The guest room in Mermaid Tavern wasn't big, only three meters long and two meters wide. It was roughly eight square meters in size.
The decor was rather simple, consisting of a bed, a desk, and a chair. There wasn't even a wardrobe, save for an old box made of cedar wood placed in the corner of the room.
Claude lit the fire stick and found the oil lamp on the table. He lit it and extinguished the fire stick before looking at the guest room that the bearded man called Edmigg rented.
There wasn't much to observe. The guest room was rather simple and clean, almost as if it wasn't occupied at all.
Apart from a large sheepskin pouch at the head of the bed, everything else was for the guest room.
He opened the shabby box made of cedar wood. It was empty.
It seemed that apart from the large sheepskin pouch, the bearded man called Edmigg didn't keep anything else in the guest room.
Perhaps he kept all his belongings in the pouch because he wanted to ambush Claude in the forest and rob him of his magic materials before leaving Whitestag the next morning. That was why he didn't care about Claude's life and tried to kill him the moment they met.
Claude emptied the contents of the pouch onto the bed. As he expected, the items inside weren't of much value. There were only a few sets of clothes, a linen towel, and an old brass kettle that wasn't even a magic item.
What was left were some survival tools, a small box of salt, a few fishing hooks, two rolls of fishing line, a wooden lunch box, a few silver spoons, and a few silver forks.
There was also a bottle of half-used healing potion, a fire stick, and two sewing needles at the bottom of the pouch.
It didn't take much thought to understand that no one would leave their most valuable items in their guest room. It would be fine if there was someone else in the room, but if there was no one in the room, it was highly likely that the items would disappear without a trace.
Hotels and taverns wouldn't be held responsible for guests losing their belongings in their guest room unless the guest handed their valuables to the counter for safekeeping and signed a safekeeping agreement before paying the deposit.
However, for travelers who were traveling, the consequences of doing so were even more harmful. Because if their belongings were exposed, there would be even more people with ill intentions eyeing them …
Claude didn't find any safekeeping agreement in the pouch. It seemed that the bearded man called Edmigg was indeed poor and didn't have anything valuable on him.
That also dashed Claude's hopes of finding the Energy Barrier scroll. However, it didn't disappoint him. That wasn't the reason he snuck into the guest room, anyway.
He stuffed the items on the bed back into the pouch and placed it at the foot of the bed.
He then moved the oil lamp on the table to the broken wooden box in the corner and gently moved the table from the window to the side. He opened the two windows and a gust of cool wind blew into the guest room, giving him quite a bit of energy.
He stuck his head out of the window and looked around. After making sure that there was no movement around and that the windows of the guest rooms were closed, he listened carefully for a while before returning to his room.
He took off the bearded man's robes and pants and tossed them on the chair beside him. He took out a rope from his backpack and tied one end of it to the foot of the bed. After making sure that it wouldn't fall off, he put the other end of the rope through the window and blew out the oil lamp. After letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, he climbed up the window and slid down gently.
The Mermaid Tavern's three-storey stone and wood building was built directly on the stone embankment by the lake. So the building had a 50-centimeter-wide stone sill on the stone embankment and a two-meter-high stone embankment below.
Claude held onto the rope and slid down the second-floor window to the bottom of the embankment at a height of around six meters.
The bearded man's corpse was still on the other side of the embankment. Claude moved the corpse over and used a great deal of strength to lift it up and place it on the stone sill between the building and the embankment. He tied the rope around his waist and let the corpse lean against the wall of the first floor. Those who didn't know better would think that someone was sitting on the stone sill and enjoying the scenery.
Claude then grabbed the rope and climbed to the second-floor window. Fortunately, the bunk rooms on the first floor below 219 were empty. So, the slight noise he made didn't alarm anyone.
Eriksson had mentioned that the first floor of the Mermaid Tavern was the worst. It was filled with bunk rooms, a row of large beds that could fit eight people.
Some captains liked to book a few bunk rooms for their crew to rest in before they went out to sea. That way, it would be easier for them to gather in case of an emergency.
The second floor had 24 small guestrooms that were moderately priced. They were very suitable for sailors and crew to have fun there.
The third floor had eight of the more luxurious suites. They were also the most expensive. Many captains and cargo owners would book a few rooms there before they went out to sea and after they returned. It was convenient for them to negotiate the price of their goods and pay for their hire.
Sometimes, they would hold a banquet or a buffet in the suites on the third floor to bond and discuss business.
The business at the inn was rather slow at the end of October and the beginning of November. Firstly, the ships that went out to sea hadn't returned yet. Secondly, the returning ships wouldn't be preparing to go out to sea again.
Even though winter hadn't arrived yet, the returning ships had to be properly protected, such as cleaning out the marine organisms at the bottom of the ships, repainting them and changing the planks of the ships. The workshops by the lake were bustling with activity.
Claude climbed back to his room from the window. Youth meant agility. Such a short climb was nothing to him, not to mention that he had the aid of a climbing rope.
Even without a climbing rope, he believed that he would be able to reach the top.
