Love as a reward

"Who are you? Can't you see we are busy? Piss off!"

One of the three men stopped ripping Nina's clothes and stood up with an angry expression on his face.

"I'm just a passerby… a very pissed off passerby."

Finn's voice was filled with disgust.

He no longer thought of the men in front of him as humans. In his eyes, they were just beasts controlled by their lust.

Before the standing guy could shout at Finn again, he saw Finn running to him to close the gap between them.

He threw a punch towards Finn's face, but Finn's body had a boost in agility from Second Life, so he easily dodged the punch and countered it with a right hook into the guy's chin.

THUD

His body hit the ground, and he was instantly knocked out.

The other two men were forced to let go of Nina and attempt to stand up.

Finn caught the head of one of the men as he was scrambling to stand up and kneed his face.

CRACK

"AARGH!"

With a broken nose and blood everywhere, he was forced to kneel back down as he held his face.

The last guy managed to stand up, but when he did, he saw Finn's fist coming toward his face, so he covered his face with his hands.

He didn't know that this was just a feint, and with a swift motion, Finn used his other fist to aim for the opponent's stomach and punched with full force.

BANG

With the strength Finn received from his boost, his punches hit like a truck, so the last guy grabbed his stomach, kneeled down, and started vomiting his breakfast.

"Urrrghh!"

Thud

Finn finished him with a kick to the temple that knocked him unconscious and his body fell to the side.

The only person who remained out of those three men was the guy with the broken nose, who was still squealing on the ground like a pig.

Finn stepped forward, and looked down at him with a cold gaze.

"Call the cops and tell them about everything you've done. For every second you keep me waiting, I will kick your stomach."

The men, not wanting to be beaten up any more, quickly dialed 911.

"Nine one one, what is your emergency?"

"I- *Cough* I have assaulted a girl. I'm on Houston Street in one of the alleys, and-"

BANG

Before he could continue, Finn kicked him again.

"Ughh!!"

"Say that you also attacked a law-abiding civilian."

Finn's cold voice sounded in the alley as he looked down at the man.

"Y- Yes sir! Umm I- I mean... We also attacked a civilian who tried to stop us."

The operator on the other side was speechless by the situation, as she had never had a case where a person called to report that he had assaulted someone.

"…I understand and how many of you are there."

"T- *Cough* three of us. Please come quick or this mons-"

CRACK

"Urgghh!!! *Cough*!"

Finn kicked him in the chest and cracked his ribs. This made him cough profusely, and he felt like some of his ribs were stabbing his insides.

"I mean, *Cough* please come quick to *Cough* arrest us as soon as possible."

With that, he ended the call and looked at Finn, happy that he had completed his task and could escape this monster's grasp.

"What are you looking at?"

BANG

But the only thing he received as a reward was another kick in the head that made his eyes roll back and made him faint.

"Tch! Fucking scum."

Finn walked away from the men and walked to where Nina was sitting, still slightly dazed by the situation.

Her previous beauty was nowhere to be seen as her hoodie was torn apart and her makeup was a mess with dried tears all over her face.

"Are you hurt? Do you have a place you want to go to, or should I bring you to the police station?"

Finn's cold expression was instantly switched to a gentle one as he covered Nina's body with his hoodie.

"I-... Tha..."

She tried to speak, but when she opened her mouth, her tears and snot got stuck in her throat, so all she did was hug him and start crying.

Nina tried telling Finn how scared she was and how thankful she was to him for coming to help, but the tears in her throat made her only make incoherent mumbles.

So Finn let her cry as he patted her back.

"It's okay now… It's alright… You are safe now."

This went on for five minutes until Nina was too tired and just fell asleep in Finn's arms.

At that moment, four policemen arrived, and when they saw the scene, they immediately started asking Finn, who was the only conscious person there, what had happened.

He explained his side of the story and how he found the group of men assaulting the girl. How he decided to stop them and beat them all up.

They wrote it all down and were pretty sure that Finn hadn't done anything wrong, but just to be sure, they brought all five of them to a police station for questioning.

"Come with us, and if what you are saying is true, we will let you go home."

The policemen informed Finn, and he agreed, but he decided to call his mom to tell her about his situation.

"Finn, where are you? You have been gone for quite a while now."

"Mom, some stuff happened, and now I'm on my way to the police station, so can you come pick me up once they release me, please?"

