novellhall Chapter 7 He can't possibly run away as two people when he was already alone, can he?
Chapter 7 He can't possibly run away as two people when he was already alone, can he?
Pushing open the tavern door, John walked beside Rhodes, his discreet gaze lingering on Rhodes' leather armor and the brand-new ash longbow.
That's great! I'll be able to get such a perfect set of equipment soon...
John loved these clueless outsiders the most.
They traveled thousands of miles with all their belongings, but they had no connections in the area, so even if they died, no one would be able to trace their origins.
Especially someone who wears close-fitting leather armor, carries a brand-new bow and arrows, and acts aloof and indifferent—they might just be a young master looking for thrills.
John thought such people were like fat lambs, how could they possibly understand the dangers of the world?
In the past, relying on his honest and kind appearance, John had deceived countless strangers like him.
He always pretends to be enthusiastic in recruiting, describing the passion and excitement of adventure and the generous rewards, then ambushes them when they are not careful during the adventure, or deliberately lures monsters to kill them, and finally plunders everything they have.
In a place like the Misty Forest, there's no need to bother with dealing with the remains, since the monsters will take care of everything for him.
"Brother Hiro, don't worry, just follow me, John. I guarantee you'll make a fortune on this trip," John said with a warm smile.
"That goblin lair isn't big. The four of us working together can take it down easily. We'll give you a bigger bounty then; we definitely won't treat you unfairly."
Rod simply nodded at John's offer of bread, and as soon as he strode out of the tavern, he heard a loud and excited shout.
"Clang clang!"
"This is proof that the legendary adventurer of the future, Lord Don Quixote, has embarked on a great journey!"
Rod instinctively looked over.
A warrior clad in silver armor was proudly displaying his adventure token, while the mage and priest beside him covered their faces and looked away.
Upon seeing them, Rod's eyes lit up.
The perfect warrior-mage-priest combination is exactly the powerful team he's always dreamed of.
The mage, with her keen senses, seemed to have noticed something. She suddenly looked up at Rhodes, and the two met each other's eyes unexpectedly.
"..."
Her gaze swept over Rhodes and John, lingering on Rhodes for a moment before she looked away and resumed her languid demeanor.
He was just a wandering swordsman who knew a little bit of magic, not even as good as those quack sorcerers. Although he was quite conspicuous in this rural place, he wasn't worth her excessive attention.
"Hurry up, hurry up. What's so great about a broken dog tag?" the female mage said impatiently, shoving her companion. "We're not here to play your adventure games."
They walked toward the street corner, chattering away, without glancing at Rod and John again, leaving behind only three conspicuous silhouettes.
John then looked away.
Recently, such easy targets have been appearing one after another in Misty City; this is a sign that we're about to make a fortune!
Unfortunately, there was a mage in their party, which John found very regrettable.
Those knowledge-obsessed lunatics are not easy to deal with. If you act rashly, you might be tracked down by some strange magic and suffer retaliation.
This easy target is already enough for him to make a profit; there's no need to be greedy and take risks.
John's face broke into a憨厚 smile again, and he said to Rod beside him, "Brother Hero, forget about those outsiders, let's go see my companions first. The sooner we set off, the sooner we finish our work and the sooner we can get our share of the reward!"
With that, he led Rod toward the meeting point he and his companions had agreed upon.
As soon as I reached the alley entrance, I saw two figures leaning against the wall chatting.
One was burly, carrying an axe, with a face full of menacing features; the other was thin, dressed in a drab gray outfit, his eyes darting around as he fiddled with a small knife in his hand.
When the two men saw John and Rhodes approaching, they immediately stopped their conversation and their eyes fell on Rhodes, especially on his leather armor and ash longbow. A greedy look flashed across their faces.
John strode forward, and the three exchanged a silent glance, everything understood without a word.
"Brother Hiro, let me introduce you," John said with a simple smile, pointing to the two men. "This is Burke, strong and capable, a top-notch warrior who can definitely protect you; this is Tom, quick and agile, skilled at scouting the road. With him around, we don't need to worry about being ambushed."
Burke nodded perfunctorily to Rhodes, muttering, "Let's get going." Tom grinned, his eyes darting over Rhodes' equipment, a sly smile playing on his lips.
