Chapter 131: 131

Michelle watched all the people in the tavern, sitting by tables, drinking, shouting, and playing cards. At the tables in the corners were quieter groups, some making shady deals, some just observing the tavern.

As Michelle glanced around, her gaze met with a tall, robust man with a nasty scar stretching from his forehead, over his neck, and finally hiding from her gaze under his shirt. His eyes were sharp and cold as he stared at Michelle.

Naturally, Michelle felt some lecherous gazes on her, but the gaze of that one man was completely different. He was glaring at her, as if her presence was bothering him.

But he was also studying her, clearly wanting to know why she came to the tavern. In his eyes, she seemed like a naive young lady oblivious to the dangers of the world, but at the same time, it was clear she had gone through some fighting as her clothes had some clear dirt and dried blood on them. Also, in some places, they were a bit torn.

No one could understand why someone who had clearly just come out of the jungle after fighting monsters and beasts was able to smile so sweetly at the old lady when in a tavern full of dangerous individuals.

Michelle stared back at the scarred man for a while before turning back to look at the old lady to continue talking.

“Little girl, why do you insist on staying here? Can’t you see this place is dangerous?” the old lady asked with a slight frown. She took a bit of a liking to Michelle, so she was starting to get curious.

When her question fell, Michelle’s smile widened as she rested her chin on the palm of her hand. “Of course, I can see the danger,” she answered with a grin. “But this place just draws me in.”

“Why is that so?” a cold voice sounded from behind her.

As she turned around to look, she saw the scarred man, sitting on the chair next to her.

“Why does this place draw you in?” he asked again.

Michelle stared at him for a short moment before leaning back in her chair. “Maybe I have an unexplainable liking for danger?” she kicked her foot into the ground and started swinging on the chair a bit, keeping her left hand on the counter in front of her for stabilization.

“What led you to come here?” the man asked with an arched brow. The young girl in front of him clearly wasn’t naive. She was just letting her guard and defenses down for a moment, letting out her inner child.

But he couldn’t understand why. Why did she do it in such a dangerous place? She herself said she knew the place was dangerous, so why did she recklessly show her back to everyone in the tavern, only keeping her eyes on the old lady?

“All the inns in the city were full. A receptionist at the last one told me about this place.” The smile remained on Michelle’s face, but the sweetness of it dimmed a bit.

The man narrowed his eyes as he kept staring at Michelle, swinging on her chair. He couldn’t understand her. She was clearly just a little girl who had no chance of experiencing the real world, but why did it seem like she was perfectly aware of everything that was going on around her, and that was why she dared to let her guard down? Because even when she let it down, she was able to sense any danger and instantly put up her defenses.

But that was a skill the scarred man had only seen in old veterans. Not a young girl, clearly not even seventeen.

The scarred man didn’t have anything more he wanted to ask. In the first place, he just wanted to understand even a little bit about who was the audacious and clueless brat who dared to enter the tavern full of villains. And he was surprised to find out that she was far from clueless. But she did seem audacious.

As the scarred man left, Michelle glanced at his departing back before bidding her farewell to the old lady and going to her room on the highest floor. Though the tavern was clearly a dangerous place, at the moment, it was a safe haven for Michelle, because being in the state she was, with dirt and blood all over her clothes, she was uninteresting to the tavern’s guests.

She was indeed beautiful, which could lure the lechers to her, but she knew they wouldn’t try anything until she left the tavern. And that was for a simple reason. Though the old tavern lady didn’t seem special, no one caused trouble for her as she served the orders to the guests. And that was even though she sometimes brought the wrong drink to them, or even didn’t bring anything. But everyone paid up for what they ordered, even if they never got it.

That alone was proof that no one dared to do anything in the tavern which could anger the old lady. And since Michelle had talked with the old lady for a long time, they wouldn’t touch her while she stayed there.

Also, the room Michelle was staying in didn’t seem normal. When she was walking up the stairs to the highest floor, she saw that the other floors had much more doors than the top floor. Which meant that the rooms on the top floor were bigger.

Lazily entering the room, Michelle let her body fall onto the bed, calmly closing her eyes. She had yet to find a suitable place where she could set the twelve thousand souls free, so she knew she had to leave the city in the morning. No matter how much she liked the tavern or how drawn she felt towards it, she had to leave it.

But no one could know if she would ever return to the city. And no one could know if something didn’t happen that would make her stay in the city a bit longer. That way, she could also spend some time trying to find out why she felt so drawn to the tavern and why when she was with the old lady, her old self was brought out. Her old self from before she was first trained to fight.

In the morning, Michelle woke up when the city was still shrouded in darkness. To her surprise, she could still hear clamor from the ground floor. But that wasn’t what surprised her the most.

Because the moment she opened her eyes, she saw an annoyingly handsome face staring at her from the window. “Did no one teach you to use the door?” she asked with a frown as she sat up. Alexander Terce was the last person she wanted to see. From the moment she entered the city, she knew he was on her tail, but she was hoping she wouldn’t have to interact with him. If he only followed her in the shadows, she could ignore him, but with that infuriating person in front of her, she couldn’t avoid him.

“Why should I use the door when it’s faster through the window?” Alexander said with a sly smile as he pushed himself off the window frame and walked over to Michelle’s bed.

“What do you want from me?” Michelle asked with a frown. Most of the time, she was able to keep her calm, and even when not, she could at least keep her expression in check, but in front of Alexander, she always showed her true emotions; disdain and anger. But her emotions weren’t even that strong when she was with him. They weren’t even strong enough to make her purple eyes turn red. But she just felt more annoyed than when she was feeling intense emotions that she could not contain.

“Take a guess!” Alexander leaned down, putting his face right in front of Michelle’s. “What could I want from you?”

Not liking such an answer, Michelle’s frown deepened as she pushed him aside and got off the bed. A bit surprisingly, he didn’t resist the push and just stepped to the side. “I’m going to change!” she said coldly as she walked to the window and glanced out into the darkness of the city.

Alexander glanced at Michelle and snickered a bit, seeing the state her clothes were in. When she was still covered by the blanket, he couldn’t see it, and the day before, he was only observing her from a distance, so he couldn’t really see what state her clothes were in. “Just what were you doing to end up like that?” he asked, especially curious about the big bloodstain on her back. “And with that much blood, how did you survive the onslaught of beasts and monsters against you?” he added.

Michelle knew she couldn’t get rid of Alexander unless she answered him, so she rolled up her sleeves and flexed the muscles in her forearm, leaving the muscles in her arm in a relaxed state. That was something she would have never been able to do if she didn’t push herself over the limits while she fought the horde of monsters and beasts. By pushing herself over the edge, she gained perfect control over every single skeletal muscle in her body.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep