As an NPC, having a lot of skills is quite reasonable, right?

"Listen up, you people inside! You're surrounded!" A shrill voice boomed through the alley.

"Don't even think about escaping through the back window; it's already blocked off by my men!"

Kate, who was feeding her father water, suddenly dropped the spoon on the floor.

The little girl Wendy burst into tears and clung tightly to her brother's leg.

Moen was standing at the doorway. Before Kate and the others could come over, he had already stepped to the door and glanced out through the crack.

The people outside weren't ordinary gangsters; there were about a dozen of them. Although they wore gray cloaks common in the lower districts, their combat boots were the same type: [Magnetic Levitation Infantry Boots]. And instead of homemade firearms, they carried [Standard Magic Carbines] that glowed with blue light.

The leader was a middle-aged man with slicked-back hair, and he wore a badge of the Skargard City Guard on his chest.

"Official personnel?" Moen frowned slightly.

To avoid frightening the children, he gestured for Kate and her siblings to stay inside and didn't move. He then pushed open the creaking metal door and went outside.

"Wow, what a big show of force." Moen stood at the door, arms crossed, facing more than a dozen dark gun barrels, without the slightest fear on his face.

"Sirs, your attire doesn't look like you're here to collect protection money, does it?"

"Where did this wild brat come from?" Evan, the leader, looked Moen up and down, and a hint of disdain flashed in his eyes when he saw Moen's neat but not expensive adventurer's attire.

"Can't you see we're on a mission? Get lost if you don't want to die!" As he said this, he seemed to remember something and stared at Moen suspiciously.

"Or are you an accomplice of that stray dog?"

"Accomplices?" Moen keenly grasped this key point; things seemed more complicated than he had imagined.

Just then, heavy footsteps came from the tin shack behind Moen.

"Cough cough."

With a few suppressed coughs, the broken door was pushed open completely, and Kate's father, who should have been bedridden, actually walked out, leaning on the door frame.

"Evan."

Langdon's voice was hoarse: "I'm not saying I did you any favors, but I believe I treated you fairly well during those years in the Iron Guard. Are you really willing to be that woman's dog just to climb the ranks?"

Moen was startled; something was off about this aura.

Previously, when he saw that Kate's father only had black threads, Moen hadn't paid much attention to them. Now, Moen focused his gaze on Langdon's head again and discovered that the thread was slowly turning blue.

Name: Langdon

[Level: 37 (formerly Level 55/Severe Magic Erosion/Lung Crystallization Stage III)]

[Identity: Former Commander-in-Chief of Skargard's First Iron Guard / Lord's Personal Guard / Defector]

[Talented Specialties: Iron Will (Immune to Mind Control), Heavy Armor Mastery]

[Current Need: Resolve the immediate problem and protect your family]

[A Gift from Fate: Unlocking an Epic Questline – "Skargard's Redemption"]

"Good heavens!" Moen exclaimed inwardly.

This is no ordinary sickly old man! This is clearly a hidden dragon lurking in the abyss, a powerful force crossing the river!

A level 37 elite, and at his peak, he was a level 55 powerhouse! He also had an [Epic Quest] active!

Upon hearing Langdon's words, Evan's expression changed, and he subconsciously took a half step back, clearly still feeling the weight of Langdon's authority.

But seeing Langdon's swaying figure, he quickly regained his smug arrogance: "Hmph, Captain Langdon, how have you been?"

"I didn't expect that such a potent black crystal toxin not only didn't kill you, but you can actually get out of bed and walk around? You're really tough."

Evan sneered, raising the magic gun in his hand again and pointing it at Langdon's forehead: "If it were you back then, I wouldn't dare stand in front of you even if you gave me ten lives, but now you can barely breathe, right? How can you fight me?"

Langdon coughed violently a few times due to his emotional state, and a trace of black blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

Indeed, the potion that Moen used only temporarily suppressed the poison and did not immediately restore his fighting ability. Right now, he was just an empty shell.

"And I have good news for you." Evan looked at Langdon's pained expression, a hint of pleasure flashing in his eyes.

"Your wife has been captured by us."

