"Sir, this is too little for the food you ate."
"Mister, don’t treat like those country bumpkins, I have checked your nu and calculated the amount properly. This is what I owe you and that’s what I am going to pay you."
"Sir, that is just the price of the food normally, but there is also the service tax and the seating tax involved, which brings the price up by 12 dirium..."
"You’re just scamming people, aren’t you? Where else do you pay so much just for seating? All of that is involved in the food itself."
"Sir we would have to call for the police if you don’t pay for the food."
It was a casual drama that had happened in the restaurant multiple tis and many regulars in the restaurant just looked at the young man with distaste.
The man says that he is not a country bumpkin, but is acting like one unaware of how it is in the big cities. You always have to pay extra for virtually everything. More so when the City he was in was the very Capital of the Cynark Empire, the city of Rudrain.
And like the others expected, the young man was finally forced to pay the proper amount and more so as a trauma tax to the restaurant, before being kicked out and barred out of it forever.
"This shit place." The food was good, but the service was horrendous, or so he believed. "I have little left now." The man’s na was Heroth Majma, born in a small village, but most of the life, but most of his life, he sailed the seven seas as a porter during his teen years, and when his bloodline legacy was discovered, he was trained by the ship captain for a bit before he joined a bunch of rcenaries.
Though it’s more appropriate to call them Adventurers who barely took up a real job and instead chose to pursue the legendary Treasure Island.
Most of the ti ended up being old abandoned refuges that so ships used during storms while leaving so items behind.
But not everything was diocre, with fifty years of experience on the seas, Heroth has experienced a bunch of oddities that were harder for him to rationalize. And things that he would prefer to forget.
"Well, you learn new customs every day.’ Sighing at his fate, Heroth took his small bag and left the scene.
This is not the first ti he has been robbed by people. In his life, he had been robbed countless tis, and to sustain his life, he usually relented. You are not a coward as long as you live through the end. Or so was his life philosophy.
Not to ntion, he is not so innocent himself. He had done his fair share of looting, as the adventuring needed funds, and with how bad the current state of Adventuring is after countless bans on the organization and funding cuts. So people had to create funds through so unsavory ans and never shied away from it after getting into the runt of things.
But that’s the thing about life in this day and age, once you are fed up with the life of looting and shooting, you can go inland and use the riches you accumulated to start a new life.
The very plan that Heroth had in mind.
"A beautiful wife in a beautiful tight is made for a drunk sailor." Singing a tune that only he liked, the man entered a bar in a poor district of the Rudrain and then stumbled out of it after hours of drinking.
He still had no ho or where he would live the rest of his life. He just enjoyed things without worries and walked humming a tune that only other sailors would love.
Of course, that was not all that he did.
’Hmm.’ He could feel it, the eyes that hadn’t left him since the restaurant debacle. ’Weak ones.’ He was being treated like prey, well not like he didn’t understand.
He was old and a man with too much money on him, or so it might appear to those that were eying him, but they would be so wrong to think that he was an easy prey.
It was around night, and unlike the hustle and bustle of the city center, the residential districts were mostly silent with little to no activity unless it was in hos with lights on.
An odd thing to witness for Heroth as in most of his experience, the most commoners are asleep by now.
But what can he do? This was the capital of the massive Cynark empire, and even if the streets were empty there were loads of people wide and awake in their hos, doing who knows what.
’Well, it is going to be a bit troubleso.’ Which is why Heroth understood what he could and what he could not do.
It starts with a swoosh and a couple of figures in dark clothes and hoods appeared in front of him. "The children really dress weirdly these days.." Heroth laughed, stumbling a bit due to his drunkenness.
"Old man, co with us if you don’t want to be hard." The man who seed to be the leader spoke. But why would Heroth listen to the words of soone shady?
"Hah, it seems like I drank too much today, these little kids seed to be ordering around?" He spoke looking at his bottle. "Nah, they won’t be so foolish." Then ignoring the group, he moved his head and stumbled out of the way in a different direction.
But he soon ca to a stop as more two more stopped him in his way. "Ho, the kids these days... hic." And then bam, one of the glass bottles shattered on the ground before catching fire, which lit up from a match stick that the old man threw before anyone could even react.
Startling the thieves for long enough Heroth easily overtook the two and smashed their heads together, taking them out at once.
Or so it would have happened, but the mont he tried to push their heads into each other. None of the head budged at all. "Oh shit, I have been punked." There was no ti for him to scream.
A single strike on his head made Heroth see stars in his eyes before he fell to the floor.
"MURDER!!" Ca the cry of a child that seed to be looking out of the window. And the case was pretty much the sa for everyone else that bothered to look out of their window and see what all this hub was about.
"This..." And so jumped out of their window, carrying the strength of junior Knights as they honed in on the thieves as well as the fire that acted more like a beacon, attracting curious eyes so of which were strong.
"Shit, this bastard!!"
"Should we take him?"
"No, if we do it now, things might get complicated..., leave for now, separate ways so that we aren’t followed." With those words, the group of four dispersed, feeling frustrated with the whole situation.
So close but so far, this old man got lucky this ti, as for the next, the leader of the group promised that there won’t be another ti, he won’t make the sa mistake as he made now.
However, what the four thieves were unaware of was that the old man that just lost consciousness and was not so lucky at all. ’Those bastards, are they gone?’
He looked around from the ground, he looked at the fire not too far from him and then at the man who ca to help him. ’This kid better not steal my money.’ So of the good citizens in the area ca and brought him to a simple bed, where so others treated the injury on his head.
Kindness all around, and Heroth felt a bit sorry for using these kind people this way.
But he didn’t make a sound and just let things go the way they were while waiting for the appropriate ti to leave.
This might be his first ti in the capital, but it didn’t an this was his first day here.
He has been exploring the city for a while now, learning the shortcuts, learning the habits of people and what they are like. Understanding the local customs and even fighting from ti to ti to understand the average response to violence in this city.
This level of investigation skill was needed for soone like him who lived as an adventurer on the seas. And it ca in handy today when so odd enemies followed him for so long.
’Glad the plan worked.’ The simple act of going for a drink, bringing them to this neighborhood, and starting a fire, all of it was preditated.
Preparation is needed for soone of his level. ’Seems like they are gone.’ his bag was not too far off and with the magic lock on it, no one but him could open it. And he did open it, just to leave bits and pieces of gold under the pillow where he was treated and then left by turning into the mist before the Police arrived.
"This city is pretty good." The old man laughed.
Although there was a bit of danger and strong individuals hiding behind childish clothes. This place was fun and peaceful in comparison.
He can count on one hand how many tis the show of vulnerability on his end had turned his best friend into an enemy just out of greed.
’A kind place.’
And Heroth would soon learn, how wrong he was to have such foolish thoughts.
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