SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 486: The God of War [I]

By the time they reached the south of Velkaris, the city had already changed its face.

The broad avenues and polished storefronts were long behind them now. The streets here were narrower, dirtier, with old stone darkened by time and neglect. There were fewer people around, but the ones who remained watched more closely. A few beggars sat near corners with worn blankets around their shoulders, hands stretched out toward passersby. Others stood farther back in silence, eyes following the four of them as they walked past, weighing them in that quiet way people did when they were deciding whether someone looked worth the risk.

Vivienne led the way without slowing.

Trafalgar walked a little behind her, his gaze moving over the street and everything in it. Rhosyn stayed alert, taking in every figure and every alley without making it obvious. Caelvyrn, meanwhile, looked almost insultingly relaxed, as if this were nothing more than another afternoon walk through a city that did not matter.

After a while, Trafalgar finally spoke.

"You haven’t gotten lost, have you?"

Vivienne glanced back at him, then ahead again. "No. I haven’t." Her voice stayed even, though there was a thread of tension under it. "I’m taking precautions. My master already caused enough trouble by showing himself in the war."

Trafalgar’s eyes narrowed slightly. "So you knew about that."

Vivienne let out a small breath. "Of course I knew."

"Then you also know the Eight Great Families noticed." Trafalgar’s tone remained calm. "They may not be investigating it personally, but they know a Primordial presence appeared on that battlefield."

That made Vivienne’s expression tighten.

"I told him that would happen," she muttered, almost to herself. "I said it more than once. He didn’t listen." Then, after a short pause, she added, "We’re almost there."

Caelvyrn’s gaze drifted over the street around them before he gave a faint hum. "It seems his standards have fallen. Before, he was more..." He paused, the word escaping him for a second.

Vivienne glanced at him from the side. "Extravagant?"

A small smile touched Caelvyrn’s mouth. "Yes. That was the word."

Rhosyn glanced between them. "You make him sound insufferable."

"He often was," Caelvyrn said easily. "That did not make him uninteresting."

They kept walking after that, deeper into the poorer stretch of the district, until Vivienne finally slowed.

A few steps later, she came to a stop.

On the left side of the alley stood what looked like an old bar in poor condition, its sign so worn that the name could no longer be read properly. Beside it, half-hidden in shadow, a narrow set of stairs led downward.

Vivienne turned toward it.

"We’re here."

Vivienne went down first.

"Watch your heads," she said as she started descending the stairs.

The entrance was low enough to be annoying even before reaching the bottom. Trafalgar only had to lower his head a little as he followed her down. Rhosyn passed through without any trouble at all.

Behind them came Caelvyrn.

A second later, a dull sound echoed in the narrow stairwell.

Thud.

"Shit."

Trafalgar glanced back.

Caelvyrn had walked straight into the ceiling. Not hard enough to matter to him, apparently, but hard enough that one of his horns had left a clean mark in the stone above. He looked more offended than hurt.

Vivienne stopped and turned at once. "I told you to be careful."

Caelvyrn lifted one hand and touched the horn lightly, then looked at the mark he had left behind. "In my defense, places like this are not built with proper consideration for men of stature."

Rhosyn looked at the ceiling, then at him. "Your stature wasn’t the problem."

For the first time since they entered the alley, a faint trace of amusement crossed Vivienne’s face, though it vanished quickly enough. She let out a small breath and continued downward. "Just keep moving."

The stairs ended a few moments later.

At the bottom was a worn wooden door with faded paint and an old brass handle that had clearly seen better years. Vivienne opened it without knocking and stepped inside first.

The place beyond was quiet.

There were only a few tables, most of them empty, and the smell of old wood, alcohol, and something fried lingered in the air. The room itself was dim, not in a dramatic way, only in the tired way of places that had gone too long without being properly cared for. Near the back stood an elderly dwarf with glasses and a face full of age, while farther in, seated alone at one of the tables, was the other figure.

An older man.

His brown hair was touched with grey, his shirt rolled at the sleeves, and there were scars across him that did not stop at the face. One ran from below the cheek and disappeared into the neck. Others showed at the forearms where the fabric ended. His posture was easy, almost casual, but nothing about him felt careless.

Trafalgar’s eyes settled on him.

The dwarf noticed Vivienne first.

"New faces again, Vivi?" he asked from behind the counter, his voice carrying the rough ease of someone who had spent most of his life speaking over noise, smoke, and drunk men.

Vivienne gave a small nod as she stepped further in. "Yes. We need somewhere quiet, and this is still the quietest place I know."

That seemed to satisfy him well enough. He reached up, adjusted his glasses with one finger, and looked past her properly.

His eyes went to Rhosyn first.

Black hair, black eyes, dark clothes. There was something elegant about her even in a place like this, something difficult to place cleanly. Beautiful, certainly, but not in the soft sort of way. She looked like the kind of woman a sensible man admired from a distance.

Then he looked at Caelvyrn.

And paused.

The long black hair, the violet eyes, the horns. More than that, there was something about him the dwarf could feel without understanding, something that made the old man straighten a little behind the counter.

"Please don’t break the place," he said after a brief moment. "I can’t afford it."

Vivienne answered before Caelvyrn could. "You can relax. We’re only here to talk."

The dwarf muttered something under his breath and pushed his glasses up again. Then his gaze moved to the last of them.

Trafalgar.

Black hair tied back. Dark blue eyes. Noble clothes in dark tones. Pale skin, clean and striking even in a place like this. And on one hand, those black marks.

The dwarf stared for a second longer than he should have.

Then recognition hit.

He had seen that face very recently, printed large on the front of a newspaper he still had somewhere behind the counter. Trafalgar du Morgain. The new SSS Talent. The name that kept appearing everywhere these days, no matter where a man looked. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

And now he was standing in this miserable place in the south of Velkaris.

’Shit,’ the dwarf thought. ’What are people like this doing here?’

Trafalgar looked at him and spoke with calm politeness that only made the whole thing feel stranger.

"Hello. Could you bring us something to drink?"

The dwarf nodded at once. "Yes. Of course."

He moved to prepare it without asking anything else.

By then, Vivienne had already gone toward the table.

Trafalgar followed, with Rhosyn and Caelvyrn behind him, and the four of them took their seats around the man with scars.