"Otherwise, do you think I could have found this godforsaken place? I must say, you hid it really well, making us search for it like headless flies in the central district for three whole years."

"What did you say?!" Langdon's previously calm face instantly erupted in rage.

He took a sudden step forward, but stumbled due to exhaustion: "Impossible! With Irina's strength, how could you bunch of ragtag soldiers possibly..."

"Nothing is impossible." Evan shrugged. "That person personally devised the plan to capture her. You can ask her about the details when you go to hell."

"Do it! Kill the man, take the two children with you!"

At Evan's command, more than a dozen soldiers raised their guns simultaneously, and blue magical energy began to gather at the muzzles.

Moen, standing to the side, sighed. He had originally wanted to hear more gossip, but now it seemed that these villains were in a real hurry to get their comeuppance.

Just when Evan thought victory was assured, he suddenly felt a violent tremor in the ground. Before they could react, several thick, blood-red thorns burst out of the hard rock without warning!

"What the hell?!" the soldiers shouted in terror.

The thorns instantly wrapped around their legs and waists as if they were alive, and the tough barbs pierced through their leather armor and dug deep into their flesh.

Screams rose and fell as they tried to fire, only to find that thorns had wrapped around their wrists, forcibly twisting the muzzles of their guns into the air.

"What, what kind of ability is this?!" Evan panicked and tried to struggle, but found that the more he struggled, the tighter the entanglement became.

He assumed Langdon was controlling the strange thorns, and looked at Langdon in horror: "You really did undergo that weirdo's biological heresy modification! Otherwise, how could you have this ability to control plants!"

"Bio-modification?" Langdon sighed softly. "Looks like you don't even know who the enemy is."

Moen didn't waste any words; he could ask Langdon about what they had discussed later.

With a swift stroke, a thin line of blood appeared on Evan's throat. Immediately afterward, Moen moved like lightning, weaving among the dozen or so immobilized soldiers.

In less than five seconds, the alleyway returned to silence.

"Done."

Moen flicked the blood off his dagger, turned around, and put on what he thought was a friendly smile: "Tell me, Mr. Langdon."

"I'm quite interested in your story. By the way, your son Kate is now a key member of our Embers organization."

"But don't worry, we're all good people."

nice guy?

Langdon leaned against the doorframe, looking at the corpses scattered on the ground. If this young man hadn't been brought by his son, he wouldn't have hesitated at all before making his judgment.

"Dad! Young Master Moen is such a good man!" At this moment, Kate rushed out of the house, quickly helped her father up, and explained in a rapid-fire voice.

"It was the young master who concocted the medicine for you yesterday! He also gave us money and helped us drive away the Black Tooth Gang! He... he came to save us!"

Hearing his son's explanation, and remembering the miraculous potion that had indeed saved his life, Langdon's wariness finally subsided considerably.

He took a deep breath, pushed away Kate's support, and struggled to stand up straight, giving Moen a standard Iron Guard salute: "Thank you for saving my life, Your Excellency. I was rude just now."

"Since you saved my life and my child, I have nothing to hide."

He turned to the side and gestured for us to come inside: "This isn't the place to talk. Please come inside. It's simple, but at least it's a safe place from the wind."

The fire inside the house was burning brightly, dispelling the chill. Although there was flowing lava not far below, the city lord had set up a filter layer above the lava for survival.

The filter layer not only blocked the toxic gases but also hindered the dissipation of heat, so every household in the downtown area still needed heating, and slightly less fortunate families could only rely on burning firewood for warmth, like Kate's family.

Langdon sat in the worn-out chair, took a sip of hot water, and a painful recollection of the past surfaced in his cloudy eyes.

As he recounted his story, a dark history of Skargard slowly unfolded before Moen.

"My name is Langdon. I was once the captain of the Upper District Iron Guard and the personal guard of the current city lord, Lord Balthazar."

"Fifty years ago, I followed Lord Balthazar to this far northern wasteland to reclaim the land. At that time, Skargard was just a small city in the mountains."

"Lord Balthazar is a great leader. Although he comes from the Star Pattern Academy, which is known for its rationality, he is not cold-blooded. He is determined to build a city where humans can live with dignity even in extreme cold."

