Chapter 570 - 566 – THE HUNTER’S RETURN AND THE SHADOW OF FEAR IN THE MAYOR’S RESIDENCE

Thin white smoke carrying a strong spice aroma rose from the gigantic iron grill in the courtyard of the Black Wood Roasted Meat Tavern. The sizzling sound of fat from Mutated Armored Boar thigh meat touching the embers sounded like a beautiful melody to anyone who was hungry.

In a short time, the elderly tavern owner served three super-large wooden plates overflowing with golden-brown roasted meat cuts. A reddish sauce made from black-wood pepper bubbled hot on the surface of the meat, releasing a smoky, spicy-savory aroma that immediately made stomachs growl.

"Please enjoy, Miss! These are the most tender cuts from the inner thigh. I cooked them with a double-searing technique so the outer texture is crispy while the juices inside remain perfectly locked," the old man said with a wide smile that never left his now wound-free face, placing the gigantic plates on the table.

"Thank you, Grandfather. The aroma never disappoints," Sylvia replied with a satisfied smile.

Once the food was served, there was no longer room for small talk among the three hungry creatures.

Sol, the small golden cat, immediately buried its face into the pile of meat that was ten times the size of its body. The cat that was the disguised form of a golden dragon chewed at an unreasonable speed. Its sharp teeth tore through the steel-thick mutant meat fibers as though eating soft pudding. Spice sauce stuck to its golden whiskers, yet it paid no attention at all.

On the other side, Noir ate with a calmer yet no less terrifying style. From within the shadow atop its chair, extremely thin tendrils of darkness stretched out, piercing the gigantic meat cuts and pulling them into its mouth. There was no noisy chewing sound, only a low humming of satisfaction like the rotation of a diesel engine inside its chest.

Unlike her two savage familiars, Sylvia enjoyed her meal with the absolute elegance of a true sovereign. She took out her own silver knife and fork from the inventory dimension. With extremely delicate and precise movements, she cut the thick meat into small cubes, allowed the hot steam to rise for a moment, then placed them into her mouth.

"Extraordinary," Sylvia murmured, closing her eyes briefly as the penetrating spicy flavor and juicy texture of the meat exploded on her tongue. "This spice combination could truly be sold at sky-high prices in the arrogant restaurants of the capital. They have no idea what they are missing."

Hearing such high-level praise, the old man could only chuckle emotionally while awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

However, the warmth and peace of that lunch were suddenly broken by the sound of dragging footsteps and ragged breathing from the end of the stone-alley road.

A young man in his early twenties staggered closer to the tavern. He wore leather armor that was torn in many places, covered in drying blood stains and acidic-smelling swamp mud. On his back he carried a thick burlap sack that looked extremely heavy. His face was deathly pale from extreme exhaustion, and there was a long torn wound on his left arm.

That young man was Elian, the only son of the tavern-owning grandfather.

"Father...!" Elian called with a hoarse voice, dropping his burlap sack onto the ground with a heavy thud.

He forced himself to jog when he saw his father’s black wooden signboard. Throughout the journey home across the city gate, he had heard terrifying rumors from the street merchants that the Mayor’s elite troops had just visited the tavern alley. They intended to forcibly collect an absurd tax and threatened to raze the place to the ground because he had not yet returned. Extraordinary panic had drained the remaining strength he possessed.

Yet the moment he arrived at the tavern courtyard and prepared to see the worst scenario, Elian’s steps stopped abruptly. His eyes blinked several times as his brain tried to process a scene that was completely out of sync with the terrifying rumors he had heard on the road.

His father’s tavern stood firm, even looking cleaner and neater than usual. His father himself appeared extremely healthy, without any bruises, and was smiling happily while serving a customer. And that customer... was an extraordinarily beautiful black-haired girl. The girl, wearing only a tight white tank top and shorts, was casually having lunch accompanied by two strange cats.

"Elian! Heavens, Son, you finally came home!" the grandfather exclaimed, immediately running to his son and embracing him tightly, not caring about the blood and mud stains clinging to his child’s protective clothing. "Thank goodness you are safe. Father was extremely worried about you, Son!"

"F-Father... are you all right? Our tavern... wasn’t destroyed?" Elian stammered, looking at his father then looking around with a dazed expression. "I heard from the gate guards that the Captain of the iron-wolf troops came here..."

The grandfather released his embrace, glanced toward Sylvia who was still calmly chewing her food, then looked at his son with a gaze full of respect and admiration.

