System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 2025 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 37
Roy decided he had to get to the bottom of this, which meant pushing his morning shift back a day. Before leaving the mill, he told old Rul at the poultry stall and Tross at the herb stand that he needed tomorrow off.
“Taking tomorrow off? Fine by me,” Tross said without hesitation. “You’ve done a solid job these past two weeks. Take a day, you’ll still get paid.” He paused, curious. “But what’s the hurry? You find yourself a little girlfriend in Aldersberg and off to a date?”
“Listen, from experience: spend all your coin on a woman and it’s a bottomless pit. A woman’s vanity never stops needing feeding,” Tross added with the tone of a man who’d learned the lesson the hard way.
“Don’t joke with me,” Roy said, not bothering to hide the truth. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Tomorrow I’m going to the lower quarter to find someone. That’s all you need to know.”
“Then be careful,” Tross’s puckered face softened into seriousness as he gave Roy a firm warning.
...
Roy slept at the mill and left before dawn. The sky was leaden, and he hurried toward Aldersberg’s lower quarter. If Ffion truly had a brother, his first stop should be Ffion’s drunk of a father. No matter how plastered a man got, he wouldn’t forget if he’d fathered a child.
Ffion’s house was on the far east edge of the slums, a ramshackle wooden dwelling easy enough to find. Roy chose the early hour on purpose; he did not want to meet Scoia’tael thugs again. But sometimes what you fear is exactly what finds you.
As soon as he stepped into the street a prickling chill ran up his spine. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a huge, bald man trailing him. The fellow wore a thick yellow jacket, black trousers, high boots, and a neck tattoo. For a blink Roy thought it was Letho, but the face was all wrong. Where Letho’s expression was a cool, poker calm, this man’s face was raw with anger. He could have been a grizzly come to life—over six foot four, neck like a column, jacket stuffed tight across a broad chest.
It was just after six, the wind was a blade, and the lower quarter was mostly asleep. Roy acted unbothered. He did not shout for help or draw attention. Instead he quickened his pace and peeled off the wide main street into tighter, darker alleys reeking of sewage.
The bald giant picked up the pace too. They ran through the labyrinth of alleys for five minutes, until Roy found himself boxed into a dead-end where a high, moss-streaked wall blocked escape. The man behind him pulled out a handkerchief wrapped with something and charged.
“Hey—big man, I didn’t do you any harm!” Roy turned, forcing a nervous, weak grin and holding empty hands out to show he was unarmed. “I’m no threat. Please, spare me. I’ll pay anything.”
The man slowed, greedy light in his narrow eyes. In a rasping voice he said, “Once I’ve got you down, everything you’ve got belongs to me. But you can try yelling for help and see if any kind soul shows.”
To the giant Roy was a child. No weapons. Nothing threatening. He was meat on a slab. But at that moment something bright and delicate chimed, and Roy, with no warning, flicked a gilded Crown onto the filthy ground at the man’s feet.
The giant blinked, stunned by the odd attack. He stooped to pick up the coin. “You Scoia’tael, are you?” Roy barked a few questions while the man stooped. “You lot really on duty this early? It’s not even seven and you’re standing guard at the lower quarter entrance. Aren’t you cold?”
“You idiot,” the man snarled, stuffing two Crowns into his coat as he straightened. “Blame yourself for trusting the wrong sort.” He lunged, shouting, “When we get to the mine you—”
His sentence died. The air filled with a single, sharp pain at his right eye, then silence. His forward momentum carried him two clumsy steps before the giant collapsed face-first, knees buckling, as if he’d knelt and hit his head on the ground.
A spray of dark blood burst from two holes through his skull, painting the alley. Roy’s HUD blinked pleasantly: Kill: Menga Experience gained: 20.
He exhaled and the crossbow vanished. He walked over, touched the corpse, and the body winked out of existence. Human corpses no longer felt different from the animals he’d gutted. He stooped, gathered the remaining Crowns and the bloody, broken bolt from the ground, and tucked them into his pocket-space. The small storage filled.
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