The bastard child becomes the empires royal consort-Chapter 61: Kahl [3]

Kaelen.

Kaelen...

Yup, he definitely never heard of that name before.

While Alan was trying to see if he could remember the name, the elderly woman continued.

"He was incredibly charming..."

"Charming? He was an absolute menace!" her husband snapped.

Before the two couples could start arguing, Alan cut in. "When did he leave the city?"

"When he left..." The old man paused, his irritation cooling into contemplation. "Well, I don’t know the whole story, I’ve only heard bits and pieces of the aftermath."

"Better than nothing."

"Hmm..." He shrugged. "I just know the scoundrel came for fun, you know, for wine and parties, until a bloody leviathan showed up, eh, well, either way, after dealing with that, the scoundrel left on a ship, if I’m not wrong, he stayed at the city just for a week."

"I see."

"Hmph, thanks for reminding me of bad memories." The old man grunted, waving a dismissive hand as he turned to leave. "Stay safe out there kiddo, don’t end up like that scoundrel."

"Yeah, yeah." Alan waved back, watching the bickering couple disappear toward the harbour.

After they left, Alan looked back at the statue once more, thinking of the man named Kaelen, a simple commoner who was a legend across the continent, well, kind of? I mean, like, at least everyone knows him, good or bad.

Alan brushed his thoughts off and looked for the group and found Julia and Iris, Julia was currently behind the stall serving ice cream... to others...? How did she even end up in that kind of situation?

He shook his head, not even surprised by the scene, instead looked for the more sensible person in the group, Lucian.

He left the memorial and navigated through the crowded plaza to a modest bookstore, where Lucian was.

Alan quickly found the man, Lucian was standing perfectly still, with the white blindfold wrapped around his eyes, he was engrossed in a book, which honestly looked quite comical.

Alan leaned against a nearby wall, crossing his arms. "So, find anything useful?"

Lucian didn’t flinch, instead he simply turned the next page. "Indeed, I have."

"Oh really?" Alan squinted his eyes, reading the title of Lucian’s book.

[The midnight adventures of the duchess]

"What the fuck are you reading, Lucian?"

"Information."

"What information could you possibly be absorbing from this??"

"You see, Alan." Lucian closed the book. "You informed me previously of my preference, telling me I was supposedly a bottom."

"Yeah..." Alan snatched the book from Lucian’s hands, looking at the cover, which featured a very muscular man carrying a lady in his arms.

"So, I’ve been searching to see if I was one." Lucian paused, looking Alan in the eye with a dead serious tone. "I might be a bottom, Alan."

"What the fuck?" Alan muttered, horrified. "How did reading this kind of book make you realise that..."

"I’m a bottom bunker." Lucian said.

"Genuinely, what the hell does that even mean?"

"My quads are very well developed, low center of gravity, stability in the legs is the foundation—"

"Oi, the hell does any of that have to do with being a bottom???"

"My life is ruined..."

"What are you talking about?" Alan groaned.

Behind him, Sparky suddenly reappeared on a shelf, catching Alan’s eye, and let out a judging mew before vanishing again.

Taking advantage of his momentary confusion, Lucian reached out and swiped the book back from Alan, tucking it under his arm.

"What are you doing?" Alan asked, baffled.

"I haven’t finished the Chapter." Lucian replied. "And the duchess is just about to reveal her secret identity, it would be a mistake to leave this mystery unsolved."

"Man..." Alan sighed, picking up a different book and shoving it to Lucian. "If you’re going to read some romance, at least read some of the good ones."

"Huh..."

Alan smirked, a fact about Alan that might’ve been forgotten was that he was a great romance novel enthusiast, in fact, this guy would steal romance novels from his mother’s room just to read.

Well, even Leon was a hopeless dweeb who indulged in countless romance plots without actually finding a partner for himself...

"...Yeah, just read it, man." Alan walked into the store, feeling a strange sourness in his chest.

He wandered further back, noticing the section he’d entered was oddly quiet, he looked up at the genre sign.

[SMUT]

"Fucking hell." Alan cursed, then quickly inspected his surroundings cautiously, if he was here, he might as well just see what’s good, luckily, Julia and Iris were nowhere to be seen.

He snatched the first book he saw.

