Chapter 100: unexpected saviors
Olivia tried to stand straight, but her world was still spinning.
The air in the city was foul; it smelled of burning charcoal, horse sweat, and something sharp like rusted iron. Every step she took on the cobblestone street felt as if she were walking on shards of glass.
A crowd began to gather around her. They were not just looking; they were watching with judgmental eyes.
Olivia, in her dirty white shirt and torn skirt, looked like an ugly stain amidst the grandeur of the city’s majestic architecture.
"Look at that," whispered a woman wearing a thick lace dress.
"She’s not from this city. Look at her clothes... how strange. Perhaps she’s an outcast from some remote village?"
"Or maybe she’s a stray," the man beside her chimed in with a tone of contempt.
"Look at her hands no status ring, no family tattoo. She is a nobody. A masterless stranger."
Olivia could only lower her head. The trauma of falling from that building still throbbed at the back of her head, causing blurry images of her past ’death’ to keep playing in her mind
. She felt alienated. She felt small. Every glance cast her way felt like a jab from an invisible knife. She was no longer the brilliant Olivia from the office; she was just a nameless human, searching for direction in a labyrinth she did not recognize.
"Ma’am..." a city guard clad in leather armor approached her. He did not offer help. Instead, he gripped the hilt of his sword with suspicion.
"What is your name? Where do you come from? You do not have the identification documents to enter the city."
Olivia was stunned.
"I... I don’t know. I’m lost."
The guard snorted harshly.
"Lost? In this city, no one is ’lost’ without a reason. You have no status, no family to vouch for you. Do you know what happens to people like you here?"
Olivia did not answer. She only shivered.
"You will be considered unregistered. If no family or master registers you within two days, you will be sent to the mines or turned into a slave for menial labor,"
the guard added in a cold tone.
Olivia turned away, her eyes scanning the surroundings in desperation. She tried to find a way out, trying to find a dark alley to escape the crowd.
But every corner of the street was guarded by armored soldiers monitoring the movement of the people. Her eyes then fixed on a large building at the end of the city square.
The building was made of grim gray stone, with a massive iron gate and a symbol she knew all too well the same symbol from the palace earlier.
The guard stopped walking and turned completely to face Olivia. He didn’t look her in the eyes; instead, he began to "scan" her from top to bottom from her messy hair, down to her dirty, torn white shirt, all the way to her feet.
In his heart, the guard felt puzzled by the way Olivia stood.
This woman is so strange. The way she stands, that ’clueless’ face of hers... is she trying to flirt or just get my attention?
The guard smirked, his eyes glancing at his partner with a meaningful look. He then spoke in a tone he intentionally softened, though it sounded entirely insincere:
"Oh... are you a newcomer here?"
Olivia, still traumatized and ignorant of the laws of this place, just nodded quickly. She thought it was a standard procedure to help a foreigner.
However, as soon as Olivia nodded, the reactions of the two guards changed. They looked at Olivia with looks of pure disgust as if Olivia were trash recently picked up from a gutter. The look was so sharp and demeaning that it made Olivia’s skin crawl.
She felt as though she were being stripped naked by their gaze.
The guard then signaled to his partner.
"Take her to the new registration room. Process her inside."
His partner understood the signal immediately. They were not intending to register Olivia; instead, they were plotting something sinister perhaps to sell her or exploit her for their own gain.
As they whispered and planned their evil scheme while dragging Olivia into a darker, more desolate alley, Olivia began to realize something was wrong.
The alley became quieter; there was no registration desk, no paperwork, and no other officials. There were only damp stone walls and a stench that made it hard to breathe. Olivia stopped walking suddenly, her brow furrowed. She looked around, her eyes darting through the dark alley ahead.
"Emm... is this really the room for registering newcomers?" Olivia asked, her voice trembling and beginning to be gripped by chilling fear.
The guard began to walk closer, his large body blocking the faint light in the alley. The smirk on his lips widened, this time more ravenous. He reached out, wanting to touch Olivia’s shoulder, as if he were "assessing" the prey that was about to become his.
Olivia, her feelings a mixture of trauma and threat, began to act. Her eyes darted around, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. Her trembling hand tried to reach for a piece of wood leaning against a pile of stones behind her—she was only inches away!
