23 Humiliating the Three Clowns

Max looked at the three men with disgust, they were clearly bullying his companion and he couldn't stand for it, especially after having killed hundreds of monsters for her sake, so he decided to put these guys in their place.

"Leave her alone," the boy ordered, stepping between the bullies and Elly, shielding her from any harm they might cause.

"Or what? You're gonna hit us with your little stick?" the middle one laughed, "look at this idiot, he thinks he can fight us!"

And before Max could react, the oldest member of the party launched a fist at him, launching the boy against a stall and eventually leading him to crash against a wall.

"These newbies never learn do they?" the youngest one, who also had blond hair, smiled, "Now come with us cutie."

He effectively tried to grab Elly's arm as she tried to go check on Max, his eyes full of lust as the half-breed was very beautiful, plus she was carrying a formidable figure that could make many nobles jealous.

But before he could even touch her, he felt a strong grip on his wrist, and he turned around to see Max standing up again, a serious look on his face, the boy moved at a speed so high nobody even noticed that he was now next to them.

"I told you to leave her alone," he repeated, and before the bully could say anything, Max punched him in the stomach, making him cough blood and fall on his knees, "next time, listen to me."

"YOU BASTARD!" the middle one shouted and dashed towards Max, but the boy simply dodged his attack and used the pommel of his sword to hit him as well.

As for the third and oldest one... he couldn't move, fear displayed on his face as he saw Max's figure: it was completely black, only allowing his eyes and mouth to be seen, both displaying a vengeful look on them.

And the thing that terrified him the most was... that aura around him, filled with such killing intent it felt like he could die if he approached it too much.

"Now scram," Max ordered with a ruthless voice, as cold as ice, he would have killed them in any other situation, but he was in the middle of the city, so he didn't want to cause a scene for the innocent people who were only walking by.

And so the three bullies ran away, not daring to turn back even once, their legs shaking from the fear they had just experienced, they had never seen someone so young being so strong, and they couldn't help but wonder how he was able to do it.

"Are you alright?" Max turned around to ask Elly, who was trembling behind him, she had seen him fight against monsters countless times before, but it was the first time she had witnessed him use his strength on another human, and it was terrifying to watch.

"Y-yes..." she replied, trying to calm herself down, "t-thank you..."

The half-breed princess was thankful already to the boy for getting her out of her village, and here he was saving her from a horrible fate for the third time in less than a week.

'If this continues...' she thought deeply, 'I might really not be able to let him go... these feelings growing inside of me... I-'

"C'mon, we still need to find the place where to sell our monster cores" Max brought her back to reality as they needed to be quick, the sun was already setting after all, and so they decided to finally ask someone for help.

***

After less than five minutes, they had gotten the directions they needed to take to reach what was called "Atlanta's Bank", which was supposedly where everybody stored their gold coins, as well as sell their materials if they didn't want to bother going to the guild.

"Thank you!" Max thanked the kind old lady who had helped them, and he and Elly started walking towards the bank, it was quite far from where they were, and the streets were crowded with people, but it shouldn't take them more than ten minutes to reach it.

"We're almost there," the boy told his companion, who was now holding onto his shirt tightly, afraid of losing him in the crowd.

Elly nodded and continued following him.

And that's when they finally reached it, the bank was a giant building, surrounded by guards and walls, it was bigger than any building Max had seen yet, its interior probably capable of holding thousands of people at once.

"Let's go," he grabbed Elly's hand and entered the building, it was filled with people everywhere, some of them waiting in line, others just doing their business, but it wasn't too loud, so they didn't have to shout at each other to communicate.

"Excuse me," Max tapped the shoulder of a man who looked like a clerk, "do you know where I can exchange monster cores?"

"Yes, follow me please," the man replied and guided the duo to a desk, behind it was a woman wearing glasses, she looked like a secretary.

"Hello sir, how may I help you today?" she asked, putting her hands on the table and smiling.

"I'd like to sell some monster cores," Max smiled and kindly replied.

"Very well, show me what you have," the woman requested, not expecting anything more than a few low-level goblins to be inside, unfortunately, that would be underestimating Max, who had gone on a killing rampage in the forest and plains.

And the moment he pulled the bag from under his feet on the counter and opened it, the woman's eyes widened in surprise as she could sense an enormous amount of energy coming from it.

"H-how did you get so many?!" she asked, astonished by the number of cores in front of her.

"I hunted them," Max shrugged, "is there a problem?"

"N-no! Of course not!" the woman immediately denied, "P-please come to our VIP room while we help you set everything up, sir!"

Max could hear whispers around him as the lady had shouted these words without caring about the reactions of others, and now he could sense the stares of everybody around him, wondering if he truly had hunted all these monster cores by himself in a single outing.

Of course, hunting monster cores of monsters such as goblins in this amount wasn't very uncommon, but it was the sheer energy of the crystals that made them wonder just who he was, after all, there was a boss monster inside of it, and several high-leveled ones as well.

"Follow me," the woman led Max and Elly to a room upstairs with the engraving "VIP" in gold above, it was completely empty except for a desk and two chairs, one on each side, "please sit."

The room was extremely luxurious, and it made the boy feel like he was in a throne room, it was spacious and clean, the carpet under his feet was soft and fluffy, and the chair was comfortable enough to make him fall asleep instantly.

The receptionist that had led him there then left as there was already another person sitting across the desk on another chair.

"Greetings adventurer," the man said, he looked like he was in his fifties and wore a suit, he was bald and had a mustache, "my name is Alder, I'm the manager of this bank."