“Come on, Clive. Drink! Drink!”

Night had already arrived, and those kids were still going with their antics. I didn’t have any chance to leave yet… for a while, Jalal had been forcing me to drink, or at least he tried. He dropped half of the drink on the way and the other half on my clothes since my mouth was closed.

“Hahaha! You sure can drink!”

Gao was already passed out with his face on the table, while Rebecca was still sipping on her cup of ale. I looked around for Clarice. She was facing another group of guys at a table and trying to pick a fight with them since they refused her when she was looking for a party. At least it was the last day I would have to deal with these morons.

“I guess this is my cue to leave. I am going to get the first train tomorrow, so I need to pack my things. See ya.”

“... You know what? We are going to help! It was time for me to face Granny and show her how much I had gotten stronger! Let’s go, Gao! Rebecca!”

Great. Drunkards, having drunkard ideas… What could go wrong? Perhaps I should just knock them out. That should be easy with their current situation. I didn’t want to leave the city with a lot of people looking at me after they made a scene.

“Go see your grandma tomorrow. You will only embarrass yourself if you go now.”

I put Jalal back to his chair, and it felt like he lost all of his willpower the next moment. After that, I headed to the exit of the tavern. This wasn’t much of a goodbye, but at least we partied for a bit.

Clarice noticed me and then waved her hand at me. I just silently nodded and then left. I let out a sigh when I left the tavern. I was doing that a lot lately… in any case, I decided to use camouflage just in case those guys decided to follow me. While there was a lot of light on the streets, I could move well in the darkness of the streets without being noticed.

I stopped using the scrolls when I saw the old lady’s house. Still, I soon noticed that something was off because there were some guards in front of the old lady’s house. That made me have a very bad feeling about that…

‘What is going on? She didn’t mention receiving visits as of late…’

I decided to remain in the darkness and approach the place without being noticed. I grabbed a bunch of scrolls to be ready to use them at a moment’s notice. I tried to listen to the sounds coming from the interior of the house, but I couldn’t… I didn’t have to return really since I only left some small things behind, but I was curious to learn about what had happened there.

To make things even more complicated, I noticed those four approaches. They were drunk, but they began to sober up when they realized that something was off in the house of the old lady. While wobbling around, Jalal approached the house in a hurry and then was stopped by the guards.

“No one can enter.”

“This is my home! My grandma lives here! What happened here?”

The guards looked at each other and then opened the path for Jalal to enter the house. The others soon followed him… for some reason, Clarice had her expression darkened.

‘Shit, what the hell is going on here?’

“Grandma! Grandma!”

I heard Jalal’s shouts and I couldn’t help but sweat cold. This wasn’t a good sign… fortunately, Jalal didn’t shout many times more. I had to wait for a while before I saw Clarice leaving the house by herself. She had her head down, and then she looked straight at me for a moment… even though I was using camouflage.

In the next moment, she left the area and then headed to the Western gate of the City. I decided to follow her for a while until she stopped and then got into a dark alley. It seemed that we were up to no good by meeting in a place like that.

“What happened?”

Clarice kept her head down while she stayed silent and with her arms crossed. She took her time before she decided to answer that question.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“The old lady was found today unconscious… people felt the smell of something burning inside her house and the guards went to check. Her lunch had burned, and the guards found her unconscious on the ground. She fell and hit her head.”

“It wasn’t a simple accident? Was it?”

“They found vestiges of a broken sleeping potion in one of the rooms. It didn’t look like someone had thrown it there and the smell made the old lady faint all of a sudden… it was on the side of the bed, right on the side of a backpack that fell from the bed as well.”

I left a backpack there with clothes and some simple tools. Traveling without one would make me look suspicious. It would be the same as advertising that I had a magic bag.

“It was in my room, wasn’t it?”

“Yes… but a potion like that, I know the people that use them. I could tell by the smell. The potion can’t cause death, but it can make a person stay unconscious for a week or two. If someone of her age stays unconscious for that period, their health would weaken severely.”

