Chapter 4: Deep Anemone Inn

Azaroth was returning back to the Wrihull City of the Kingdom of Sinyal. This city was situated under Rhodes Family's territory and was in the northern part of the Kingdom of Sinyal.

The Rhodes Family borders touched the Kingdom of Gler, so there were many cases of the Rhodes Family warriors to go assist the Sinyalian Kingdom's army against the Kingdom of Gler.

The forest where Azaroth was walking was on the western side of Wrihull City. He was quite surprised that the forbidden forest from millions of years ago, where even a Beast God, Sabertooth Tiger, resided, had dropped down to a level that humans could build a city here.

Holy Attribute, Demonic Attribute, Humanely Attribute, and Beast Attribute. Among these four attributes of the Ardor, the Beast Attribute was the strongest if only pure power was considered, and the Humanely attribute was the weakest.

And yet… Currently, Azaroth was witnessing that the continent was dominated by none other than these weak humans. He could understand why the demons couldn't conquer the continent, probably because of humans and celestials' combined influence. Unlike humans and celestials, demons were not united.

They had fierce struggles even within their race. It was clear that they held no chance of ever dominating the entire continent, so most of them probably resided in Purgatory.

The Celestials resided in the Heavens because they weren't that interested in conquering the continent. They were abnormally arrogant and didn't want to be in a human's presence unless it was about killing a demon.

Their pride and also deep hatred for the demons was one reason why a demon had never been able to take over a Celestials' body. If a Celestial feels as if they were about to fall into a demon's hands, they would immediately use their energy and explode themselves.

Azaroth considered himself quite lucky to have taken over a human body that held that thin bloodline of a powerful Celestial.

"Hmm… The mother of this guy is already dead. And since the Celestial Blood had been trying to suppress his Humanely Blood, he has only shown a weak talent. Thus, the Rhodes Family has been rather cold to him."

"If I suddenly show off the power of Elite-Ranked Demon to them, I wonder what their reaction would be. The humans won't think that a Demon God has taken over Edwin's body, right?" Azaroth had an amused smile once he thought that.

Edwin had come to the forest to hunt a 2-Star Beast for its core. The savings he held had already exhausted, and he had to hunt the beasts to gain some wealth. As the Rhodes Family was quite cold to Edwin, he rarely received any support from them once his mother had died.

"If it was the past, I would have just shown off the Holy Ardor and probably receive a lot of rewards just for possessing the Blood of Celestials. However, the humans of this era are truly quite ambitious. Once it's found that a human possesses the blood of the Celestials, they capture half of his Spirit and force him to do his bidding."

This was something that Azaroth came to know after he read Edwin's memories. It appeared that Edwin hadn't just lived all this life because of his good luck. Since he knew that he was weaker than the other heirs, he had tried to gather more information and stumbled upon this piece of information.

Edwin had never really cared for this information since he didn't think it would be useful. It couldn't be helped as he never believed that he actually held that rare 'Celestial' Blood within him.

"I can't really expect any allies over there. I can't really expect good support in that family besides a few servants or maids that this brat knew."

"I need to take control of the family. But with the strength I hold, it's impossible to kill the Family Head. I will need to form connections."

Azaroth knew that connections were a sort of strength in itself. Previously, the Demon Gods and Celestial Gods joined hands to kill him. If he had some allies who could fight against these beings, perhaps his body wouldn't have been struck by that terrifying curse.

If nothing else, through his connections, he might have known about that ambush and could have prepared himself.

~~

10 hours later, Azaroth entered Wrihull City. Once inside the city, he didn't go straight over to the Noble Family. Instead, he changed his direction towards a famous tavern in the city.

Its name was The Deep Anemone Inn.

From the outside, it looked snug, modest, and clean. Large stones and monumental stone pillars made up most of the building's outer structure.

It's near impossible to see through the curtained windows, but the noise from within can be felt outside.

Azaroth entered the tavern through the thick, wooden door.

The bartender appeared extremely busy as he readied the customers' drinks who were talking with each other.

The tavern was as lovely inside as it was on the outside. Rounded, wooden beams support the upper floor.

The tavern itself appeared packed, but still, Azaroth found an empty seat for himself.

Once he took his seat, he raised his hand. Soon enough, a waiter neared him and asked respectfully, "What is your order, sir."

The waiter was quite respectful because he noticed the clothes worn by Azaroth. There was also an emblem of two swords diagonally crossing each other. Even an illiterate person knew that this emblem was only worn by the Rhodes Family Descendants, the lord of this territory.

Although the Deep Anemone Inn in the Wrihull City was set up by the Royal Family of Kingdom of Sinyal, the Royal Family hardly intervened in the Deep Anemone Inn's matters now.

The Royal Family was only interested in the Gold they would receive annually. As long as they continued to receive this Gold, they didn't care much about this Inn.

