Chapter 1437 - The Minion (2/2)

They sashayed across the streets during the curfew hours and looked around sneakily, which was a dead giveaway.

Who are these guys? Are they monsters that specialize in hunting other monsters? Or is it a new trick from the Church to hunt for the witches? Gray Rat thought to himself.

Suddenly, the man and woman stopped.

Gray Rat’s heart skipped a beat. He knew that he had been exposed.

Before he knew it, the woman in the long skirt had disappeared from his field of vision, and a faint shadow flashed across the street. The next second, a pair of iron, clamp-like hands grabbed his neck and pressed down tightly on his right shoulder. A cold female voice said, “Don’t move. Otherwise, I’ll tear you apart.”

When Gray Rat heard the warning, he was instead, relieved. He knew that it was neither the Bloodthrall nor the Infected Werewolf, which would not have bothered to say a word before killing him.

Gray Rat knew he would live since the person was talking. At worst, he would have to serve one more master.

Hao Ren curiously looked at the thin man, whom Lily had subdued.

At first glance, Hao Ren thought that the man was a beggar, as they were ubiquitous throughout the slums in that era. Dry and thin like a pole, with curly yellow hair and a pair of dodgy gray eyes, the man was wearing raggedy, grayish-black linen. The man had probably never washed the linen since it left the factory; it stank to the high heavens. Perhaps the smell could have come from the street since the surroundings did not smell much nicer.

Despite that, Hao Ren quickly realized that the guy in front of him was definitely not a beggar. A beggar could not afford such a pair of leather boots. Under the tattered linen was a set of clean and tidy clothes, which indeed did not belong to a homeless person.

Lily had also mentioned earlier that the guy carried the smell of potions.

“Whose minion are you?” Hao Ren looked at the man inquisitively. He was reminded of what Hasse had told him about the era. “Who gave you the potion?”

Gray Rat shook like a leaf. He figured that such a reaction would please his captors. The trick always worked whether it was a monster or a hunter. He tried to figure out who Hao Ren and Lily were, but he was none the wiser. So, he lowered his head and grabbed the button of his coat. “Sir, with all due respect, my name is Gray Rat. I’m just a nobody living in the gutter. My previous master has left me, so if you’d like, I am now your minion.”

Sure enough, just as Hasse said, this group of sneaky people had no loyalty. They were as stupid as they were slippery.

“I’m giving you a second chance to reorganize your answer,” Hao Ren said as he signaled Lily to increase her clamping force. “Don’t try to fool us. We can smell the fresh potions on your body. Who are you currently serving? What’s in this city?”

Hao Ren did not use “who” but “what”, as it was one of the special terms he had to use when communicating with minions.

The force from Lily’s hand had almost broken Gray Rat’s shoulder blade, but her hand around his neck made it so that he could not make a sound. When the unbearable pain slightly eased, Gray Rat could finally breathe again. “I will tell you, I will tell you. Witches… A few witches and a wizard. They’ve only recently gathered in this town. A witch who’s said to be very powerful was caught a few days ago. They’ve probably come to save her.”

“A witch?” Hao Ren frowned. He anticipated that they would be supernatural creatures searching for “Vivian’s treasure”, but a captured witch was a surprise. Was it a real witch? Or just an unfortunate victim in the witch-hunting craze?

Hao Ren looked at the man who called himself Gray Rat. His dry skin and skinny body made sense now. It was most probably the long-term sequelae of taking inferior potions. Even now, Gray Rat still carried the scent of the potions. The minion thought that he had gained the physique of a superhuman, but little did he know that it came with the cost of shortening his lifespan. The guy’s existence was enough to show that witches and wizards were real. The so-called captured witch should also be true.

Did the gathering of the wizards there have something to do with Vivian’s hibernation place?