Martial Online.

A few days later.

Ambrose sat in his room, gazing out to the streets below, clear boredom in his face.

He had been waiting for Casper to contact him, as he was supposed to, but never did.

'Perhaps he found out that I was Beowulf?' Ambrose wondered before shaking his head.

'Impossible. My disguise was perfect, and I am supposed to be a new magician. There is no way Casper would cto the conclusion that I was the one behind the mask.'

Ambrose rhythmically tapped his finger against the window's glass, but then he nodded his head and decided to go out as he was too bored.

For the past few days, he has spent most of the day in All-Online, but in this room, as he was expecting Casper to visit him at any moment.

As he was stuck in his room, he was mostly testing different magic spells, and he was getting the hang of it.

During his battle against Casper, he was mostly experimenting with different things, and still, he was able to defeat him effortlessly.

He didn't know how strong Casper was as a magician, but he was proud of the fact that he was able to defeat him so easily without any previous experience with magic.

Ambrose took his dirty coat and hat from the hook on the door, put them on, and left his room.

With his footsteps echoing across the empty hallways, he stepped down to the bottom floor, which was currently empty, with the light on the ceiling flickering eerily.

He stepped outside onto the street, which was blanketed in a thick layer of dust. It was a quite dimly lit place, with most of the light coming from the street lamps and through the windows of nearby buildings.

There were people milling about, doing their own things, but Ambrose had a feeling that they were still eyeing him suspiciously.

After all, he was an unfamiliar person to them all.

After Ambrose slid his hands inside his coat pockets, he started to walk down the street without any clear destination in mind.

While walking, he admired the beautiful architecture of the buildings around him.

They were all so different from Martial Online's buildings—all of them had slanted roofs with chimneys, shaped tops, and dirty windows. Far different from the sleek designs of the real world.

They were made of stone and brick, standing tall and proud against the backdrop of the bustling, bright town. The roofs were made of thatch and vegetation.

At that moment, one of those building doors opened, and the smell of freshly baked bread wafted out, making everyone passing by stop and take a deep breath.

In the smoment, Ambrose turned his gaze to the alleyway right next to it and heard schildren playing skind of dice game.

However, before rolling the die, they fused their magic into it and rolled it with a flick of the wrist, causing a burst of colorful sparks to fly out.

The glooked quite basic, but the children seemed to enjoy it.

As if they felt a strange gaze on them, they turned around and stared at Ambrose with their dark eyes, which didn't seem to blink or have any emotions in them.

Ambrose's eyebrow jumped in surprise, as only moments prior, they were happily talking and laughing, but now they were stone-cold creatures that seemed to be staring right through him.

After all, none of these children were normal, as they had been taught the Dark Arts since they were very little.

'Sof these kids might've already killed someone.'

Ambrose quickly thought, tipped his hat to the children, and moved by the alleyway.

As soon as he walked past the alleyway, he again heard the innocent laughter coming behind him.

'No one is normal here.'

Ambrose thought and saw selderly folks sitting on a bench, but when he looked away from them, he felt a chill run down his spine.

It was as if he was suddenly stared at by something sinister and invisible.

"Young man, are you interested in stools?"

Ambrose stopped as he noticed that he had arrived at the front steps of skind of store that was selling all sorts of tools and equipment.

On the steps of the open front door, a man with a glorious mustache beckoned him inside with a professional-looking smile.

The store had a wide variety of tools, from hammers and screwdrivers to saws and needles. Strangely enough, they were all locked inside glass cases.

"Tools of assassination, of course." The mustache man said with a chuckle, and he opened one of the drawers that had poison jars and darts.

"You're new here, right?"

"That's right…" Ambrose said with a slight awkward tone that he didn't expect this store to be this kind of tool store.

"I thought the Black Hand used magic to eliminate the targets; isn't that correct?" Ambrose asked just to be sure.

"That's right." The mustache man said with a chuckle.

"However, only the strong ones.

"Children, people with weak magic, and newcomers like you usually need tools to eliminate their targets. In scases, one might be forced to deplete their mana pools, and that's where these tools cin hand.

"That's why everyone is carrying at least stools with them."

"I see…" Ambrose removed his hat, placed it on the table, and looked at the different rools in front of him.

He didn't think he needed any tools, as he believed him to be more than strong enough to deal with his enemies with his magic.

After the fight with Casper, he checked how much of his mana pool had depleted and saw that it was almost full; only a slight drop had depleted.

Ambrose believed that he could make even stronger spells that might deplete his mana pool faster, but after seeing how much his mana pool depleted after the fight, he wasn't worried even the slightest!

However, he needed to keep his image of being a newcomer, and therefore having stools could be useful.

"I'll take that dagger, three poison darts, and is that a healing potion?" Ambrose pointed at the small vial in the drawer.

"That's a healing potion, indeed." The mustache man said with a smile and gave him the equipment before saying how much it cost.

They were 100 gold coins in total.

Ambrose paid it all with an aching heart, as he didn't have a lot of money to spend.

"Thank you for your purchase." The mustache man bowed with a smile and waved goodbye.

Ambrose picked up his hat before putting it back on and left the store with new items weighing on his pockets.

Since there wasn't inventory, he had to carry everything with him.

'Maybe I can create skind of pocket dimension with my magic and store my items there?'

Ambrose wondered, but at the moment, he didn't know how to do that but planned to try to learn it.

After a while of venturing into the dimly lit streets, he arrived at the town square, which had a large fountain in the center and benches surrounding it.

The town square was surrounded by a circle of stores that sold everything possible, from fruits and vegetables to clothing and pleasure items.

It was also the most bustling part of the town, with people of all ages doing trade and purchasing goods.

Ambrose fixed the hat on his head and found a place to sit and relax in the midst of the lively market scene. He sat on one of the benches that were empty, with the fountain right behind him.

After sitting there for a moment, he felt more gazes and saw that no one sat on the sbench as him and avoided him like a plague, only sitting on other benches if they wanted to sit.

Meanwhile, one of the benches already had four people sitting, and one of them was about to fall, but still, none of them wanted to share a seat with him.

'Stranger danger, I suppose.' Ambrose shrugged his shoulders.

At that moment, a voice cfrom in front of him.

"Falco, what're you doing here?"

There was only one person who knew his ncurrently.

Ambrose raised his gaze and was surprised to see Casper walking from skind of medical building with a cast in his arm and a bandaged face. It was clear that Casper had been in skind of accident.

Casper moved quite sluggishly, as if he were in great pain, and he occasionally tried to cover his chest with his coat as there were more bandages wrapped around his torso.

"Casper, what happened to you?" Ambrose feigned surprise and asked.

"Nothing…" Casper groaned and sat right beside him.

"I see, this is why you haven't visitedyet." Ambrose said with a nod. "I went outside because I got bored waiting in my room. I hope you don't mind."

"No…" Casper shook his head. "You're treated as an outsider, I assume?"

"Yeah." Ambrose chuckled nervously and saw all the suspicious gazes aimed at him.

Casper nodded with a sigh.

"They won't trust you easily, but no one will harm you. As long as you don't leave this town, then it is fine. The world above is a dangerous place for Deathwalkers…"

When he mentioned the Deathwalker, his voice turned into an inaudible whisper that only Ambrose managed to hear.

"Mmh…" Ambrose nodded.