Kaphni, who was standing to the side, was also stunned.
The girl who suddenly ran out of the house and into Linda's arms was dressed really strangely!
The girl wears a square cardboard box on her head, with a chibi-style turnip head painted on it. The turnip head is smiling and holding a knife and fork, with the words "The more you eat, the bigger you get, the healthier you get!" next to it.
Is turnip really that effective? Isn't it a bit too 'healthy'?
Kaphni looked at the girl who was tightly hugging Linda's waist with a trembling heart. That big round cake made her feel a little sour.
"Uh... so you agree to join the Phoenix Flower Adventure Team?"
Linda awkwardly raised his hand. Although he didn't know why the other person was hugging him so tightly, it was indeed inappropriate for him to just hug them casually. What if the other person was an idiot and he still bullied him? The law enforcement bureau would just give him a pair of silver bracelets.
The girl's sobbing came from the cardboard box, soft and muffled, without any reply. All that could be heard was her repeated utterance of "Captain."
Beneath the cardboard headgear was a large white top, the hem of which covered the upper thighs. The girl's bare feet were on the ground, and her skin was pale and delicate, the kind of sickly white that comes from not seeing the sun for a long time.
Linda felt as if it were a fragile and exquisite toy that would break if touched even slightly.
The other person was barely 1.6 meters tall, with a head covered by a cardboard box that only reached his chin. A big panda, a small body... he looked kind of familiar?
"What's your name? Can you take off your hood so Uncle can see what you look like?" Linda asked in a soft, high-pitched voice.
The girl glanced at Kaphni to the side, then quickly shrank back into Linda's arms, as if afraid that Kaphni would notice her glance. She said timidly, "Only, only for Captain."
Kaphni retorted angrily, "Huh? I'm not going to eat you, what are you so afraid of?"
After saying that, he was about to pull off the girl's hood.
"Waaah!" A mournful cry like that of a young animal came from the cardboard box. The girl went around behind Linda and nervously clutched the hem of Linda's clothes with her small hands.
Linda sighed and stopped Kaphni: "I'll talk to her first. You wait outside for a while."
“That won’t do. He’s been here for three days and he’s been hiding the whole time. This kind of ungrateful wretch should be hung up and whipped as a warning to others!” Kaphni said sternly.
Upon hearing the news of being whipped and paraded in public, the cardboard box girl trembled so badly that her legs shook like leaves, and a soft, gurgling sound could be heard.
Linda initially thought the water pipes in the house weren't turned off properly, but when she turned around, she and Kaphni were dumbfounded.
Right in front of the two, this cardboard girl, whose name they didn't even know, was so scared that she wet herself!
"ah?"
Kaphni stared in disbelief at the girl's trembling body, a pang of guilt slowly creeping into her heart. She had thought the girl was faking it, but it turned out she was genuinely timid, cowardly as a mouse!
"Don't worry, she won't whip you. She was just joking." Linda gently stroked the cardboard box, took the girl's soft, boneless hand, and led her into the house.
This time, Kaphni didn't say much and waited silently outside.
Both of them tacitly pretended not to hear the sound of water, so as not to hurt the girl's self-esteem.
Upon entering the foyer, Linda smelled a foul odor.
Both sides of the aisle were piled high with round, white garbage bags, containing many disposable chopsticks, lunch boxes, large amounts of toilet paper, and dirty, smelly clothes...
Outerwear, skirts, underwear—a jumble of things, it seemed as if they were so dirty that they were too lazy to wash them and just threw them away.
As the saying goes, you can tell a lot about a room's owner by its appearance. Linda's small, run-down rental apartment, aside from being a bit dilapidated, was impeccably clean. Even after wiping the dining table for ages, there wasn't a speck of dust.
And the room in front of him...
Linda glanced at the cardboard girl who was trembling with her legs tucked together and her head hanging down, and labeled her with a few tags: socially anxious, lazy, and a poor girl who can't afford clothes!
He initially thought the girl was wearing a loose top because she was learning from the elves' 'trendy fashion,' but now he was certain that the girl in the cardboard box was dressed like that because she couldn't afford pants!
Sewing dolls only earns him a single silver coin a day, and he still owes the Mandala family a mountain of gold coins.
It was pure luck that they weren't dragged out of the house and sold to a brothel to serve the orcs.
If he hadn't happened to come by today, Luke would definitely have smashed down the door and rushed in... the consequences would have been unimaginable.
Linda sighed and led the girl to sit down in the living room.
The living room was just as messy, with a layer of dust on the table, clean ice cream boxes scattered on the floor, and many overturned bottles of 'water', one copper coin a bottle, a must-have for down-on-his-luck adventurers.
A huge question confronted Linda: "You're a level 15 adventurer, right? Why, well, how should I put it, so frugal? Your lifestyle is far too frugal?"
A level 15 adventurer can earn at least 10 gold coins by simply accepting a monster-hunting quest.
"Poor..." the girl with the cardboard box on her head murmured.
"I know you're poor, but I'm asking why you're so poor?"
The girl shook her head: "Apart from Captain Monica, all the adventurers... will harm me. They'll definitely use Monica as bait to lure monsters..."
Monica?
Linda paused for a moment; the name sounded somewhat familiar.
He looked intently at the girl: "Now that there's no one around, can Uncle take off your hood now?"
Once he sees the other person's face, he'll definitely remember.
"Mmm." The girl, who called herself Monica, nodded her head slightly, shyly pulling at the hem of her wide dress to cover her tightly closed thighs.
This tense posture made Linda's heart beat slightly faster.
Why do I feel nervous when it's just a matter of removing the other person's hood?
"So, Uncle's about to start?"
Linda shook her head, trying to dispel the bad thoughts. As an adventurer who knew and understood the law, she could never take excessive actions just because someone seemed easy to bully.
With a serious expression, he pressed down on the cardboard box above Monica's head, lifting it by the edges with both hands and slowly pulling it upwards...
Splash—
Suddenly, the girl's smooth, long brown hair cascaded out of the cardboard box like a waterfall.
She is slovenly, but has beautiful, smooth long hair!
Gradually, her delicate chin was revealed, followed by her pursed pink lips, exquisite nose, and shy, blinking eyes, her gaze lowered to her toes.
Linda continued to lift the cardboard box. The girl had a large, cute forehead that was smooth and dazzling. Her long hair on the right side was braided into a plait, which passed over the high part of her forehead and fell into her palm, which she nervously tugged at.
Completely exposed to the air, the girl instinctively curled up, cautiously looked up at Linda, and said timidly:
"Captain, you didn't abandon Monica, did you?"
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