Chapter 267: Life is not a fairy tale.

Sensing Lieve’s desperation, Lee said, "What do you think? She’s a bitch!"From Goos’s description he easily guessed that the pretty chick dressed in a white fur coat was the one who was supposed to marry Van Graaf before Lieve showed up out of nowhere. She was exactly as Goos described – pretty as a doll, although that might’ve been an illusion created by the contrast between her blond hair and expensive coat and the dark surroundings.

Unexpectedly, she had become Lieve’s close friend, or so Lieve thought, and now was about to arrest her. She was shouting orders to the two guard squads in the plaza in front of the inn, making sure her friend would not get away. Crowd of curious onlookers quickly formed around the area – everyone wanted to see what criminal the beautiful heiress was about to apprehend.

"Let’s go! We’ve seen enough." Lee said, "The hub will be on a complete lockdown within twenty breaths. We don’t have much time."

"Time for what?" Lieve weakly asked as Lee pulled her toward the roof’s trapdoor.

"Plan b, what else?" He grinned.

"Which one is that?" She asked.

"The one you’ll hate me for the rest of your life." Lee said with a shallow laugh.

***

Lee was right. As soon as Sanne Teuling realized Lieve was not in the inn, the whole hub was locked down and thoroughly searched. It was already impossible to leave the place, but she organized a large group of guards to check the surface nevertheless.

It was easy to tell Sanne was panicking. Every nook and cranny in Driftpost was checked. There wasn’t a wardrobe the guards overlooked, and nor a single dog-sized box left unopened. She personally went from door to door, verifying her friend hadn’t changed her looks.

Most people, men in particular, didn’t care for the reason of her visit. They were thrilled the beauty had arrived to their doorstep, and tried to flaunt her to the best of their ability.

Of course, not everyone Sanne met was civil. With the amount of ironbite consumed daily, many had turned into alcoholics. While some of them were passed out in their own filth or vomit, others shamelessly stared at her, openly salivating.

The two drunkards she met were clearly of the latter sort. They occupied a room on the top floor of an inn across the small plaza from the site of the initial ambush.

Sanne heard distant slapping sounds before entering the room and thought her guards were punishing someone, but what she saw shocked even her.

Two bold young men, barely standing, took turns to slap each other’s disfigured faces, clearly not realizing they had visitors. The place reeked of cheap ironbite, and half a dozen empty bottles on the floor indicated it wasn’t the first day of them drinking.

"What are you doing?" Sanne blurted, attracting attention of the two.

One of them gawked at her, as if aroused, but the other used the opportunity and smacked the first one so hard the guy fell to the floor.

"Tfrainingf Sflapshfot!" He proudly said, but as he spoke, blood along with few teeth flew from his mouth.

"Check if they have permits!" Sanne hissed towards one of the guards. Then, holding her breath, stormed out.

She had no clue that Lieve, her former friend, right in front of her eyes was slapped so hard she almost lost consciousness. At this point it was impossible to recognize her features with how swollen and dirty her face was. Moreover, Lieve’s shaved head didn’t allow Sanne to have a thought the ugly person could be her former rival. In few breaths Lee had managed to transform them both into seasoned drunkards.

"Whfat a nicfe sfmell!" Lee passionately said, deeply inhaling the remnants of the heiress scent, but at this moment Lieve jumped to her feet and smacked him hard, knocking him down. For a few moments Lee was seeing stars and knew he just had bared full load of her anger and hate.

There was an awkward silence until Lee pulled himself together, crawled up and presented a couple of documents, saying, "Wfe havf an empfloymetf cfontractf!

The guards left without sparing a glance at the papers, while the resounding slaps were heard even while they searched the second and first floors.

The two crazy drunkards weren’t the only ones of the kind, and were soon forgotten. The search didn’t lead anywhere even though the whole Driftpost was basically taken apart, and in the end Sanne was forced to conclude that Lieve escaped, likely through a rift.

***

The following days for both Lee and Lieve were hard. Working while recovering from concussion was challenging to say the least, especially knowing that they both were the ones who hurt each other. Lee kind of regretted going through with this plan, but after thinking about it retrospectively, he couldn’t figure out a better way of slipping through Sanne’s fingers.

To Lee the current experience wasn’t really anything knew – only the injuries were different, and so was the place. Once again, he was suffering from pain caused by his own choices, and the realization of that hurt more than his teeth growing back.

While playing the part, he made sure to inflict only superficial damage on Lieve’s face, but the young woman was hurting inside far more than she was physically. She followed Lee like a drunken ghost, one with a shaved head that is.

Lee had to admire Lieve’s mental resistance, though. He wasn’t sure he could’ve kept going if he was in her shoes.

Fortunately, at least the job wasn’t particularly difficult. The only thing they had to make sure while herding varnhollows was to not let the five feet long and two feet thick worms to gnaw on each other. Their teeth could effortlessly crush iron ore, but they were so slow a tortoise could easily outrun them.

It was hard to imagine these things were the sole reason for countless people across the worlds grew filthy rich. Even Lee’s and Lieve’s current job paid so well that, after a few years, they could retire to a quiet town in a regular world, free from worries for the rest of their lives. Of course, that would be in case they were regular people.

Hanging around Driftpost was still dangerous, and after work they always stayed in their small room. According to Lee’s estimate, they had to lay low for at least two to three months before leaving, and while their cover wasn’t particularly pleasant, it turned out to be safe.

Their physical injuries mended quickly, and to take Lieve’s mind of emotional pain, Lee forced her to tell him everything she knew about the cultivation. The Nethermoon sect had spatial techniques, but none were available to public and Lee had never copied any. Now, though, he shamelessly used Lieve, openly admitting he intended to steal all her knowledge.

In the worst case scenario, if he never managed to resolve the issue with his sparks, Lee wanted to use the cool move he saw Seren’s underling show after killing the Old God. It was the opening of a small rift that allowed Seren to kill Vaerin standing several yards away with a single stab of his sword.

While he couldn’t open rifts himself, Lee instructed Lieve to open and close small rifts, while he practiced the Assassination Thrust. It was a great technique to train for his own future improvement, and allowed Lieve to focus on something unrelated as well.

Turns out, she didn’t lie upon their meeting – she wasn’t particularly talented. Rifts created by her were unstable and Lee would never risk putting his own hand through one. The primitive training swords he crafted were fine to break, though.

With days passing by, Lieve did become more skillful. She even started to diligently practice, and pretty soon Lee recognized the reason. It was the peculiar deep look in her eyes – the young woman had decided to take revenge.

After inwardly battling himself for a few days, Lee said to her, "I don’t know how you feel, but a long time ago I was in a somewhat similar position. I decided to kill a dozen people who murdered my parents."