The next morning, just as the sun began to rise, Evan slowly made his way toward the Village Chief’s house. His face was twisted with worry.
"What about that old bastard’s corpse? Did you throw it into the river?" Evan asked in a whisper.
Anna, walking gracefully beside him, innocently shook her head. "No. I left him lying on the floor."
Smack!
Evan slapped his own forehead in frustration. "Haah... If this keeps up, the villagers will find out about me, and the Cheep Family will learn that I’m here! Listen to me, okay? Even though I’m a criminal and a con artist, I’m not some ruthless murderer!"
Anna tilted her head slightly, gazing at Evan with innocent eyes. "Find out about what? Did you have some trouble before? If someone is bothering you or trying to hurt you, just tell me. I can remove them from the face of the earth for you."
"No need!" Evan quickly refused with a shudder. "If the villagers or knights find out that I’m associated with a witch... I could become the number one wanted criminal in the entire Empire! Besides, if you were defeated by an Imperial Knight before, there’s no guarantee you couldn’t be defeated again, right?"
Hearing that, Anna pursed her lips slightly, pouting because she felt that her abilities were being underestimated.
Evan glanced around the village street, which was still deserted. After making sure there were no villagers passing by, he carefully opened the door to the Village Chief’s house and slipped inside with Anna.
Inside the house, the pungent smell of blood assaulted his nose. The Village Chief’s corpse lay stiffly on the wooden floor in an extremely gruesome and horrifying state.
Evan’s stomach suddenly churned, the nausea nearly making him vomit. "Damn it... I’ve never killed someone this brutally. What the hell did you do to him?!"
"First, I stabbed him in the stomach," Anna answered in a gentle voice, as if she were explaining a cooking recipe. "Then I pierced both of his eyeballs until they burst, and then—"
"Enough, enough! Don’t continue!" Evan cut her off in a panic. Instinctively, he placed his index finger against Anna’s thin lips to silence her.
However, instead of staying quiet, Anna closed her eyes and... Sllrrp! She licked Evan’s index finger seductively.
Evan quickly pulled his hand back and took several steps away with a pale face. "??????????! ?? ?????????????? ???? ?????????? ?? ??????????????! ??????????’?? ???? ?????? ?? ?????? ???????????? ?????? ?????????????? ????????????! ???? ???????? ????????, ??’???? ?????? ???? ?????????? ???????????????? ???? ?????????? ???? ?? ???????? ?????? ?????????? ????????!" Evan screamed inwardly.
"I would never kill you, Evan. I wouldn’t torture you either," Anna replied calmly.
Evan sighed resignedly and patted his own face. "Come on, Anna... Could you stop reading my thoughts? You need to learn to obey something called ’privacy’!"
"Privacy...? What word is that? I’ve never heard it before," Anna muttered in confusion, her expression actually looking rather cute.
But Evan didn’t care. He focused on cleaning up this mess before any villagers caught them. Evan took a thick burlap sack, wrapped the Village Chief’s corpse inside it, then hoisted it over his shoulder.
"Strange... Why does this corpse feel so light?" Evan muttered in confusion as he started walking out of the house.
He didn’t know that behind him, Anna secretly flicked her finger, releasing a small-scale gravity-reversal spell that made the burden on her husband’s shoulder extremely light.
Fortunately, the morning was still shrouded in thick fog. Evan managed to carry the sack into the forest, dig a sufficiently deep hole, and bury the Village Chief’s corpse without a single witness.
Evan wiped the sweat pouring down his forehead. "Phew... Finally, that’s done. At least this can cover my tracks for the time being."
Evan turned around and began walking back toward his house without paying any attention to Anna standing behind him.
Seeing herself being ignored over and over again, Anna’s patience finally ran out. Her beautiful cheeks puffed up in annoyance. "I’ve been trying so hard to be a good and obedient wife! But you’ve been ignoring me this whole time! In that case... now it’s your turn to learn how to be a good husband, Evan!"
Whoosh!
