Bodyguard

After the farce ended, President Kran dispersed the onlookers, and the hall buzzed with activity once more.

“Lu Mao, follow me to the third floor.”

Kran led the way up the stone stairs to the third floor, where a half-open wooden door stood at the end of the corridor.

He pushed the door open, and the scent of old paper and ink drifted out of the room.

The room was small and simply furnished, with a yellowed map of the area surrounding Rhode City's dungeon hanging on the wall.

Kran walked behind his desk, nudged aside a spare black blade leaning against a desk leg, and turned to face Lu Mao.

“Sit.”

Before Lu Mao could even move, Novia floated over to one side of the desk, crossed her arms, and made herself comfortable on a cushioned sofa.

Lu Mao pulled a chair out from under the desk and sat down opposite Kran.

“Last night, Novia's squad took down a cultist stronghold in a nearby village,” Kran began.

Kran then explained what had happened after Novia's Dragon Rank squad pursued the cultist the previous day.

Essentially, when Novia's squad captured the first cultist, they had intentionally let him escape after placing a Tracking Mark on him. They then followed him all the way to a village near Rhode City.

There, they discovered that the entire village had been brainwashed into worshippers of an evil god. It had taken them the whole night to clear out the stronghold.

Based on information squeezed out of a few believers who were less severely brainwashed, they concluded that a significant number of cultists were still hiding within Rhode City and its surrounding villages.

To request reinforcements, the other members of Novia's squad had rushed to the Adventurers' Guild headquarters overnight with the intelligence.

Meanwhile, Lu Mao's situation would inevitably be leaked to other cult members by the cultist who had escaped. Naturally, Lu Mao would become a thorn in their side.

Given that Lu Mao's ability to see through cultist disguises was highly valuable, they had discussed the matter and decided to assign someone to protect him.

“So, who's going to protect me?”

It wasn't that he didn't trust Kran's arrangements, but he had personally witnessed the cultists' methods the previous night.

A couple of random Silver Rank adventurers probably wouldn't even last a single blow against them. Even Gold Rank adventurers might not hold their own. At the very least, it had to be someone of Dragon Rank to be viable.

And looking at the entire First Hall... no, the entire Rhode City Adventurers' Guild, the only Dragon Rank adventurer was the president of the Steel and Fire Adventure Band standing right in front of him.

Kran didn't answer.

He simply leaned back in his chair, his closed eyes facing Lu Mao, his lips twitching slightly.

Lu Mao suddenly had a bad feeling.

He turned his head—

Novia was lying on her side on the sofa, propping her head up with one hand while lazily filing her nails with the other.

She was doing it with great focus, as if their conversation had absolutely nothing to do with her.

Novia blew away the nail dust and sat up from the sofa. Her oversized uniform sleeve slipped down her shoulder, revealing a pale, almost bloodless shoulder.

She casually pulled the sleeve back up, her gaze sweeping over her nails toward him, her tone carrying a hint of disdain.

“What are you looking at? You got a problem?”

...

The first thing Lu Mao did upon leaving the First Hall was head to a restaurant.

Frankly, this Adventurers' Guild had absolutely no sense of customer service.

It was bad enough that they didn't provide a proper place to sleep, but they didn't even offer meals.

He silently vowed that if he ever climbed to the guild's upper echelon, the first thing he would do was publish a paper titled 《Regulations on Effectively Improving Basic Livelihood Security for Adventurers》.

...

“Waiter, I'll have some ham and eggs, a large, juicy prime steak with all the sides, smothered in thick gravy, and a small glass of chilled malt beer.”

Before the waiter beside Lu Mao could finish writing down the order, a familiar voice echoed from across the table:

“Make that three more of the same.”

The waiter paused, his quill hovering over the notepad.

“Oh, that's going to cost quite a bit—”

Mid-sentence, he looked up, his gaze landing on the dragon scale badge pinned to the coat of the customer sitting opposite Lu Mao.

“Respected lady, it is my absolute honor to serve you! Three identical meals, coming right up! I'll head to the kitchen and rush them personally!”

With that, he clutched his notepad and sprinted toward the kitchen.

Before long, all the dishes were served.

The moment the food hit the table, Lu Mao grabbed his fork and knife and dug in ravenously, not even bothering to wipe the steak gravy smeared across half his face.

It was a whirlwind of consumption.

By the time he finally scraped his plate clean and looked up in satisfaction, Novia was elegantly dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin, her cheeks slightly flushed.

Lu Mao looked down at the bread roll he hadn't gotten around to eating yet, then at her three neatly stacked empty plates, and silently pushed his roll over to her.

Novia didn't stand on ceremony either. She picked it up, wiped up the remaining gravy at the bottom of her plate, and bit off half of it in one go.

He hadn't expected someone so small to be such a gourmand.

Once they finished, Lu Mao called the waiter over for the bill.

“Hello, sir. Your total comes to... exactly six silver coins.”

Six silver coins...

Lu Mao felt around his inner coat pocket, finding only five silver coins and a few copper bits.

Rubbing his nose in embarrassment, he looked at Novia with a sheepish grin:

“Um, could we split the bill? I didn't bring enough money.”

Lu Mao felt like crying. Ever since he spent a whole gold coin on that friendship-priced stinky wine, these few coins were his entire life savings.

Six silver coins were enough to buy a meal at a high-end restaurant, but who could have guessed that Novia alone would eat three people's worth of food?

Novia shot him a look of sheer disdain, her eyes seemingly saying, “An adventurer of my caliber is protecting you for free, and you can't even cover the bill?”

Just as she was about to pull out her money, a mustachioed, middle-aged man who introduced himself as the restaurant owner trotted out from some corner, his face practically split with a grin as he addressed them:

“My lords! Having you dine at our establishment is our absolute honor. This meal is on the house—and here are ten gold coins.

“Though it's not much, please accept this as a small token of my appreciation. I hope you will grace us with your presence again in the future.”

However, Novia didn't seem particularly interested in this small sum. She merely tilted her chin toward Lu Mao, gesturing for the owner to give the money to him.

With one leg propped up on her chair, Novia idly toyed with her nails, looking for all the world like a mafia boss.

Was this even allowed? Was she sure this wasn't just a protection racket?

Lu Mao was utterly dumbfounded.

Though his morals urged him to reject the ten gold coins drawing closer and closer...

But...

“Oh, I couldn't possibly.”

Even as the words left his mouth, his hand had already reached out to sweep the gold coins into his pocket.

The movement was so smooth it looked rehearsed, without even a trace of hesitation on his face.

There was no helping it; they were just offering way too much.

“I'm so glad you accepted... Oh, right—if it's alright with you, would you mind if we advertised this...”

Ah, so it was an endorsement fee. In that case, there was absolutely no moral burden.