Chapter 221: The Heroic Spirit Intends to Put You in Your Place

Chapter 221: Chapter 221: The Heroic Spirit Intends to Put You in Your Place

Before the two Guards could react, they both felt an arm suddenly land on their shoulders.

Annoyed, the two Guards turned their heads at the same time to look.

A young man with black hair and black eyes stood between them. He watched them quietly, a harmless smile playing on his lips.

"Who the hell are you? You looking to die...?"

The tall, thin Guard had just started to curse.

But in the next second, the expressions on both their faces changed.

They realized with horror that the arm on their shoulders had suddenly tightened its grip.

The terrifying force transmitted through that grip made them feel like their shoulder blades were crying out in agony.

Pinned by that immense brute force, the two of them couldn’t even struggle in the slightest.

And just like that, under the astonished gazes of the surrounding passersby, these two Guards, who usually lorded it over everyone, were dragged like a pair of chicks ready for slaughter into a nearby alley by the sudden appearance of the black-haired man.

The moment they stepped into the shadows, Lance’s [Dragon Phase] unleashed a burst of [Dragon’s Might] as he narrowed his eyes.

The oppressive aura immediately locked onto the two Guards.

"Officers, bullying a little girl selling apples in broad daylight... that’s not a very nice thing to do."

Lance still wore that same beaming smile, and his tone was perfectly relaxed.

"Aren’t you afraid of running into some passing Ranger who decides to act for a just cause and beats you to death in the street by accident?"

Lance tilted his head, giving the tall, thin Guard a deep, meaningful look.

Although Lance had a gentle smile on his face, when the tall, thin Guard met those black eyes, his scalp tingled, and he felt a sudden, uncontrollable urge to urinate.

Seeing the two of them shivering uncontrollably, Lance slowly turned his head again to look at the brawny, foul-mouthed Guard next to him.

Lance patted the man’s fleshy cheeks and lowered his voice.

"So, I just saved your lives. As a fair exchange, shouldn’t you show some sincerity this time? Make a gesture of your appreciation?"

The brawny Guard could feel the fat on his face trembling with Fear.

He didn’t know why, but whenever the man’s smiling gaze swept over them, it felt as if even the warm sunset glow at the alley’s entrance had been completely swallowed by a thick, black aura.

’Dammit, we’re seeing a ghost!’

The two Guards wailed in despair in their hearts, their legs already starting to shake uncontrollably.

"Yes! Yes! Thank you for saving our lives, sir! Thank you so much!"

Scared out of their wits, the two Guards moved in perfect unison, hastily fumbling through their pockets and pouches.

They took out all the Copper Coins and Silver Coins they had extorted from people in the market, along with the apples they had just swiped, and tremblingly stuffed everything into Lance’s arms.

After doing all this, the two fled the alley like pardoned prisoners, scrambling and crawling away. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared into the market crowd.

[Congratulations! You have gained +30 General Concept Reputation Value!]

Listening to the crisp system notification in his mind, Lance satisfyingly tossed the coin pouch in his hand, weighing it as it made a pleasant metallic clinking sound.

[Clovis, Lotar, and Leonidas are planning to discuss the final Protection to grant you based on your actions...]

At that, the expression on Lance’s face froze.

’My actions affect the Protection?’

’Thinking about everything I’ve done so far...’

’No, with three Heroic Spirits watching me, I have to be careful about my every word and deed from now on.’

’I’ve had enough of the system’s twisted nature. I can’t have the Protection getting distorted into something exclusive to perverts or villains, can I?’

He then walked out of the alley and turned to look at the young girl.

The blonde girl was currently squatting on the ground, her head lowered, silently picking up the apples that had rolled into the dust and placing them back in her cart’s wooden basket one by one.

Lance walked over.

He didn’t say a word, simply squatting down naturally and reaching out to help her pick up the scattered fruit.

Not until all the apples were back in the cart.

