Rise of the Crusader



A creaking sound occurred as Vernon pushed the door of the tavern open.

Time seemed to have paused and as he stepped inside the tavern, everyone had their eyes glued to him.

They stared at him, with each one of them having a bewildered expression on their face. It was evident that they weren't expecting arrival inside the tavern.

However, ignoring the gaze of everyone in the tavern, Vernon's eyes moved toward the attendant.

As he made eye contact with the black-haired woman behind the counter, Vernon placed his hand behind his back and began walking towards her.

"Hello." He said.

A nod came from the woman after she spoke, and Vernon said, "How much is the finest liquor here?"

His tone was neither polite nor rude.

And while none of the people in the tavern had made a move yet, they excluded an aura of superiority.

An overbearing aura to be precise…

The moment Vernon stepped inside the tavern, he felt the pressure weighing on him, as each one of the people in there considered him to be no different from an ant.

However, as he proclaimed earlier, he would be disgracing the Orleans family bloodline, if he were to be horrified because of the people in the tavern.

"How much is the finest liquor here?" Vernon asked again.

This time around, the woman didn't ignore him, she instead pointed her hand at the price list close to her.

As Vernon turned toward the direction she was pointing at, his mouth opened slightly.

Upon seeing the expression on his face, the woman's lips curl into a frown. She shook her head and then continued to clean the glass of wine she was holding onto.

The change in her expression didn't go unnoticed by Vernon. He could tell that she was dissatisfied with how he reacted to seeing the price, but how could he not react that way?

The tavern boldly demanded a 20 S-Rank beast head for the finest liquor.

Getting one S-Rank meta beast was close to defying the heavens, yet the tavern demanded for twenty of the beast's heads. If this wasn't sending people to death, Vernon didn't know what to call it.

"I will have it." Suddenly, Vernon spoke.

The woman assumed she had heard wrong, but as twenty beast's heads appeared on the table, her mouth opened slightly.

She wasn't the only one shocked, but the others in the tavern were just as shocked as she was. They stared at the head on the table for a while before then moving their gaze to Vernon.

"Those are twenty beast heads, now can I have the liquor," Vernon spoke, this time around with a displeased expression on his face.

The woman frowned slightly, she turned towards the black-clothed man, and with a nod of her head, the man moved closer to the table.

He seemed to know what the woman was requesting of him. And after staring at the beast's head for a few minutes, he spoke.

"They are indeed S-Rank beasts."

With that said, and he moved back to his original position.

A smile was quick to form on the woman's face, she stared at Vernon with the smile on her face widened.

Before Vernon's gaze, the woman reached down the counter, and as she raised her hand, a gold wine case was brought onto the table.

She then brought a square-shaped wine out of the case and poured its content onto the glass in front of her.

Once the wine had arrived in the middle of the glass, she paused, sealing the wine and placing it back in the gold case, she hid the wine again.

Vernon glared at the glass of wine in front of him, and then at the woman as well. He concluded that this was some show, as there was no way that twenty S-Rank beasts would only offer him half of a glass of wine.

At least, he expected the whole wine to be his.

As Vernon didn't hide his baffled state, the woman discerned it easily. She, however, kept the smile on her face and as he emptied up the glass, the smile remained.

"Hmm" Vernon's hand shook as he drank the wine.

The taste was simply exquisite.

Vernon could swear that as mighty and resourceful as the Orleans family were, they didn't possess a wine of this quality.

"The Domino wine was brewed with the blood of over one hundred S-Rank beasts." The woman behind the counter suddenly spoke.

"By now you can currently feel a growth in your strength, skill, and even aptitude, it is the Domino wine taking effect." She paused, "Not to worry, it doesn't have any side effects."

"If you want to continue to experience the Domino wine effect, the price will be forty S-Rank beast heads." Said the woman.

As Vernon listened to the increase in the price of the wine, his eyebrows furrowed. However, he couldn't blame them because the wine was out of the ordinary.

'Don't' Vernon was about to take out another set of the beast heads from his ring when he heard that tiny voice in his head.

He took a deep breath, "I won't have a taste of the Domino wine… Thank you." Said, Vernon.

As tasty and beneficial as the wine was, it wasn't the reason for his presence here. Vernon had only chosen to order it because he wanted to create an even environment.

After dismissing the aura of superiority they pressed on him, Vernon aimed to make them know he wasn't someone they could bully without having to use his fist.

Ordering the finest liquor in the tavern was one of the ways to do it… And he successfully established that he was no ordinary person by bringing forth twenty S-Rank beast's heads.

"If you don't mind, there's something I seek for, and I hope you would be able to help me." Said Vernon as he stared at the woman.

The woman knitted her brows upon hearing Vernon.

She stared at him for a brief moment and then said, "What is that?"

"The egg of Cleopatra," Vernon responded.

It was barely up to a second after Vernon let out those words, and he was completely surrounded. Whether it was a black-clothed man or the others in the tavern, they gathered around him.

Staring at him with dagger eyes, each one of the people around Vernon made their intention to kill evident.

"Who are you and how do you know the egg of Cleopatra?" The person who spoke was a middle-aged man with red hair and a brown goatee.

Vernon smirked, "You wouldn't act this way if you didn't have the egg of Cleopatra, so I guess I was right." Vernon replied.

With his hands balled into a tight fists, Vernon made a move immediately after he spoke.