Lithsar peculiar taste...

Lithsar met someone extremely similar to Viria only once before – the very man she fought with the adventurers to buy time to escape, only for both of them to get captured and locked up in the Prison Dungeon.

The leader of the gang she joined together with her first crush.

A brute who lived for violence and his own pleasure – someone like Lithsar had no defense against someone like the gang leader and fell head over heels for.

Since in the end, at the moment of their capture, the gold-haired girl had no bounty on her name and haven't killed anyone while fighting off the adventurers, she was left on the first floor.

Her gang leader was sent straight to the third level.

They haven't seen each other for over four years, but Lithsar remembered the overwhelming pressure that the beast wearing human skin had around him...

...and somehow, despite being on a much lower cultivation level than he was, the young man right in front of her felt even more horrifying...

...after all, Lithsar's gang boss had amazing lust for women that he jealously protected from everyone else as his property – but Viria...?

A violent man with absolutely no interest in carnal pleasures but with lust for power and violence?

Did the world know anything even remotely as scary as that...?

"Follow."

"!!!"

Viria, who noticed something off in the gaze of the heavy-breathing gold-haired young woman, turned around and scoffed at her while entering the restaurant, causing her body to tremble in a spasm she didn't felt in four years.

"Yes, Boss~!"

She cheered out and hurried after him, gazing upon his back as if her own personal god she prayed for each day through her whole life had descended from the heavens.

"..."

Emerant gulped down her saliva and shook her head, doing her best as to not show how scared she was.

She kept her arms crossed just so the three kids wouldn't notice them tremble.

Although – there was another reason too...

The guard focused on claiming down her heartbeat and recalled the soul artifact that no one even noticed she had out in the open the whole time – and a small ring disappeared form her right hand's ring finger.

The iron ring of insight.

A low level artifact that allowed its user to get a read on their chosen target.

It wasn't something that was useful for combat, but that's why Emerant was always on top of her physical prowess.

The artifact had another major downside that made it impossible for the woman to become a guard even on the second floor despite being in the low middle levels of cultivation, placing her above the level that the prisoners there were kept at.

Simply said, when attempting to read into an opponent, Emerant would expose herself to the full brunt of that person's core.

And the thing she saw in the young bloody-black-haired man was...

Love for violence.

Despite standing there inviting the group of girls to a talk, the insane bloodlust and lust for the feeling of beating something to death were all that Viria's core would boil down to.

Emernat certainly didn't want to be anywhere near that man.

She could handle herself against monsters and normal people of his level just right but... a true battle frenzy battle maniac was just too much – that kind of person did not operate on the same wavelength as the rest...

Despite her best attempt, the female guard shuddered as the gold-haired female prisoner followed the bloody-black-haired man as if she was nothing more than his roperty.

...it just made sense that Lithsar would act like that around someone like that – after all, the violent leader of one of the five most feared gangs in the kingdom that she was sent to the Prison Dungeon with, was basically the same type of person as Viria...

...Emernat even heard a report, that despite being placed under the heaviest seal that the warden could use and being suppressed to the high low levels all the way down from the high high levels, he was not only able to survive but subdued a quarter of

the prisoners living on the third floor forcing them to do his bidding and living like a king.

"You heard him, I have wasted enough of my time already. If you don't intend on..."

"W-we're going!"

The guard shook her head again, in an attempt to stop the scary thoughts, and turned towards the three kids hoping that she read them correctly before and that they will run away scared – only to get her hopes and expectations betrayed by the resolute girl.

"Eh?!"

"W-we are?!"

"Yes, we are!"

Tir and Laor seemed to be just as surprised as the guard in charge of their block, but Kirri clearly regained her spirit and grabbed their hands, and pulled them in.

"...calm down, idiot... he will not attack you... just go in there and hear what he wants... ghh...! Why did I have to check him out with my artifact...?!"

Emerant bit her lips and mumbled a pep talk to herself before cursing her own decision that seemed to be completely reasonable at the time.

"Prisoners Viria and Lithsar. Kirri, Laor, and Tir will probably show up too, same with the guard in charge of them, please direct them to our table if you will have time."

"...why would...? Oh. Have a good meal, inmate."

Meanwhile, Viria had introduced himself to the guard keeping the watch at the restaurant's door and even handed him a green bill which instantly cut off the initial hostility and turned the guard's scowl into a friendly smile.

"Waah~! Boss is amazing~!"

Lithsar cheered from a respectful distance after watching the exchange and obediently trotted after the young man when he walked further into the establishment.

"Hello, mole-fox roast and some juice for me and..."

Viria then placed a single yellow bill on the counter while passing it and merely glanced at the prisoner behind it – who turned out to not be Chux at all.

"...and this one has a mouth on her own."

The young man glanced over at the gold-haired young woman who seemed fully intent on doing whatever he will tell her, even if she would be ordered to eat the scraps off his plate straight from the floor.

...and he put two more yellow bills on the counter.