"This is truly a wonderful predicament! Or perhaps it's an opportunity for work."
These words were spoken by Xiao Ping as he turned to look behind him.
He saw many chairs and round tables, made of sturdy red wood, with some people sitting on the chairs.
They were holding large mugs of beer with a strange design, featuring engravings of a green serpent coiled around a silver sword.
Some of the people were drinking beer, while others had gathered around a medium-height table in the center, where there were many games like roulette and other gambling games that Xiao Ping didn't recognize because of their strange design.
They had been shouting before, but now they all looked at the intruder.
Their clothes were classic with a Victorian style, but they smelled of alcohol and much sweat.
Their sizes and heights varied; some had beards, others did not, some had hair, and others were bald.
The light from the lanterns hanging from the ceiling of the large room reflected off their bald heads, temporarily blinding Xiao Ping's eyes.
And behind all those tables, there was a large shelf filled with mugs of different sizes and various kinds of high-concentration liquor.
There was a person standing, holding a mug in one hand and wiping it from the inside with his other hand.
He looked like a middle-aged man, but with strands of white scattered through his gray hair.
His eyes were light brown, he had no beard, only curved eyelashes, and glasses hanging around his neck.
The floor of the room was made of dry white wood painted brown.
There was a fireplace in the right corner of the room next to the mug shelf.
The atmosphere was warm and laden with the foul smell of alcohol.
And in another, very dark corner of the large room, far from everything, a person had both feet raised on the table while leaning back in his chair.
His hair was black and short, and a black round hat covered his head.
He was sitting there alone; because of the disturbing noise. He didn't like disturbance, so he moved away from them.
He didn't dare to act rudely with the customers, and he was also afraid of angering "Pasco Palcobar" by his actions, so he stopped.
And when he heard that the noise the people in the bar were making had strangely quieted down, he raised his head and coldly looked at the reason that made those people stop making annoying sounds and loud cheers.
As he raised his head, behind thin metal-framed glasses, two eyes glowed with a deep crimson red color, looking coldly at the intruder, but suddenly the coldness lessened to amusement and joy.
He saw a boy about eighteen years old, standing in front of everyone's astonished gaze.
He was wearing a buttoned white shirt and black trousers in good condition, and on his head was a medium-sized hunting hat.
Looking closely, his eyes narrowed. He saw that there were two holes in the boy's shirt; the first was where his heart is, the second was at his right shoulder.
There was a little blood around the hole in the shoulder, but there was no wound.
"How beautiful, we have a new colleague here, and perhaps I should welcome him, or not!" that person spoke as he adjusted his posture to a formal one.
Xiao Ping looked deeply at everything he saw now. He felt he had entered a bar, but he had entered in a strange way.
He saw the reaction of the people in the hall; they were standing and shocked, as if someone had stopped time, but no one had stopped it.
The situation continued like this for several minutes before the person cleaning the dishes said in a polite voice that contrasted with the atmosphere of the place:
"Hello young boy,what can I do for you?"
Saying that, the person looked with his brown eyes towards the body of the young man in front of him.
But Xiao Ping didn't answer him, instead he stepped forward and walked between the medium-height table and another round table, slowly under the gazes of the others.
Xiao Ping was eager to say something when he arrived in front of the shelf where there were long, circular stools.
He moved the stool back before pushing it back into place and sitting down.
The expressions of everyone changed when he did that, and soon that noise returned, and the smell of alcohol in the room reached Xiao Ping's nose, making him want to vomit.
He turned back and saw that all the people who had been shocked by his arrival a moment ago no longer had any trace of shock on their faces, which were red from drinking too much alcohol.
"Disgusting! Right?" When the waiter saw that Xiao Ping had turned back instead of answering his question, he looked and said:
"You find them disgusting,right?!"
Xiao Ping turned his head forward and his bright green eyes met the waiter's eyes.
He lowered his hat on his head and pressed it down and said:
"To be honest,I don't always judge a person by his actions, but there is an exception to this too!"
Hearing Xiao Ping's reply, the waiter averted his eyes from him, turned around, and directed his gaze towards the various liquors inside the wooden shelf in front of him.
