牛奶色隔壁有夫之妇

Arthur was down in his basement, brewing potions when he heard strange noises from the shop. "Thieves? In the middle of the city? Could they be the vampires?"

He did not believe ordinary thieves would have the means and the courage to break into a shop in the middle of the city, with many guards patrolling and other citizens around to ask for help. That could only mean someone had the contacts to do things unharmed or the power to overcome the oversight.

There was no way to be sure, and only after meeting with the invaders would Arthur know who they were, so he also used his unique spell to change his appearance, and he returned to one he used a long time ago as the Elven Ruler.

His long black hair turned blond, and his ears shifted to pointed ones. The general appearance of his face did not change much, but it was enough to fool almost everyone.

"Only someone who lives with me every day can notice the similarities!" he thought, going upstairs after doing the preparations.

Each step he took made his heart beat faster, and even though he knew only a few people on the whole continent could fight against him, it was still scary to go without knowing anything.

"The fear of the unknown, they say."

When he went upstairs, he saw three men near the shop\'s door, looking around at his displays. With a glance, Arthur could tell they were powerful, having mana waves of rank three mages.

"Guards! Thieves!" Arthur yelled when he saw them.

A bearded man took the front and said, "calm down! We are no thieves!"

"No thieves? Aren\'t you breaking into my shop?"

The three men tried to scam Arthur to see his strength, but not a drop of mana emanating from him, so they thought Arthur was just a regular guy, probably a worker of the shop\'s owner.

"Yeah, about that, there is a reason for it."

Arthur looked at them, waiting for the answer. He also wanted to know the reason for them invading his shop.

"Look, you are a regular citizen, and this is no business for you. All I can say is that we are investigating a beast in human skin, which is fierce!"

"A beast in human\'s skin? Ha, are you trying to fool me? I may look young, but an elf lives a long time, you know that, right?"

"I am telling you. This beast destroyed a human settlement far from here, and we tracked it to this city. Look, we came here at first to shop, but we saw it was closed and thought about returning another day, but there were hints of that beast\'s aura inside this shop!"

The leader of the hunting group said many things to Arthur, as he believed it was just a regular citizen working in that potion shop. But, he was giving valuable information to the thing they were hunting!

"Really? But no beast came to this shop today. Wait, now that you are saying this, there is something strange!" Arthur said as a brilliant idea came to mind.

"What do you mean?"

They got anxious and were thirsty for information. After the \'beast\' entered Rolmoth, they lost its track, and they only knew it was inside the city.

"My boss bought this building to open the shop recently, and when we got here to clean it up and prepare for the opening, the basement looked as if someone was sleeping in there! Could it be the beast you are looking for?"

"Really? Can we see it?"

"Well, we cleaned everything. But I can talk with my boss to see if there is more to it. You know, I am but a mere employee. Is there a way for us to contact you?"

"Hum, yes. We are staying in the Night\'s Crow Inn so that you can look for us there during nighttime."

"Good to know."

An awkward silence followed by a sentence, "We are sorry for breaking in. We are leaving now."

After that, the three hunters left the shop, and Arthur only calmed down when they were far away.

"That was close! They were all rank three mages! Even I cannot win against that!"

It was good that the hunters did not realize Arthur was the \'beast\' they were looking for, all thanks to his great hiding spells.

But Arthur knew it was just a matter of time before those three hunters realized he was the thing they were going after, so he had to deal with them as fast as he could, but how would he do that?

~~~~

A week passed since the day those hunters broke into Arthur\'s shop. During this time, the shop became more famous, and people started ordering things using the unique mark printed on the fliers!

Before, Arthur planned to put Wisa or Jane as the owner of the shop so that he could stay hidden, but now, after those hunters broke in, he was afraid that could bring them trouble, so he decided to become the leader using his old identity as an elf!

"Husband, do you know how we will deal with those three men who were looking for you?" Wisa asked while they were preparing the things inside the shop for the early opening.

"I do, yes. I sent the news three days ago about hiring people to work here to take the orders and do the deliveries to make it easier for you two to take care of the shop while I leave the city."

"You are leaving?"

"Yes. I am ashamed to say, but I cannot win against those three men in a fair fight, so I will use alchemy to my advantage and brew some poisons."

Arthur recently put a lot of his time into alchemy, and his mastery of it increased quickly. He wished to leave the city to look for specific ingredients for his poison and a potion he had in mind that could increase his power!

"Poison is still a part of your strength, so don\'t be ashamed."

As the three were talking, three girls appeared in front of their shop, and Arthur noticed them by the window. Nykka, Tarinne, and Yeva were there to give them news about the vampire movements.

Jane and Wisa were the ones to greet them, asking for them to go in.

"You guys hired an elf? He looks familiar, anyway. Can we speak in private? It is about that thing."

"You can speak here. This elf is someone we trust." Wisa said.

"Are you sure? Alright. There are some movements of vampires in the western part of the continent, but this is worse than we thought."

"What do you mean?"

Arthur was sweeping the floor, hearing everything.

"We tried to get the mission ourselves, but they sent a lot of adventurers there. It looks like the vampire families are banding together, and what they aim for is still unknown, but there\'s an army there."

"What? Really?"

"Yes. We will have to go there with other teams, so we cannot help Arthur with it, but he can still go there by himself if he wishes. Well, that\'s all I have to share. Bye-bye!"

From the looks of it, Arthur would be out of the city for longer than he thought.