Anna waved her hand. Instantly, Evan’s body was lifted into the air by a wave of telekinetic magic!
"Aaargh! Hey! Let me go, Anna! What the hell are you doing?!" Evan shouted in panic, kicking wildly at the air.
With a sullen expression, Anna moved her fingers through the air, causing Evan’s body to sway and spin around in midair until his head was spinning. Without mercy, Anna dragged Evan through the air roughly toward their house.
"You need to start learning how to be a sweet husband!" Anna shouted as she sent Evan’s body crashing down onto the floor of their house.
BANG!
"Agh! My back... You damn wo—"
Evan suddenly stopped his curse when he saw Anna’s pupils flashing with a fiery red glow. His survival instincts immediately kicked into high gear. Evan gave an awkward laugh while holding his waist.
"—I mean, my wife is truly so sweet and adorable! Ahahaha! How lucky I am to have such a beautiful wife!" Evan praised her enthusiastically with the sweetest smile he could muster.
ZAP!
Anna’s killing aura vanished instantly. Her cheeks flushed bright red, and her eyes sparkled with happiness.
"Kyaaa~! My husband is so good at sweet-talking me!" Anna exclaimed happily. She immediately rushed forward and wrapped her arms tightly around Evan’s neck until a KRAK! came from his ribs. "This makes me love you even more!"
After hugging Evan until he was nearly out of breath, Anna finally released him with a broad smile. "Wait here for a moment, my darling. I’ll cook something delicious for you!"
As soon as Anna stepped into the kitchen, Evan leaned his body against the wall, breathing a sigh of relief at having escaped death. However, just as he was about to close his eyes, his sharp hearing caught a faint sound from the distance.
Clip-clop-clop-clop!
The sound of numerous horses’ hooves shattered the silence of the village dirt road.
Evan frowned. In a remote village like this, only extremely wealthy people or noble families would have a caravan of horses that large. With a swift reflexive movement, Evan slipped out through the back door and hid behind some thick bushes a short distance from his house.
From behind the leaves, Evan’s eyes widened when he saw a man on horseback in front of his house.
"J-Jack Cheep?!" Evan whispered in shock.
The stout man with a thin, comically curved mustache was Jack Cheep, the incredibly wealthy nobleman Evan had thoroughly swindled!
Jack and more than a dozen of his soldiers were busy spreading and nailing wanted posters onto wooden posts. Jack’s expression was filled with rage and vengeance.
How could he not hold a grudge? Not only had Evan managed to run off with hundreds of his gold coins, but Evan had also disguised himself as a ’Grand Alchemist’ who sold fake medicine, promising that it could transform Jack’s face into something handsome and make him strong and powerful in bed! The incident had turned Jack into the laughingstock of every other noble family. Jack would never allow Evan to live after humiliating him like that.
Jack signaled to two of his soldiers. "Search that wooden house! If there’s anyone inside, ask them about the whereabouts of the bastard named Evan John. If it’s empty, stick his wanted poster on the door!"
As the soldiers knocked on the door and Anna came out to greet them, Evan’s attention, while hiding nearby, was suddenly diverted.
Ssssh...
A venomous black snake suddenly slithered right beside his foot!
"Bastard!" Evan exclaimed in surprise. He jumped to the side, startled, making the bushes rustle loudly.
"What was that sound from the bushes?!" one of Jack’s soldiers shouted.
"???????? ????! ??’?? ???????????? ?????? ??????!" Evan panicked inwardly. Without thinking about anything else, Evan turned around and sprinted through the dense forest, ignoring the soldiers who had begun moving toward the bushes.
However, it seemed that bad luck had no intention of leaving Evan alone. Because he was running too fast without watching his footing, Evan tripped over an exposed tree root.
"UWAAAAGH!"
Evan tumbled violently down the steep, slippery, muddy slope, sliding all the way to the bottom of a small ravine in the middle of the forest.
Thud!
