Chapter 417: Surprise Guess 1
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Garen and Kid were walking down the dimly lit street. As they were about to board a horse carriage, they heard a paced footsteps coming from behind.
Dani Hathaway was chasing up to them. As she reached them, she bent down and tried to catch her breath.
"We haven’t met for so long Cia, and you wanted to leave already? Why don’t we go and play?" She asked with a welcoming face after catching her breath.
Her everyday life was rather boring, and it was rare that her past playmate would appear. To top it off, he seemed to be rich as well. She guessed that she could easily get some money out of him as long as she tried, since she was tight on money lately. She wouldn’t let go of such an opportunity since she had been quarreling with her sister lately.
Ever since the chaos started, she vaguely heard about what happened in Vanderman’s manor from her sister. However, she didn’t feel anything from it as she didn’t really interact with her uncle, and it was her sister who interacted with him often. She only had some memories of her playing with Acacia when they were young, and even these memories were soon placed at the back of her head.
The Kingdom was very safe and the number of refugees had increased due to the chaos. However, it was still peaceful.
Dani had heard how strong and fierce the creatures were outside the Kingdom, and anyone would be ripped apart if they went out. However, she had never seen these creatures in her life.
Garen, who came from outside the Kingdom, had gained her interest when she met him.
Garen glanced at Dani and turned around to Kid.
"You can go ahead first. I’ll find you later in the War Guild."
"Alright. I’m hungry anyway." Kid replied honestly.
After paying the fair for the horse carriage, the carriage gradually disappeared into the misty night.
Garen then turned towards Dani.
"Alright. I have things to attend to later so I can only accompany you for a bit."
"I understand." Dani grabbed hold of Garen’s arm. "Let me bring you somewhere interesting."
"What kind of place is it?" Garen had promised to teach Dani a lesson.
"Just follow me," Dani called for a horse carriage as she held onto Garen.
Two of them went to the border between the Cloud Light District and Trading District.
************
Within the noisy music, two women in blood red attire were dancing wildly on the stage. There was a huge crowd at the bottom, shouting wildly with their hands up high, occasionally throwing paper flowers onto the stage.
This was a bar.
As it was located between the Trading District and Cloud Light District, it consisted a huge area and most of the customers were all teenagers. Furthermore, all of them were wildly dressed.
A band composed of non-mainstream smart costume themed players were playing all sorts of instruments at one corner to the side.
There was a three-legged oval bar counter at the side of the entrance, and all the bartenders were young and beautiful. They were putting up a show for their customers as they mixed alcohol.
Garen swayed at the deepest corner of the bar counter as he looked at the wild crowd inside the dance floor.
Initially, he was worried that people would recognize him from his uniform. However, he hadn’t expected that everyone here would be wearing things much more eye-catching than his attire.
There were royal guards uniforms, royal special guards, army general attires, totem forger attires and so on. They were all deliberately designed costumes. The clothings were all made from common materials, and Garen would have thought that everyone here was the real deal if not for the absence of totem light.
As he looked closer, he found out that all of these uniforms were fakes.
Although the bar was very crowded, it was obvious that it had no class. The number of young totem users in the Kingdom was not a small amount, but their place of entertainment was definitely not of this level.
Garen could stare at the crowd for the whole day and would only see a single digit amount of totem users inside. They were the elites among their crowds, and no matter if they were male or female, they were always surrounded by a group of people. They formed one user at best.
It was rather clear that the majority of the customers here did not come from wealthy backgrounds, and this was just a place for all the commoners to vent out their emotions.
During this chaotic era, where commoners were completely useless and their social status hit rock bottom while the authority of totem users had increased, anyone would find the need to vent out their frustrations in this kind of environment. Hence, these kinds of places were born from this frustration, and everyone dressed up themselves to satisfy their ego. This was also the reason why everyone had heavy make up on so that no one would recognize them.
It was the first time Garen had attended this kind of activity in this world.
No matter if it was Acacia in the past or the current Garen, they all started as this world’s elites and had high social standing. Their place of entertainment would always be booked out beforehand.
As the son of a Viscount and a noble of a territory, Acacia’s social standing was equal to the Huaxia’s Governor’s son on Earth, and it wasn’t something a commoner could hope to match. The merchants and small nobles who tried to befriend him were as big as the ocean. This made it impossible for him to come to this kind of places.
Now, Garen was at the peak of the form four totem users and his actual battle strength was equal to of a common form five totem user.
Within the whole Kingdom, he was considered a person of major influence. Only the top brass from Kovitan Empire and the Three Departments were on equal footing with him. If this was Earth, his influence was similar to that of a prime minister.
However, due to his unique identity, he could only hide in the dark away from public knowledge.
As he leaned on the white bar stage, Garen lazily drank the purple liquor in his hand. The liquor even had bubbles foaming out of it endlessly.
In this kind of place, Garen’s unique face didn’t raise any suspicion to anyone, as everyone had some sort of glowing tattoo on them. There were even four or five of them that had strange earrings hanging on their ears, and the majority of them had white silver decorations on their eyelids.
However, there was a very little amount of people who didn’t have any makeup on, like him.
