"My life, oh!"
In a flashy and bustling establishment filled with music and lights, a young man sat despondently on a sofa, listlessly holding a glass of wine in his right hand, uttering a near-desperate sigh.
Opposite him sat a man slightly older, draping his arm around a heavily made-up woman, continuously cracking coarse jokes in awkward Horn Bay dialect. The woman intermittently laughed along.
This was Friedrich Liszt and his companion McKinley.
Last night, the church's people had raided the inn they were staying in, searching room by room for so-called witches and wizards, creating utter chaos.
McKinley knocked on Liszt's door in the morning, only to find him somewhat delirious, mumbling about a woman and an antidote.
Liszt shared the details of the previous night's events with him.
McKinley outwardly sympathized with him, but internally thought the youngster was probably caught up in a vivid dream.
Naked? Normal. A dagger to the throat? Quite a peculiar taste.
He decided to take him to the pleasure district to distract him, planning to later expense it as a business dinner with Todd, their boss, laughing to himself.
Hence, the current scene unfolded.
"My life! Just as it was beginning, it's about to end!"
After a few drinks, Liszt became even more despondent, his entire being radiating negative energy.
"Sir…"
Next to Liszt sat a flamboyantly dressed woman, now awkwardly smiling in an attempt to console him.
Despite her best efforts, she couldn't cheer up the long-sighing client, feeling a sense of defeat. She couldn't understand a word of the Ordo language he muttered to himself.
"Liszt, really!"
McKinley, unable to bear it anymore, interjected.
"How can you treat the lovely lady beside you like this?"
He winked at the woman next to Liszt, eliciting a burst of giggles from her.
"Come on, stop lamenting over your dream and look at the beauty of reality!"
Liszt, clutching his head in despair, said, "I'm not joking with you. If I don't get the antidote from that woman, I'll really be buried in a foreign land!"
McKinley scoffed, "You're really lost in your dream, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality! I asked the waiter, and up until I came to your room, there was no sign of any woman entering or leaving the inn!"
"Ah!" Liszt's eyes widened, "I told you, that woman was a w-…"
"Shh!" McKinley hastily covered his mouth, "Don't mention that word. We're not sure how sensitive this place is to witchcraft, but it's better to be cautious!"
He glanced at the two hostesses, who showed no change in expression, confirming they didn't understand their Ordo language, and heaved a sigh of relief.
"You can't seriously believe in witches… that sort of thing, can you? I think it's just thugs affiliated with the church looking to extort some money from us foreigners!"
Liszt, looking grave, whispered, "Believe it or not, a woman mysteriously appeared in my room last night, and I'm certain the church's actions are directly related to her!"
Seeing Liszt repeat his story, McKinley began to waver. Could it be true?
Suddenly, the sound of crashing crockery broke the cheerful atmosphere of the establishment.
Everyone turned towards the source of the noise.
A table had been overturned, and a drunken man was causing a scene.
He held a wine glass in one hand, and with the other, he grasped a woman's collar.
"Drink! If I say drink, you drink!"
Several men nearby were egging him on, leering at the woman's body.
The poor woman, already semi-unconscious, kept pushing him away with both hands.
"How dare you disrespect me!"
The aggressor pushed the woman onto the sofa and then grabbed her hair, shouting loudly, "I paid a lot of money, you'll do whatever I say!"
The woman, her hair being pulled, cried out in pain, while the bystanders laughed heartily.
In the face of such a scene, no one in the hall stepped forward to intervene. A few sighed and left, preferring to turn a blind eye.
"Unbelievable!"
Liszt was about to intervene but was held back by his companion, McKinley.
McKinley, speaking in Horn Bay dialect, asked the two hostesses, "What is the identity of those men?"
The hostesses, witnessing their fellow's plight, trembled but appeared helpless.
Hearing McKinley's question, one of them warned, "Please, don't provoke them. They are members of the Church's Purification Squad."
Purification Squad? Liszt and McKinley frowned, hearing this organization's name for the second time.
"The one conducting the witch-hunt?"
"Yes," the other hostess said fearfully, "If you provoke them, you might become their suspect… and end up on the pyre."
Liszt and McKinley were surprised. Although they were aware of the witch-hunts in Horn Bay, they thought last night's incident was an anomaly. But the hostesses' words suggested the witch-hunt was widespread, especially impacting the lives of civilians.
McKinley lamented, "I didn't encounter this the last time I was in Fort Ness, and it's only been a few months…"
He tightly gripped Liszt's sleeve, "Don't be impulsive, do you want to die?" Liszt was actually considering stepping in for justice, perhaps too affected by the alcohol.
