PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

179 Chapter 179 Surviving is complicated

A young man in a military uniform was at this moment entering the door of a bar in the less crowded neighborhood of the city, the young man seemed to be in his twenties with dark brown hair and green eyes; he seemed energetic but naive walking into a bar that was full of military men.

The other people in the bar only paid attention to him for a brief moment before going back to their own business and continuing to drink, after all, although they did not know the young man at the moment the military was recruiting as much as they could so it was not strange to see a new face; plus the boy looked like a novice.

Desmond seeing that everyone stopped paying attention to him smiled nervously and went to the bar to ask the bartender for a couple of beers, then he began to drink with joy, but inside he was quite annoyed that this bar did not even have one single pretty girl as a waitress; though he also knew that no woman in his right mind would approach this place.

That’s right, the young man who had entered the bar was Desmond Astryd, although one would have to be very familiar with him to recognize him at this moment as his current appearance was far from his usual appearance; Now what the hell was Desmond doing in a bar full of military men while he was wearing a costume? Well, we would have to go a couple of hours in the past to find out.

(3 hours before, Third-person POV)

Leaving the girls in the living room to get to know each other better, Desmond went to his room to prepare a few things, after taking a discreet briefcase from the back of his closet Desmond also took out a backpack that was hidden under his bed.

When opening the backpack one could see what looked like a military uniform of a private soldier carefully stored inside, where the hell had Desmond got such a thing? Probably only he knew about it, it just goes without saying that some poor guy had his uniform lost in the laundry room.

After putting on his uniform and looking in the mirror for a moment, Desmond opened the briefcase, it was what could only be described as everything necessary to slightly change the appearance of a person.

Makeup, a pair of wigs, and some sets of contact lenses lay quietly inside the briefcase, without any pause in his movements, Desmond proceeded to use everything contained in the briefcase; within an hour Desmond now seemed like a different person.

.....

With great familiarity Desmond had used the makeup to slightly alter the appearance of his face, making it look less angular and a little rougher; Adding to that a well-fitted brown hair wig and a pair of green contact lenses Desmond thought he had done a good enough job.

At the end of the day, Desmond was not a spymaster or anything like that and his disguise was far from meeting those standards, but it was more than enough to present himself to people who did not know him and who in the first instance would not be aware of people like him.

There was no real need for Desmond to go through so much trouble finding the information he wanted, but because of how complicated the current environment was with the war just around the corner Desmond had decided to be cautious; in other words... Desmond was being a bit paranoid.

As he left his room and went to the living room, Desmond could already hear the voices of the girls talking excitedly, from the little that had reached him Desmond knew that they were talking about what happened between Claire and him; Desmond was even surprised that the girls could talk about such matters so openly.

It was obvious that despite how much Desmond believed he understood women this was mainly limited to romantic or sexual matters, things like being friends with a woman or how women behave with their friends were things that were beyond his understanding.

Luckily for the young womanizer, that kind of knowledge didn’t affect his daily life as he had no such thing as friends that he didn’t sleep with... although that also said a lot about the kind of idiot he was as a person.

In any case, Desmond decided to let the girls chat quietly, in the meantime he was in charge of gathering information, but he only got within a couple of feet from the front door before Claire stopped him.

′′ Desmond? You’re using that again... What’s the name now, Hector, Max, or something similar? ′′

Unlike Claire’s calm demeanor, when Kyuru and Sasha saw Desmond with that appearance they seemed to have a lot to say, but upon hearing Claire take the initiative both girls remained silent; Subtly a hierarchy had already formed among the women in this house and Claire was the one at the top.

′′ I was thinking of something like John, I hate using such common names, but right now I’m not in the mood to come up with a better name... don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to do anything dangerous I’ll just go out there to do a couple of questions; After all, I’m just a young, recently recruited soldier who doesn’t know anything. ′′

Halfway through his explanation, Desmond had to stop to reassure Claire who was looking at him with her beautiful emerald eyes full of concern, after which he expressed his plan with a slightly shy smile on his lips; if one didn′t know the man standing there one would believe that he was just a nervous newbie who barely knew how to put on the uniform correctly.

Of course, with Kyuru’s empathic abilities, she could feel the mockery and mischief hidden in Desmond’s smile, for a moment even Claire was stunned by the performance of her lover.

Seeing all the girls looking at him with strange expressions, Desmond dropped the pretense again and approached to give a kiss to Claire who received him with joy, then Desmond seemed to hesitate for a moment, but still approached Sasha to kiss her tenderly in the forehead; Ignoring the girl who was now blushing furiously Desmond glanced at Claire’s reaction out of the corner of his eye and only when he saw that she didn’t seem upset did Desmond relax.

′′ You girls stay home today, I would like you to get to know each other better... Claire I would like you to explain to Sasha some of the common sense things in our world so that she can get used to it quickly; I’ll be back before dark... I love you, bye. ′′

And so after a somehow awkward dismissal where he declared his affection to two women at the same time, Desmond tried to get the awkwardness out of his system before re-entering character and heading towards his target.

On the other hand, Sasha was unable to contain her curiosity when she asked Claire about everything that happened, but Claire’s response left her with as many questions as answers because all she said was:

′′ Surviving in this world was difficult. ′′