There were too many cracks and protrusions in the wooden building, allowing the nimble to easily climb to the highest point.
After calming his breathing, Claude leaned half his body out of the window and cast Featherfall on the corpse of the bearded man who was leaning against the wall on the first floor. He grabbed the climbing rope and pulled the corpse up like a feather. It didn't take much effort at all.
The only thing Claude had to pay attention to was to make sure the corpse didn't bump into the walls or windows during the process.
Featherfall, which only lasted for two minutes, was far too short. Claude had barely managed to drag the corpse through the window when the time was up.
The corpse became heavy all of a sudden and fell to the ground with a thud. The sound startled Claude and he hurriedly strained his ears to listen to his surroundings.
Fortunately, no one would notice the sound of someone falling to the ground. Compared to this "plop" sound, the "pa pa" sound of a man and a woman making love in the nearby guest rooms was more attractive.
Claude breathed a sigh of relief and lit the oil lamp again. He spent some effort to move the corpse onto the bed and covered it with a blanket to make it look like he was sleeping soundly.
He then moved the table back to the window and put the oil lamp back on the table.
He took out the linen towel from the pouch at the foot of the bed and threw it on the ground. He used his foot to wipe away the messy footprints and marks on the floor.
He then untied the climbing rope from the foot of the bed and put it back into his backpack. He looked around the guest room once more to make sure that he didn't leave anything out before blowing out the oil lamp and opening the window.
He pondered deeply and used the last bit of mana he had left to cast a featherfall spell on himself. He then leaped up and floated over the table and through the window like a feather before landing softly on the sand beside the lake.
Featherfall was a great help to Claude that night. Had it not been for the fact that he had used it on the bearded man's corpse in the forest and found that it was as light as a feather, he wouldn't have been able to move the corpse to the bottom of the lake.
Otherwise, it would have been a difficult task for him to deal with the man's corpse. He hadn't recovered from the intense battle and his body was sore all over. There was no way he could move the corpse that weighed more than a hundred kilograms.
At the time, Claude felt a little hopeless and wanted to return to the Altronis' dock to bring the corpse over with a carriage from the wood to deal with it.
But if he did that, there would be too many people around and it would be easy for him to be seen. At the very least, the Siori couple wouldn't be able to escape detection unless he brought the corpse to the herbalist lab to be dissected.
Fortunately, Featherfall was effective. Hurian was right. There were only useless magi and no useless spells. Under certain circumstances, some spells that were viewed as trash could be used to their fullest potential.
Claude felt that Featherfall wasn't a bad spell. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it lightening spell.
Featherfall was a wind-aspect spell. After casting it, Claude felt a wind-like membrane covering his entire body, making him as light as a feather.
Perhaps it was because the wind-aspect spell negated the gravity of the earth. The only drawback was that it didn't last long. Still, being able to use it on a corpse was a pleasant surprise.
It seemed that Hurian did not know that the bearded man had ambushed him. Otherwise, he would not have sold Featherfall and Long-Range Arrow Protection spells to him.
But it was also a fact that the bearded man found out about Claude's deal with the fat old man. I'll have to give him some trouble in the future.
Claude walked along the embankment in a relaxed manner towards the wood. He didn't mind the footprints he left behind on the sandy ground.
Every morning from 7 to 9 am, the water level of Lake Balinga would rise and submerge the sand by the lakeside. By 3 to 4 pm, the water level would recede, exposing the sand by the lakeside. By then, all the footprints would disappear without a trace.
The bearded man's corpse had already been returned to the room he rented in Mermaid Tavern. The only one who would have a headache from now on would be the tavern owner, Aleksim.
By the time they found the bearded man dead, a full day would have passed. After all, the guards at the door would only think that he was sleeping if he didn't show up.
Even if they found him dead on the bed, they wouldn't be able to explain where the wounds on his waist came from.
If Mermaid Tavern were to call the police, Whitestag would have one more unexplainable case in the future.
In this era where there weren't any surveillance cameras or fingerprints, Claude could guarantee that the police wouldn't be able to find out the truth behind the bearded man's death.
Failing to rob and getting killed instead, road robbery was indeed a high-risk occupation …
However, Claude was more willing to believe that the owner of Mermaid Tavern, Aleksim, would quietly dispose of the corpse when he found out that one of his guests had died in his guest room. He wouldn't call the police, as that would only give the police something to use against him and might even seal the tavern off.
But for Claude, it was all over and it had nothing to do with him. All he had to do was return to the wood, take a hot bath, clean himself up and have a good night's sleep.
Once he had recovered enough energy, he would start setting up his own array at night. Later on, he would start his own experiments in the tree farm.
It was already dawn by the time he returned to the wood. It was around five in the morning. Claude boiled some water for a bath and cooked himself a bowl of mixed noodles to fill his stomach. He then went to the stable and got Jemmy out to equip it with a saddle. Then, he mounted the horse and pretended to patrol the wood.
He told the Sioris to clean up the tree branches piled up in the stream to the south. He would be doing experiments in the herbalism lab that day and was not to be disturbed if there wasn't anything important.