At this point, a gentle smile appeared on Langdon's face: "That period was tough, but also very happy. It was during that time that I met my wife, Irina."

"She is no ordinary person, but the third young lady of the main family of the Cang Lei Clan, one of the four major clans of the War Palace. She fled here because she was dissatisfied with the political marriage arranged by her family."

"We fell in love in the snow, got married, and had Kate."

"Everything was going well, until that woman arrived."

Langdon's eyes instantly turned venomous, and his teeth clenched so tightly they made a grinding sound.

"Vera, she claims to be a senior researcher at the Star Pattern Institute and also Lord Balthazar's junior sister."

"She brought a completely new technology: the omniscient algorithm."

"Initially, she did make contributions. She upgraded the city's heating system, optimized the ballistic logic of defensive artillery, and even designed automated logistics pipelines. With her help, Skargard was transformed from a small city into a steel behemoth in just a few years."

"But gradually, her fangs were revealed."

Langdon's fingers gripped the armrests of the chair tightly: "She's a madwoman. In her mind, efficiency is above all else, and reason is above humanity."

"She believed that the city lord's distribution of precious geothermal energy to the civilians in the lower districts was a meaningless waste of resources. She suggested cutting off heating to the lower districts and concentrating the energy on building more automated factories and mechanized soldiers."

"Lord Balthazar refused, but Vera did not give up."

"She started tampering with that 'omniscient algorithm,' which turned out to be just a management program, but also a terrifying mental virus!"

"Because the city lord keeps his nerves connected to the central host in order to control the city, Vera takes advantage of this and uses algorithms to constantly erode and tamper with the city lord's thought process."

"Lord Balthazar began to become indifferent, mechanical, and devoid of emotion. He began to think that Vera's proposal was reasonable and gradually turned into a machine that only obeyed Vera's orders."

"I've discovered something's wrong." Langdon closed his eyes in anguish. "I tried to awaken the lord, tried to find a solution, but I failed."

"I was betrayed by a friend and drank a cup of wine laced with black crystal poison. If I hadn't fought my way out and escaped to the lower district with my wife and children under the cover of a few loyal subordinates, I would have died long ago."

"For the past three years, we've been hiding here like rats. I fell ill, and Irina had to do manual labor to make ends meet."

"Just last month, I received a secret letter. It was from one of my most trusted adjutants, who said that there were still many brothers in the Iron Guard who had not defected and were planning a rebellion. He asked my wife to meet him secretly at the Iron Guard's recruitment camp to discuss countermeasures."

"We believed it because that adjutant had once risked his life to take a knife for me."

Langdon's eyes widened, and two streams of tears flowed down his aged face: "This is a trap, a complete and utter trap."

"That woman Vera, she not only wants to kill me, she also wants to eliminate all traces of me, and she may even have her eye on Irina's Azure Thunder bloodline, wanting to use it for some kind of experiment."

After listening to Langdon's account, Moen felt a chill run down his spine.

In the game from my previous life, that highly automated Skargard was created in this way.

In the original timeline, Vera clearly succeeded; she completely replaced Balthazar and established that futuristic city devoid of any human warmth.

The Langdon family, in that timeline, would probably have long since become frozen corpses by the roadside, leaving no trace of their names.

"This script is a bit dark." Moen took a deep breath and glanced at the system panel in front of him.

[System notification: You have heard "the buried truth"]

The first stage of the epic quest "Skargard's Redemption" has begun.

[Mission Title: Redemption of Family]

[Mission Description: Former Iron Guard Commander Langdon tells you that his wife, Irina, disappeared after being lured to an Iron Guard recruitment camp. You need to find Irina's whereabouts.]

【Task Objective】

[Infiltration: Enter the "7th Iron Guard Recruiting Camp" in the northern part of the lower district]

[Investigation: Location of Irina's detention or related clues found]

[Rescue: Decision based on the situation (rescue Irina if she survives; if she has perished, retrieve her belongings)]

[Task Rewards]

Experience points: 30000

【Azure Fate Stone Fragment ×1】

[Landon's Custom Template (Iron Will or Heavy Armor Mastery)]

[Start the second quest: "The Burning Heart of Steel"]