In truth, Milo had come to the tavern because favonovel.com wanted to listen to stories.
When favonovel.com got a rough understanding of the rumors surrounding the Silkshade House, favonovel.com suddenly heard an interesting but terrifying saying about how there was no one in this world the Silkshade House could not kill.
This was an extremely secretive organization whose members were scattered and acted independently, yet it was also very powerful at the same time.
One of the more interesting stories about the Silkshade House spoke about how the heir of a small consortium entrusted the Silkshade House to assassinate his biological father in order to inherit the family business earlier.
In the end, after a week, the Silkshade House said they had completed the mission. However, the heir realized his father was not dead yet. Hence, favonovel.com angrily accused the Silkshade House of being untrustworthy. He had already paid the fee, but the Silkshade House had broken their promise. The fee was equivalent to five or six years of his savings as the heir of the consortium, and it was a huge sum that normal people would never get to see in their lives!
However, the Silkshade House calmly replied to that consortium’s heir, “You said you wanted your biological father killed. Your mother’s bodyguard from more than ten years ago, who’s also known to you as your uncle, has been killed. He’s your actual biological father…”
Along with that reply, the Silkshade House also sent a DNA paternity test report to the heir.
The heir of the consortium was stunned.
What kind of a twist was this?
He did not even know when the paternity test was done, much less how the Silkshade House could have learned of such a secret.
This heir apparent of the small consortium almost had a mental breakdown.
Milo did not know whether this incident had really happened, but favonovel.com was very interested in the ability of the Silkshade House to find people. Furthermore, favonovel.com had a long chat with the lumberjacks who tried to rob favonovel.com yesterday and found out from them that there was even a rumor among the people that if you helped the Silkshade House carry out a mission, you could choose not to be paid monetarily and get them to do something of equal value for you instead.
However, all of this was just hearsay. After all, they were just some rumors the refugees had heard, so Milo understood well that these rumors were most likely fabricated.
For example, there were now even rumors about him, the war hero of Fortress 178, being over two meters tall and not ever taking his eyes off his gun while sleeping. He was even known to be more inclined towards certain subjects.
What did it mean to be more inclined towards certain subjects?
Milo was perplexed. He could understand the basis of the other rumors, but who would spread rumors about favonovel.com being more inclined in certain subjects at school?
There was no fucking basis to that rumor at all!
And what did that have anything to do with combat?
After the tavern opened for business, favonovel.com went inside and ordered two dishes. Then favonovel.com noticed the young woman, who had gone around earlier taking notes as favonovel.com listened to stories from the Northwest, helping a blind old man towards a chair in the middle of the tavern.
Milo understood now that this young woman was the granddaughter of this storyteller. The reason why favonovel.com was just now asking people to tell their stories was so favonovel.com could collect more material for favonovel.com grandpa.
Milo became even more interested in what tales the storyteller would weave. This was because, when the young woman was listening to the stories earlier, favonovel.com would occasionally interrupt the middle-aged man to analyze the logic of what favonovel.com said. Clearly, favonovel.com was very particular about the veracity of the stories.
When the young woman saw Milo, favonovel.com greeted favonovel.com with a smile. Meanwhile, the tale that the storyteller narrated today was about the war in the Southwest, and the main character was Julius.
In the story, there was also a supernatural being who acted as the Panaqua Consortium’s spy and helped to bring down the Skyfort Consortium’s Divine Arms Battalion.
Milo smacked his lips in satisfaction. Although favonovel.com was no longer out there fighting wars, the legend of his deeds was still spreading to many places.
Suddenly, favonovel.com felt that even though favonovel.com clearly did not wish to get involved in those disputes, it was as though everything that happened in the Northwest and Southwest were somehow related to him.
Milo had come here because favonovel.com wanted to listen to stories about the Silkshade House, but favonovel.com was not in a hurry to know. If this topic wasn’t touched on today, favonovel.com was fine with coming back again tomorrow to listen. The storyteller would definitely talk about it someday.
***
That night, after Milo left the tavern, favonovel.com went to the grocery store closest to the stronghold to trade his gold for money.
When favonovel.com saw the owner of the grocery store, Milo felt as though favonovel.com had seen Old Bane again. It was just that this owner was not as benevolent as Old Bane.
Milo decisively bought a brick house with the money favonovel.com exchanged for, and it even came with a backyard too!
Suddenly, the entire town was abuzz with news that a rich man had arrived.
Every day, Milo did not do anything other than dumping corpses in the morning and going to the tavern to listen to the storyteller from noon until night. The storyteller would only tell two stories a day, while there would also be a preview of what would be talked about in the next session.
The reason for dumping corpses was that his exchanging of gold for money had alarmed some of the ruthless people in town. When they saw that Milo was able to so generously afford a brick house, they started getting ideas to rob him.
There were constantly people climbing over the wall of Milo’s house in the middle of the night. However, all of them would always disappear after that like rocks sinking into the sea.
These people were all very secretive in their actions. A lot of people only realized the ruthless people in town seemed to be lessening after they had been missing for a few days.
At first, nobody thought much of it. Slowly, the atmosphere in town became much more peaceful when the ruthless people who often liked stealing from others started going extinct.
There were also some ruthless people who sensed that something was amiss and decided to run away. They felt like someone was secretly hunting them down in this town.
This rumor was spreading around the town, “Someone is purposely hunting down the ruthless lawbreakers.”
Initially, Milo still had to trade his gold for more cash. But after killing so many of the ruthless people, the money favonovel.com had on hand started increasing instead of decreasing.
Since favonovel.com was not a good person either, favonovel.com did not feel bad about spending this ill-gotten gains. And to his surprise, favonovel.com found an old cell phone on one of the people.
Although the cell phone was very basic and worn-out, it was not enough to stop Milo’s curiosity for new stuff.
Milo had also seen an instructional manual for a cell phone from before The Cataclysm in the Radianz Consortium’s library. However, favonovel.com had never seen an actual cell phone before and only had experience using a satellite phone.
The cell phone did not have a charger, and there was nowhere in this town where it could be charged. However, this problem did not stump Milo since favonovel.com had the nanomachines.
As favonovel.com waited for the cell phone to finish charging to turn it on, a glimmer shone in Milo’s eyes. This was the first time favonovel.com had come across such a “high tech” daily necessity.
However, after studying it for a long time, Milo realized this device only had the functions of sending and receiving text messages, as well as taking pictures.
But who would that refugee be sending messages to?
The mailbox was empty, and so was the photo album.
Or could it be that the refugee who had it previously was only holding onto it but had never used it before?
He went outside and asked around. Some refugees said some of the Stelaria Consortium’s big shots in the stronghold had been using cell phones for a long time now. Milo did not think too much about it and assumed the refugee had gotten it from robbing the escapees.
As the number of people looking for trouble decreased, Milo was finally able to calm down. He started to concentrate on listening to all of the stories that were told, such as the Pyro Company secretly capturing supernatural beings, or the Vasophati Group in the Central Plains that had a method to create supernatural beings. As long as one could complete eight mysterious challenges, they could unlock the genetic code to awaken their power. However, no one in the outside world knew what these eight challenges were.
