Martial Online.

Chapter 504  Drunk Acting

The bartender was a thick-bearded man with a rough-looking face and wrinkly skin that made him appear much older than he actually was.

As he wielded the smoking flintlock pistol on his right hand, he pointed it straight between Ambrose's eyebrows and said:

"This tavern has a strict no-mask rule. Therefore, take off your mask, or the next bullet goes between your brows."

"Alright."

Ambrose put his hands up to show he meant no harm and slowly removed his mask.

His handsome countenance with pure, purple eyes was revealed, but his skin looked rather dirty, as if he had been traveling for days without rest.

"There was a sign outside the tavern." The bartender slowly slid the flintlock pistol back to his holster and continued. "You should keep your eyes open; otherwise, next time I'll just kill you where you stand."

Ambrose took a single step outside and checked the sign beside the door, which he had totally ignored beforehand.

It showed a face with a mask on, but there was a large red cross over it. It was clear that this establishment didn't allow masks.

'For a tavern that is heavily occupied by criminals, it is pretty strange rule, but I suppose there are even people that they don't want anything to do with.'

Ambrose straightened his sleeves and entered the tavern once again. In that moment, he noticed a bounty board with posters of wanted individuals.

With just a slight glance, he noticed that a few of those wanted individuals were sitting in the corner of the tavern at this very minute.

They also didn't wear any masks, allowing them to be easily detected.

'I wonder how this place will be at night…'

Ambrose thought to himself curiously.

After scanning the outline of the tavern, he took a seat on the bar stool and watched as the bartender poured him a glass of whiskey.

"Every newcomer receives their first drink on the house." The bartender said.

"Oh." Ambrose took the glass from the bartender and raised it to his lips, taking a long sip and savoring the smooth warmth of the whiskey as it washed down his throat.

As he finished the drink, he let out a cough and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling a slight burning sensation in his chest.

"What have you come here for?" The bartender asked and eyed him curiously. "People only come here this early in the morning for two reasons: they either have rented a room here or they are raging alcoholics.

"You clearly don't have a rented room here, and based on your coughing, you are not much of a drinker, are you now?"

"I am just a traveler." Ambrose said vaguely. "However, I do have a question."

"Questions here cost some gold." The bartender scanned him from head to toe and asked skeptically. "You don't look like you have much gold."

Ambrose touched his empty pockets and sighed.

He was, in theory, a dead man, and dead men wouldn't have any money to their name.

Falco Arundell's office didn't seem to have any gold pouches lying around either.

In his current state, he was as poor as one could get, without a single gold coin to his name.

"I indeed don't have any gold." Ambrose sighed.

"They do."

The bartender glanced to the corner of the tavern, where three hooded figures were sitting.

One of them was fiddling with his pocket watch, one was sharpening his knife, and one was drinking his sorrows away.

Ambrose clicked his tongue and understood the hidden meaning behind his words, but it surprised him, as he didn't expect him to suggest doing something like that in his tavern.

Slowly, he started to understand what kind of place this was.

"You wouldn't mind lending me your flintlock, would you?" Ambrose asked with a twitching lip, even though he already knew the answer.

"Of course, not." The bartender replied roughly and innocently shrugged his shoulders. "I can't possibly help you attack my customers."

"I'll be back shortly."

Ambrose stood up from the stool and left the tavern without looking back.

The bartender took the glass that his previous customer drank from and started cleaning it with a cloth.

A slight smile played on his lips, and he curiously anticipated what was going to happen.

'Not every day I get to meet Deathwalker in my very own tavern. I guess I have to call 'Them' to pick him up…'

…

Outside the tavern, Ambrose found an abandoned alleyway that was narrow and dirty.

After walking deeper into the alleyway, away from the sights of anyone passing by, he finally found a spot to test something.

'I have to test my current fighting ability. I can tell that I don't have the strength and speed of my real body with me.

'Therefore, all the skills and abilities from Martial Online didn't transfer here like they did to my real body.

'From what I remember, I should have decent talent and mediocre starting stats. I also have high charm and luck with high speech skills, which can help me escape some sticky situations.

'I don't know what my stats are without testing, as for some reason, this place does not have an interface!'

Ambrose raised his fists and threw some sloppy punches to test his current speed.

Then he lifted his leg and threw some roundhouse kicks in the air, feeling the weight of his boots as he moved.

As he landed back on the ground, Ambrose's face looked sour.

'I am slow and sloppy. My strength is also not great.'

Crack!

At that moment, he accidentally stepped on some broken glass that sliced through the sole of his boot and cut into his foot.

"Ngh…" Ambrose frowned, but he didn't feel any pain, except for the warm blood filling his boot.

He raised his boot with a broken glass shard poking out of it and pulled the bloody glass out of his sole. It was very sharp-looking.

And then Ambrose realized that he also didn't receive any information that he had lost health.

'I also can't tell my health?' Ambrose clicked his tongue and thought that was indeed quite troublesome.

However, seeing the sharp, bloody glass shard, he got an idea.

'There's three of them; one of them at least had a knife. If I take him out quickly, then I might have a chance to defeat others.

'I am not sure if I can start from the beginning if I die or whether it will be permanent death. Either way, I need to do this.'

He didn't bother cleaning the blood off the glass shard, and he slipped it inside his left sleeve. Then he walked out of the alleyway and entered the tavern once again.

While the tavern was mostly empty, the bartender was innocently whistling behind the bar desk, and the three individuals were seated at the corner, staring suspiciously at him.

"That guy is approaching us." A combed-back haired man closed his pocket watch with a click.

"…" His friend, a bald-headed man, twirled his knife around his fingers and perked up his ears as he heard the footsteps approach him.

However, his ears slightly twitched as he heard the sound of splashing, as if the figure were stepping on something wet with each step.

'His boot is drenched in water?'

The third person gulped down the rest of the alcohol and looked drunkenly at the incoming person. His cheeks were crimson, and he was clearly intoxicated.

"H-hello, gentlemen." Ambrose staggered towards them, his words slurring as he spoke. "M-mind giving me s-some gold?"

'He is drunk?' The knife-wielding man narrowed his eyes, and his nose slightly twitched as he smelled something unpleasant.

A stench of alcohol wafted from Ambrose's mouth as he spoke.

The bartender smiled slightly. 'So, he is acting drunk to catch them off guard. He is very believable. That guy does have a way with words, making the slurring over words sound so believable.'

"Fuck off, we are not some charity." The combed-back haired man said roughly, his pocket watch ticking loudly in the silence.

"O-oh, what about you? Burp!" Ambrose tapped the knife-wielding man's shoulder drunkenly. "Some gold for poor ol' me?"

The man looked at the dirty hand that touched his shoulder, and his eyebrow started twitching furiously. He shrugged his shoulders, making the dirty hand drop off his shoulder.

"If you don't leave at this moment, my knife will go through your throat."

"O-okay, burp!"

Ambrose burped, and at that moment, a bloody glass shard slipped out of his left sleeve, which he caught with his left hand before it fell down and stabbed through the man's throat.

Stab!

The knife-wielding man's eyes widened in shock as suddenly world-ending pain struck his throat, and he immediately collapsed on the table, gurgling and gasping for air.

"What the fuck?!" The other two jumped to their feet in shock, shocked by the turn of events.

Ambrose snatched the dropped knife from the ground and, with a sickening smile, slashed through the other two as they stood still like frozen statues.

A deep, bleeding knife wound appeared on their chests, which finally woke them up from their shock.

With a loud scream, they both lunged at their attacker.