Chapter 172 Rescue

The toes of his shoes rolled over the damp bluestone slabs, leaving blurry muddy footprints at the entrance of the alley, but they were soon trampled by others until no trace could be seen.

The red-haired girl pulled her cloak closer around her, narrowing her eyes as she followed the buyer. He was a tall, middle-aged man with sunken cheeks and bulging eyes like frogs. His head jerked nervously around, his gaze shifting. She focused on his left hand, hidden beneath his sleeve: indeed, a section of the pinky finger bone was missing. Marceline lacked the tyrant's exceptionally formidable deductive powers, and she couldn't understand how he could have determined that this was self-inflicted.

——But it doesn’t matter, His Majesty never makes mistakes.

A young Daba girl had been bound tightly and hung upside down from the shoulders of a market thug behind her buyer. Her beautiful dark brown hair dragged against the ground, crusted with mud and blood. This people, whose total population was less than one-thousandth of the Sylvies, originated from the Gray Alliance and still lived beneath the rocky outcrops of the wasteland, sewing linen with bone needles and subsisting on hunting.

Ironically, many Silver Iris nobles liked the "wildness" of the beauties among the Daba people, and even liked their deep green eyes that glowed faintly in the darkness, which brought disaster to the entire nation.

Ole's deceased mother was a Daba, who left him with dark skin and the ability to see in the dark.

Although the guy didn't say anything, Marshilin knew that her friend would definitely do something. In order to avoid another dispute between him and the tyrant, she simply volunteered first - but the emperor seemed to be more... soft-hearted than she had imagined.

At the edge of the Rusty Iron Market, a horse-drawn carriage waited in an inconspicuous corner. A young Daba girl was roughly shoved inside. The driver whipped the carriage, and the wheels made a harsh, hoarse sound. The dripping mud mixed with the rust, like blood flowing into the ruts, and soon the carriage was moving further and further away from the market.

Maxine was running at high speed, and only a vague afterimage could be seen.

The black horse pulling the carriage suddenly let out a shrill neigh. Arrows, coming from nowhere, pierced the horse's legs one after another. The severe pain made the animal suddenly raise its head, with its front hooves hanging in the air, struggling in panic. The entire carriage lost its balance and fell to the ground, with sparks flying from the horseshoes and the carriage ruts.

The driver was caught off guard, his legs pinned beneath the carriage. He screamed and groaned in pain, while the buyer and the Daba girl tumbled out of the carriage. Maxlin's pupils shrank slightly. These arrows came from both sides of the road.

A group of ragged men, their faces covered with rags, rushed out from the shadows, holding sharp weapons. The leader, wearing a rusty metal mask, slashed the driver with a sharp blow. The dying black horse was still twitching, and steaming blood was spreading across the ground.

The buyer's eyes bulged even more. He quickly grabbed the Daba girl's hair and, ignoring her screams, threw her towards the coldly flashing blades without hesitation.

A robber quickly moved sideways to catch the Daba girl, but the buyer took the opportunity to touch the dying driver and directly shoved his palm into the knife wound of the driver's throat, which was still bleeding. As the driver chanted, blood vessels on his dark face bulged, and the exploding blood mist gushed out from the depths of his throat, condensing into thousands of blood arrows, and pounced on the robbers in tattered clothes.

"spread!"

Before the loud shout had died down, the robber who had just caught the Daba girl had already fallen to his knees in agony, holding the bloody hole in his chest. Fine beads of blood were oozing from all the pores of his body, and countless blood-colored threads emerged from the wound on his chest, wrapping him into a scarlet human cocoon in the blink of an eye.

"Son of Life!" The leader was filled with shock and fury. He was a warrior, but the blood mist kept him at bay. Seeing his companions fall screaming one after another, he gritted his teeth and leaned forward, muscles tensed, veins throbbing in his neck, ready to force his way through the blood mist, even at the cost of serious injury.

At this moment, the blood mist suddenly dissipated.

A short figure was grabbing the tall man by the throat and holding him in the air.

This scene was originally quite funny, but a strange crackling whine came from the throat of the Son of Life. He instinctively tried to pry open the hand which was relatively small in comparison, but soon he lowered his head and remained motionless with the sound of his larynx breaking.

As the Child of Life's corpse fell to the ground, Marcylin frowned and brushed the blood off her hands. Even though she wasn't as mysophobic as the Princess, she still felt extremely disgusted.

A Daba girl slumped down in the mud not far from her, staring at her in terror. She couldn't help but shrink back, but her hands and feet were tightly bound, preventing her from moving. Mashilin was silent for a moment, then suddenly removed her cloak, revealing her flaming red hair. Then, she carefully knelt down and draped the cloak over the Daba girl's naked body.

