Reincarnated Hero System

Chapter 745 Interlude 11- Ruth

Kaur Family Summer Home

Treeson City

Vathax

October 17th

Year 1053

Evan was lying on the grass in the middle of the Manor's massive lush gardens, staring at the rising sun while a multitude of thoughts crossed his mind.

After chilling there for a while longer, he noticed spirits gathering in a certain part of the garden and went to check it out, encountering nearly two dozen spirits surrounding someone on the floor.

Upon noticing him, some flew over to him with slightly panicking expressions and asked for help.

Curious, he turned to who they were surrounding and saw a young girl wearing a white one-piece dress that contrasted her raven-black hair, crouching while holding a brown teddy bear.

When his gaze settled on her, she flinched, before running off and hiding behind a tree nearby. A few seconds later, she peeked out from behind the tree to look at him and the first thing that caught his attention was her eyes.

It was a pretty blue colour that reminded him of Eliza.

Her pupils darted around and when he traced her line of sight, he realised she wasn't looking at just him, but the spirits floating around him.

Some of them even flew over to her and started whispering things to her and Evan silently checked what the types of spirits they were.

'Light, Life and Plant?'

Shrugging lightly, he squatted so he could meet her eye level and waved with a light smile.

"Hello there. Whatchu doing out here?"

"…Ruth is lost."

Evan raised a brow in light confusion, before asking.

"Your name is Ruth?"

She nodded in affirmation before repeating her earlier words.

'Lost, huh?'

Evan looked around at the Hedge maze area of the garden they were in and nodded, understanding how easy it was for a child to get lost. The vertical hedges reached Evan up to his shoulder and he was 5 feet 10.

The girl looked about 4 to 4.5 feet so she needed to jump if she wanted to be able to look over them.

'She's strong for how old she looks though…'

Such a thought crossed Evan's mind as he noted that this child was around Level 70 and was a Gold-level existence capable of crumbling buildings on her own.

"Okay, Ruth. I'm Evan.

I wonder, how did you get lost? Where's your mum or dad?"

"Ruth's mummy and daddy are in a different city."

"And you're over here?!"

Evan was surprised at this and the girl nodded affirmation before speaking.

"They allowed Ruth to travel."

'This girl looks like she's maybe 10 or 12, and they let her travel alone?'

"…isn't that dangerous?"

The boy muttered his thoughts out loud, and upon hearing him the girl shook her head as she replied.

"They said you're a good person, so it's not dangerous."

"?"

Evan raised a brow in confusion when she replied. Taking a moment to think it over and watching as the Light spirits whispered to her, he realised they'd misunderstood his question. He'd asked if it was safe for her to travel alone, but they'd made her think he meant her current situation was dangerous.

As such, she replied based on that understanding.

"I was asking if it wasn't dangerous for you to travel alone."

"Oh…"

Her lips formed a circle and she shook her head before speaking.

"Ruth didn't travel alone. Ruth came with her Big brother to visit Big sister."

"And where's your Big Brother, now?"

"…I don't know.

Ruth heard him crying in pain and Ruth came to help him."

When she said 'him', she held out the teddy bear in her hands and Evan gazed at it curiously, his eyes widening in the next second.

The signal was so weak that he missed it earlier, but that teddy bear was actually being possessed by a wounded spirit on the brink of death.

Seeing his surprise, Ruth understood he had noticed the spirit and brought the teddy bear down as she continued.

"They told Ruth that he got injured in the forest so Ruth came to help him. But Ruth's magic power is not enough to heal him, so Ruth wants to find Big Brother and Big sister."

'This Third-person speech of hers…'

Such a thought crossed his mind as he sighed and got up to his feet before asking.

"You know what your Big brother is wearing, right?"

"Mhmm."

"Okay, I'll help you find him."

The girl's eyes widened in surprise and Evan saw tiny lights sparkling in them. She came out from behind the tree and walked over to him before saying.

"Ruth's mummy said to thank whoever helps me.

Thank you."

Her words had Evan chuckling a bit and she patted her head which made her smile shyly. Looking around, he spread his aura and saw that there were only 3 presences in the garden—the gardeners who were pruning flowers.

'Let's take her to the manor. Maybe we'd see her sister or brother there.'

With that thought, he created a void step and had her sit on it, before lifting her up to his shoulder level.

"Whoa! Ruth is flying!"

"Pfft…"

Evan laughed as the child raised her hands and flapped them like a bird while he carried her across the garden and into the Manor.

As they entered, the servants dusting the windows expressed surprise upon seeing the two of them, but before they could talk, there was a sudden loud noise.

**BAMMM!!!!

A blur of motion streaked across their field of vision, noticed only by Evan and a few Master Level Servants.

Moments later, a pained groan echoed from one end of the entrance hall, drawing attention to the figure of a teenage blonde boy slumped against a wall, struggling to get to his feet.

"What in tarnation?"

Evan couldn't help but express his confusion out loud but Ruth's sudden voice snapped him back to reality.

