Chapter 49: A Pleasant Day

The weather in the Underworld doesn't change, a warm region will always be a warm region. And it only rains in a region where it always rains — how it underground, well, the scientists said it had something to do with the condensation and the thin mysterious fog that veiled atop regions, but the majority of people just treat it as magic.

So, in retrospect, a pleasant region will always be a pleasant region. Unfortunately for Rhys, his relatively pleasant day was about to be ruined.

"Ew, did it just look at me!?"

The sound of disgust, it has been a few months since he last heard of that coming from someone's mouth and reaching into his ears. No, this was different. The others usually just do it out of jeer or wanting to taunt him.

But this lady in front of her, Rhys could feel the utter disgust in her words.

"Remove your eyes from Lady Cynthia!"

Rhys, however, did in fact not remove her eye from the so-called Lady Cynthia, even looking at her from head to toe. How could he not, when this was probably the very first time he was seeing a Noble? Except for Sylas West, of course.

Cynthia had purple hair, it was curled at the ends as it reached her shoulders; almost incandescent as light reflected from it, but not really glowing — a sure tell sign that one is a Noble. Her purple glowing hair offered a sort of weird contrast with her skin which was even paler than Lina's.

She was wearing cargo pants and a tight white shirt. And judging from how clean they were, she probably specifically just bought them for this moment.

"I said, remove your eyes from Lady Cynthia!"

One of Cynthia's entourage could no longer help himself as he saw Rhys refusing to look away from her. He rushed toward Rhys, seemingly wanting to grab him by his collar. Rhys's reflexes, however, after 2 months of fighting beasts and hissyrs, became even more… abnormal.

"W—!!!"

He learned to not stop his body from moving on its own, letting it dodge by itself so he could focus on something else or what to do next — and what he did next was grab the man rushing toward him by the wrist, tripping him to the ground before grabbing his other hand and putting it behind the man's back; completely restraining him.

The man tried to resist, but he could not seem to free his hands.

"Stay down, sir," Rhys calmly said to the man before looking at the other people in Cynthia's group who seemed to want to rush him, "Relax…

…don't escalate the situation any further."

Rhys was slightly nudging and losing his balance as the man he had pinned on the ground tried to stand up. In truth, the man was much stronger than him, and the only reason he couldn't free his hands from Rhys's grip was that Rhys subtly tied his wrists with his web; he also did the same with the man's waist, attaching it to the ground.

"L… let go of me! Don't you know who we are!? I am going to kill you, you fucking Lowb—"

And before the man could finish his words, he felt something cold touching his cheek. Although he couldn't see it that much, he could still see enough from his peripheral vision that… it was a gun.

"Stay down, sir," Rhys repeated his words. This time, however, his voice was a whisper, "I am afraid I am going to have to detain you for grave threats and assaulting a military personnel."

"..." The man couldn't really say anything anymore as he just turned to look at Cynthia.

"Lowborn," Cynthia, on the other hand, just let out a small sigh as she stepped closer to Rhys, "Let him go."

"Ma'am, please don't step any closer," Rhys carefully observed Cynthia, "This area is restricted for civilians."

"Look, I am sure you're excited doing all this," Cynthia scoffed, "But I assure you if anyone is not supposed to be here — it is you and your kind. It was an experience finally seeing one of you. A disgusting experience, but an experience altogether…

…but let go of my friend if you don't want to be sent back where you belong."

"Why don't we all calm down?" Another one of Cynthia's entourage stepped forward, moving in front of Cynthia and blocking her path as he looked down at Rhys, "Look, we didn't know this was a restricted area. Can… you just let us slide for now?"

"Nick, stop talking to it. It clearly doesn't understand us," Cynthia grabbed the man by the shoulder.

"Oh, he understands us loud and clear," Nick let out a small chuckle as he raised both his palms, "That logo on his uniform says he's from the Underworld Corps, Lady Cynthia. They… can be intense."

"Underworld… Corps?" Cynthia squinted his eyes at Rhys before covering her nose, "It makes sense now. Someone as dirty as you would be in the Underworld Corps, nothing but a walking corpse — you smell like one too. Now, let go of my friend and—"

"What is going on here!?"

Before Cynthia could finish her words, an old man approached them from the distance; his steps as hasty as possible and his voice also as loud. And as soon as he saw someone pinning down one of Cynthia's people, he quickly rushed toward Rhys and pushed him to the side.

"What is going on here!?" The old man looked around to assess the situation.

"These civilians are trespassing in a restricted area, sir," Rhys, however, did not do anything and just stood up straight as he recognized who the old man was — it was the old man talking to Ayesha earlier.

"Hector!" Cynthia immediately looked at the old man before pointing at Rhys, "Have this man arrested for looking at me and hurting Alan!"

"Are… are you okay, Lady Cynthia!?" The old man practically circled around Cynthia to check if there was even a speck of dirt on her. And after checking she was fine, he quickly turned to look at Rhys with his eyebrows lowered.

"You, what do you think you're doing!? What division do you belong—" The man looked at Rhys's uniform first as his eyes were only at the level of Rhys's chest. As soon as he realized this, however, he quickly looked at Rhys's face that was covered with his hair… finally realizing who he was, "You…"

Hector then walked closer to Rhys and lowered his voice, "...You're the one with Commander Ayesha."

"Yes, sir," Rhys nodded.

"Right…"

Hector then cleared his throat several times as he walked back to Cynthia and smiled nervously, "...This is all just a misunderstanding, Lady Cynthia. Perhaps we can all just forget this happened…

…please?"

"Huh…?"

"...Please?" Hector pleaded with his weak voice; sweat, starting to form on his wrinkled face even in a pleasant day.