abcnovels
Volume 1 - Ch 5.05
Volume 1 - Ch 5.05
After I ate my meal and returned to my room to have a short rest, there was this thought that stuck in my head and didnt want to leave no matter how hard I tried to divert my attention away from it.
Whether its my death or the death of a common Bandit or even an ordinary citizen or members of the nobility, this world is the one where death is incredibly cheap and easy to come across. And whether I like it or not, I have to live in such a world now. This is one thing that is similar to my old world: if someone is standing in your way, all you have to do to ruin that someones life it to make him a criminal in the eyes of the public, and that would be enough for his reputation to be destroyed. As much as I want to say that its nice to see that some things do not change even in different worlds, this is one thing that I would have gladly got ridden of.
And speaking of criminals, it would seem that I have no other option but to go deeper into the slum area if I want to find where the Bandits are hiding. What was that old saying again? You wont catch the tigers cub if you wont enter its den or something like that? Or was it actually You wont get a fetus unless you stick it in the hole?
Anyway, after leaving the inn I made my way to the slums, but instead of only lurking around its edges this time I actually went inside, making my way to the north along the slums main road. Along the way, I saw that one of the street corners was especially bright and lively. It was a building like any other, about one story high with the entrance and the windows facing the road, but that was most definitely a brothel. How can I be so sure of that? Well for starters, the woman standing in front of the building had only the bare minimum of clothing covering her body, and the other similarly dressed women were peeking from the windows on the first floor, seductively beckoning any men who were passing by to come inside. I have to admit, it all looked very inviting, totally different than it was during the daytime, and if I wasnt warned about the dangers of such establishments before, maybe I would have allowed myself to be swallowed up by that atmosphere and my adolescent desires as well
No! I didnt come here to visit brothels! I am on a much more important mission! I wont be entering, but maybe, just maybe I could look at them girls some more oh man this is exciting. Just from looking at them practically flashing all the goods out in the open like that my heart is racing like crazy
Wait. Dude, just stop, take a deep breath and calm yourself down! Remember the warning you claimed to have known not even a minute ago. If you go there, you will most certainly catch some nasty illness. You also might end up ripped off and robbed. So what is the obvious solution to all those problems? A very simple one: NOT GOING INSIDE! Besides, those prostitutes might be attractive, but upon closer inspection none of them is as beautiful as Roxanne, so even if I did entered the brothel I dont think Id be satisfied with any of the girls in there. So instead, I decided to keep my distance and eavesdrop on the prostitutes in front of the building. Who knows, maybe Ill be able to learn something interesting? Assuming that the bustling of the main street will allow me to hear a damn thing.
Thankfully, the noise of the surroundings wasnt the problem in the slightest, but another obstacle has presented itself before me: I cant understand a word of what that prostitute was saying. I heard her talking without any issue, but she was not speaking in Brahim. She was using some language that was totally unknown to me. In fact, none of the people around the brothel seemed to be speaking in Brahim at all! I guess I wasnt paying attention to that little detail up until this point because I could communicate with the Innkeeper and the workers in the guilds just fine, but it looks like the linguistic situation is the same here as it was back in the village: the people who are able to speak Brahim appear to be a strict minority. Instead, they must be speaking with a language, or perhaps a dialect used only by the locals. Well, if I search around some more, then maybe Ill be able to find a prostitute who actually speaks Brahim, so that might be worth a shot.
I wandered around the slums until the light in my rented lantern went out, and then decided to head back to the inn by using Warp. I could have returned back on foot, but after concluding that strolling around the slums without any light at such an hour might not be the best idea I decided against it. Besides, even if I had to back on foot, I dont know if I could find my way around the slums in complete darkness. I could probably get back to the brothel area because it was not that far away from the main part of the city, but anything other than that would just be plain risky.
In order not to attract any needles attention to myself I warped behind the inn and then casually went to the front. After returning the lantern to the Innkeeper, I went back to my room to catch some zs.
I woke up around midnight, went to the lobby, left the key at the counter and headed for the slums one more time. The Innkeeper game me a glance, but didnt ask any further questions. The streets were dark as all hell, but I managed to go back to the brothel area without much difficulty. I wanted to eavesdrop on the prostitutes again, but it looks like all of them either went to sleep of retreated to the brothels rooms with the customers they manage to score for themselves. Welp, in that case, lets scan the surroundings with Identify, maybe that is going to yield some results.
The information of a single person appeared before my eyes. So there is someone here after all. Also, I already kinda knew it from my excursions to the Labyrinth, but it looks like the ability to Identify something does not depend on the light in your immediate surroundings, since Identify also worked in the dim light of the caverns.
The person I detected was a lone 26 years old Villager woman. It looked like she was some distance away from me, but in this darkness I couldnt tell exactly how far it really was. But that is not important right now. The biggest question tha has to be answered right now is: what the hell is she doing alone in such a place at such an odd hour?
I tried to follow her while making as little noise as possible, but after a few steps I had to duck behind one of the nearby houses walls because the corner of the building on the other side of the street has suddenly became very bright. Looks like someone who was carrying a torch was coming in the direction of the woman.
There were three men in total. And their designation Bandits! All three of them are labeled as Bandits! That is the first time I have actually found Bandits ever since Ive come to this town a few days ago. But their levels are quite low. All of them had a single digits. Out of all the Bandits who attacked the village, only two of them had decent prizes for their heads: the Bandit Leader and the guy who looked like his second-in-command, in other words, the only Bandits who had their levels consisting of two digits. By the looks of it, if the Bandit does not have a level consisting of at least two digits, so Lv.10 at minimum, the prize for slaying him will be so laughably miniscule that hunting them almost seems like a waste of ones time.
The three Bandits began to move apart from one another, but close enough to each other to stay withing the light of their torches and jump at the potential prey should the need arose. Man, I already feel sorry for whoever is going to stumble upon them. I was seriously contemplating if I should just get the fuck out of there by using Warp when I heard someone scream. Alerted, the three Bandits turned their heads sharply and headed for the screams source. But who could have been
Oh no. Oh fuck. Oh fuck no.