Chapter 86

Midsummer Day, for the people on the Aifala Dalu, it was no exaggeration to call it a national carnival.

And as adventurers who walked on a tightrope all year round, with high income but precarious lives.

Such an important annual festival naturally couldn't be missed.

Baishanque Tavern.

Different from the solemnity in the central square, this place of leisure, which was already full of alcohol and notes, was exceptionally noisy today.

The originally spacious hall was almost filled with adventurers, and the waiters carrying trays and wine glasses busily shuttled between the wine tables, their sweat almost soaking the apron uniforms on their bodies.

The tavern owner had a very good business mind.

Occupying the golden location near the Adventurer Association, while the business was hot, he also held special celebration activities on this day of the Midsummer Festival.

"Baishanque Drinking Contest"

A large glass of wine mixed with special spices, if the challenger could drink it in one breath, they would be given the reward of free drinks for the whole night;

If they failed, they would need to pay a bill of "1 silver coin" for the special wine.

Honestly speaking, one silver coin wasn't a very expensive expenditure for the vast majority of adventurers.

After all, it was just the price of staying in a hotel for one night.

In contrast, the temptation of the free reward was greater.

As soon as the news came out, nearly half of the adventurers in the town moved upon hearing the news, pushing and shoving into the tavern, and then one after another failed.

The special spices mixed in the wine seemed to possess some kind of strong irritation.

After a few mouthfuls, the smell, which was more pungent than the pepper specialty of the Grimm region, would make you couldn't help but spit out the wine in your mouth and cough violently.

Of course, they were decent businessmen after all, and the shop had to continue to open in the future.

The tavern owner grasped the measure just right.

It wasn't that everyone couldn't succeed, occasionally a few adventurers with strong physical fitness or who weren't so sensitive to smell could still win the reward.

Roughly one or two out of every ten challengers.

And every time someone won free drinks, the tavern owner would take the opportunity to spread the word loudly, causing a large group of onlookers to couldn't help but step forward to participate.

At this moment, it seemed that another challenger was about to succeed.

That was a tall, thin man wearing a loose robe.

He tilted his head, his eyes closed tightly, his Adam's apple rolled, the thin hand gripping the wine glass trembled with force, crystal-clear wine flowed down from the corner of his mouth; his rough face, washed by years of wind and sand, flushed red, his nostrils flared because of the strong stimulation of the wine.

As if he would couldn't help but cough in the next second, yet he persisted with a tenacious will.

"Calishite?"

Xia Nan's gaze swept over the man's hair and skin, guessing in his heart.

The knowledge he had been urgently supplementing these days allowed him to know a little more about the geography and humanities of this world.

Kalinshan was an area located in the southern part of the continent, with deserts and wilderness as the main terrain.

Slave trade, date trees, spices, and mercenaries...

The scorching sun and raging wind and sand all year round made people living there generally have a yellowish-brown skin and curly, dry black hair.

Plus the gemstone ring on the man's fingers and the metal hair rings on the ends of his hair, the highly directional cultural symbols made it not difficult to distinguish his identity as a "Desert Folk."

Nothing strange.

Hegu Town, as an important adventure town in the Pan Yun Province, could see adventurers from all over the continent coming to pan for gold and get rich all year round.

Although Calishites were rare, they weren't completely absent.

"Xia Nan, what do you say, want to come and play?"

Seeing Xia Nan walk into the tavern, the owner "Chaputun" invited with a smile.

Having lived in the tavern for so many days, both of them naturally knew each other's names long ago, and the relationship couldn't be called very close, but it was barely considered ordinary friends.

Regarding this, Xia Nan waved his hand and declined with a smile.

"This bit of money, don't earn mine. Give me a number three set meal."

"Haha, alright!"

The memory from his previous life made him very familiar with this kind of business routine, and the painful experience of being cut like a leek by major merchants again and again made him naturally unable to be fooled again after crossing.

He found a corner with relatively few guests and sat down.

The tall, thin man challenging the special wine at the bar also seemed to be about to succeed.

He saw his head, which was already tilted high, tilt fiercely, and he poured the last bit of wine in the cup into his mouth.

"Bang!" The empty wine glass was smashed fiercely on the table, the man's chest heaved violently, and the pungent smell of wine made him couldn't breathe.

"Congratulations! Another guest challenged successfully, free drinks tonight!"

