Chapter 54: Fleeting Luck

No one knew the news and rumors of the town better than Huck—in fact, Huck was not a person who liked to pry into various messages, but as the boss of ‘Snow Bear’s Home’, he did not need to inquire about any news at all. As long as he stood behind the counter, the drinkers talking loudly in the hall would ‘tell’ him everything.

This included news about the young man in front of him.

Of course, Huck would absolutely not believe the words of those people—he basically listened to them as jokes, things like a Baron’s illegitimate son, or a Knight of the Central Knight Order.

In Huck’s view, these were just jokes.

The only thing he somewhat believed was that the other party was the heir of some Noble, or perhaps… an illegitimate son or something like that.

After all, only in this way would the other party fit the status of appearing here.

However, the battle that flashed by like lightning just now forced Huck to doubt his own guess, especially after he saw the Central Knight Order uniform covered in mud; this doubt turned into reality—compared to the locals of the Tier Territory, Huck, who had once undergone the ‘Knight’s Baptism’, undoubtedly had considerable insight. Although the ‘Knight’s Baptism’ failed, it did not prevent him from having seen some Big Shots.

He clearly remembered that the Captain of the Central Knight Order was wearing a similar uniform at that time.

Really from the Central Knight Order?!

Huck thought in surprise in his heart, and at the same time saw Dean walking towards him. The inn owner also stepped forward two steps, and said with that characteristic boldness: “Thank you for your help, Your Excellency!”

“No need to thank you—their targets included me as well. I was just clearing some enemies for myself!”

Dean waved his hand and pointed to the other two corpses dragged over by his subordinates. When Huck saw the wounds on the throats of those two corpses, he subconsciously looked at the wound of the corpse not far from his feet. It was also at the throat, and the wound was not deep or shallow, but it was enough to kill with one strike.

Undoubtedly, this was an expert with the sword—those who only knew how to fight with brute force were just beginners. Those who truly entered the threshold were all people who knew how to reasonably distribute their Strength; they would not use a thread more, nor a bit less.

Similarly, Huck had also reached this level, except that it was after his right arm was chopped off.

However, precisely because of such understanding, Huck would look even more seriously at the young man before him—because he knew how difficult it was to reach such a level. Many Knights who had undergone the ‘Knight’s Baptism’ could not reach a similar level, for example, that Regiment Commander Potts.

At the thought of Potts, Huck’s gratitude toward Dean increased by one more point.

Looking at the respectful gazes of those boys, he knew that the young man before him was definitely not a guy who lined his pockets and was as timid as a mouse. Coupled with those quite good sword skills, Huck could not help but reveal a smile, because he knew that the Ferrchelen Knight Order had gained a good Regiment Commander.

Therefore, Huck bluntly issued his invitation—

“Although you were just cleaning up your enemies, the fact that you helped me remains—so, I think you should come to my inn and clean up… going to see Lord Baron covered in mud does not accord with etiquette!”

“With pleasure!”

And Dean, who already had thoughts about Huck, naturally would not refuse.

Inside the inn, as Dean and Huck entered, the merchants who were still in shock finally breathed a sigh of relief—at least, the appearance of these two, especially the latter, was enough to prove their safety. Although in normal times they did not really like getting along with this short-tempered inn owner, now they were willing to stick closely to this inn owner.

“You guys, continue drinking. Those guys have been dealt with!”

Huck looked at the merchants who were hesitating and wanting to come over, and could not help waving his hand—he did not have time to bother with these guys now, because he saw that the young man’s right arm was somewhat unnatural; clearly, in the previous battle, this young man was not unscathed.

However, what was so strange about that? The opponent launched a surprise attack and had the help of crossbows; even he had almost lost his life, let alone a young man.

“Follow me, I have wound medicine and bandages here!”

Huck expressed his friendliness.

Dean did not refuse and followed behind, entering Huck’s room—this was not a big room; it had a large bed that could accommodate Huck’s entire body, and besides a wardrobe, the weapon rack and armor rack were the most conspicuous.

On the weapon rack, a double-edged Battleaxe was placed there.

