I'm not a Witcher anymore.

Zieg walked quickly through the corridor, and the moment his hand touched the door of the next room, he did not hesitate, but simply pushed the door open with the momentum of his body moving forward.

boom!

The sound of the door slamming against the wall echoed in the silent corridor.

Inside the room, Joel was holding a wine glass when he was startled by the sudden noise and froze in place.

At the table, two waiters were enjoying a large plate of steaming roasted meat. One of them had half a pork chop stuffed in his mouth, with grease dripping from the corner of his mouth onto his clothes.

"Mr. Zieg?" Before Joel could even voice his question, he saw Zieg's figure quickly pass through the room.

Zieg's movements were extremely decisive.

He reached out and firmly pressed down on the wine glass the waiter was about to put into his mouth, then with a flick of his wrist, he pushed the wooden tray and the remaining stew over.

"What are you doing...?"

"Sit still, if you don't want to spend the rest of your life in your sleep."

He leaned slightly forward, his fingertips tracing the spilled soup, the words of warning still surfacing in his mind from the Book of Adventure.

Joel looked at the mess on the floor, and a chilling fear instantly ran through him. "The medicine...there was medicine in there?"

"A sedative, a dose enough to knock out a bull." Zieg straightened up, his gaze sweeping over the two men. "How much did they take?"

By this time, the drug had begun to take effect. The waiter who was chewing looked dazed, and the fork slipped limply from his hand with a crisp sound. His pupils were dilating, and his eyelids, as if weighed down by a thousand pounds, slowly closed.

"I...I feel so heavy-headed." The other person held onto the edge of the table, their body slowly sliding to the ground as if their bones had been removed.

Joel's voice trembled: "What...what are we going to do?"

"Not much, but enough to leave them weak all night." Zig lifted the man who was about to slip and settled him into a chair.

He turned to Joel. "This is a targeted trap, Joel."

Joel stared intently at the jug of ale, his lingering relief quickly turning into a raging, bluish-gray fury.

"Craig... that beast!" he growled, veins bulging on his forehead. "I've been doing business in this settlement for almost ten years, paying those local thugs every year on time! How dare he... how dare he break the rules!"

"Since he wants to play dirty, I'll show him how the 'Black Crow Gang' deals with these rule-breakers!"

Joel turned to leave.

But before he could take a step, a hand landed on his shoulder.

Joel turned around and met Zig's calm, deep blue eyes.

"Mr. Joel, I think the best thing we should do now is leave immediately."

Joel stood there, stunned, his facial muscles twitching slightly, his eyes filled with confusion.

"Leave? Why?"

Joel instinctively retorted, his voice hoarse from rapid breathing, "That beast crossed the line for the settlement. The Black Crow Gang is at the end of this street; they will never tolerate this..."

"Now that we know others are trying to harm us, if we don't run now, when will we?"

Zig interrupted him.

Perhaps other adventurers would suggest that Joel play along.

But in his view, that approach was completely unnecessary.

This is the Undead Settlement, a quagmire built from the remnants of civilized society.

Joel risked everything for cheap, untaxed ore; it was a gamble in itself. Whether the Black Rooks knew or not, there was no point in him staying any longer.

That's called suicide.

Joel fell into a long silence.

In the deathly silent room, the only sound was the heavy, disordered breathing of the two men lying on the floor.

His businessman instincts were churning violently in his mind—if he fled back in such a sorry state now, he would not only fail to obtain even a single piece of ore, but would also have to pay the adventurers a considerable sum of money.

However, when his gaze swept over the steaming pork chops on the ground, which had been injected with a sedative, a feeling called "lingering fear" instantly overwhelmed his mind.

If Zieg hadn't appeared in time...

If his teeth had already crushed that delicious piece of fat.

So where will he be in an hour?

Were they stripped naked and thrown into the wilderness to be fed to wolves, or were they chained up like livestock and sent to those dark and illegal mines?

He felt a damp chill in his collar; large patches of cold sweat had soaked through his inner lining.

He had to admit that good luck wouldn't always favor a greedy gambler.

Money can be earned back.

If you lose your life, you really lose everything.

Joel took a deep breath, the anger in his eyes finally fading, replaced by a sense of relief and determination at surviving a close call.

He turned to Zieg, his tone extremely sincere.

"Please ask Mr. Sieg to go back and tell the other adventurers that we need to leave this awful place immediately."

Without uttering any unnecessary words, Zieg simply nodded calmly to Joel, then turned and strode out of the room.

……

The group quickly packed their belongings. Ingram and Joel each carried the two men who had fallen into a deep sleep, while Sieg, Finn, and Ravenna protected them in the middle as they hurried down the wooden stairs.

In the dimly lit lobby on the first floor of the hotel, Craig was sitting behind the bar, flipping through the ledger.

Hearing heavy footsteps on the stairs, he instinctively looked up—

Then, his fingers, which were gripping the parchment, suddenly froze.

How is that possible?

By this time, these people should have become mindless pieces of meat waiting to be slaughtered.

How could they possibly be carrying backpacks or even fully armed when they came down?

Craig's fingers nervously rubbed against the edge of the bar, forcibly suppressing the panic that was about to get out of control.

He put on a face that was both solicitous and questioning, and stood up from behind the bar.

"Gentlemen, it's so late, where are you headed?"

Joel stared intently at that hypocritical face, his stomach churning.

He desperately wanted to pull out his weapon and stab the other man in the throat, but at Zieg's prompting look, he gritted his teeth and forced out a few cold words:

"The hospitality is too good, I'm not used to it."

A crack appeared in Craig's smile, but he feigned hurt and tried to deny it: "What are you saying? Our inn has always..."

Joel didn't bother listening to that beast any longer and walked straight toward the heavy door of the inn.

But just then, a voice came from a dark corner of the hall.

"Joel, my old friend."

Joel jolted, his gaze following the sound: "Aeger?"

His voice betrayed his undisguised astonishment.

In this quagmire banished by civilization, Aiger was the middleman he had worked with for nearly ten years, and the only guarantor he was willing to trust.