Tavern owner Chaputun applauded and congratulated loudly.

The onlookers also cheered, and one could clearly see a few people eager to try.

The man wiped the wine stains on the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, and facing everyone's congratulations, a few proud looks couldn't help but appear on his rough, thin face.

Suddenly, a voice with a questioning tone came from the crowd.

"Boss, this activity of yours, can you drink sobering agent in advance?"

He saw a red-bearded dwarf with a sturdy figure and wearing light leather armor, staring with his copper-bell-like eyes, questioning with dissatisfaction.

Focusing on the situation on the field, after the other party said this, Xia Nan also reacted belatedly.

"No wonder I smelled a strange smell when I passed by before, so it was this."

He realized in his heart.

The main material of the sobering agent was a small plant called "Insect Shell Flower."

It was fine in normal times, at most it looked a bit strange.

But after being cooked, the Insect Shell Flower would emit a sour, foul smell similar to fermented sweat.

A few days ago when he went to "Green Grass Crucible" to purchase, Ms. Edwinna happened to be refining a batch of new sobering agents.

That smell... almost smoked him out.

"W-what sobering agent?" Tavern owner Chaputun didn't even have time to speak, the tall, thin man who had just challenged successfully jumped up, his emotions excited. "I don't know what you mean!"

"Hey, playing dumb with your buddy, huh?"

Originally just wanting to seize the opportunity to let Chaputun serve him a few more glasses of ale.

The other party's retort instead aroused the dwarf's temper.

"This sour smell of Insect Shell Flower on you, I could smell it from two streets away!"

"I just like this smell, I was greedy today, drank two mouthfuls before coming, what about it?"

The tall, thin man grinned, arguing.

Seeing that the dispute between the two seemed to have a trend of intensifying, tavern owner Chaputun, who rarely intervened, couldn't help but reach out and pull the indignant dwarf:

"Forget it, just give me some face, today is Midsummer Festival, calm down."

"Jem, serve three large glasses of ale to this table of guests!"

He should be an old customer of the tavern. Being persuaded by Chaputun like this, the red-bearded dwarf with a straightforward and upright personality stopped talking, glared at the other party again, and didn't entangle anymore.

The tall, thin Calishite knew he was in the wrong. He originally just wanted to play a little trick to get a free dinner.

Being pointed out by the dwarf in public like this, he was embarrassed to stay in the tavern anymore, turned around and planned to leave.

Or maybe he felt he lost face in public, his face sank, and he muttered gloomily:

"Slag, pretending to be..."

His voice wasn't loud, but perhaps the dispute between the two attracted the attention of others in the tavern, causing the originally boiling and lively environment to quiet down for a few seconds.

Allowing Xia Nan, who was sitting in the corner of the hall but paying attention to the two, to faintly hear the other party's muttering and judge the content based on his lip shape.

"Whoa, good guy, this really isn't over."

"Slag," for dwarves on the Aifala Dalu, was a derogatory term with strong discrimination and extreme viciousness.

——Alluding that the dwarf race was forged from a volcanic furnace by their Father God, the 【Soul Forger】 "Mora."

To some extent, it even touched upon their main god extremely faintly and obscurely.

For dwarves who had always been proud of their bloodline and racial mythology, this was almost an unacceptable title.

Xia Nan had once seen with his own eyes a drunkard who accidentally said those three words while bragging, without even targeting anyone, and was knocked down by a few dwarves drinking at the next table and thrown out of the tavern.

Sure enough, the moment "Slag" was uttered.

The red-bearded dwarf, who had already been persuaded back to his seat by Chaputun, changed his expression!

He grabbed the wine glass on the table and threw it fiercely at the tall, thin man who couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"Damn desert rat, how dare you!?"

Blowing his beard and staring, his rugged face with dense hair flushed red, he cursed and rushed forward like a stone pier.

"Wind Servant! Calin Maggot!"

The sound of tables and chairs colliding and overturning, cries of pain, curses... the bar was suddenly in chaos.

Xia Nan sat far away, scooped a spoonful of the cream mushroom soup that had just been served to the table by the waiter, and his expression was quite comfortable.

Tavern, well, this kind of thing happened a few times every night, and he was long used to it.

Just while watching the two people's wrestling movements, he analyzed and recalled the dwarf's title for the tall, thin man.

