"It's so lively here!" someone at the door said warmly, "It's been a long time since I've heard everyone laughing so heartily."
Rody looked up and saw a man in his forties entering. He had flaxen long hair and a scruffy beard on his chin, giving him an especially weathered look. His eyes were calm, like still water, making it hard to gauge his depth. Rody noticed that the man's left sleeve was empty, and he wore a plain bronze sword at his right side. It was clear that this man used to be a left-handed swordsman. Although he had lost his left hand, years of habit remained unchanged.
The man's clothes were ordinary warrior attire, washed white, with no discernible original color. His boots, unlike those of ordinary men, were very clean, without a speck of dirt. This wasn't due to cleaning, but rather a walking habit.
Rody paid close attention and indeed noticed that the man's steps were very slow, each step exactly the same distance as the last, incredibly precise.
"Gavin, did you also come over because you smelled the fragrance of a beautiful woman?" a man in black joked.
"Eh? There really is a beautiful woman!" The one-armed man's eyes lit up when he saw Rody's mother, but then he looked at Rody and smiled, "It seems beside the beautiful mother, there's also an impressive little guardian. Is this the little guy who made Bruce bend over and unable to speak? That's really satisfying. Bruce, I guess you've learned your lesson about being arrogant."
"If it weren't for him being a little brat, I would've torn him apart!" The burly man was still unable to sit, leaning on the table and gasping.
"To flirt with a beauty, just having a foul mouth isn't enough." Everyone burst into laughter and whistled.
"Right, you at least need to have the ability to take a beating," the one-armed man chuckled, "I heard early this morning that someone got beaten up for flirting with a beauty. It really lifted my spirits. Looks like I can't keep the silver coins in my pocket safe. Stacy, could you make me a martini when you have time?"
"You want a drink, pour it yourself. There are no servants here to wait on you! I'm not in the mood right now, and nobody should be acting drunk here! Also, don't call me Stacy, that's not a nickname you can use! You guys can only call me Anastasia!" The female tavern owner, who could outdrink water, burped and pointed at Rody, "You, and her, if you want to stay here, come with me."
"I dare say, you're the most characterful tavern owner on the continent," the one-armed man laughed and went to pour himself a drink.
"If you haven't watered down the drinks, then you'll have to pay twenty percent more!" The tavern owner leaned down, her breath reeking of alcohol, and huffed at Rody, "What are you still standing there for? Getting room and board is already good, do you still want to negotiate a wage with me?"
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And so, Rody and his mother settled down in the town of Whitestone.
Gradually, he got to know the people of the town. Apart from the outsiders who took refuge there each year, almost no one was what you'd call 'normal'. They were either lunatics, hotheads, scoundrels, or thieves. Most were mercenaries, some were disabled veterans who had retired from the battlefield, and a few, like Rody, were wanderers who had come from other places and stayed on unintentionally.
The burly man who nearly injured Rody was named Bruce. He was the deputy leader of one of the two mercenary squads in town, who went into the Silent Forest each year to hunt magical beasts for their pelts to exchange for drinking money. His greatest pastime was flirting with women. Although he was lecherous, he was not a rapist. He often paid to spend nights at the house of Amanda, a prostitute in a small cabin on the opposite mountain, but there was no talk of him ever being violent with her.
The man in black was neither named Isaac nor 'Jack the Ripper' – those were his aliases and the nickname used by the authorities on the mainland who wanted him. Rody didn't know his real name, but the one-armed swordsman Gavin sometimes called him 'Crow'. This guy seemed to be a lone assassin who always aimed for people's vital points, as if constantly looking for an opportunity to strike.
As for the others, each had their own peculiarities. In short, not a single person in this town was normal.
The female tavern owner was the fiercest and most formidable woman in town, and no one dared to mess with her. In her words, if she didn't show those dirty men a thing or two now and then, they'd start getting itchy.
After living there for a while, Rody not only found her less terrifying than before but actually quite agreeable.
However, he couldn't understand why she drank so much. He had never seen anyone drink like her. If you totaled up the number of bottles, she could drink all the men in town under the table. The tavern owner was perpetually drunk, and since Rody lived in the small cabin behind hers, sometimes he couldn't bear to watch. He would drag her drunk body back to her house, throw her onto the bed, and if she was vomiting severely, he would even help her drink some water and wipe her down.
Although the tavern owner was a woman, Rody believed that no man in the world could find her body sexually appealing.
The tavern owner had a great figure – curvy where she should be and slender where it mattered. If it weren't for the terrifying tattoos covering her entire body, she would be considered a top beauty among women. However, no man in town dared to give her body more than a glance, including Rody. His fingers would tremble with fear when he wiped her body.
Her tattoos were not ordinary ink work, but a kind of terrifying curse. If someone's hand lingered a bit too long on her skin, the tattoos would seem to come to life, moving as if they were about to burst out and bite the hand. It was truly horrifying.
At first, the tavern owner would glare at Rody angrily the next day after he undressed her to wipe her down, but as it happened more often, she no longer cared.
Rody's mother found work as an assistant to Granny Ann, the herbal potion seller not too far away. Her basic wage was two silver coins, and if the sales increased, she would get a silver coin for every two gold coins worth of potions sold.
Days passed by, and Rody spent every day training his mental strength. During the day, he practiced controlling rabbits hopping around and two mantises flying or fighting each other, honing his multitasking skills. At night, he practiced qi with Marcus's skull, earth magic with Emma's skull, and most importantly, necromancy with Nicholas's skull. This was his basic means of survival and his ultimate hope for progressing towards becoming a strong fighter.
However, Rody's peace was disturbed when a pair of sisters arrived in town. They used to come often to buy magic crystals and quality furs and sell magical ornaments and armors. They usually stayed for a month or two before leaving, but for some unknown reason, they had now settled down.
The sisters were no ordinary humans; they were said to be the mixed offspring of a succubus and a fairy. Identical twins, it was impossible to tell who was older. They both had purple hair, twisted horns, slender tails, large eyes, wore revealing clothes, and had voluptuous figures and flirtatious personalities.
Their hobby was to tease every man in town. But everyone knew the dangers of succubi, and no one dared to mess with these sisters, who were rumored to be able to drain a man dry with just one encounter.
Seeing all the men in town scared stiff of them, the succubi sisters turned their attention to Rody, the newcomer.
"Little brother Rody, come to our cabin tonight. We'll show you something fun that you'll get addicted to," they would often say to him, especially before bedtime.