[The forbidden desires of the duke]

"Why is there so much noble-fetishising?" Alan asked himself, he found it sort of weird, considering the writers were commoners, not even nobles.

"Ah." Then he realised, even in his past life, romanticising the lives of higher-class people was actually quite popular, such as the classic CEO trope.

Alan placed the book back and took out a different one.

[The cursed prince of the empire becomes a slave]

"How is this even categorised as smut?" Alan wondered aloud, the title sounded more like a tragedy.

As he was silently wondering, he belatedly heard someone else’s loud voice from the same aisle. "THIS IS PEAK!"

"Who in their right mind would be screaming that, in this section of the store..." Alan glanced up, noticing a man staring into an open book with a perverted grin.

Then Alan caught the book’s title.

[The sleeping prince and the dame in shining armour]

"What the fuck is wrong with this city..."

He was already regretting ever coming to this place.

...

"You all had fun?" Alan asked as they walked along the harbour.

They were walking along the docks of Kahl, passing by massive vessels the size of mansions, it was the most impressive display of engineering Alan had seen in this world, yet a strange tension hung in the air.

For some reason Alan couldn’t spot any active ships traversing the waters, which naturally made him somewhat suspicious, after all, this was the city of trades.

Leaving his suspicions aside for a moment, Alan glanced back at the group.

"Yup!" Julia excitedly replied, balancing two cones stacked with five scoops of ice cream, Sparky was draped over her shoulder, his little blue tongue continuously licking the ice cream.

Alan gave a glance to Iris, silently asking how this even happened, but she just shrugged.

"Where are we going?" Lucian asked, he had a book tucked under his arm, wrapped in plain brown paper, in the end, he bought a book, although Alan never figured out which one.

Well, even Alan bought something from the adult section, but shhh, no one needs to know.

"To the terminal." Alan answered. "To check the schedules of the ships."

"Weren’t we going to the Adventurers Guild?" Iris questioned.

"That was the plan..." Alan nodded. "But the situation might be a bit different than I thought."

Initially they were meant to go to the adventurers guild to get themselves an adventurer card, which could act as a replacement for an identification.

But noticing the sudden lack of movements from the stationed ships made him change his mind, especially when he noticed how there was barely anyone maintaining the ships.

As they were walking, Alan noticed something weird, or rather someone.

A young man was sitting on the edge of the docks, his legs dangling over the bay water, blankly staring into the ocean ahead.

His hair was a shade of pure, absolute black, darker than any natural hair Alan had ever seen, it felt almost uncanny to look at, paired with his sleek black attire, the young man appeared incredibly suspicious.

"You good?" Alan approached the young man, they were passing by him anyway, and curiosity got the best of him.

The young man didn’t respond immediately, he slowly turned his head, locking his gaze with Alan’s blindfold.

His eyes were eerie, pitch-black voids that seemed to swallow the sunlight rather than reflect it.

"Are you blind." was the first thing he said, in a flat, almost bored tone.

"Uh, nah." Alan pointed to his eyes. "Just got a blindfold on."

"I see." The young man nodded and turned around, returning to just blankly staring into the ocean distance.

Then the silence stretched, uncomfortably, it seemed Alan was the only one who found it uncomfortable, as the stranger seemed perfectly content.

"...So, what are you doing?" Alan eventually broke the quiet.

"Looking."

"No shit, you idiot, I mean, what are you doing staring at the ocean like that?"

Without looking up at Alan, the young man raised his hand, pointing beyond the crystal-clear ocean.

"Over there." The young man stated, his eyes narrowing as if he could see something.

"Uh..." Alan squinted his eyes, tried to see if he could notice anything, but absolutely couldn’t see anything. "Are you autistic?"

"The other continent." The young man continued, ignoring Alan’s insult.

"No, I’m asking for medical concern, do you have autism?"

"The ships aren’t moving." The young man looked at the stationary ships, a disappointed look flickering across his otherwise deadpan face.

"Hello? Are you on the spectrum?"

"But it’s fine."

"Can you hear meeeeeeee?"

"If ships don’t get me across, I’ll just do it myself." With those cryptic words, the young man didn’t stand up, he simply leaned forward and let go of the pier.

And

Splash

Fell straight into the water.

"Huh?" Alan was left standing there, utterly baffled.

It was his first hour in this city, and he already felt as if he shouldn’t have come here.