Many people often said that learning a language, besides simple greetings, is profanity.

Xia Nan had rested in Hegu Town for so many days, listening to adventurers bragging in the tavern every night.

To say he knew any secrets, that definitely wasn't the case.

On the contrary, he learned a lot of scandals and gossip, and unbearable foul language.

"Desert rat," should refer to Calishites living in the desert for a long time, being as cunning as a mouse when doing business;

"Wind Servant," because the Kalinshan area was once ruled by wind genies, mocking their ancestors as slaves of elemental creatures.

"Calin Maggot," he didn't know much about it, didn't know if there was any allusion in it, or if it was just a simple combination of insulting vocabulary.

The two wrestling together, one tall and thin, one short and sturdy.

The former relied on his height and long arms, the red-bearded dwarf hadn't touched the other party yet, and he had already received a kick and two slaps;

The latter had a sturdy figure, high muscle density, and a very stable lower plate, and because of the derogatory term, his blood rushed to his head, forcibly resisting the other party's kicking and punching, and hugged the Calishite and fell to the ground.

No one persuaded the fight.

The onlookers on both sides consciously took the two's battlefield as the center, formed a circle, and booed.

"Yes, hit him in the face, kill this date mouth!"

"They all say it's a stone belly, why are you still hitting there, can you do it?"

"Hahaha, they're biting, they're biting."

Those who were quick-witted were shouting in the crowd to open a market and place bets.

Even tavern owner Chaputun, who was kind just now, didn't dissuade them.

Just stood on the side with his hands on his hips, looking at the tables and chairs that had fallen all over the ground, helplessly.

At the same time, he was pondering whether to collect two times or three times the compensation.

Xia Nan was even more excited, and couldn't help but eat a few more mouthfuls of dinner.

The temperature gradually rose.

Actually, the two were quite restrained originally, although they cursed each other and were physically entangled, they were just unarmed brawls and didn't use any combat techniques.

But with the booing of others, and the series of extremely insulting vocabulary in the dwarf's mouth.

The tall, thin Calishite, after being punched fiercely by the other party again, finally lost his head.

Suddenly got up.

Swish—

Abruptly drew a cold-glinting scimitar from his waist, his face, which was blue and purple, had an uncertain expression.

The dwarf had a fiery temper, and he was already full of anger. With the situation developing to this point, he naturally couldn't retreat.

"Pah!"

Spat a mouthful of bloody phlegm on the floor beside him, his right hand gripping his heavy forging hammer.

Took a fierce deep breath.

His body swelled two sizes in an instant, and his skin surface took on a metallic luster.

And just as the two were confronting each other nervously, at the critical moment.

"Creak."

The tightly closed door was pushed open abruptly.

Whoosh—

Clearly it was the hot summer, but everyone in the tavern felt a chilling, biting cold wind rushing in from outside the door involuntarily.

The silent figure, burly and sturdy, almost blocking the entire door, walked in slowly.

Close to the scalp, the blue-green hair strands stood up like steel needles; the deep and three-dimensional facial features were like ice sculptures carved by the north wind, and in the shadow cast by the deep brow bone were his deep blue pupils that seemed to be tempered by cold lakes.

As if carrying some kind of invisible pressure, the originally noisy and boiling tavern quieted down in an instant.

Only the light sound of the bone tooth necklace around the man's neck colliding remained in the air.

Xia Nan lowered his head instantly, scooped two mouthfuls of mushroom soup fiercely, and focused on eating.

On the field, the two who were originally at daggers drawn put down the weapons in their hands simultaneously.

As if all the courage and anger before were swallowed by the biting cold wind that scraped across their bones.

Without saying a word, each helped up the tables and chairs that had fallen to the ground and sat back in their seats.

As if everything that had just happened was just an illusion.

Chaputun stood behind the bar, a stiff, business-like smile squeezed onto his face, greeting carefully:

"Welcome to Baishanque Tavern, guest, what would you like to eat?"

The momentum was icy, the barbarian was silent, and didn't reply.

His ice-blue eyes turned slightly, and his gaze swept across the tavern hall.

It locked onto a certain corner.

His thick thighs moved, and the frosty white fur on the wolf skin fur cloak swayed lightly.

The shadow cast by his burly body in the lamplight shrouded the black-haired youth who was bowing his head and eating.

"You, are Xia Nan?"

(End of chapter)