Chapter 48 The Fire (1/2)

That evening, Soran left the place where the merchant squad was staying. Currently, he lacked the ability to guide Vivian on the path to becoming a successful sorcerer. Unless he decided to choose wizard as his side profession, Vivian would have to learn new spells on her own. It would be a rough journey for her, and she might cause damage to herself by mistake as well; in a sense, it was something elite sorcerers had to experience due to their talents.

After taking this into consideration, he decided to let Vivian stay with Gloria for now, but he definitely would not allow her to take her away forever. Now that they were stuck and had nothing to do, Soran decided to take the chance to go on a short adventure. He had to become stronger; that thought was further reinforced by the scene of Vivian clinging onto his clothes while crying after the lengthy conversation with Gloria earlier.

Time did not wait. If he used the same methods as he had in the game, he would not be strong enough to protect himself, let alone Vivian, when the Time of Troubles began. Now that there was an opportunity, Soran decided to seize it. Although the ancient red dragon's existence had yet to be confirmed by the people, the chain of events caused by its appearance was already occurring. In the past, he would have had to venture into the wilderness in order to find monsters. However, all the monsters living near the Dark Swamp had been flushed out by the intense dragon aura; this meant that Soran no longer had to go deep into the wilderness to find them. There were pretty much monsters everywhere if he travelled just a few days away from the city.

If he was lucky and did not encounter some dangerous monsters, he could even gain up to 1000 Slaughter EXP a day. At that rate, he could raise his profession to Grade 3 in a week. It would take at least a week or two before the roads would clear up anyway, so the timing was perfect.

Food, water, weapons, bandages, potions, antidotes, insect repellents… Soran zigzagged through the commercial district as he went on a shopping spree for supplies. He did not stop until his multi-dimensional bag was almost full and most of his savings were gone.

It was now late at night.

After hearing what had happened back at the tavern from Vivian, Soran could not let them off the hook so easily. He was now hiding in a dark alley close to the tavern. Due to the deteriorating public security recently, guards were patrolling the streets more frequently. Someone suggested implementing a night curfew as well, but that had not been approved as of yet.

Most of the customers had requested refunds and switched taverns after someone died there in the middle of the day. The tavern was now lacking customers, thus it was rather quiet.

There was a candle lamp on the bar counter, and in front of it sat Calvin and Moroder, who had cramped expressions.

”Moroder. Are you fucking retarded? The guy you sent was such shit, he couldn’t even handle an eight-year-old girl! What the hell?”

Moroder growled in response.

”How is that possible! Lascaux is by no means weaker than the city guards! Something must have gone wrong. Someone else might have taken and sold the girl and even killed Lascaux.”

At the back of his mind though, he had other thoughts; namely, that Lascaux had actually failed. Not only did he fail to kidnap the girl, he was also killed by her.

But that sounded extremely ridiculous. How could a little girl kill a man who had undergone professional combat training and had an advanced profession?

The floor trembled ever so slightly, and noises could be heard in the distance. Moroder looked up and signalled his hitman to be alert. As a human trafficker in the slums, Moroder was always cautious of his surroundings.

An underling came rushing in and shouted, ”Boss! The warehouse's on fire!”

It was unknown when the fire in the warehouse started, but it was now spreading across the building, almost burning the kitchen.

Gale, who was sitting at the bar counter, sounded exasperated as he yelled, ”Dumbass! Go put it out!”

The dozen or so workers in the tavern began busily pouring water from the water tank in the tavern to the spreading fire. Moroder, on the other hand, calmly sat there. He looked around, then sneakily left the tavern through the side door at a speed disproportionate to his body size. His intuition was telling him that the fire was way too abrupt; someone might be trying to assassinate him. Moroder remembered that the young man who left the tavern at noon had yet to return; he might be lighting the place on fire as revenge.

After exiting the tavern through the side door, Moroder placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and looked around. He was about to dart into the main street when a crossbow bolt shot out from the darkness and struck him. He cried in pain as his body shuddered, but the cry was overshadowed by something else.

_Boom!_

Explosions could be heard. The liquor in the warehouse caught fire, causing explosions one after another. The ear-deafening sound roared through the area, and the ground shook. The guards nearby were instantly alerted.

The second bolt came flying from above. Moroder was aware of the surprise attack, so he managed to barely dodge this time, the bolt merely scraping his cheek. Much to his surprise, the enemy was located on the rooftop of one of the nearby buildings. Moroder realised the assassin was using an enhanced crossbow at this point and rolled toward the building while drawing his weapon. Crossbows had rather low firing rates; this assassin, however, could fire two shots in quick succession, meaning he was a proficient crossbow user.

Moroder was not wearing any protective equipment; his thick layer of fat could not deflect crossbow bolts either. He gasped for air, but the numbing sensation spreading from the wounds prevented him from doing so. His body was stiffening, and he could do nothing but drop to the ground.

_It was poisonous... Wyvern poison?!_

Moroder, who often dealt with others from the Grey Realm, quickly realised what he was hit with and was overwhelmed by despair.

A shadow leapt down from the second floor of the building, drawing a gleaming cold line in the air with a curved sword. Moroder's neck was severed in an instant, his head detaching from his body.

Soran, who was wearing a mask, stood in front of the corpse and looked at it coldly. Using the walls as his footholds, he leapt back to the second floor of the building he was hiding in. The Whiterun guards would be here in less than ten minutes, meaning he only had at most five more minutes to kill his enemies in order to have sufficient time to escape. The fire began to spread rampantly as the buildings were made out of wood; the city might even mobilize priests and wizards to put out the fire using magic.

A familiar data log appeared.

”Successfully eliminated target!”

”Extracting soul energy from target… Received 180 Slaughter Experience Points.”

Under the cover of the dark night, Soran ran on the rooftops and approached the tavern, reloading the crossbow as he ran.He had smeared wyvern poison on the bolts beforehand.