Clara looked at the burly man’s ferocious face, her legs uncontrollably turning to jelly.
However, at the thought that she was Lady Saintess's attendant and couldn't disgrace her, she bit her lip and forced herself to speak up:
“Bullying a child... is wrong...”
By the time she reached the last few words, her voice had grown as weak as the buzzing of a mosquito.
The burly man looked at the trembling little girl in front of him and sneered sinisterly.
“You haven't even grown all your feathers yet, and you want to stick your nose in other people's business?”
He shook a fist the size of a sandbag, clearly planning to teach this suicidal little nun a lesson along with the beggar.
Before his fist could swing up, a heatwave rushed toward him from behind Clara.
The burly man’s movements froze.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the hooded woman behind Clara, holding a head-sized ball of fire in her right hand.
A mage?
Cold sweat poured down the man’s forehead. His entire arm remained frozen midair, not even daring to breathe too loud.
When on earth had a stranger who was a mage arrived in a place as chaotic as Densewood Town?
Among adventurers, there was a tacit understanding that mages were both the strongest and the hardest class to read.
With other classes, you could gauge their strength by muscle density and equipment, but with a mage, you had no idea how powerful a spell really was until it slammed into your body.
“Er... but it's fine! Just don't do it again next time, little girl.”
The burly man didn't want to offend a mage of unknown depth over this. He uttered a couple of perfunctory words to save face, then retreated back inside the tavern without looking behind him.
Seeing the burly man leave, Lilian extinguished her spark, turning to meet Clara's eyes, which practically beamed: ‘Lady Saintess, did I do the right thing?’
Sigh.
This was tricky. If she told Clara not to meddle in other people's business now, her saintly persona would probably collapse on the spot.
Clara turned her head to check on the child, only to find the beggar gone.
“Huh? Where did that little boy go?”
Lilian glanced down the alley where the little boy had vanished, her expression unreadable.
“He left just now. Don't worry about that for now, Clara.”
She then handed her money pouch to Clara and instructed, “Go open the best room first. I'm going to buy a few things in town and will be right back.”
Clara waved her hands repeatedly. “I have money! Sister... Sister Li, how could I use yours?”
Before she could finish, Lilian forcefully stuffed the money pouch into Clara's arms and turned toward the alley.
“Alright, be good. I'll come find you in a moment.”
As Lilian turned around, her face went cold. Well, well, you little thief! Clara saved you, and you stole her money pouch?
Her money is my money! You dare steal my money?
You've already chosen the path to your own death!
Relying on her high Spirit of 9 points, Lilian nimbly bypassed several mud puddles, quickening her pace as she entered a dark, narrow dead-end alley.
The deeper she walked, the dimmer the light became.
Bang!
With a dull impact, the frail little beggar was kicked flying, crashing into a pile of rotten wooden crates and coughing up bloody foam.
In the shadows deep within the alley, two slouched adult men blocked the way.
One was playing with a small knife in one hand while weighing Clara's little money pouch in the other.
The little beggar endured the excruciating pain, struggling to push himself up as he hissed hoarsely:
“I already got the money for you! You promised that if I stole money for you, you'd let me and my sister go!”
Hiding around the corner, Lilian looked past the two men toward the pile of broken wooden boards at the very back of the alley.
Behind those crates, sure enough, shrank a filthy, scrawny little girl.
The girl was clutching her knees, trembling uncontrollably. Between her messy, yellowish hair stood a pair of fluffy, triangular cat ears.
A beastkin?
Lilian's eyelids twitched.
Within the territory of the Saint Laurent Empire, half-beastkin were rarely seen.
Just then, due to the kick earlier, the ragged cloth wrapping the little beggar's head slipped off into the mud.
A pair of similarly dusty cat ears twitched twice, pressing tightly against his hair.
So they really were a pair of half-beastkin siblings.
The skinny man holding the pouch untied the string and peeked inside, his face instantly dropping.
“Fuck, how much is this? Three silver coins? Who are you trying to feed, a beggar?!”
The other man, covered in muscle and scars, stepped forward, stomped his foot onto the little beggar's face, and sneered:
“I give you rye bricks to eat every day, and you bring me a few lousy silver coins to fool me?”
The man grinned greedily:
“We went through so much trouble to get you two here, how are you such useless trash?”
“If you can't scrape together 30 gold coins tonight, I'll send you and your sister over to be the Baron's playthings!”
Hearing this, the little beggar's eyes instantly went dark; this was an utterly impossible task.
Lilian, hiding in the dark, frowned. She had originally only intended to retrieve Clara's money pouch and teach the little thief a lesson, but who knew she would stumble into such a troublesome matter?
A force capable of bringing half-beastkin all the way to the Empire... Tsk, what a pain.
Just as she was considering not looking for extra trouble, she heard the beastkin sister murmur weakly:
“Brother... I want to go home. I miss Mommy...”
Lilian clenched her fists.
Fuck...
While the two men were laughing, the space behind them lit up, and a heatwave rushed toward them.
Before they could react, two blazing balls of fire slammed directly into their heads.
Before they could even scream, two more balls of fire were shoved into their mouths, scorching through their throats.
The little beggar turned his head and saw Lilian walking out from the shadows, the cold expression beneath her hood resembling an unfeeling deity.
The 'deity' spoke, her tone dripping with unshakeable disgust:
“We underworld folks despise human traffickers who kidnap children the most. If you can't afford to live, just die. No need to thank me.”
The two men collapsed heavily to the ground, twitching a few times before ceasing to breathe.
To prevent them from making a desperate final struggle before dying, Lilian raised her hand and launched two more Searing Sparks at them.
The smell of charred corpses drifted throughout the alley.
[Killed Human LV6 above your level, XP +20]
[Killed Human LV5 above your level, XP +14]
[You have leveled up: LV1 -> LV3 (2/50), gained 2 Free Attribute Points.]
Looking at the level-up notification, Lilian couldn't bring herself to feel happy at all.
Although her father in her past life was a mob boss, he had protected her, his biological daughter, far too well. Hands-on murder was something Lilian was doing for the very first time.
Suppressing her nausea, she dumped all the free attribute points provided by the system straight into Constitution.
[Constitution 3 -> 5]
As a surge of extra strength welled up inside her body, the sickening feeling was finally pushed down.
Her gaze swept across the two little beastkin, finally landing on Clara's charred money pouch. A large hole had been burned through the opening, and several silver and copper coins had fallen right into the charred flesh of the corpse.
Ugh!
Forget it, she couldn't take this money.
Without saying a word, Lilian turned and left the alley.
The moment her figure vanished, the little beggar who had been slumped on the ground struggled to get up, stumbling deep into the alley, and pulled his trembling sister tightly into his arms.
“Anna, don't be scared. Brother will take you home!”
The cat ears atop the little girl's head twitched incessantly as she buried her tear-stained face into her brother's chest. “Tor, let's go home together!”
In this cruel foreign town, they didn't have the luxury of time to indulge in grief.
Tor pulled his sister over to the two charred corpses.
He tore off a few relatively intact pieces of cloth from the two thugs and carefully wrapped them around their heads.
Looking at the coins embedded in the charred flesh, Tor took a deep breath, endured the burning temperature, and forcefully pried them out one by one.
Having done all this, he turned around and bowed deeply toward the direction where Lilian had left, not rising for a long time.
Tor tightly held his sister's hand, swearing in his heart.
Underworld goddess, if I can bring my sister home, I will repay your kindness with my life.
In the name of Solster!
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