Chapter 221: The Scoundrel Lex

【Current Truth Arrival: 49%.】

What must come will come eventually, but some people are accustomed to being cowards.

New intelligence has already been gathered, yet the Heroic Soul Card remains on the verge of activation. Is this a coincidence?

"You really don't want to be awakened, do you?"

Li En felt a bit numb; he had already tried hard enough, yet the number refused to rise. If he still didn't realize this was the Heroic Soul's resistance, he would truly be a fool.

Perhaps the "truth of the event" requires the parties involved to admit it, or perhaps it is the Heroine's overwhelmingly powerful will; the truth's progress remains stuck at the edge of unlocking.

"Do you think I want to get involved in your mess? The thunder is about to explode! Can you cooperate for once?!"

But no matter how Li En shouted, complained, or persuaded, the Heroic Soul Card refused to unlock.

Li En grew increasingly helpless; Marianna would arrive soon, and the Queen's sister would surely do something. By then, gods might be fighting, but he would be the one dying!

"Avoidance cannot solve the problem. At least lend me your power, let us survive."

But Li En's words were meaningless, as if the Heroic Soul Card were an inanimate object. Yet, with the precedent of the snake, if Li En truly believed it was just a dead object, he would be a fool indeed.

Li En felt as if he had needles in his back, but he was panicked while the Heroic Soul in the card was completely unbothered, simply continuing to shut itself away.

"Tomorrow morning, the Queen enters the city. How long do you think you can hide?"

In the end, Li En could only sigh and obediently go to sleep to conserve his energy.

And when he fell into a deep sleep, the Heroic Soul Atlas on the table moved without wind; that faint golden light came from the single Heroic Soul Card.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh! Where the hell did this send me?!"

When the spring breeze by the lake blew over, and the scent of sand and soil hit his face, Li En Lex Thorne was completely bewildered.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk! Just because I didn't pay the fare, you throw me off? That's too stingy! Ahh, it hurts, it hurts, my leg is broken, pay for my medical bills!"

"Lex" punched the air and roared at the back of the carriage, even clutching his leg to extort money, but once the carriage moved far away, he lightly jumped up and stood.

He brushed the dust off his clothes and glared at the onlookers.

Leg broken? The robust Lex climbing onto a carriage with bare hands was just a daily routine.

Being thrown off and rolling around wasn't even the first time; not even his skin was broken!

Very few people knew, well, except for himself, no one knew that when the Hero first entered the capital, he not only didn't pay the entry tax but didn't even pay the carriage fare.

He even tried to feign injury to extort the driver, but the driver, having seen enough of various ruffians and small-time crooks, simply ignored him.

"Truly the capital, so many pretty girls..." In the kingdom's capital, there were tall buildings and a beautiful artificial lake, but Lex never looked at the architecture.

Lex, having been wronged, just looked around and smiled happily.

He brushed the dust off his hands and whistled at the girls passing by, but no one paid attention to him; a dusty country youth squatting near the city gate was a daily occurrence, and how many of them actually stayed?

"... Hehe, I definitely came to the right place. Every girl is something you can't find in the countryside. In my life, I must marry a pretty capital girl as my wife."

The era was always filled with dark history; the Continental Hero could probably be considered the embodiment of dark history. The underage Lex suddenly running from the countryside into the city had countless explanations in books, such as a desire for self-improvement, a premonition of his destiny, or receiving a divine revelation.

But reality was too humorous; the real reason was often quite absurd.

His immense drive to act was simply because he wanted to marry a pretty capital girl, and the source of this matter was even...

"... more beautiful than that tax collector's daughter back then!"

An idle country youth happened to meet a lower-ranking noble lady coming to escape the heat; it sounded like the beginning of a love story. But the reality was that a small ruffian harassed a Young Lady and got beaten up by the guards.

Which tax collector's daughter was Lex looking for? Actually, he had forgotten her face; he only remembered how beautiful her skirt looked when it fluttered, how beautiful her hair was when it was smooth, and how fragrant she smelled when he got close. Yes, from start to finish, he was motivated purely by lust.

Beauty comes at a price; natural beauty also requires money, time, and patience to maintain. A country girl might be youthful and pretty when young, but she often ages very quickly.

And seeing the tax collector's daughter and her mother, who also looked very young... Lex suddenly felt that the country girls who called him "brother" weren't so fragrant anymore.

So, he came to the capital.

In every aspect, he appeared quite "lion-like."