But the guard was no fool. He noticed Olivia’s movement. In the blink of an eye, he lunged and shoved Olivia’s body harshly, causing her to slam against the cold stone wall.
Olivia’s wrists were pinned firmly to the wall; the guard now stood too close, blocking any room for Olivia to escape.
Olivia froze. Her breath hitched. The overwhelming fear made her vocal cords seem to seize up.
She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, to call for anyone who might be outside, but only weak gasps and a voice stuck in her throat came out.
’. Someone, help me!!’
she screamed in her heart. Olivia closed her eyes tightly, unable to bear looking at the disgusting face of the man before her.
The guard chuckled, a sound like a beast’s grunt. He leaned closer to Olivia’s ear, whispering with a tone of triumph and hatred,
"Pretty girl... no one will hear you here. Besides, who cares about a ’stray’ like you?"
However, his words were cut short.
PLAK!
A loud thud echoed through the dark alley. It wasn’t the sound of a slap, but the sound of something heavy striking the guard’s nape from behind.
The guard’s eyes widened; his body suddenly went limp before he collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Olivia, still keeping her eyes closed, felt the guard’s body fall away from her.
When Olivia dared to open her eyes, she saw a figure standing there, holding a long metal rod that was still slightly smoking, as if it had just been used to deliver an electric shock or a powerful blow.
In front of her, the guard was no longer standing; instead, a mysterious man in a dark cloak stood there, looking at Olivia with an unreadable expression caught between pity and a warning.
"You..." the mysterious man’s voice was low, sharply cutting through the silence of the alley. "You almost ended your own life by being too ’friendly’ with these guard dogs."
The guard’s body collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud, leaving Avvion standing upright. He held the vibrating metal rod. When his eyes landed on the face of the girl who had almost been molested, Avvion froze completely.
His heart seemed to stop beating. He blinked repeatedly, closing and opening his eyes again, trying to ensure he wasn’t hallucinating.
*Wait... wait... wasn’t she dead? Wasn’t she rumored to be gone and no longer among us?*
Avvion was stunned. Before him, Olivia—the girl who should have long since vanished from this world—sat on the floor, clutching her chest with labored, panicked breaths. Avvion could not speak; his eyes scanned every inch of the dirty, disheveled Olivia, searching for any sign that this was a lie.
Olivia, sensing the sharp, ’suspicious’ gaze from the handsome man before her, did not want to be a victim a second time. With a movement full of adrenaline, she snatched the sword dropped by the guard who was now unconscious. Without hesitation, she pointed the blade directly at Avvion’s chest.
"If you try anything with me... I won’t hesitate to point this sword at you!!" Olivia asserted, her voice trembling slightly, yet her eyes were sharp and defiant.
Avvion was taken aback. His eyes widened at the girl’s bravery. In his heart, he smirked. *Hmm... her behavior, that look in her eyes... it really is the same as ’that woman’.*
Displaying a calm and authoritative demeanor, Avvion stepped closer to the tip of Olivia’s sword. "Don’t you know who I am?" Avvion asked with a deep, challenging tone.
Olivia panicked even more. She stood up slowly, her feet retreating, but her sword didn’t budge from its target. "Don’t come closer... and what did you mean by your question earlier?"
Avvion stopped walking. He fell silent for a moment, disbelief mingling with a strange, ’excited’ feeling. He became more convinced that the girl in front of him was no ordinary stranger.
"Hmm... if that’s the case, how about you work for me?" Avvion offered with a smile that was hard to decipher.
Olivia furrowed her brow, her face full of doubt and suspicion. "Why would I work for you?"
Avvion let the distance between them shrink, as if he weren’t afraid of the sword at all. He looked at Olivia with an intense, locking gaze.
"Aren’t you still unregistered in this empire? You know what the penalty is," Avvion said in a calm, powerful tone. "I guarantee I can help you register. But on the condition that you must become my person. How about it?"
Olivia fell silent. The sword in her hand felt heavy. In one corner of her mind, she knew she was dealing with a very dangerous man, but in another, she was desperate. The offer was her only way out to avoid being sent to the mines or becoming a slave.
Register... is this the only way for me to survive in this crazy world?
Olivia thought, her brain racing to find a way out of this life-or-death situation.