It looked like someone tried to blame me for that kind of accident. An assassination would be weird while we were in the dungeon… it wouldn’t make any sense, but I still could be put in jail for causing something like that. It was probably someone with ties with that group of elves… but they worked too fast. They didn’t want to target Clarice directly, they just wanted to pass a message.

“She is conscious, but… she doesn’t remember anything. I am sorry.”

I opened my eyes widely… that was really unfortunate. Someone of that age and without memories. That was a word of magic, so perhaps she could recover them with some healing magic, but Rebecca should have tried that already.

“I tried to explain to Jalal that it wasn’t your fault… but I couldn’t give the details.”

I could understand why… it wouldn’t change anything. Even if she told the people that Elves were involved, that would only cause more problems involving humans and Elves. In the worst-case scenario, it would start a war. Still, even that was very unlikely… few people would want to risk a conflict when the start was an accident that an old lady suffered that made her lose her memories.

“Aren’t you angry with me? If I hadn’t come here, then…”

“A person doesn’t choose the conditions in which they are born or the people that are around them when they grow up.”

Besides, thanks to Clarice’s help, we cleared the dungeon faster. Thanks to the people close to her, the adventurer Clive is now a wanted man. It was insane that I had three identities and all three of them were being wanted. All this incident was a good lesson… Working with others doesn’t work for me. Keeping a low profile and trying to avoid problems is only a short route to find even more trouble.

“Where are you going?”

I turned around and then Clarice stopped me. She almost approached and then tried to grab my shoulder, but she hesitated in the end.

“I need to see him and check things by myself.”

“You shouldn’t… he was very angry.”

“Understandable. She is his only family left. Well, I won’t show myself directly.”

“What are you going to do afterward?”

“Sharpen my fangs and get ready if people like that try to mess with me again.”

“I am sorry…”

I left the dark alley and then Clarice soon did the same and then headed to the western exit of the town. I returned to the area where the old lady’s house was just in time to see those three leaving the building.

Jalal was trembling thanks to the anger and the other two were following him without hesitation… They all soon headed in the direction of the train station. It looked like they were serious about this.

“Are we really going to do this, Jalal?”

“What do you think?! He didn’t show up at the house even though he left before us! It is clear that he is feeling guilty over this and that he is running away from the guards! If this weren’t his fault, he wouldn’t be hiding! I will kill him with or without your help!”

Gao trembled a bit after hearing that, but he still followed Jalal. Rebecca couldn’t say anything, but she wasn’t planning to leave them either. She knew that if a fight truly broke, her friends would need her.

That change of behavior was truly almost astonishing. Yesterday, Jalal was putting his arm on my shoulder and acting like we were best friends, but now he was saying that. I could tell that it was the anger of a teenager who wasn’t using his head properly, but I couldn’t tell if his anger would go away or not. I wasn’t going to wait to confirm that.

I turned around and then moved in the opposite direction. This whole incident really brought things into perspective… As long as people see me as a pushover, as long as they look at me and see a kid, something like that might happen again if I bump into such a similar group of people. I didn’t have to meet another Clarice for me to get the short end of the stick. It happened when I was with the twins, and when I was with Louise as well. I got involved in a mess that I had nothing to do with and now the underworld was aware of me.

‘Talimor and Aelonia… The Twilight Brotherhood and the Unseen Arrow. As long as I live here, I can’t escape groups like that… I need to be ready to face them if push comes to the shove. I also need to become something that they should fear as well. Fortunately, I know what I should do…’

After I reached the southern gate of the city, I found a lot of guards there. Still, passing by them would be easy. I just climbed the wall on the side while using camouflage. When I reached the top of the wall, I used another scroll and then climbed down the wall.

In front of me, there was a dense and dark forest. It was impossible to tell what would be waiting for me in it, but it didn’t stop me.