Chapter 162 : Chapter 162

Chapter 162. Conflict in the City

Fran looked at the signpost that said Whiteflower City was still two li away and hesitated for a moment by the roadside.

She took off the mage’s robe on her body, still faintly dusty from the journey, and changed into an ordinary black robe instead.

This time, she also put on a pair of thick leather gloves, pasted on the disguise mask she had once used in Apprentice City, and drank the voice-changing potion she had brewed from materials purchased in Gerd Town.

She looked at the bottle of concentrated potion. It was enough to last her at least a month.

As for why she was disguising herself as a melee class professional, Fran was simply acting on a whim.

The strength she currently possessed was more than enough to let her pass herself off as a first-tier melee professional.

And after traveling all this way under the identity of a mage, she was a little tired of it. So she wanted to see what it would be like to pretend to be a melee professional for a change.

“As for my identity, I’ll just say I’m an adventurer heading for the northern frontier.”

It just so happened that she had learned quite a few skills through the Adventurers’ Association, so calling herself an adventurer would not really be a lie. It would be enough to leave no room for anyone to pick at her story.

“As for my name... I’ll use Elan’s.”

Just like that, Fran cheerfully decided on the identity she would use during her stay in Whiteflower City.

She swung herself back onto the horse and urged the black horse forward, sending it galloping at full speed toward Whiteflower City.

Over the past several days of travel, the Gale Rabbit leg bones had long since been fully absorbed into the black horse’s body.

It raised its hooves and sprinted down the road at a speed far beyond that of an ordinary horse.

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Fran’s entry into Whiteflower City went very smoothly. She encountered no obstruction, and there was no line at all. The entire city gate wore a bleak and desolate air.

Only when she was passing through did the guard ask her for an entrance fee of ten copper coins. After thinking for a moment, Fran tossed ten copper coins down from her money pouch.

When she traveled under her mage identity, she had never paid a single coin to enter any town. But now that she was using a different identity, she might as well follow the rules.

The whole time, she used Telekinetic Hand hidden beneath her robe, making sure the coins made no clinking sound. Her original intention had simply been to avoid exposing the fact that she was wealthy.

But the moment she saw what happened next, she knew she had miscalculated again.

The instant she tossed down those ten copper coins, that guard revealed a stunned expression, then hurriedly bent down to pick them up.

But he was still a step too slow. The two guards beside him, seeing this, immediately dashed over and threw themselves to the ground to snatch up the copper coins.

Even slower guards came running from farther away. Seeing there was no chance they could still pick up the coins themselves, one of them hardened his heart and punched another man directly, trying to snatch away the copper coin in his hand.

Fran stared at the scene before her, dumbfounded. She had never imagined that tossing down ten copper coins would cause all seven guards at the city gate to fight over them.

The place instantly descended into chaos. From time to time, fists and feet flew. Some of them sprawled on the ground, clutching the copper coins in their hands with all their might...

That had been careless of her. Fran had simply never considered that learning magic was so expensive.

She usually spent money starting from silver coins, so she had subconsciously assumed ten copper coins was not much. But from the looks of it, it was far too much.

She guessed that the first guard had merely intended to extort her a little. He had probably never expected her to actually produce ten copper coins.

Pressing a hand to her forehead, she signaled the black horse to move on.

The black horse obeyed and walked straight ahead, nimbly kicking aside two guards lying on the ground and blocking the way.

Fran raised an eyebrow, ignored the commotion behind her, and prepared to find a place to stay first.

Whiteflower was not Alliance territory, so there was certainly no comfortable mage reception house here.

It was only because Duke Theodore had captured this city and the soldiers under his command had “searched” it a little.

As a result, many of the houses in the city no longer had anyone living in them. Theoretically, she could simply pick one at random and stay there.

But just as she reached one of the streets—one of the few streets in the city where shops were still open—

“Hey, brother!”

Hearing the shout, Fran turned her head and saw a vicious-looking soldier. The leather armor on his body was badly worn, and it was stained with filth of uncertain origin.

Fran glanced left and right before realizing that the soldier was calling out to her.

“You mean me?” Fran asked back in a low male voice.

“That’s right, you...” The soldier slowly approached her, licking his lips.

“Brother, that horse of yours is far too fine!” The soldier directly drew a dagger, took up a knife-fighting stance, and stepped to within five paces of Fran.

“I really envy that black horse of yours. How about handing it over to me?”

The soldier’s movements drew the attention of the surrounding crowd. They all turned aside and encircled the scene, staring intently at what was unfolding before them.

The soldier eyed the black horse greedily, hardly daring to imagine how much such a horse might be worth.

His days in Whiteflower City had been extremely comfortable. Relying on the fact that his superior was a knight, he had robbed plenty of valuables within Whiteflower City.

Seeing that the other party wore only a black robe and bore no insignia of any knightly retinue, he immediately knew this was prey he could take.

Fran, meanwhile, stroked the horse’s head and soothed it, calming the restlessness caused by the soldier’s approach and telling it not to kick the man to death with a single blow.

Then Fran turned back toward him and said with a smile:

“That won’t do. I paid for this horse with my own money. You can’t afford it, and I don’t want to sell it.”

“Oh—” The soldier dragged out the sound. “So you really do love this horse. What a pity...”

The viciousness on the soldier’s face deepened further. Wearing a crazed expression, he suddenly lunged forward and stabbed straight at Fran’s slender leg.

He had seen many people like this—people unwilling to part with what they owned—but in the end, all of them had been defeated by him, someone who had at least practiced a body-tempering art a couple of times.

Besides, the dagger in his hand was forged from fine iron. Piercing the other man’s armor should have been no problem at all...

Only this time, he had run into someone he could not afford to provoke.

When that sharp dagger struck Fran’s leg, it was as if it had hit something utterly indestructible. At the moment of impact, the entire dagger broke on the spot and split cleanly into two pieces.

The soldier froze for a moment at the sight before him. He was still clutching the broken half of the dagger when, just as he was about to lift his head, a sensation of weightlessness suddenly overcame him.

With astonishing speed, Fran bent low, seized his coarse collar, and lifted the soldier straight into the air with one hand.

Only then did the soldier realize he had provoked the wrong person. Never mind anything else—he himself would have found it impossible just to lift a man with one hand like this.

Instinctively, he tried to struggle in midair, but in the blink of an eye, a leather-gloved fist slammed toward his face.

The soldier’s body was sent flying three meters and crashed heavily to the ground. His entire head was a mangled blur of flesh and blood, and his neck looked as though it had snapped, twisted into a grotesque angle.

Blood still dripped from Fran’s glove. A moment earlier, she had deliberately loosened her other hand and held back a little, so she would not blow the man’s head apart and would only send him flying instead.

Even so, the soldier was dead beyond all doubt. His spine was most likely broken. In a place where even a minor wound was difficult to treat, that was already a certain death sentence.