"Ouch! That really hurts..." Evan groaned while clutching his dizzy head. "Damn it! Ever since I met that crazy witch, it feels like my luck has plummeted all the way into the negatives!"
Evan tried to stand and brush the dirt off his clothes. However, when he looked up and saw his surroundings... his entire body instantly froze.
Spiked wooden fences covered with animal skulls surrounded the area. The stench of rotting meat filled the air.
"??-???????? ?? ????????????... ???????? ????... ?? ???????????? ?????????!" Evan screamed inwardly.
The base was quite large, with a more organized structure than usual, indicating that the goblin population here was led by a more intelligent variant.
Relying on his instincts, Evan immediately flattened himself against the ground and slowly crawled up a leafy tree to observe the situation from above.
From the tree branch, Evan’s view opened up completely. Inside the wooden fort, dozens of green-skinned goblins were moving about. Some stood guard on watchtowers with bows, others sharpened bones, and most horrifying of all... inside a large wooden cage were more than a dozen kidnapped village women, crying in terror.
Evan swallowed hard. "????????’???? ???????????????????? ????????????! ????, ??????????... ????’?? ?????????? ???????????? ????????????!"
Evan remembered some basic knowledge about this world: the Goblin race had no females. In order to reproduce, they would brutally attack human settlements and abduct women from other races.
"???????? ???? ??????????... ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???????? ???? ?????? ?????????????? ??????, ???????? ??????????’?? ?????? ?????? ???????????????? ?????????? ?????????????? ???????????? ??????????," Evan thought, breaking out in a cold sweat.
Just as Evan decided to ignore the situation and slowly crawl down to escape...
CRACK!
The sound of a breaking branch came from beneath the tree. A goblin hunting party that had just returned from the forest was standing directly beneath Evan!
One of the long-nosed goblins looked up. Its yellow eyes met Evan’s eyes directly.
SREECH!
The goblin let out a shrill scream in the goblin language! Instantly, the goblin standing on the watchtower blew a horn, informing the entire base of the intruder’s presence.
"Damn it! I’ve been spotted!" Evan cried out.
Evan jumped down from the tree and ran as fast as he could. However, these goblins turned out to be much more cunning. The goblin on the watchtower gave vocal instructions, causing other goblin squads to circle around and cut Evan off from different directions.
Within minutes, Evan’s escape came to a complete stop. Dozens of green-skinned goblins armed with rusty daggers and wooden spears had surrounded him tightly in a circle.
Evan slowly raised both hands with an awkward, bitter smile. "Okay, okay... Calm down, my green friends. Listen, I’m a man! There’s no point in capturing me to use as a means of reproduction! Besides, I’m just a poor thief... Can’t you spare a fellow oppressed creature?"
The goblins merely grinned widely, narrowing their eyes as foul drool dripped from their mouths.
Seeing that his negotiation had completely failed, Evan’s gaze turned sharp. "???? ?????? ??????, ?????????????? ?????? ?????????? ?????????????????? ????????????????!"
Evan quickly reached into the pocket of his robe and threw a handful of blinding powder toward the goblin in front of him!
PFFT!
"GRAAGH!" The goblins hit by the powder screamed in agony, clutching their eyes.
Evan seized the opening. He drew his wooden slingshot and TWANG! A sharp stone shot through the air, striking the temple of the nearest goblin and cracking its skull before it collapsed unconscious!
However, there were simply too many of them. Five goblins simultaneously leaped at Evan from different directions!
Desperately cornered, Evan drew his hunting dagger from his waist. He fought brutally at close range, parrying spear thrusts, slashing the throat of one goblin, and kicking another away.
SLASH!
"AGH!"
Evan grimaced in pain as a slash from a rusty dagger behind him managed to tear open the skin on his back! Fresh blood immediately poured out, soaking his clothes.
The burning pain threw Evan’s balance off. He dropped to his knees on the ground, panting heavily as he clutched his wound.
All around him, the remaining dozen or so goblins closed in again, grinning excitedly as they saw that their prey was already badly wounded and helpless.