He moved his eyes quickly and chose one of the bottles.
"Catch this!" the old man said before throwing the liquor bottle quickly towards Xiao Ping.
"What the!" Xiao Ping was surprised for a second before he caught the thrown bottle with difficulty just as it was about to fall to the ground.
Xiao Ping gently raised the bottle in his hand, afraid of breaking it.
He had no money, how could he afford this expensive liquor?
"Why didn't you catch it while it was flying?!" the waiter spoke with a frightening smile before saying:
"Why are you acting in front of us?In your condition, I can say you are not one of the official force-bearer spies, so who are you!"
After saying those words, the atmosphere in the room changed again, but this time not like shock, but like caution towards the intruder.
"I don't know what acting you're talking about!" Holding the liquor bottle, Xiao Ping slowly raised the hat off his head, revealing his short black hair with golden strands at the front of his forehead, then he raised his hands up with the liquor bottle and added:
"But I think you misunderstood,I am not a spy, I am nothing but a simple villager living in a modest hut looking for work!"
Xiao Ping didn't want to tell them that he had transferred from another world, or that he possessed a book containing secrets that even the king of this country might not know, he only told them what was necessary to say, and didn't say what wasn't necessary.
"Boooooooo! I thought it was a fight, but..." one of the people shouted with sadness and disappointment, walking drunkenly, he fell to the ground and tried to get up again, but another came and stepped on his head and said:
"Yes,it is disappointing."
Like the first, he walked a little and fell, and the drunk people followed them one after another.
"Ah, are they fools?" Xiao Ping tilted his head back and kept his hands raised up as he mocked them.
"Hmm, it seems I suspected you wrongly, and you really weren't a spy, so I'll give you that bottle in your hand as a token of apology for my rudeness!"
The waiter spoke while tilting his head towards Xiao Ping before raising his head.
"No, no sir, it's nothing." Xiao Ping uttered these words while shocked.
"You're looking for work, aren't you? Then I will look for a job that suits your specifications, so please write them here."
Saying that, the waiter took out a paper and handed it to Xiao Ping.
Xiao Ping lowered his hands and took the paper with his left hand before returning to sit on the long circular stool in front of the shelf, but Xiao Ping realized he didn't have a pen, that is if there was something called a pen in this world.
Xiao Ping had seen a quill pen before on the small office shelf in the hut, but he hadn't paid attention to it.
"Take this too!" Seeing Xiao Ping's action, the waiter didn't want to embarrass him further, so he took out a quill and black ink for writing.
"Thank you." Xiao Ping thanked him while placing the liquor bottle on his right side of the shelf, and took the quill and ink.
'I don't know what job specifications I want, but I think I prefer work that isn't hard labor, and also work that doesn't require many hours a day, and also I think I want a stable and good salary to be able to fill my stomach and not sleep without any food.'
Xiao Ping thought to himself happily, but soon something crossed his mind:
'Why is he helping me like this?What have I done for him? I know he was wrong towards me, but all that doesn't deserve this?'
"Well, I've finished writing the specifications I want, I'll give them to you---".
Xiao Ping wanted to complete his words, but he suddenly felt a hand placed around his neck reaching to his right shoulder at a very high speed.
Xiao Ping didn't feel anything approaching him, he only realized when that hand was placed on his right shoulder, but Xiao Ping reacted, falling off the stool, and pushing with his left hand he knocked over the ink onto the paper.
"Ouch" Xiao Ping groaned as he slowly felt his buttocks, and he looked to see who the owner of that arm was.
He was wearing an outfit consisting of a black coat and black trousers as well, and he wore a black round hat on his head, covering his short black hair that stuck out from the sides.
He wore thin metal-framed glasses around his red eyes like blood emeralds.
Xiao Ping tried to say some curse words to him, but when he looked closely at the strange man who appeared out of nowhere, he saw that there was a strong, cohesive silver thread passing inside his body.
'He has a silver thread, much larger and stronger than that of the talking cat.'
"What do you want to achieve by this action of yours?!" Xiao Ping spoke with cold words.
End of Chapter ~ To Be Continued