Hitman with a Badass System

The nobles were having double fun. On one side, they were enjoying the delicious meal of their life. On the other hand, they were watching the interview live. 

"How do you explain your talent for Alchemy? Do you think you were born with it?"

"I was fortunate to have a mentor. We used to go to all kinds of dungeons and ruins searching for ancient scripts and long-lost methods. The good all days"

Nadia's eyes sparkled when she heard about Michael's mentor. She immediately asked a follow-up question,

"Can you please tell us about your mentor? All our readers would be interested in the person who mentored the youngest 5-star Alchemist in the continent"

"I can't talk much about him as he values privacy more than anything. But I can tell you this, he's scary and much much more talented than any Alchemist I know" Michael's answer was vague yet it had the right amount of mystery to let the others keep guessing. It would also stop people from wondering how he became a 5-star Alchemist to some extent.

"Speaking of privacy, we don't know anything about your life before you came to the river town? Where did you grow up actually?" She asked another question that many were wondering. Even Claire looked interested in knowing the answer to this question.

"Where didn't I grow up would be the fitting question" Michael smiled, taking a sip of grape juice.

"If you want to know the answer to the question where was I before coming to river town, the answer is Awor" 

Many raised their brows in surprise. They never expected him to come from the most powerful continent in the world. The other three continents couldn't even be compared to Awor as they were the richest, largest powerful continents. The main reason for Awor's prosperity was that Awor had several races living together. Although there were struggles between the races such as the enmity between dwarves and elves, they didn't go to war with each other to prove who's the superior ones. Instead, they developed their own kingdoms and empires to be the number one, this altogether lifted the status of the entire continent.

"Wow. You're far away from home"

"Home? No. Home is where I am. River town and the sect is my home now" Claire gently smiled as Nadia's quill wrote every single word that came from his mouth onto the parchment.

"What made you come to the river town, Master Ghost?"

"The weather, that was my reason" chuckled Michael. As an experienced newswoman, she knew when someone's brushing off the question. Usually, she would focus on that particular question until she got something juicy but she was experienced enough to know that Ghost is not going to explain his reason for coming to the river town.

"Master Ghost, we know you like to keep it yourself and focus on" Nadia paused for a moment searching for the right word,

"Accumulating power and money while trying to avoid making enemies" she slowly moved on to the serious topics of her interview. She obviously did her research on Michael.

"But what made a guy like you massacre an entire sect overnight including the sect leader? You actually tied the sect leader on a pole and burned him alive. Roasted him alive like a turkey that's what the people were saying"

Claire noticed his smile slightly changing into a cold one,

"Miss Nadia, you obviously did your research. So please tell  me this, do you know what the blood and bone sect did?" Michael asked Nadia. The people only knew Ghost massacred the Blood and Bone sect overnight but most of them didn't know why he did that in the first place.

"I think it's because they killed the people in Rosewood village" 

Michael put down the glass in his hand, his smile completely disappeared from his face.

"You said I massacred the sect and the sect killed the people in Rosewood village" he emphasized the words massacred and killed,

"What the sect did was a massacre. What I did was justice. The least we cultivators could do to the commoners is let them be" the waiter and waitresses who heard Michael had their respect towards him lifted to another level.

"Let's talk about Heaven's gate competition Master Ghost. You're the first person to reach the hundredth step, how did you do it?" 

"It wasn't very difficult" He could feel all the eyes on him, looking at him with both shock and surprise.

"Speaking of heaven's gate, there are rumors you and Miss Celina have some bad blood between you two. What's your comment on that?"

"No comment. I don't respond to rumors"

Nadia seemed disappointed yet it didn't stop her from coming up with a follow-up question.

"We have on good authority that she personally came to interrogate you with the truth extractor pill that was concocted by Pill King Gabriel himself"

"I think what she did was out of grief. I was in the Nether Realm when her cousin was killed and everyone knows there's no way of coming out of the Nether realm until the portal opens. It was a desperate attempt to catch the killer. I'm not blaming her for doing that" He sounded truthful. However, Michael was planning to settle the score between them at the tournament once and for all.

"On the topic of tournaments, who do you think has the most chance of winning them?" 

"My girlfriend Aelia will win the championship for the Body Strengthening stage and I will win the other '' Michael said casually. For some nobles, he sounded arrogant. For some others, he sounded confident.

As far as Michael was concerned, if he couldn't even win the tournament with the system's help, there was no way in hell he could conquer this world. At the same time, he didn't think it would be easy to win as he was accumulating badass points to buy new spells and upgrade the existing ones.

"Wow, you sound pretty confident," Nadia giggled. What he said was a good piece that would stir the heat between the youngsters who were competing. The more hype her newspaper created for the tournament, the more the tournament committee would pay them.

"If your parents were to read this, what would you say to them?" He was slightly stunned by her question. He never expected her to come back to the topic of his parents.

"Is it really necessary to ask him about these things?" Claire intervened. She didn't like Nadia poking into the bad memories.

"It's okay Sect Leader Claire," Michael said before Nadia could answer Claire.

"First of all, I don't have any parents. The moment they chose to throw me away like a piece of trash they never wanted, they cease to exist in my world. I used to watch children play with their parents, you know how their mothers loved them, the fathers protected them. I envied them when I was little" Although Michael and Abras were two different persons, the pain of being an orphan was the same for both of them. He knew he was Abras, so he wanted Abras's parents to know what he's feeling.

"When I was seven, I still remember that day vividly. I stole a piece of bread as I didn't eat anything for three days. The baker, who was a heartless son of a bitch caught me and gave me this" Michael slightly pulled his shirt away to reveal the burn mark near his collar bone

"He punished me for stealing by burning me with a flaming charcoal piece. I cried until I had no tears left in me. There was no one there for me to" Michael felt a lump in his throat while Claire's eyes already started to well up.

"There was no one there for me to ease my pain, no matter how loud I cried, or how long I cried. I fainted crying, when I woke up, I was still there, on the side of a pavement, drenching in rain. I never asked for any of this, if they never wanted me, they shouldn't have brought me into this world" His voice turned cold, a glint of murderous intent emerged in his eyes.

"If they were to read this, I have only four words for them. Stay away from me"

"That's it, the interview's over" Gaya came to Michael's table to break the interview. Her eyes were bloodshot red due to anger and sadness.

"Please excuse us, ladies and gentleman. '' Michael left the dining hall quietly. Thankfully Gaya didn't cause a scene.Nadia was lucky that she didn't get her nose broken by Gaya.

********************************************

Two days after Michael's interview with Nadia, Diana was sitting on a bench in her garden. The newspaper she was holding was drenched in her tears. No one could be seen in the garden except Diana. She sent all the guards and servants away. Because she had to leave Kethen to get something important, she couldn't go to the river town for the restaurant opening. 

So when she heard he gave an interview, she paid thousands of gold coins to get the first printed edition as she couldn't wait to read her son's interview.

She wasn't crying her eyes out because he told his parents to stay away. she cried, thinking about the pain he went through when he was little.

She could feel his hate towards her and Ethan through his words.

She never wanted any of this to happen to him. Her heart bled reading his story.. If she could, she would want to go to him, tell him everything, and beg for his forgiveness.