"They did come, Son. They destroyed everything here and nearly killed Father. But... the great Young Miss over there saved Father," the old man whispered with a trembling voice. "She paralyzed those soldiers without touching them, healed all of Father’s wounds, and even restored our destroyed tavern to whole again merely by snapping her fingers."

Elian swallowed hard with difficulty. He stared at the black-haired girl sitting casually at the corner table. As a Rank 3 hunter, Elian possessed a sufficiently trained basic mana-sensitivity instinct. Yet when he instinctively tried to sense the magical fluctuation from Sylvia’s body, he felt nothing. Completely empty. The girl felt as mortal as an ordinary civilian.

Nevertheless, Elian was not a foolish person illiterate about the world of magic. He knew full well that the absence of mana in someone who was said to be able to paralyze the Captain of the Mayor’s elite troops meant only one thing: the girl stood on a dimension of power so far above him that his human instinct was not even permitted to detect her existence. He was facing a monster in human form.

Ignoring the throbbing pain in his left arm, Elian immediately dropped to his knees on the stone floor, bowing his head deeply before Sylvia.

"This servant expresses infinite gratitude for Your kindness and mercy, Honorable Miss. You have saved my father’s life and our only livelihood. My life belongs to You starting from this day," Elian said with a trembling voice filled with absolute sincerity.

Sylvia slowly set down her silver fork, took a clean white cloth napkin from her dimension, and elegantly wiped her lips. She regarded the blood-soaked young man with one raised eyebrow. Sylvia’s carelessly tied black hair fluttered slightly in the midday wind.

"Stand up; there is no need to create excessive drama in front of my food," Sylvia said casually, lightly waving her hand.

A soft yet irresistible wind push immediately lifted Elian’s body, forcing him to stand upright once more.

"I saved this tavern purely because I had not finished eating the roasted meat. If the tavern were destroyed, where would I go to find a lunch this delicious?" Sylvia joked coldly yet soothingly. "Besides, it seems you encountered rather serious trouble in the hunting grounds," she continued, glancing at the terrible torn wound on the young man’s arm.

"This... is nothing, Miss. Just a small gift from the tail slash of a monster while I was struggling to obtain this valuable material," Elian answered, dragging his burlap sack closer and opening it slightly.

From inside the mud-smelling sack protruded a thick golden-brown horn radiating a sufficiently pulsing earth-element aura. It was a Earth Dragon Horn, the core material of a Rank 5 mutated monster that held extremely high selling value and was very rarely found on the outskirts of the city.

"An Earth Dragon Horn. Not bad for a hunter who has only just reached Rank 3. You are lucky to still be able to return with your head attached to your neck," Sylvia assessed casually, immediately recognizing the material.

"Th-This is what the corrupt tax collectors belonging to the Mayor have been searching for," Elian explained with a gloomy expression full of restrained hatred. "They have spies at the gate mission-registration posts. When they learned I was hunting this high-rank material, they fabricated tax accusations in order to seize it legally. I planned to sell this horn on the black market today to pay off that false ’debt’ so my father’s tavern would not be disturbed. But thanks to You, it seems that plan is no longer necessary."

"The future of this tavern is already guaranteed. Never sell goods of such good quality on the black market; the price will be crushed to the ground by the loan sharks," Sylvia ordered while taking her drinking glass. "Take that horn straight to the Hunter Association headquarters in the middle district. Meet the Chief Appraiser named Kael. Tell him that Sylvia ordered you to meet him. He will give you a fair price, and I guarantee he will not dare deduct a single credit coin from your rights."

Elian’s eyes widened so much they nearly popped from their sockets. Master Kael? The Chief Appraiser and Executive Logistics Manager of the Black Lotus branch?

That man was an existence whose position was considered far higher and more powerful than the Mayor of this city! Even nobles from the upper district had to make an appointment a month in advance merely to be able to drink tea with him. And the black-haired girl before him had just mentioned Kael’s name in a casual tone as though referring to the name of her personal servant?

"A-As you command, Miss Sylvia!" Elian nodded stiffly, still stunned and trying to process the information.

Sylvia glanced toward her right shoulder. "Sol, you have already eaten meat equivalent to the weight of an entire cow. Heal his arm before he faints from blood loss and ruins my appetite."

The golden cat whose stomach already looked rounded meowed lazily, yet never dared to disobey its master’s command. Sol released a pure sacred light the size of a marble that shot like a bullet into the wound on Elian’s arm.