Lance looked at the girl, who still kept her head down in silence, and sighed inwardly before speaking to comfort her.

"Don’t be sad."

"Your apples all look very fresh. I’ll buy all of them."

As he spoke, Lance casually placed the coin pouch he had just extorted from the Guards into the girl’s palm.

"This should be enough to buy all your fruit. Take the money and go home early."

But the girl’s mind wasn’t on the money at all.

Her gaze went past the coin pouch to the messy pile of apples on her cart.

Although all the fruit had been gathered back, many of the once plump, rosy apples were now bruised and turning black on the surface from the Guards’ rough handling and tossing.

She had endured mosquito bites in the mountains to pick these apples, choosing each one with care.

Even when she was starving, she couldn’t bear to eat even the smallest one.

"They’re not fresh anymore."

The girl still had her head down, her voice so soft it sounded like a gust of wind could blow it away.

"Huh?"

Lance was taken aback by the out-of-the-blue comment.

"They’re not fresh anymore."

The girl’s voice grew slightly louder, already beginning to tremble.

Then Lance saw the girl lift her face.

She was biting her lower lip hard, looking as though she had suffered the greatest injustice in the world.

Her eyes, at some point, had filled with large, glistening tears.

"They’re..."

The girl choked out the same sentence a third time, unable to even string together a complete sentence.

"Not... not... fresh anymore..."

The weeks of injustice, hunger, and exhaustion that had built up, triggered by Lance’s concern, finally broke her down completely at this moment.

[Heroic Spirit Clovis is staring at you...]

’You can’t be serious...’

Lance was completely dumbfounded. Then, in the next second, just as he had expected...

"WAAAH—"

With a heart-wrenching sob, the seemingly fragile girl squatted down right in the middle of the bustling market and began to bawl her eyes out.

The sound was astonishingly loud, with immense Penetration Power.

All the vendors haggling on the roadside and the hurried pedestrians were drawn by the earth-shattering wail. They all turned their heads in unison, staring daggers at Lance with the kind of condemning glare one gives to scum.

Lance felt like his scalp was about to explode.

He couldn’t possibly imagine how such a thin, slender body could produce such enormous lung capacity.

[Heroic Spirit Clovis is glaring at you...]

"No... I’m not a bad guy... I didn’t bully her..."

Lance tried to explain to the surrounding crowd, whose gazes were growing stranger by the second.

He was also explaining to the one glaring at him, Clovis Pendragon.

’This Heroic Spirit doesn’t think I’m some kind of pervert, does he?’

’I know you’re not watching me all the time, but your timing is terrible!’

But in the face of the girl’s incredibly infectious sobbing, his explanation seemed utterly pale and powerless.

"Can you please stop crying?"

Lance, sweating bullets from anxiety, quickly moved closer to the girl, trying to solve the problem.

"Look... how about I give you some more money, okay?"

"This is enough for you to go to the fruit stand next door and buy a whole new cart of the freshest apples!"

But who would have known? Things were better when he kept his mouth shut. The moment he spoke, it was like tossing a lit match into a powder keg.

Hearing Lance’s words, she cried even more heart-wrenchingly, her sobs now accompanied by hiccuping gasps.

The onlookers, who had just been watching the spectacle, saw this and began to close in.

[Heroic Spirit Clovis was about to teach you a lesson, but was held back by the other two Heroic Spirits...]

’What?!’

’Clovis Pendragon definitely thinks I’m a pervert, doesn’t he?’

Plus, Lance could see the crowd growing larger and larger.

"My apologies."

Lance muttered, no longer caring about the propriety between men and women. ℴℴ𝘮

He bent down, scooped the squatting girl clean up into his arms, and then deftly hoisted her onto his broad shoulder.

Before the crowd could react, he grabbed the ingredients he’d bought, slipped away, and made a run for it, carrying the girl.

And so, the girl’s wails echoed throughout Golden Ears City.

She cried all the way from the west side of the city to the east.