"Let go of me!" Liszt, full of righteous indignation, exclaimed, "If I can't get the antidote, let me at least die gloriously for justice!"
He forcefully broke free from McKinley's grasp and quickly approached the abuser, fearlessly shouting at the taller man, "Are you even a man? How can you bully a woman like this?"
The man stopped his abuse — the woman's face was bruised and hardly recognizable — and turned to glare at Liszt, his fierce gaze sending shivers down Liszt's spine, sobering him up a bit.
A gruff voice demanded, "What did you, a foreigner, just babble about?"
Liszt had spoken in Ordo language in his righteous indignation.
"I… I said… as a man, you shouldn't… shouldn't treat women like this."
Liszt switched to Horn Bay dialect, stuttering due to his unfamiliarity and the oppressive atmosphere.
The other customers in the hall looked at the foreigner struggling to speak, with varying expressions of admiration, shame, disdain, and some, sensing trouble, hurriedly left.
"Hahaha!"
After a moment of astonishment, the abuser's companions burst into laughter.
"Quintus! You've been disrespected by this Ordo guy!"
"Let this northerner teach Quintus how to be a gentleman."
"I love watching a hero save the damsel in distress."
Their mockery turned Quintus, the aggressor, red with rage. Clearly, he was not amused.
Quintus clenched his fist, cracking his knuckles.
"Ordo kid, looks like I need to teach you how to follow the rules — Quintus's rules!"
Liszt swallowed hard, now fully sober, realizing he might have been too impulsive.
McKinley, save yourself and run.
The man known as Quintus had the look of a brawler, an image that easily brought to Liszt's mind associations with thugs and ruffians, yet it was hard to connect him with church personnel.
Quintus made no effort to hide his malice towards the "provocateur". His burly body almost overshadowed Liszt. Encouraged by his companions, under the candlelight in the hall, he menacingly approached Liszt step by step, his formidable figure twisting.
The aggressor let out a ferocious laugh, "Come here, little ant, let Quintus teach you a lesson."
Liszt stood bewildered in his place. To flee? At such close distance, it seemed impossible.
Just as Quintus harshly grabbed his clothes, a loud shout came from the entrance of the hall: "The guards are here, no one move recklessly!"
The sound drew everyone's attention in the hall, and they turned their gaze towards the door.
Quintus, still holding Liszt, also paused and looked at the intruder, his face still arrogant.
A group of well-trained people wearing swords and armor rushed into the shop.
Behind the doorway of the hall, the half head of the innkeeper peeked out, timidly glancing at the situation inside, likely the one who had called the guards.
"I've received reports of trouble here, what's happening?"
The one who spoke was a member of the guards, wearing more intricate and finely detailed armor than the others, adorned with beautiful patterns, apparently the leader.
"It's just the brothers from the guard!"
One of Quintus' companions stepped forward, blocking the leader's path.
He dropped his earlier spectator demeanor and said with a laugh, "It's a misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding?" questioned the captain of the guards, removing his helmet to reveal a handsome young face.
His eyes lingered on the overturned tables and shattered dishes and cups on the floor.
"This doesn't look like a misunderstanding to me!"
"I say!" Quintus, still clutching Liszt's clothes, spoke up. "Gentlemen of the guard, you are fulfilling your duties, and we are fulfilling ours. It's best if we don't interfere with each other…"
His companion, who was blocking the guards, kept giving him signals to stop talking, though he still had an air of defiance.
The captain of the guard said discontentedly, "What duty are you fulfilling? It looks like you're just causing trouble!"
Liszt, controlled like a lamb, grasped at this lifeline in desperation, his Horn Bay dialect suddenly fluent: "This gentleman must uphold justice for us! These scoundrels are bullying people."
"Do you see that poor lady? She really can't drink anymore, but these scum are forcing her to drink, torturing her if she refuses."
"In broad daylight, is this what people do? They should be thrown into the dungeon."
Suddenly, a fist the size of a pot hit his stomach. Liszt, in pain, was rendered speechless, making a dry heaving sound.
The man blocking the guards put his arm around the captain's shoulder in a familiar manner and said, "Captain, we're all making a living in Fort Ness, it's better for us to give each other some face."
The young captain of the guards grabbed the arm on his shoulder and pulled it away, causing Quintus' companion to almost fall.
Such disrespect? His brows furrowed.
"Captain, may I know your name?" Quintus' companion asked with a malicious look, a serpent-like expression on his face.
"Queller! Queller Foster!"
Hisses and gasps of surprise echoed through the hall.
It turned out to be a member of the Foster family, and some informed people whispered, "It's the second young master of the Marquis Foster's family."