In a matter of seconds, miracles occurred once more. The deep torn wound that had exposed bone knitted itself. Muscle tissue and skin fused tightly without leaving the slightest scar, and the pain evaporated completely, replaced by the warmth of pure life energy that refreshed his entire blood circulation.

Both Elian and his father were once again frozen, unable to speak. They could only bow repeatedly in a silence filled with profound gratitude.

While peace and small miracles enveloped the roasted-meat tavern in the western district, a storm of gripping fear was striking the Official Mayor’s Residence at the peak of the upper district.

The Mayor’s palace was built with deliberately excessive architecture, decorated with imitation gold pillars, expensive paintings, and gargoyle statues. Inside the extremely spacious main office carpeted with rare white monster fur, Mayor Garmon a middle-aged man with a plump body, a protruding belly, and fingers covered in gemstone rings was pacing back and forth with a deathly pale face and ragged breathing.

On the marble floor of his room, the Guard Captain who several hours earlier had abused the tavern-owning grandfather now knelt in an extremely wretched condition. His iron armor was dented inward on various sides as though it had just been struck by a gigantic rock. His face was severely bruised blue, his nose was broken, and he still coughed blood every time he tried to speak.

In the darker corner of the room, a man in a gray robe sat casually with an old wooden magic staff on his lap. He was Master Thorne, a Rank 6 wind-element Mage who was employed at an extremely high salary as the Mayor’s spiritual advisor and military ace card.

"So, try repeating it once more..." Mayor Garmon’s voice trembled from anger mixed with terror, pointing toward his trembling captain on the floor. "...you five, my trusted elite troops, were paralyzed until you wet your pants merely by a single gaze from an unarmed teenage girl wearing casual sleepwear?!"

"I-It was not merely a gaze, Lord Mayor..." the captain groaned, pressing his chest that still ached from the trauma of the absolute pressure that had crushed his lungs. "The air pressure around that girl suddenly turned into a sea of hot lead. The gravity jumped dozens of times beyond the normal limit. We could not even suck in oxygen... A-And the most insane part..."

The captain forced himself to swallow, his voice squeaking from the fear that once again crawled up his spine.

"After we crawled away, I-I managed to glance back briefly from the end of the road. That black-haired girl... she did not chant any spell. She did not create a magic circle. She merely snapped her fingers casually, and the wooden tavern we had just destroyed reassembled itself! T-Time in that place seemed to rewind! The broken wooden debris flew and reunited perfectly in only three seconds!"

"Impossible!" Mayor Garmon shouted hysterically, kicking his mahogany wooden desk until several document files fell. "Manipulating space? Instantly reversing time?! You must be a stupid drunkard who suffered magical toxin hallucinations on the street! There is no such magic in the real world!"

"He is not hallucinating, Garmon."

A heavy, hoarse, and extremely cold voice from Master Thorne suddenly cut through the boiling panic in the room.

The Rank 6 Mage slowly stood from his chair. His face that usually always radiated arrogance and calm now looked tense to the point that blue veins at his temples protruded. A cold sweat the size of a corn kernel slowly flowed down his forehead.

Mayor Garmon turned, staring at his strongest advisor with a face of confusion mixed with panic. "M-Master Thorne? What do you mean by those words?"

Thorne stepped forward with heavy steps, regarding the captain with a restrained expression of horror.

"Creating spatial gravitational pressure capable of crushing bones merely by releasing a small portion of one’s existence aura is an absolute characteristic of disaster mages above Rank 7," Thorne explained slowly. "And manipulating time upon inanimate objects... are you aware, Garmon, that even the Highest Archmage in the Royal Palace of the Capital can only slow time for two seconds, and even that requires sacrificing half of his life essence. If this girl can rewind time locally without using a magic formation and merely with a snap of her fingers..."

Thorne drew a long breath that sounded violently trembling.

"...we are not dealing with an elite hunter, a general, or a high capital noble. That girl is an Anomaly. An existence on the level of a Star Calamity, or perhaps the human form of an ancient Primordial Dragon that has lived for thousands of years. A power fluctuation of that kind is unbound by the mortal laws of any kingdom."

Hearing that deadly analysis, Mayor Garmon’s two legs suddenly lost their function. His plump body collapsed back onto his velvet-covered chair.

"B-By the gods... what have you done to my city, you stupid dogs?!" Garmon cursed hysterically at his captain, pulling his own hair. "You provoked a death-god existence like that merely for a roasted pig and a petty tax that is not even enough to buy my wine?!"

"F-Forgiveness, Lord! This servant truly did not know! She did not look like a threat at all!" the captain wailed.