Garen was dragged to this place by Dani, who had mixed into the moshpit, enjoying the night with her friends.
"Hey, handsome guy? Are you alone?" A beautiful woman with golden hair and purple-red eyeshadow leaned towards him and looked at him in the eyes as she holds a transparent liquor in her hand.
She was just a commoner. Garen glanced at her and immediately lost interest.
"I’m sorry. I already have a partner." He politely responded.
The woman was stunned and she didn’t expect to be rejected and walked away in disappointment.
If it weren’t for Dani, Garen wouldn’t be wasting his time here.
No matter how fresh he felt from experience the life of a commoner, it was still not enough. With his identity and authority, it would be bad for him and the commoners.
As he looked at Dani moving her body wildly in the moshpit, he was relieved to see that she knew how to protect herself from people touching her body as she danced among the girls.
Or else Garen wouldn’t know how to face Sophie.
He drank the liquor in his hands as he quietly waited for Dani.
************
"Dani, is that guy really loaded with money?" A purple short haired girl asked Dani softly.
"Of course, didn’t you see what his shirt is made of? I’m telling you, that shirt alone costs this amount of digits!" Dani showed four fingers to her.
"Four hundred silver rumbs?!" The young girl was fourteen years old at best, but her face was filled with white powder and her eyebags were painted black, which made her look like a panda. She was quite satisfied with her own creativity, but she was covering her mouth to conceal her surprise.
"Four hundred!? I’m talking about four thousand!" Dani was smiling in delight.
The people in the vicinity were all shocked.
"Four thousand? Oh my god. No one would even ask for that much if someone were to sell me off!"
"Four thousand silver rumbs is enough for me to spend for an entire year!"
"Where did you find this rich handsome man?"
"Dani, I’m so envious of you!! Isn’t he richer than my cousin?"
Her friends were all envious of her and this made Dani felt very proud and satisfied. She secretly glanced at Garen who was far away. She had to admit that, within such a messy environment, Garen gave off a peaceful vibe as he lazily drank the purple liquor. His shoulder-length golden hair waved freely by the bar, paired with his handsome figure and firm muscles had separated him from the environment.
"My cousin said it! He said that he will be covering our expenses for the night!" Dani gestured her small hands happily.
"Oh yeah!!" A group of youngster suddenly shouted in joy.
Dani felt guilty as she looked at Garen and noticed that he was observing the beautiful liquid in the glass.
Garen noticed that he was being watched so he placed down the cup and smiled at her.
Dani felt even more guilty.
************
At the corner of the bar, there were two women who didn’t seem to fit into the environment.
They were sitting inside a unit separated by a glass wall. The sound isolation wasn’t bad and the mirror wall was a one way, where they could see everything from the inside.
One of them was in a black mini skirt, revealing her sexy body figure. She looked attractive, and could be considered a beautiful woman.
The other one was drunk, in white jeans and was hugging her legs tightly, revealing her perfect streamline body. She wore a black camisole and had her head placed on the table with her hair spread wildly, revealing two golden earrings on her ears.
"Oh… My head hurts…" The black haired girl moaned.
"Who told you to drink this much?"
These two often came to the bar. Although the environment was rather loud, their standards in bartending were high and were leagues away from the other bars. They initially came here to protect their sisters in the dark, but eventually grew accustomed to this place and knew each other quite well.
Whenever both of them were stressed, they would gather here and release it as best they could.
"But… it tastes good…" The black haired girl replied with her eyes closed.
"Whatever, take care of yourself because these kids are starting to become noisy again." The black skirted girl shook her head as she looked at the dancing pool. Dani, the panda girl, and another black skirted girl were moving their waists here and there. They seemed to have drank quite a bit as their faces were completely red.
"Dani seemed to have come here with her relative. Nini, do you want to go and say hi to him?" The black skirted girl asked softly.
"Sure." The black haired girl slowly got up from the table with her head swaying about freely. "If we can’t come here anymore in the future, at least we can tell him to help us out in taking care of these wild people."
Two of them got up, and the so-called Nini woman went to wash her face to freshen up a bit, before they walked to Garen, passing by the dancing pool.
As the duo arrived at where Garen was, another girl who thought she was relatively attractive was again rejected by Garen and was leaving the area angrily. Within this short amount of time, he had already rejected five ‘beautiful’ girls.
"If you’re here to hit on me, please turn right." Garen’s cold voice could be heard.
Two of them were stunned as the opposing party rejected them before they could say anything.
"I’m sorry, we’re not here to hit on you." Nini tidied up her long hair. "You’re Dani’s guardian, right? We are relatives of Dani’s friends, and we’re here for the same reason as you. We’re here to guard our kids."
After that, Garen looked at them straight in the eyes.
"I’m sorry, I’ve mistaken both of your intentions." He felt apologetic and reached out his hands and shook their hands.
"I’m Nini, Shaer’s sister. She’s the youngest among the group. This is Dilan, sister of the panda-eyed girl." Nini introduced herself.
"It’s a pleasure to meet the both of you." Garen smiled. "I’m Garen, Dani’s cousin."
"Pleasure to meet you."
The three of them sat down and ordered their favorite drinks from the bartender. They started talking to each other as they took a look out at their family members.