Chapter Seven: Barrett

The oak door of the "Marina" tavern swung open, and a tall and muscular figure, wearing a cross-shaped longsword at his waist and clad in petrified cowhide armor, stepped inside—the middle-aged adventurer.

He treaded lightly, cautiously navigating through the noisy tavern, fearing that the reveling adventurers around might notice him. Despite keeping his face lowered and squeezing past two tray-carrying waitresses with a careful demeanor, his robust figure still caught the attention of those around him.

"Hey, isn't that Barrett Monde, the 'Mage's Shield,' the 'Magic Caster's Friend'?" shouted an adventurer with a brown stubble intentionally loud, staring at his face.

"What 'Mage's Shield'? He's now the 'Imperial Chief Eunuch' Barrett! Hahaha!" Another adventurer laughed recklessly, winking at Barrett, "Come on, Barrett, let me buy you a drink and tell us your story!"

Most of the people in the tavern burst into laughter, apparently Barrett's story had already been widely circulated, and there was no need for Barrett to recount it again.

Some newcomers to the adventurers couldn't wait to inquire about Barrett's experience from the people around them. After listening to others' accounts, these guys also cast sympathetic glances at Barrett's lower body region, while laughing.

Barrett's face flushed red, raging with anger, but powerless to act.

Just five days ago, adventurers and employers still affectionately called him by his nickname, "Mage's Shield." However, everything changed when he took on the task of capturing the two-headed lizards and crossed the River Fra. He lost something crucial in his life.

The River Fra was a shallow river on the edge of Mistwood, at its deepest, only reaching Barrett's waist.

For someone like him, a "Mithril" grade elite adventurer with nearly twenty years of experience, the River Fra was nothing but a small shadowy ditch. However, his life capsized in this tiny shadowy ditch.

At that time, Barrett was leading a team of adventurers, ready to wade through the River Fra on foot and head to Mistwood. Based on his experience of shuttling back and forth across the River Fra forty or fifty times, Barrett judged that the River Fra was completely safe at the moment.

First of all, the river was shallow, and secondly, the riverbed was hard soil and gravel, so people's feet wouldn't sink in. Most importantly, there were no dangerous monsters in the river. Indeed, there was a type of green-scaled short-snouted crocodile inhabiting this river, but by this early autumn, the green-scaled short-snouted crocodiles had already swum along the River Fra to spawn in the distant Lake Gal.

This was common knowledge among adventurers who wandered around the edge of Mistwood, and Barrett confidently led the team into the River Fra.

But what he never expected was that downstream of the River Fra, a village had built a dam this summer, blocking the route for the green-scaled short-snouted crocodiles to swim. So, when they waded through the River Fra, four or five green-scaled short-snouted crocodiles attacked them.

Fortunately, no one was fatally rolled to death by the green-scaled short-snouted crocodiles, only a half-elf was bitten on the foot, and a magic incantation apprentice lost his left hand.

Barrett wished he had lost just a hand like them, but the green-scaled short-snouted crocodile that attacked him, cunningly chose to attack from under his crotch in the muddy river water, successfully landing a bite.

Although Barrett managed to escape death with his exquisite martial arts, he still lost something from his lower body, and also lost his dignity as a man.

Strictly speaking, this accident was not Barrett's fault, it was just a lack of intelligence. If any adventurer from Montell City had led the way, they would have been attacked by the green-scaled short-snouted crocodiles that failed to swim away. Instead, it was Barrett who took the lead and was attacked first in the middle of the river, avoiding the fate of the entire team being severely injured or killed.

Other adventurers did not question Barrett's ability because of this, but adventurers were generally lacking in sympathy and accustomed to schadenfreude.

Soon, the nickname of "Imperial Chief Eunuch" Barrett spread among the adventurers in Montell City.

Nicknames are not like names. Names are given by parents, and you can change them if you don't like them, but nicknames depend on others.

Barrett, with his superb martial arts and rich adventurous experience, had protected more than ten Magic Casters during his many years of adventure, earning him the titles of "Mage's Shield" and "Magic Caster's Friend."

At that time, he enjoyed these nicknames. But now, people wanted to change his nickname to "Imperial Chief Eunuch" and "Strong Eunuch," and he was powerless to resist.

With a gloomy face, Barrett resisted the urge to draw his sword and slash a few loudly laughing red-nosed adventurers as he walked towards the tavern counter amidst a mocking laughter.

He was ready to reclaim the prepaid gold he had paid for drinking in the "Marina" tavern for a long time, then leave Montell City and go to a place where no one knew him, to start his adventure life anew. Then he would save up a large sum of money to find a Divine Magic Caster to heal his lower body!

This kind of magic should belong to the spell of "regenerating severed limbs," and the price was obviously not cheap.

Moreover, the teeth of the green-scaled short-snouted crocodile still contained toxins. The healer who treated him at the time told him that the toxin was barely contained by Low-tier magic to prevent it from spreading, and it would require a higher-tier magic to completely remove the toxin.

Fortunately, the counter lady at the tavern still maintained the professionalism of the service staff, not laughing along with the tavern guests, just casting a look of pity and sympathy at Barrett.

Barrett continued to walk towards the counter, suddenly sensing someone staring at him.

Although he was now the protagonist of a farce in the tavern, with everyone's eyes following him, Barrett, relying on his years of adventure experience, still sensed a strange gaze lingering on him.

Barrett turned his head and found the person staring at him all along.

It was a short-haired girl sitting alone in the corner of the tavern, her neatly combed black ear-length hair quite conspicuous. She was wearing a dignified and solemn black linen dress, draped with a thick woolen gray short shawl.

With such an old-fashioned dress and her serious expression, she exuded a sense of maturity from within, out of place with the noisy adventurers in the tavern.

The only thing about her that resembled an adventurer was the large-sized heavy sword on her back, which was quite disproportionate to her height.

With Barrett's years of experience in reading people, this girl seemed young, and her appearance didn't resemble that of a priestess or nun.

Normally, girls of this age have a desire for beauty and tend to dress up, even the daughters of poor farmers like to adorn themselves with flowers in their hair.

But this young girl sitting upright seemed like an old nun who had spent her whole life guarding an altar in a monastery, with an old-fashioned and rigid appearance.

The girl stared at Barrett while nodding as if satisfied with something.

If Barrett were five or six years younger, he would have thought that the girl was attracted by his tall and sturdy figure and his rugged, weather-beaten face. But now he could see that the girl's gaze, as she scrutinized him, was like a housewife picking chickens at the market.

A feeling of discomfort surged up, Barrett shook his head, drove away this feeling, and turned his gaze back to the tavern counter lady.

At a table, an adventurer reached out maliciously to touch his crotch, Barrett pushed him away angrily, involuntarily squeezing his legs together, and walked towards the counter.

Suddenly, a figure blocked Barrett's line of sight. Barrett was stunned, stopped in his tracks, and lowered his head to see the face of the person who had just arrived, and it was the black-clothed girl with the gray shawl who had been staring at him in the tavern just now.

But she had been sitting at the farthest corner of the tavern, separated from here by nearly five tables and a group of crowded and noisy adventurers, how did she suddenly appear in front of him? Magic? Or Martial Arts? Barrett became wary.

The young short-haired girl was a head shorter than him, she tilted her head slightly up to look at Barrett, extended a hand gracefully, as if to shake hands with Barrett.

She introduced herself, "Hello, young man, my name is EeDeChi. I think you're quite a good person. How about being my guide?"