This was not the first time Eleanor had seen them. Her gaze swept calmly over their faces; the thoughts of both men were spread out more clearly than the spilled tea on the table.
She did not like Ohm. The man was both stupid and greedy, treating the town's taxes as his personal treasury. He cringed before his superiors and lorded over his subordinates, showing not a shred of aristocratic breeding. She had long been sick of him.
His death now could actually be considered a happy occasion, though it did deprive her of a shield. If she wanted to extricate herself from this mess, she would have to make her own plans.
However, since a sorceress had truly appeared here, perhaps this could actually play to her advantage.
Bringing these two fools along was the perfect opportunity to test the sorceress's attitude.
“Gentlemen,” she said as she stepped into the side parlor, elegantly selecting a clean sofa to sit down. Her gaze swept over the teacups on the wooden table, then drifted to their faces.
“My husband is dead, yet you sit here drinking tea?”
Hawkley broke into a cold sweat. Fearing that the lady would make trouble for them, he quickly spoke up to distance himself from any blame. “My Lady, we are all deeply grieved by what has happened. Pelham and I were just discussing a course of action. Please take care of yourself and do not grieve too deeply. We will certainly...”
Eleanor raised her voice slightly, cutting him off without ceremony. “And what brilliant ideas have you two come up with, then?”
Pelham remembered the instructions his sister, Vance, had given him, and bowed his head submissively to reply, “My Lady, we are indeed vexed by this matter. Could you please show us a way out?”
Hawkley glared in disbelief at this sycophantic wretch. He swiftly kicked him under the table while forcing a smile, attempting to wrest back control of the conversation.
“My Lady, we are indeed vexed by this. That sorceress is ruthless, and even the mages were no match for her. We are merely two civil servants, truly powerless to do anything—”
“Powerless?” Eleanor softly repeated the word, but did not elaborate. Hawkley's smile froze on his face.
Pelham knew his sister had a private partnership with Eleanor, and she had warned him to follow the lady's decisions in all matters. Though he himself lacked brains, his sister was highly intelligent!
As long as he did what his sister told him, he couldn't go wrong!
Pretending not to see Hawkley's murderous glare, he quickly stood up with a respectful attitude. “My Lady, what do you think we should do?”
In his heart, Hawkley cursed this idiot a thousand times over, but dared not show any of it on his face. He could only chime in with a forced smile, “Yes, My Lady, we are entirely at your command.”
Eleanor glanced at Hawkley and spoke slowly, “As long as we do not stand in opposition to the sorceress, she is not our enemy.”
Noticing that Hawkley was eager to speak, she tapped her knee impatiently with her finger, giving him no opportunity to open his mouth.
“If you want to save your lives and maintain your previous decent lifestyle, your only choice is to cooperate with me.”
“Now, I will give you some time to gather what you need to save your skins. I trust I do not need to personally teach you what should and should not be said?”
Although Hawkley felt as if he had boarded a sinking ship, on second thought, with this lady leading the charge, she would be the first to get crushed if the sky fell.
His heart eased, and he felt a little less panicked.
Things had already reached this point; whether he hid or faced it, the outcome would be the same. He might as well do as she said.
The two of them each prepared a token of their sincerity and submissively followed behind Eleanor to meet the ruthless sorceress.
Now, standing behind Eleanor, Hawkley listened to her trade words back and forth with the woman named Benita, his anxiety growing by the second.
Eleanor had not mentioned the two of them at all, only stating that she wished to continue managing Qinghe Town.
What did she mean by this? She wouldn't just use them as shields and discard them afterward, would she?
He began to grow anxious.
He repeatedly darted his eyes toward Pelham, hoping he would speak up, but Pelham was an utter blockhead. He stared straight ahead, not even glancing at him from the corner of his eye.
Hawkley gritted his teeth. In the end, a man could only rely on himself!
“...In addition to this, we also have a small token of our sincerity to offer.”
Seizing the opportunity, Hawkley quickly slipped out from behind Eleanor and took a step forward.
This step was neither too large nor too small, just enough to bring him into the sorceress's line of sight without being close enough to be perceived as a threat.
Bending at the waist, his voice was filled with utmost respect. “Good day, Your Excellency! I am Hawkley, the tax collector of Qinghe Town. I hope to be of service to you and work like a dog in your employ!”
As he spoke, his eyes stealthily drifted upward, trying to gauge Wu Yao's reaction.
Unfortunately, Wu Yao did not even raise her eyes. She accepted the treasures they offered from Eleanor's hands, sitting as still as if she had entered a meditative trance, her thoughts unreadable.
Hawkley's heart began to beat like a drum, and he quickly poured out all the flattery he had prepared.
“Your Excellency possesses an extraordinary bearing. Even the noble ladies of the Empire cannot compare to your sublime grace. To possess such formidable strength at such a young age—I, Hawkley, have always admired remarkable women like yourself the most! My admiration for Your Excellency flows like a torrential river. I only beg to continue managing the accounts of Qinghe Town for you, so that I may share your burdens! Oh, and I have also prepared some modest gifts—”
He turned back in a hurry, intending to snatch the heaviest wooden chest from the clerk's arms, when he heard a short, soft chuckle from behind him.
Stiffening his neck, he turned around and met Wu Yao's eyes. In those eyes, there was neither the pleasure of being flattered nor the anger of being offended—there was only a cold, condescending look.
In that split second, Hawkley's knees reacted faster than his brain.
With a loud thud, he crashed onto the stone floor of the tavern. The pain was so intense that tears nearly welled in his eyes, but he did not even dare to rub them.
Then, he heard another short, soft chuckle from behind him.
Wu Yao raised her hand and waved it dismissively, as if shooing away a fly.
And then, he flew backward.
Without him realizing when, a vine had wrapped around his ankle. With a violent yank, it hoisted him completely off the ground.
His back scraped against the stone slabs with a dull thud, and his dark green short robe flipped up to wrap around his head, exposing a thick roll of pale, flabby fat around his waist.
As the world spun around him, he only had time to let out a squeal like a slaughtered pig.
He was bound tightly by the vines like a mummy, suspended from the flagpole in front of the tavern, swaying back and forth in midair like a giant cocoon.
“Spare my life! Your Excellency, spare me! I was wrong! I won't do it again!”
His face was smeared with snot and tears, his voice cracked from screaming, and the rush of blood to his head turned his face a dark purplish-red.
Wu Yao covered her ears, looking utterly disgusted. “It's bad enough that you're ugly, but your voice like a squawking drake is even worse.”
The moment his health bar appeared, Wu Yao immediately tightened the vines, snapping his neck cleanly to put an end to the noise.
【Killed Hawkley, Tax Collector of Qinghe Town. Experience +15.4】
The vines slowly uncoiled, and Hawkley's corpse hit the road with a dull thud.
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