小嫂子的味道

"How much will this be?"

"10 C"

"Uh, okay. Give me two of them then."

"Wait a minute...…here you go."

"Do you accept transaction cards?"

"We do."

"Then I\'d like to pay with that."

"Sure."

"Here...It\'s done."

After paying from my transaction card I took the two pieces of cloth from the guy in front of me—who was apparently a shop owner. Right now I was in the market of the slum district buying two cloaks for myself and Challes.

I wore one myself and put the other one over Challes—and I\'d to be the one to do it because his hands were handcuffed and attached to a chain so he probably won\'t be able to do it himself.

Normally, I would\'ve just let him walk on the street with the half-burned pants he had but since I don\'t want anyone to recognize us—even when the chances were low, I\'d have to do that anyway.

Once I was done, I pulled the chain which was connected to Challes\'s handcuff and legcuff, causing him to move forward with me.

I had my head covered with the hoodie cop type of thing which was attached to the cloak and the other part of the cloak was covering my back and chest and went all the way down to my hips—Challes had a similar clock

"Where are we going?" he asked in a weak, trembling voice.

"I don\'t remember that I\'ve given you permission to speak."

​ "…Don\'t get so full of yourself kid. You know that you won\'t be able to control me once I get my mana, don\'t you?"

"Yeah…once you get your mana back."

Saving Challes was not something I\'d accounted for in advance; in fact, I don\'t even how he didn\'t die from mana exhaustion. After using Arcane of life there should be no mana left in his body there still somehow was.

The proof is he\'s alive. In this world, mana is something you can\'t live without; it\'s like bind to your soul. So if you totally run out of mana you won\'t be alive even a second.

But Challes was, so it confirms that there is some amount of mana left inside him. However, it\'s still strange. Because even if you\'ve used almost all of your mana, the time it takes for it to recover is just a couple of hours.

Though in Challes\'s case his mana was not recovering—it was the same as how it was after he fought with Leon. If he had regained his mana then he won\'t be letting himself get captured and abused by me.

Yeah, there is a possibility that he is doing the same thing I did—to intentionally let himself get captured so he can attack when my guard is down, and that\'s why I was constantly abusing him or trying to provoke him and of course, not letting my guard down.

This just increases my trouble…that\'s all. And at first, I thought about leaving him there or killing him but then it occurred to me that he can prove to be a good asset in the future.

After all, assuming that his mana really wasn\'t recovering, killing him was always an option. Hence I made some hand and leg cuffs for him, chained him up, and was now keeping him with me like a slave.

And even if someone doesn\'t talk openly about slaves here, having one is low-key legal so no one will come to interrupt when I\'m dragging Challes on the road like this.

It was clear just by the fact that no one was staring daggers at me right now.

Oh, and if you\'re wondering how I got my transaction card. I told Ellyn before getting myself kidnapped that she\'d make sure to bring my card when she will go to find me with Leon and Anya, then drop it in a safe place.

I also instructed her to convince Anya to not tell Anya and Leon about my death, I knew that the academy won\'t since their reputation will be ruined and all that. Though in all this I had to tell Ellyn and she knew that I\'m not dead for real, but that was a minor thing.

She did ask me the reasons but I reminded her of our deal. We were in a give-and-take relationship, there should be no questions between us—her work is just to follow my orders, simple as that.

\'Hmm. Come to think of it, I still have to complete my side of the deal or she won\'t trust me. But her family never tried to take her back in the novel, so should I save her...…well, it\'s not like after this I\'ll try so hard to keep the plot that same so it\'s isn\'t a thing to be concerned about.\'

Think that, it looks like I reached my destination—or rather the start of this journey if I take everything into account.

In front of me were the big walls that protected this city. Inside the wall was built a huge gate that connected the city to the outside—the northern entrance gate of the Sofrora city.

The gate normally stayed open since this was the capital city and adventurers and traders kept going in and out all the time. Following the crowd of people, I also crossed the gate along with Challes.

Since I wasn\'t carrying any ID with me, so I had to pay 1000C as a fine but well, it was okay I guess. If this is what it takes to not let myself be discovered then so be it.

After all, I made a separate bank account for myself only because if I was still using my parents, then I would\'ve been found out—that I was not dead—once I used it for buying anything. I could\'ve carried the money physically but it would\'ve been a pain—and carrying too much money was impossible, to begin with.

There is a chance that someone will still find out if they checked my bank account, I don\'t think there\'s someone out there who will look into the transaction history of a dead—or missing according to the academy—person\'s bank account. Hence I was safe.

With that satisfaction in mind, I stepped outside the city and was firmly greeted with a cold, comforting breeze.