"What was the final message of that girl before she allowed you to live?" Thorne asked sharply, his eyes narrowing with full vigilance.

"Sh-She said... the matter of the tax accusation against the old man’s son e-ends today," the captain sobbed, slamming his head against the floor. "And if even a single uniformed guard belonging to the Mayor dares step into that tavern alley again... she will come herself to this residence, p-pull out Lord Mayor’s entire spine, and hang Lord Mayor’s corpse on the main city gate..."

The captain delivered that ultimatum message with a sobbing voice that was shameful for a military man.

Garmon’s face instantly lost all color pigment, turning as white as parchment paper. He reflexively touched the back of his neck, as though he could feel the shadow of invisible icy fingers brushing his spine at that very moment.

"T-Thorne! What should we do?! Send an emergency message! Call reinforcements from the Capital Association! Gather the entire iron-wolf troops to guard this residence layer by layer!" Garmon shouted in panic, completely losing all remaining authority of his leadership.

Thorne snorted extremely coldly, regarding the greedy mayor before him with a gaze full of hatred and disgust.

"If she decides to visit tonight, even a hundred thousand elite steel-plated troops will only become dust in the front yard of your house," Thorne hissed sharply. "The only thing we can do to survive is absolute obedience. Withdraw all tax officers from the western district right now. Lock the main gate of this residence. Do not let a single troop leave the barracks without direct permission from me. If you are lucky, that entity is merely bored and has taken that meat tavern as her temporary protected area."

Back in the calm lower district, the sun began to lean far toward the west.

Sylvia had finished her luxurious meal. The three gigantic wooden plates on her table were clean without leaving a single meat fiber or sauce drop. She stood from her chair, stretching her body with an extraordinarily satisfied feeling.

"An extremely epic lunch, Grandfather. You truly never disappoint my palate," Sylvia praised.

The black-haired girl waved her hand, taking out her black-gold VIP Access Card from within the system dimension. Ignoring the gentle refusal from the old man who felt he already owed far too much because his life and tavern had been saved, Sylvia pressed the exclusive card against the worn portable credit-processing terminal plate located at the end of the cashier table.

Beep.

The old terminal screen flickered brightly for a moment before showing a successfully validated credit transfer. The amount displayed on the terminal screen was extremely fantastical, a credit nominal more than sufficient to cover the price of dozens of meal portions, compensation for the old man’s emotional trauma, and capital for premium monster-ingredient shopping for years ahead.

"I have paid in full including the tip," Sylvia said casually, storing her card again. "Make sure this tavern is always open whenever I need to eat."

"Th-Thank you! Miss’ kindness will always be engraved in our hearts! You will always receive a VIP seat and the best dishes in this small tavern forever!" the old man exclaimed with emotional tears welling once more, while Elian bowed deeply to see off the departure of his family’s savior.

The black-haired girl walked casually away from the tavern area, once again following the city’s stone streets toward the Silver Tower apartment. Sol slept curled up peacefully on her right shoulder, occasionally releasing soft purrs due to its overly full stomach.

However, when they turned at the intersection of the alley that was beginning to grow quiet from citizen activity, Sylvia slightly lowered her head, regarding her own shadow that lengthened on the ground due to the reflection of the afternoon sunlight.

"Noir," Sylvia whispered with a voice that was extremely soft, yet contained absolute authority as cold as eternal ice.

The black shadow beneath her feet rippled slightly, responding to her call with full obedience.

"Greedy and cowardly people like the mayor of this border city usually possess a paranoid nature that will continue to grow. I do not want my lunch time or that old man’s peace to be disturbed again by this petty political problem in the future," Sylvia said casually.

A thin, lethal smile formed at the corner of her lips.

"Tonight, go pay a visit to the Mayor’s palace. You do not need to take anyone’s life... killing them would only invite an investigation from the royal side to intervene and make my leisurely routine in this city noisy."

Sylvia’s eyes glittered for a moment. "Just... give them a ’small warning’ inside their subconscious. Enter their dreams. Make them understand very clearly that the true shadow of fear is something they have never witnessed in their entire lives."

From within the dark shadow on the stone road, a pair of purple eyes belonging to the shadow dragon shone brightly for a moment. A low, heavy, dark growl full of cruel anticipation echoed directly inside Sylvia’s mind.

’With great pleasure, Your Majesty. This servant will ensure they learn never to dare look toward the western district again for the rest of their lives,’ Noir replied through soul telepathy.