"…Huh? What do you mean police station?! Weren't you meeting your friend?! What happened!"

All Finn heard were Helen's worried shouts on the other side of the phone.

"I will explain everything later, mom."

Beep

With that, he ended the call.

He knew that ending the call like that was going to earn him a huge scolding later, but at this point he didn't really care, so he decided to risk it and explain everything to his parents later.

Finn entered the police car while holding Nina, who was tightly holding onto him and refusing to let go.

When the three men woke up in the police station and saw Finn, they all confessed to everything, which surprised the policemen, but made their job easier, so they didn't complain and wrote it all down.

With a few more questions, they let Finn and Nina go.

Nina was picked up by her father, who had ten bodyguards around him, and Alfred, who was sweating bullets while bowing his head next to him.

Her father was a tall, slim man with short, slick black hair and gray sideburns. His face, which made him look like he was too young to have gray hair, had a worried expression on it.

When he saw Nina leave the station, he hugged her with a relieved sigh.

"I'm glad you are okay, Nina… We will talk more when we get home."

He had connections with the police, so when the police captain saw Nina's name, he immediately reported it to his superior, who reported it to Nina's father.

Nina's parents might be cold-hearted for ignoring her and not talking to her much, but they both grew up in a family where it was believed that too much love would hinder the child, so a parent should only praise his child if he or she obtains exceptional results.

They believed that being strict with Nina would make her change and become more hard-working, but all it did was make her rebellious, and their relationship only worsened after that.

It was not like Nina's parents talked to her sister more. They didn't talk to them both equally, but Nina only ever focused on herself and didn't look at the world around her, so she never realized that even her perfect sister didn't receive her parents' love.

When the news of the assault reached Nina's father, he immediately canceled all his meetings and flew to the police station where she was.

Nina's father never really talked to his children, but that didn't mean he didn't love them. He did. It's just that he never showed it, to make them feel like love was something they had to obtain as a reward.

What he wanted was to only show them love when they achieved something great, but this backfired on him, and now both his daughters hated him.

Nina despised her parents for not communicating with her, and Nina's sister despised her parents for neglecting Nina.

When Nina's father arrived, Alfred had told him about her plan to sneak out, and he quickly connected the dots.

First, he thought that Nina was attacked because of him, but it was because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After he let Nina sit down in the helicopter he arrived in, he looked at Finn.

"Thank you for saving my daughter, Nina. If I may ask, can you please tell me your name?"

"My name is Finn but-"

"That is a nice name. Here, take this."

He gave Finn his business card, which had his personal number on it.

"Call me once you have free time, and I will send a helicopter to pick you up and bring you to my home so I can thank you properly."

"Oh… No thank you, I only did what I should have done."

Finn tried rejecting him while shaking his head, but Nina's father didn't give up.

"I insist, and I'm sure Nina would also like to see you again."

Upon saying that, Nina peeked out of the helicopter window and started nodding her head with a smile.

"...Alright."

Finn was flustered, but it would be impolite to refuse twice, so he just accepted since his mom was waiting for him in the station's parking lot.

Nina's father was happy to hear that, and once all of his bodyguards and Alfred entered the helicopter, they flew home.

Finn also went to meet his mom in the parking lot, where he was hugged by her and had to spend half an hour explaining what had happened.

His mom wanted to scold him at first, but after hearing what Finn had done, she decided to just drive home, where Finn had to spend another half an hour explaining the same thing to his father, who immediately left work when he heard from his wife that his son had been arrested.

---

Trrring Trrring Trrring

As Finn was eating lunch with his parents, his phone suddenly rang.

He looked at the caller and saw that James was calling him, so he answered it.

"Hey James. What's up?"

"Finn, did you check the Second Life website yet?"

"Hmm? Not really. I was busy with something today, and I'm eating lunch with my parents right now."

James apologized to Finn for interrupting his lunch and ended the call after telling Finn to check the site ASAP.

Finn was curious about James's behavior, so he opened the website on his phone.

There were two things that immediately caught his attention. The first was that the name Lunar Reaper was number two on the trending list.

He found out that he was the supposed Lunar Reaper, and his fight with Raul somehow got leaked.

Frowning, he looked at the number one trending news, and there he saw it.

The game event he had forgotten about. The God's Tournament.