On the armor rack, a set of Half-Body Armor was neatly placed.

Both were polished extremely brightly, showing that the owner wiped and maintained them frequently.

“Those were my former weapon and armor!”

Huck, who took out bandages and wound medicine from the lower layer of the wardrobe, saw Dean’s sizing up look and spoke with a hint of loneliness; however, the next moment, he laughed loudly and patted the Longsword at his waist with his only remaining left hand: “But, I still have combat power now!”

“Mhm, those guys only sent two people to deal with me, but there were four people here for you—and I only caused a commotion at the very beginning, you are the real target!”

Dean nodded and took the bandages and wound medicine.

“But, in the end, those guys were killed by you and your men, which shows that they underestimated you too much… do you need me to handle your uniform for you?”

Huck once again showed his boldness.

“Much gratitude!”

Dean responded with the reserve of a Noble. Even though he wanted to appear a bit more natural, for the sake of the subsequent plan, he had to continue disguising himself.

After taking off the uniform, a wound about four inches long appeared on his right arm. It was not very wide, but it had already drawn blood, and it looked very deep.

In fact, regarding this wound he gave himself, Dean was very careful. The wound only looked somewhat deep; in reality, there was no serious harm.

Yes, this was a strike Dean gave to himself.

As for why?

Of course, it was for the position of the Ferrchelen Knight Order Regiment Commander.

However, it was definitely not to play the victim to win sympathy; he just needed a period of time, a period to rapidly improve his Strength, to make him sufficient to reach the true ‘Knight Strength’; after all, the Regiment Commander of any Knight Order needed at least the level of a Knight, this was universally acknowledged.

Although there was no explicit clause, Dean definitely did not want to let this become an excuse for others to attack him—and, Dean could imagine that many people around Baron Tier would be happy to see this; not because of any entanglement of interests, but simply because of gloating.

This was the baseness of human nature, which Dean had already experienced long ago.

The bandage began to cover the wound smeared with medicine in a left-right interlacing manner according to a triangular fixation method—this was a common bandaging method in the army. When he was in the Central Knight Order, Dean specifically learned this, and then conducted ‘consolidation’ and ‘review’ in countless Battlefields.

The bandage stuck to the wound on the right arm gently but definitely not loosely. Dean used his left hand and teeth to cooperate, just like after those countless battles.

When the wound was completely covered, Dean used only his left hand to tie a clean and neat knot.

[Learned: Bandaging Lv1]

And when that bandage knot appeared, a prompt appeared on Dean’s character panel—under the empty general skill column, the skill [Bandaging Lv1] appeared there.

Dean was slightly stunned—according to his experience, general skills had no profession level limit, which meant they could be quickly improved with experience, but every general skill needed a long time of practice to appear and be acknowledged by the System; at least, in his memory, for the original appearance of [Bandaging Lv1], he had bandaged himself or his comrades no less than three hundred times.

But now…

“It seems I should fully understand the differences between the current System and my memory!”

Dean frowned slightly and pondered carefully.

After all, if [Bandaging Lv1] appeared, then [Potion Making Lv1] should also have appeared; after all, he had prepared those Paralytic Drugs more than once before.

Then, Dean seemed to discover something different.

Before, when he was bandaging, he seemed to enter a certain state—immersed in the bandaging after those countless injuries!

“Perhaps…”

A guess appeared directly in Dean’s heart, and such a guess made him excited again.

Because, if this guess was correct, then he would improve his Strength at a faster speed—or, more accurately, ‘recover’.

Of course, this required countless experiments.

And clearly, now was not the time—

Huck, holding the simply processed uniform, pushed the door and walked in. The mud on the uniform had been completely washed off, and it had also been dried, but without more time for ironing, it appeared somewhat wrinkled. Holding such wrinkled clothes, Huck appeared somewhat embarrassed.

After all, he knew what they were going to do in a while, and what consequences wearing such a uniform would cause.

“How about we change into another one? I might have here…”

“Our body types… perhaps you know a tailor who can complete the cutting within ten minutes?”

Dean gestured to the body types of both sides.