By the way, he later happened to meet that lady again. But he remembered her through her tax collector father, and while that lady and her mother had attached themselves to him, he had completely lost all feeling.

"Eat first, then go look at girls."

In every aspect, Lex Thorne was quite unique; at least in the early stages, he thought with his lower body and acted on instinct. Like many country lads with no special skills, he first supported himself with manual labor, but soon he discovered his all-around talent in swordsmanship... and in cheating, stealing, and swindling.

He had been a pickpocket, a security guard, a bard, and a gang enforcer. His last job ended abruptly when he discovered that the gang was actually trafficking people.

He saved girls; he saved many.

Unfortunately, the girls still didn't think much of him. Unlike his later self, this version of him was actually quite innocent. If a good girl had truly taken a liking to him, perhaps the subsequent story would never have happened.

Of course, the entire kingdom might not have existed either.

Actually, he chose to become a kingdom knight because he heard that with a good status, girls from good families would take a liking to him.

But he didn't even serve as a knight apprentice for long.

The reason? Does flirting with the royal family count?

"Beautiful Young Lady, may I buy you a drink?" The polite knight addressed the beautiful woman at the bar and made an invitation.

Regardless, we are all of the Lion Clan; give a little face, at least.

"Get lost." The blonde girl didn't even lift her eyelids.

"Uh, rejection needs a reason, right?" The big boy clutched his heart as if wounded.

"I've been sitting here for half an hour. I'm the fourth person you've rejected after I invited you. Did you give me a reason? If you did, I'll give you one too. If not, is 'I hate playboys' enough?"

Immediately, the bar erupted in laughter. The playboy shrugged, not minding at all.

The lighting was too dim; he hadn't even clearly seen the face of the lady at the bar.

Then, he moved to the fifth, the sixth, who knows which number it was. He succeeded. Anyway, under the whistling farewells of onlookers, he went to a private room upstairs and spent a pleasant night.

At that time, he wasn't even an adult yet, but was already a notorious ruffian.

But the next day, he saw clearly...

"This is Mary. She will be interning here for a while and will also command a team to investigate a small case. Uh, Lex, you should be quite free, right?"

"I, of course, am free. Always free, especially for a beautiful lady."

The still-mouthy Lex finally saw "Mary" clearly for the first time. But this meeting was quite unpleasant.

The gentle Marianna? That was the adult Marianna. In reality, the young Marianna was very similar to Dai Niya, both being trouble-prone and impulsive in nature.

Lex disliked her because, upon their first meeting, she looked down on him.

Even though she looked beautiful, refined, and wore little dwarf glasses, the sharpness and impatience in those big eyes could not be concealed.

Lex's intuition was very useful; with just one glance, he saw the disdain in the other's seemingly gentle eyes.

The start of a love-hate relationship? The beginning of a boring and tedious love story from the elders? That would require Lex to be a normal person.

"Tsk tsk tsk, you look down on me, yet you want me to help you investigate the case?"

Thus, the result of this investigation was quite unpleasant. A large amount of funds was consumed inexplicably, informants became quite uncooperative, and Lex spent a pleasant time in the pleasure district.

Ultimately, "Mary," having exhausted her funds and time, could only leave helplessly. She received a big "Fail" on a certain assignment. Knowing everything from certain channels, she also remembered the scum Lex.

Then, Lex was kicked out of the knight apprentice squad. Don't misunderstand, it was a legal and compliant kick; finding faults with this scum was too easy.

Lex also remembered that noble girl who reported him.

The next meeting, however, was already during the Hero selection.

"Father, that man's character is a bit problematic. Remove him from the selection list." Thus, Lex lost his qualification to be selected as a Hero.

But she said it to his face, right in front of Lex.

"Smack!" Under the gaze of countless nobles and commoners, Lex, who slapped her right there on the spot, directly gained qualification for the dungeon.

Yet, facing his cellmate's inquiry, "How did you get in here?", he remained quite cheerful.

"Charges? Beating up the Princess in front of the King and knocking out one of her front teeth, does that count?" Inside the prison, having realized what he had done, Lex cheerfully composed a little tavern song.

"Ah, the Princess with no teeth, the wretched Princess, accidentally walked into a tavern and fell out her front teeth..."

Then, he cheerfully saw the Princess glaring at him from outside the cage.

"Ha, she really has no teeth, no front teeth!" There was also a foolish prisoner who pointed it out right there on the spot.

(End of this chapter)