Nighttime…

In some prosperous cities, some commoners would repurpose their extra rooms in their homes into guest rooms and rent them to customers. They would usually provide three meals a day and earn about three copper coins a day.

These small inns were the favorite places for small traveling merchants because they were much cheaper than the large inns. After all, having a meal and booking a room would cost more than a dozen copper coins a day. Only large merchants and nobles liked to go there.

Lil Lazy was currently living in a small inn in North Wind City. Niu Wu had given him quite a bit of copper coins, but he thought that he could save them for when he married.

“I saved five copper coins again today. When I save enough for a silver coin, I will go to Lil Doggy’s father and ask him to let his daughter marry me.” Lil Lazy carefully wiped the coins in his hand and put them into his inner pocket.

The inner pocket contained his own copper coins, while the outer pocket contained coins that Liu Feng had given him. They were called… public funds, and Lil Lazy was allowed to spend up to 12 copper coins a day. He would have to pay up if he spent more than that and could keep the rest of the money if he spent less than the cap.

Lil Lazy didn’t know why such an amazing thing existed, but he was extremely grateful to Liu Feng and Niu Wu. If it wasn’t for them, he would probably be dead by now.

Someone knocked on the door, causing Lil Lazy to jump up and take out the short blade from behind him. He put the blade back into its sheath after hearing a rhythmic knock on the door, a secret code that he and his companions had previously agreed on.

“Come in!” Lil Lazy said, opening the door and letting the people inside.

“Brother Lazy, there’s hardly anyone coming to register today as well.”Someone started complaining as soon as he got in. “They don’t believe that there is such a good thing. They also said that West Sun City is very poor and they are afraid to be made into slaves.”

“Who do those commoners think they are to be worthy of being cheated by Lord Liu Feng?” Lil Lazy spat.

“Exactly! Lord Liu Feng is such a good noble and was even willing to come here to save them, and yet they actually slandered Lord Liu Feng. I really want to beat them up.”

“I bet they’ll beg to go to West Sun City when the horse thieves come.”

This can’t go on, Lil Lazy thought. Once the horse thieves come, it’ll be none of our business since we’ll all be busy fleeing for our lives.

“Lil Doggy, how many people signed up?” Lil Lazy asked.

Lil Doggy was the first person that spoke when they came in. “Brother Lazy, only 17 people signed up. They only did so because they were too poor and had no other choice.”

“This little…” Lil Lazy walked around a bit. “What about beastkins? Have any beastkins contacted you?”

“None. We’ve said out some information, but unfortunately, no beastkin contacted us,” Lil Doggy said, shaking his head.

They had gone to the slums and tried to persuade people in the past two days, but unfortunately, hardly any people were willing to leave and would rather starve at home.

“This is going to be difficult. Today is the second day since Brother Wu’s departure, and he should arrive at West Sun City tomorrow morning.” Lil Lazy pulled on his head and tried to come up with ideas. There were only two days before the horse thieves attacked North Wind City, and they had to leave before then. “North Wind City is a prosperous city, so there must be beastkins. I wonder where they are hiding. I wish I could talk to them.”

“Could it be that I would have to fail my first mission?” Lil Lazy kept talking to himself and pulled on his hair several times. He almost wanted to leak the information that horse thieves were coming, but he couldn’t.

If he did that, he probably become a corpse the next day, most likely killed by North Wind City’s City Lord. This was because North Wind City had a plan to fight against the horse thieves, and if he leaked the information that they knew horse thieves were coming, the horse thieves would change their plan and there would be no way for North Wind City to defend against the horse thieves.

“Brother Lazy, are you okay?” Lil Doggy asked.

Lil Lazy took a deep breath and shook his head. “I’m fine. All of you should just continue to contact the commoners and see whether or not they are willing to go to West Sun City. As for the beastkins… just do the same as before. Leak the information that West Sun City is willing to treat beastkins fairly and will let them live freely in West Sun City.”

“Okay!” Lil Doggy nodded and led the people out. They stayed in different inns.

Just after Lil Doggy left, a shadow in the corner of the wall moved and slowly walked out. She stood there, staring at Lil Doggy and the people leaving.

The person had a slender, s-shaped figure. She wore a black dress with a hood. She held a longbow in one of her hands and an arrow in the other hand.

“Interesting. There’s actually a noble willing to take in beastkins? Or could it just be another trap?” Elisa put the arrow back into her quiver. She had arrived at North Wind City two days ago and just wanted to see if there were any other elves here and hadn’t expected to hear such interesting news.

Elisa pulled back her hood and shook her head, revealing and tossing her white hair, which shined in the moonlight. Her pointy ears were revealed for a bit before being covered by her hair again.

Yes, Elisa was an elf. A wandering elf, to be precise. She would go look for- more like rescue- elves every time she got to a new city. Some nobles were extremely obsessed with elves. Human nobles were take pride in owning elves. The king had even exterminated a duke and his whole family just to get an elf.

Unfortunately for them, however, the elf escaped in the end. The duke didn’t even get to touch the elf before he was killed by the king, and the king was only able to see the elf’s back and her long, white hair shining in the moonlight.

After that, all the nobles in the kingdom became even more obsessed with elves, and the white-haired elf, who had played the duke and the king, became famous.

“Horse thieves? So that’s why this city’s security became tighter.” Elisa thought about how she had almost gotten caught when trying to sneak into North Wind City the previous day and was baffled by the abnormally tight security. She hadn’t expected to find the answer here.

“How could there be such a kind noble in such a rotten and corrupted kingdom? I hope that those stupid beastkins aren’t so naive as to believe that…”

Elisa put her hood back on and stepped into the dark…

Translator’s Notes:

Alright that’s for today, gotta do the other novel first.