"Now that everyone's here, let's set off immediately!" John suggested, his voice brimming with impatience. "Time waits for no one. If another team steals the bounty from the goblin's lair, all our efforts will have been for nothing!"
Hearing this, Rod shook his head: "Not now, I need to go get something first."
John's smile froze for a moment, and he instinctively tried to persuade him: "Brother Hero, what else do you need? You can get it when you come back."
But he stopped abruptly when he was about to speak.
On second thought, this stranger was wearing brand-new equipment, so he might have left other valuables at his place. If it was something like silver coins or medicine, he could just take it all when he got it and make even more money.
Driven by greed, John immediately adopted a magnanimous demeanor and spoke first: "Brother Hero, you've thought of everything perfectly. Let's all go and make preparations, and meet at the city gate at noon, shall we?"
As he spoke, he winked at his companion who was about to speak, signaling the other two not to rush.
Rhodes glanced at him, nodded, and without saying anything more, turned and walked away into the distance.
Watching Rhodes's figure gradually disappear into the distance, John immediately suppressed his smile, gave Tom a wink, and lowered his voice to say:
"Tom, go and follow him. See what he's going to get. Keep a close eye on him; don't let this fat sheep get away!"
Upon hearing this, Tom immediately perked up and patted his chest to assure him:
"Don't worry, John, tracking is my specialty!"
He was a seasoned thief who had followed at least eighty or a hundred people, and he was confident that such a fat target wouldn't be able to spot him.
After saying that, Tom immediately blended into the crowd and, using the debris on both sides of the street as cover, quietly followed them.
But he didn't expect that Rod's seemingly slow and unhurried pace was actually extremely fast. In no time, he reached the entrance of a narrow alley, and his figure disappeared into the depths of the alley without making a sound.
Tom quickened his pace to catch up, but stopped at the alley entrance.
In his memory, this seemed to be a dead end, with no place to hide. If he went in rashly and was discovered, not only would his tracking be exposed, but he might also alert the enemy and lose what he had almost gotten.
"Hmph, I don't believe you won't come out!" Tom gritted his teeth and squatted down at the corner of the alley.
With such obvious features, how could the other party possibly slip away right under my nose?
Da da da—
Not long after, Tom heard footsteps and looked closely to see a disheveled man and woman coming out.
The man was wearing an ordinary T-shirt and carrying a tattered bundle on his back; he was probably a scavenger. The woman was wearing a wide robe and had her hair tied up with a headscarf. She looked furtive and seemed afraid of being discovered.
Tom, realizing what was happening, showed a look of disgust and contempt.
Judging from their appearance, they are probably two penniless bastards who can't afford a hotel and are having an affair in the alley.
"After this job, I need to go have some fun with 'Nightingale'," he murmured to himself, watching the two leave.
As for the identities of those two people? Tom didn't care at all.
Hero might change his appearance and clothes, but he can't possibly turn into two people and run away right under my nose, can he?
Tom waited at the alley entrance for a long time, watching the sun rise higher and higher, but there was no more movement coming from the alley.
"Damn it, he really got away?" Tom cursed under his breath, but finally stood up and cautiously peeked into the alley.
It was completely empty inside, with nothing but trash and dust everywhere, not a soul in sight.
Did they escape by climbing over the wall?
Thinking of this, Tom could only curse his bad luck inwardly.
…………
…………
"It seems like no one is following us?" Alina looked around and whispered to Rhodes beside her, "But why are we near the church?"
Not long after leaving John's gang, Rhodes, whose senses were enhanced in his combined state, quickly realized that someone was following them.
Considering the striking appearance of the Swift Ranger, the two decided to dissolve their fusion and shake off the pursuers.
"I'm going to see a friend," Rhodes said, handing the package containing a bow and arrows and a quiver to Alina. "Find a place to hide, I'll be right back."
"Where are you going..." Alina paused, then shook her head. "Go ahead, I'll wait for you to come back."
Thinking about it carefully, she didn't seem to have any right to inquire about Rhodes' whereabouts, after all, she still had many secrets she hadn't told Rhodes.
Rod, unsuspecting, settled the other party in and headed towards the nearby church.
Morning prayers had long since ended, and the church was very quiet. Rod skillfully made his way around to the side door of the confessional, thus avoiding the believers praying in the hall and going directly to the priest's lounge.