"Don't be afraid." The red-haired girl tore off the shackles and hemp ropes on the Daba girl with her bare hands, stuffed a small bag of coins into her arms, and looked at her beautiful, honey-colored face seriously: "Get out of here quickly."

The robbers began to help each other to get up. The leader checked the most seriously injured person and breathed a sigh of relief when he found that he was still breathing.

The frightened Daba girl rubbed her freed wrist, glanced at them timidly, and said in a stuttering common language: "I, thank you, I——"

She showed a painful and anxious expression, gesturing with her hands: "But I can't leave, Mom is still here..."

"She's dead." A rough voice interrupted. Mashilin and the Daba girl looked up together. The speaker was the robber leader wearing a rusty iron mask.

Seeing the Daba girl's face instantly turn pale and tears welling up in her deep green eyes, the man tilted his head slightly, his tone cold and even cruel: "She is too old and too weak. She had stopped breathing by the time the auction ended."

A figure pushed him aside and called the girl's name in a tearful Daba language. The latter looked at him in disbelief until the other party pulled off the cloth covering his face, revealing his brown face. The girl suddenly burst into a heart-wrenching cry and hugged her relatives and friends tightly.

"I am 'Ashes'."

Maxine turned and looked at the mysterious man in the rusty mask. He was sizing her up warily, but perhaps because she had just come to his rescue, his tone softened. "Who are you, and why are you here?"

The red-haired girl blinked slowly. She saw the black blood mark on the forehead of the Daba man - could she have happened to meet the person the professor was looking for?

…

On the other side, the red snake, which was cast with a confusion spell, was crossing the Rusty Iron Market with its newly acquired goods.

The professor observed everything around him the entire time until he was pushed into the dungeon with the red snake. Under the influence of the confusion spell, the snake completely ignored him and was busy licking the savior's face with its eyes.

"You will be the most perfect treasure." The red snake murmured in a trembling and sticky voice, obsessed with it: "Look at you, look at you..."

A blond youth stood quietly and elegantly in the dim dungeon. He was the most presumptuous creation of the gods. A black magic-forbidden collar encircled his slender neck, and an iron chain dangled from it, disappearing deep within the dungeon before being bolted firmly to the iron wall.

Red Snake wanted to touch that unrealistically beautiful face with his fingers, but some inexplicable palpitations made him stop, and the fanaticism in his eyes was replaced by fear and uneasiness that he was not even aware of.

"...It seems that you still don't understand your own identity." He swallowed, calmed himself down, and wanted to teach the new slave a lesson, but his instinct was so strong that he had to shut up.

In his panic, his peripheral vision suddenly darted to the other black-haired slave beside him. Yes, Red Snake thought vaguely, there's another slave... or maybe two? It doesn't matter. Why did he take over? It seemed because this person had a close relationship with the rare commodity. If it wasn't convenient to discipline them harshly, he could use this person to restrain the other party. Some customers liked this kind of thing...

He then raised his whip at the black-haired slave and shouted, "Kneel down! How dare a lowly slave look directly into the face of his honored master?"

Actually, this person's face was quite handsome, equally worthy of the name of the Golden Bazaar, Red Snake thought with some regret. Pale, elegant, sharp, with a certain scholarly frailty and neuroticism. Many aristocrats with strong tastes particularly liked this type of face: calm yet fragile, and absolutely beautiful when tormented by lust and pain, crying and screaming—but he had already discovered the most perfect being.

Seeing that the black-haired slave didn't move, staring at him indifferently with his clear smoky-gray eyes, as if he was looking at a fool, Red Snake became a little angry and simply raised the whip, avoiding his face and preparing to whip him.

So he silently lost his mind for the second time today.

The savior's eyes were expressionless, as if he was looking at a dead person.

This kind of sticky and disgusting look was not unfamiliar to him. After all, he had experienced this in his previous life. Although it made him feel murderous and impatient, it was not unbearable - but this guy dared to look at that person with such eyes.

—Dig out his eyes, someone thought very calmly, and then mince his head.

Someone poked his arm, and Azuka lowered his eyes tenderly, his voice soft and pleasant, "Professor? What's wrong?"

His nemesis, who was frowning at the chain around his neck, suddenly hooked his fingers around the buckle and tugged downwards. The savior was slightly startled, then meekly bent over, following the relatively light force.

"It's dirty." The other party said expressionlessly.

He was referring to the blond youth's fair neck, which had been stained with a hint of reddish-brown rust, making it particularly glaring. He was already a germaphobe, and tolerating the tattered cloak covering his hair was a sign of his immense patience and compromise.

The professor tutted his words, his inexplicable irritation causing him to decisively order, "Break it, and then come out with me."

An eyesore.