not moving even an inch.

Ah, but during this time, for some reason, the room suddenly smelled worse than usual, so bad that she couldn't stand it anymore.

But even when she opened the window to let the stench go away, it was still there, even getting worse by days.

And gradually, maggots, bugs, and rats began to gather around Furina's mother's body and slowly gnaw at her.

With a lifeless gaze, devoid of any emotion, Furina sat next to her mother, waiting for the day she would wake up.

'…Mom, I miss you so much… please wake up soon.' She prayed, not knowing that her prayer would never be answered.

Feeling a little hungry, Furina left the room with the faint hope of finding something to eat.

Outside, her father was still drinking like usual, his belly was even bigger than a pregnant woman, and worse, the scent he emitted only made Furina want to die.

And next to him was a scantily clad woman, who looked quite beautiful, but mostly because of the makeup on her face.

Ignoring Furina's curious gaze, the woman was continuously touching various parts of her father's fat, dirty body.

'…Who is that?' This was the first time she had seen a woman that was not her mother in this house.

It was understandable, what girl would want to get close to a disgusting guy like her father? Especially someone who was beautiful and had a hot body like that.

…But well, she didn't really mind it too much because Furina's father was smiling contentedly.

It showed that he was in an extremely good mood today. And that also meant that Furina wouldn't be beaten if she asked for food. Perhaps.

Seizing this opportunity, she quickly ran towards her father and stopped about 1 meter away from him.

"Dad… I'm hungry, do we have anything to eat?" She held out her hand, like a begging dog.

The man glanced at her, his smile instantly faded, his eyes returning to a look of disgust.

But fortunately, because he was with a beautiful woman, he didn't do anything to Furina because he didn't want to ruin his image in front of her.

"Tsk, here, take it." He threw an apple to Furina.

She carefully picked up the apple, bowed to the two of them, and ignored them to return to her usual room.

Today, Furina felt as if she was the luckiest person in the world. And perhaps it was because of that woman.

Since she was still a kid, Furina didn't understand what was going on very well, but if it was because of that woman that her father could be less angry, then Furina would really welcome her.

For the first time in months, she smiled. Nonetheless, Furina didn't even know why she was smiling.

***

Three times.

Yes, that was the number of times Ash had charged towards the Cave Golem only to be knocked back by it.

It was all useless, no matter what he did, the Cave Golem could easily blow him away.

Worse yet, that Abyssal Creature didn't even use all its strength.

It had been standing there all this time.

And if the Cave Golem had human-like eyes, Ash could be sure that it was looking at him with contempt.

'Tsk, how humiliating.'

With all his might, he stood up once more.

But before charging to that Abyssal Creature again, Ash turned back, making sure that Furina was okay before continuing forward.

Stumbling, he began to run towards the Golem with all his strength.

Gripping the sword tightly, Ash swung it with all his might, aiming at the Cave Golem's left leg, but couldn't do much damage.

He was truly The Useless Prince.

And then, it punched him again, sending Ash flying back to the same position as the previous three times.

"Hehehehe…" But despite the current situation, he still couldn't help but giggle like a madman with joy.

Of course Ash should be happy, after all, it was all part of his plan from the beginning.

Ash knew that he wouldn't be able to defeat the Cave Golem with just pure strength, so he was forced to use his knowledge from his gamer days to defeat the Abyssal Creature.

Ash was sent flying four times, but at the same time, he also managed to unleash four extremely powerful slashes.

In the game False Horizon, there was a rather interesting mechanism that could help a player defeat the Cave Golem easily.

And that was just attacking one part of the Cave Golem's body four times in a row, and when the conditions were met, that part would definitely shatter into pieces.

At first, Ash felt that this feature was quite useless because it was extremely difficult, almost impossible, to control his character to hit a part of the Cave Golem 4 times in a row.

…But in the current situation, he felt so lucky that the game developer had included this mechanism.

And then, not long after Ash was sent flying, the Cave Golem's left leg suddenly made a crisp cracking sound. And the next moment, cracks began to spread.

Finally, the left leg was completely destroyed, causing the Abyssal Creature to be unable to stand anymore.

He once again picked up his sword, slowly walking towards the Cave Golem with his body covered in wounds.

When he was only a meter away from the Abyssal Creature, Ash began to mumble:

"...I won."

His sword immediately stabbed into the middle of the Cave Golem's head, killing the Abyssal Creature instantly.

[Congratulations! You have…]

The system's congratulatory message appeared right after that, but Ash didn't care but instantly walked towards Furina.

Because of the noises just now, Furina was slowly opening her eyes, still a little dazed and a little sleepy. She looked around, realizing that Ash was running towards her.

"...What's wrong, Ash?" She asked.

"It's nothing, Furina, everything's fine, just keep sleeping."

He knelt down, patted her head, and smiled as if to say: "Just trust me."

Fortunately, she didn't say anything else and fell asleep once more.

After making sure that she was asleep, Ash was able to relax, immediately lying down on the ground.

To be honest, Ash just wanted to die right now because the pain he was experiencing was so terrible. He could even guarantee that no human could bear it.

But somehow, Ash was still here, still alive.

He glanced at the Sword of Dawn, not knowing whether to end himself or not.

Then, he glanced at Furina, who was sleeping soundly, completely unaware of what Ash had just gone through.

"Sigh, time to continue the journey."