Standing in front of the lounge door, he wiped the dust off his face and raised his hand to knock.
Hearing "Come in" from inside, Rhodes pushed open the door and saw a wooden table in the center, where Father Galen, dressed in a black robe, was playing King's Chess with a young man in a white shirt opposite him.
Upon seeing Rhodes enter, the young man in white immediately put down the chess piece in his hand and waved familiarly, saying, "Rhodes, you're here. Please have a seat. It feels like it's been a while since I've seen you."
Father Galen nodded to Rhodes, then looked speechlessly at the suddenly disrupted chessboard.
"Lucius, you always secretly take back your moves when you're about to lose," he complained to the young man in white. "Is playing these tricks really in line with your chivalrous code?"
"How could that be? I just accidentally knocked over a few pieces. We can always play another game," the white-shirted youth called Lucius chuckled. "Right, Rhodes?"
"Just restore it." Rhodes raised his hand and set up the chessboard they hadn't finished playing on, exactly as before.
"You memorized the positions of all the chess pieces in just the time it took to walk in?" Lucius exclaimed in surprise. "Just how amazing were you before you lost your memory?"
"Now you can't take back your move, can you?" Father Garen chuckled, then looked at Rhodes with concern and asked, "Speaking of which, it's been two months, Rhodes, haven't you remembered your origins yet?"
Rhodes nodded vaguely and said "hmm," not intending to discuss the matter further.
He didn't want to lie to his two friends, who were also his saviors.
More than two months ago, Father Galen and Lucius found Rhodes unconscious on the riverbank while they were taking a walk along the river. Rhodes claimed to have amnesia, and they could not find any identity or relatives, which put them in a difficult situation.
They wanted to help Rod find a stable job, but most jobs require legal status.
After much deliberation, the two decided to let Rod work as a cemetery caretaker, collecting corpses during the day and guarding the graves at night. Although it was a lowly and unpopular job, at least it provided a free place to stay, and they could also ask Rod to do some chores for them, thus indirectly helping him.
Directly providing financial assistance is not a long-term solution, not to mention that Rod himself is unwilling to accept money given to him for no reason.
"Alright, if you can't remember, that's fine," Garen said with a smile, not surprised by Rhodes' answer. "Think of it in a positive light, maybe he's the missing heir of some noble family."
"Impossible, if he were the heir, he would have come looking for him already," Lucius chimed in. "I bet he's the second son of some powerful family, and they're jealous of his intelligence, so they plotted against him, kicking him out of the family to fend for himself."
In response to their wild speculations, Rhodes interrupted, "No matter what you say, I'm just an ordinary corpse collector now."
To put an end to the topic, Rhodes took out a string of adventurer credentials, placed them on the table, and pushed them in front of Father Garen.
Most of them are wooden apprentice adventurer credentials, jokingly called "dog tags" among the lower classes. Rhodes collected them from the bodies of fallen adventurers while scavenging corpses in the Misty Forest these past few days. After collecting them, he handed them over to Father Garen, who would then be responsible for delivering them to their possible relatives.
"Many more innocent people have lost their lives." Father Galen picked them up, his smile quickly fading, replaced by a hint of guilt and helplessness.
He made the sign of the cross on his chest and said devoutly, "May the Lord bless these poor souls and grant them peace."
"Why do you always pray for these unbelievers?" Lucius, also a believer in the Church, found his compassionate demeanor somewhat unsettling.
"They have never dedicated themselves to the Lord, so how can the Lord bless a group of ungodly people?" He idly played with the chess pieces, his casual tone carrying a hint of disdain.
“All living beings born into this world are believers of the Lord; they are just not yet enlightened and educated,” Father Galen gently put away the wooden plaques, then looked up at Lucius with displeasure. “What I need to do is guide their souls to the Lord’s Kingdom.”
As a transmigrator and also a believer, Rhodes dared not speak on this topic, fearing that he might be dragged out and burned alive if he were to inadvertently expose himself.
After all, the mainstream values promoted in the place he lived before his transmigration were to break down feudal superstitions, not to thank God.
Father Galen and Lucius didn't argue for long; he turned and handed Rhodes several bottles of greenish-blue potions.
"Take these healing potions with you. The Misty Forest has been rather turbulent lately, so be careful."