"Ah…it's Big Brother."

"Your big brother just got thrown out of the living room with so much force he slammed into the wall of the entrance hall."

But seeing who her 'Big Brother' was, Evan quickly understood who the 'Big Sister' Ruth was looking for.

He turned his gaze to the Living Room door and saw a familiar blonde-haired girl walking out while cleaning blood off her hand with a towel.

That meant that she had just punched Ruth's 'Big Brother' with enough strength to draw blood.

"Tell that idiot father of yours that I'd repeat the same thing to him if he makes any stupid comments about Evan."

Her tone of voice was deeper than usual and it was clear from her expression that she was quite—no, she was VERY pissed.

Before Evan could even question what happened, Ruth pointed at the girl—his girlfriend, Eliza—and shouted in a joy-filled voice.

"Big Sister!"

"Huh? Ruth?!"

Hearing that familiar voice, Eliza turned in the girl's direction, the angered expression on her face vanishing like smoke.

Ruth jumped off the Void Step but before she even reached the ground, Eliza had already dashed over and pulled her into a tight hug.

From the sight of them hugging each other, it was easy to deduce how good the relationship between the sisters was.

"What are the odds that the random girl I found lost in the garden just turned out to be your little sister?"

This made the second one of Eliza's four siblings that he had met. Hearing his question, Eliza looked towards Evan and asked.

"Were there spirits in the area?"

"Yes."

"Then the odds are pretty high."

It seemed Ruth getting distracted by spirits and getting lost was something Eliza was used to.

As for the girl in question, she wasn't listening to them and was busy nuzzling her cheeks on her sister's chest.

"Ow! Oh! Hello, Evan."

The familiar voice prompted Evan to turn his gaze to the boy who had a bloodstained tissue sticking out of his nose.

"Khris….

How'd you get smacked from one end of the hall to another?"

"Hahaha! I was just testing her reaction to something."

His words had Eliza turning to him with a glare and the boy quickly jumped away to avoid getting punched again.

"Big Sister. Can you heal him?"

Ruth ignored her brother and stuck out the teddy bear she was carrying to Eliza and the girl looked at the doll, narrowing her eyes at it.

Her heavy gaze seemed to make the spirit within it flinch and after confirming it was really injured, Eliza agreed to heal it.

Evan was curious why she did that and she gave him a quick rundown when they returned to the Living Room.

"Ruth is something like a 'Spirit Medium'. It's very easy for Spirits to possess her and interfere with the Material World without problems.

The only constraint is the strength of her body which limits the amount of power they can use."

Her constitution was one Evan had seen in the game, but it was stated to be pretty rare and that was evident given how he had met many other Spirit Contractors, but none had been a 'Spirit Medium'.

It sounded nice but this constitution had serious downsides.

Just like not all humans were good people, such was the case with spirits.

It's just that Evan had mostly encountered the good, playful kind while those who didn't fit in this category usually stayed away.

For Ruth, a Spirit had once tricked her with the guise of 'Being Injured' and when she tried to help it, it took the chance to possess her body.

As if to compensate for this downside of her constitution, Ruth was born with a High Existence Level.

The girl was a Gold Level Existence at Level 50 from birth. She was also a Deviant whose skills awakened before age 12.

With a higher level, came a stronger body and higher mental strength. When added to Ruth's Innate ridiculously strong Mentality, it was a cakewalk for her to retain consciousness despite the fact that she was possessed.

In fact, she could even wrestle control from the spirit.

However, because she was still low-level, she could not resist the possession. The most she could do was retain control over her body after.

Eliza's parents had outfitted her with different protective artifacts to prevent her from being possessed by random stray spirits.

The gems on the dress she was wearing were loaded with magic power and they powered the protective magic circuit formations woven into the threads of the dress.

She also had 'Spiritual Infusion' that allowed her to put Spirits into Items, like how she had done for the wounded spirit in her teddy bear.

"That's a lot."

"I know, right."

Eliza replied as she healed the spirit in the doll. Ruth jumped down from the chair beside her and ran over to Evan, showing him the teddy bear as she spoke.

"Ruth's Big Sister healed him."

"Mhmm…Ruth's big sister is the best."

Just as he was humouring her, the girl suddenly turned towards Khris who was still healing his wounded nose and spoke.

"Ruth's Big Brother is the worst."

"Gak! Stray bullet?!"

Ruth snorted and turned away from him while muttering.

"Ruth's big brother didn't come to look for Ruth in the garden."

"Well Big Brother couldn't come because someone was beating the sh-!"

"Ahem! Language."

Khris flinched when Eliza cut him off, nodding with a fearful expression as he quickly changed his words.

"Big brother was being punished by Big sister."

"Beating the sh?"

Unfortunately, Ruth had already picked up on what he was trying to say and Khris quickly started trying to make her forget that part of his statement, fearful of getting hit by Eliza again.

Witnessing this frantic attempt at damage control, Evan couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Khris looked towards Evan for a lifeline but Evan silently looked away, abandoning to his fate.