"Why aren't you finding a seat?"

We stood at the tavern entrance for a while. I finally realized the person who was supposed to lead the way wasn't moving at all. As the "master", she should have been showing us where to sit.

"Mi... Mi..."

I pushed Cyra gently several times from behind, but she still didn't want to move forward. Her lips were shaking like she wanted to say something. Her eyes kept darting around, hinting for me to look towards a corner of the tavern. Then she kept shaking her head slightly, as if warning me not to stare too obviously.

"Mi what?"

I couldn't understand what was going on. Just as I was about to turn my head to look where she was looking, Adrian suddenly stepped forward quickly. He whispered to Cyra: "I see her! Relax, don't be too nervous. She hasn't noticed you yet! Don't forget you're in disguise now. She won't recognize you. Just act like you don't know anything and sit down!"

"Huh?"

As he finished speaking, I finally saw who Cyra was pointing at. My whole back went cold. I almost couldn't help turning around and running out of the tavern.

In the right corner of the small tavern by the window sat a young girl. She had fiery red hair and looked exactly like Cyra. Without realizing it, she had caught the attention of many customers around her, many were secretly looking at her.

If I'm not mistaken, that must be Michelle! She was casually sipping from her wine glass, looking out the window one moment and then scanning the tavern the next. But she clearly hadn't recognized me or Cyra.

I never expected Michelle to come drink alone in a place like this. What was her purpose? To capture this city? But it didn't seem like that. The only explanation must be related to the Cycle of Birth that Galadra mentioned. Whatever she was planning to do, we absolutely couldn't let her discover our true identities.

"Don't keep looking over there. Let's just order food like normal!"

With Adrian's reminder, Cyra finally managed to walk to an empty table and lead us to sit down. According to our original plan, to make things look more real, we were going to have Cyra sit alone at one table while Adrian and I, the "servants", sat at another. But now the situation was tense and we couldn't worry about that anymore.

"Waiter, bring us your menu to look at!"

As soon as we sat down, Adrian immediately pretended to speak for Cyra, raising his hand to call the server. There was only one female server in the small tavern. We had to call several times before she responded. She wore a big apron and looked very busy moving between tables.

This series of calls once again drew everyone's attention. Most troubling was that Michelle heard it too. She turned her head to look at us more carefully. Her eyes quickly scanned over my face and Cyra's, then lingered on Adrian's face for a while, as if trying hard to remember something.

In that moment, I felt my scalp tingling. I thought we were about to be exposed. Luckily, she didn't seem to recognize Adrian in the end. After a long time, she finally looked away. She finished her drink in one gulp, left a few coins on the table, then stood up and left the tavern.

That was so nerve-wracking! We all looked at each other, nearly scared to death. It took a while to calm down. Only then did I remember that although Michelle had met Adrian once before, Adrian passed out quickly at that time. So her impression of him probably wasn't very deep. Plus, for her that happened over a year ago (this Michelle was sent back in time a year by the twelve-winged Nicola). It's normal that she didn't recognize him after so much time had passed.

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"What would you like to eat? Our specialties include charcoal-grilled wild ox tenderloin, garlic-roasted ram chops, red-braised Nalzas eel, and many more. They're very popular with our customers. For drinks, you can try our local homemade clay pot red wine. It's all made by burying clay pots in the ground. Very special! Very nutritious and pure-tasting..."

The server finally came, handing us a menu and skillfully introducing the restaurant's dishes. But we had just gone through a scare and weren't in the mood to choose carefully. In the end, Adrian made the decision.

"Just bring us one of each thing you recommended. We don't need any alcohol!"

"No problem, please wait a moment!"

The server happily took back the menu and ran to the kitchen.

I was about to say something, but Adrian waved his hand to stop me.

"I know you have a lot to say, but there are many people here and your voices could easily give you away. Let's wait until after we eat to discuss details!"

We all understood this. Michelle had already left anyway, so there was no rush. But as the food started arriving and all kinds of dishes filled the table, I finally couldn't help asking Adrian quietly:

"Why are there so many specialties at this restaurant? Can we finish all this?"

"Uh..." (；一_一)

Adrian, who had been stuffing noodles in his mouth non-stop, looked up at the situation on the table. After a long pause, he answered with twitching lips.

"Who cares! We can pack up the leftovers. Besides, we still have her!"

He finished by nodding towards the "young master" sitting across from us. Several empty plates were already stacked in front of Cyra. She had been silently battling with the food this whole time.

Is she really a pig? I could hardly close my mouth watching this scene. I'd never seen an angel eat so much before. It completely changed what I thought was possible! Luckily angels have special bodies that don't get fat easily. Otherwise, given her eat-sleep-eat-sleep lifestyle, she probably would have turned into a ball long ago.

The meal passed without much talk. Our disguises saved us a lot of unnecessary trouble. We also got to eavesdrop on people around us talking about the nearby military base, but unfortunately we didn't learn anything special.

"We're facing a new situation now!"

After eating, we didn't waste any time. We went straight back to our cart and had a very short meeting. Adrian sat in the driver's seat, watching our surroundings while talking to me and Cyra through the inner window.

"Michelle appearing in this town proves that Galadra's worries were right! We need to be even more careful from now on. It's getting late, and there's not much time left before the Cycle of Birth appears."

"But we only saw Michelle alone just now. She can't be planning to take the Cycle of Birth all by herself, right? Where are her followers?"

I still didn't understand. From what we saw, Michelle seemed like she was just here as a tourist. We didn't sense any monster auras around her either. If we hadn't fought her several times before, it would be hard to connect her with that ruthless monster leader!

"It's a very long way from the barren lands in the north to here. If Michelle lost the 'Eye of Galadra' and doesn't have any other teleportation devices, then it's impossible for many monsters to quietly cross the continent to get here. Even if she brought followers, there can't be too many!"

Adrian thought for a moment, rubbing his chin. He quickly came up with a reason. "The only place they could hide is probably in the forest outside the city. It's easy to hide a few monsters there. If their target really is the Cycle of Birth, they probably won't do anything to alert anyone before it appears."

"In the forest? Then what do we do? If we wanted to sneak out and destroy her followers while Michelle is in the city, that won't work now, will it?"

Cyra sounded discouraged when she heard this. She had just managed to reach level 6 and thought that even if she couldn't beat Michelle, she could at least take care of some minions. But the forest around Sifur is huge. When we were flying in the sky before, we couldn't even see where it ended. This town is just a tiny part of it. So it's impossible to easily find traces of monsters.

"Don't do anything rash! If Michelle dared to bring followers so far away, and she couldn't bring many, then they must all be elites! There might even be some as strong as Fernando. If you act carelessly, even if you find them, how could you beat them?"

Adrian immediately warned her when he heard this. Cyra of course knew how strong Fernando was. She had lost to him several times. After hearing this, she quickly shut up and didn't dare say more.

"So let's ignore it for now!"

Now I finally knew what to do. Without Adrian saying more, I immediately made plans for what to do next. "Since Michelle didn't recognize us, it's still safe to stay in this town for now. We can continue with our original plan and pretend to be merchants seeking the lord's help. After all, we still need to save Reed. We don't have much time left."

Suddenly I felt a lot of pressure. For various reasons, several very powerful groups have gathered in this unknown place. Our task isn't just to rescue Reed, we also have to keep the Cycle of Birth safe from Michelle. This really isn't an easy job!