This provided quite a bit of freedom to the Deep Anemone Inn officials, and they had come to enjoy it. But this also reduced their powers quite significantly.

Since there was no real support from the Royal Family, the Deep Anemone Inn Officials realized that they couldn't go against a Noble Family Member.

Nearly 4 years ago, there had been a case when an official of Deep Anemone Inn from another branch within Moondenn Town angered the Noble Family Head's son. The next day, all the Deep Anemone Inn officials disappeared without a trace. The reason has remained unknown to this very day.

The Royal Family of the Kingdom of Sinyal didn't care even though so many officials had been killed. They didn't pursue the matter and replaced the whole staff as if nothing had happened.

This seemed to empower the fear in the hearts of the ordinary people regarding Noble Family Members.

"Get me your most expensive ale. As for food, bring me the pig meat with some salad. Make it extra spicy." Azaroth spoke with an emotionless tone.

The waiter nodded his head and immediately went back to get the order ready.

Meanwhile, Azaroth looked around and saw a few individuals taking quick glances at him.

Once they noticed Azaroth's stare, they immediately turned their heads in another direction. There were 3 men and a woman.

After 15 minutes or so, Azaroth's order arrived. A slight smile appeared on Azaroth's face as the scent of ale and meat entered his nose.

'As a demon, there was no taste even when I ate food. The tastebuds of the demons are batshit annoying. And millions of years since reincarnating in this world, I will enjoy my food for the first time.'

As the plates were placed in front of Azaroth, the waiter politely asked, "Is there anything I can do for you, sir?"

Azaroth thought for a moment before he replied, "There is indeed something I want you to do. Ask around if someone is interested in buying a 4 Stars Beast Core."

"What?! 4 Stars Beast Core?!" The waiter couldn't help but exclaim that loud.

However, surprisingly, it didn't reach the ears of anyone other than Azaroth or the waiter.

Azaroth had naturally been prepared for the waiter's flabbergasted reaction. He had immediately used his Ardor to seal the sound waves to prevent anyone from hearing about it.

It was relatively easy to do, considering the waiter's words weren't empowered by Ardor. If they were, Azaroth would have to use some more energy, alerting all the other warriors here.

Azaroth didn't really fear them, but he didn't want them to disturb his meal right now.

"Yes. A 4 Stars Beast Core. Now, if you shout loudly again, you won't have a head to shout the next time." Azaroth casually said as he took a bite of the food.

Meanwhile, the waiter felt as if it was not the pig's meat being cut but his own heart. He started sweating as he kept himself from saying anything.

While the waiter was scared shitless, Azaroth continued to munch onto his food.

'How delicious! Fuck! I should have taken over a human's body much earlier. Or maybe kept a human body as a puppet and use it when I wanted to eat some delicacies.'

After Azaroth finished chewing the foot, he picked up the jar and gulped the ale directly from it.

"S-Sir, can I tell this to the manager of this Inn? He might be able to assist you even more on this matter."

The ale was quite good as well. Azaroth soon placed the jar back on the table and stared at the waiter.

"Sure. That is not a problem. You can also give my name, Edwin Rhodes." Azaroth's emotionless voice was heard by the waiter.

"Thank you, sir." The waiter immediately left once he received the reply.

Azaroth was wholly focused on eating his food now.

After he was done with his food, he saw a middle-aged man approaching him. The man was dressed in a black coat, a white shirt, a blue tie, and black pants.

Unlike the waiter, this man was relatively calm. Or at least he had reasonable control of his emotions.

"This lowly citizen greets young lord Rhodes. If I knew that young lord is coming to the Inn, I would have prepared some entertainment for the young lord." He spoke with a polite and respectful voice.

"Skip these useless pleasantries." Azaroth calmly said before adding, "What about my task? Did you find someone willing to buy it?"

A nervous look appeared on the manager's face as Azaroth straight away skipped to his matter.

"Actually, sir, for now, I have only found one person. And you see… He is from the Merchant Union." The manager said with a relatively nervous expression.

Azaroth now understood the reason behind this nervousness of the manager.

Ordinary citizens weren't aware, but there had actually been a cold war between many Noble Families and the Merchant Union. The Rhodes Family also held rather bad relations with the Merchant Union.

The Merchant Union was an entity set up by the Royal Family. Because of its existence, the business of the Noble Families would suffer quite a bit.

In the hierarchy, this Deep Anemone Inn was below the Merchant Union.

Azaroth neutrally said to the manager, "Bring him over. I will talk to him."

The manager heard his words and looked incredibly relieved. He bowed once before taking his leave…

Meanwhile, Azaroth turned his gaze towards his left. He didn't just turn his head randomly. Just a bit earlier, he sensed someone intently staring at him.

Once again, he focused on those 4 people. 3 men and one woman…

'Are they observing me, or am I just too self-conscious?'