Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 97: The Final Test

"You are new."

Lena looked down at him, her gold eyes locking entirely onto his face.

Julien swallowed hard. His brain quickly pieced through the information right in front of him, assessing the immense threat she posed. He could physically feel the suffocating pressure rolling off her shoulders and pressing down on the entire street.

She was strong.

Way stronger than Kyle.

Julien knew for an absolute fact that if things went completely bad right now, they would both be dead before the giant mercenary could even pull his sword off his back.

Lena did not break eye contact with Julien.

She just slightly turned her head and spoke to someone standing right behind her in the shadows of the nearby tent.

"Who is he?" she asked.

Another person stepped out into the glow of the portable construction lights to stand by her side.

It was a tall guy with the same striking silver hair. Julien immediately noticed they had a very strange resemblance.

They shared the same sharp facial features, the same pale skin, and the same calculating posture.

"It is my first time seeing him, too," the silver-haired guy said.

He looked up and down at Julien with a critical eye, judging his worth in a matter of seconds.

"He must have arrived today. The perimeter guards did not mention any new heavy hitters walking through the front gates."

"Oh, you guys are already here."

A familiar, overly polite voice sounded from behind the crowd.

Eric came into view, casually walking up the cracked path with his hands resting in his pockets. By this point, the entire market had become strangely silent. The constant yelling of merchants selling monster parts and the loud haggling of desperate raiders had completely stopped.

Every single person in the stadium was holding their breath. They were all just listening to what these top-tier Awakeners were speaking about, desperately hoping they did not accidentally attract their view.

"Julien, this is Ken," Eric said smoothly. He stopped walking and pointed a pale finger right at the silver-haired guy.

"You told me you wanted to meet the boss to strike a deal. Well, here he is."

Julien looked at Ken, then looked right back at Lena.

The boss of this unregulated scavenger hub and the strict military camp leader were awfully similar.

They were absolutely related. That explained exactly why the righteous military commander bought her supplies from an illegal black market instead of just sending her heavily armed soldiers to shut it down.

They were running the entire district together.

Julien nodded slightly to acknowledge the introduction. But his mind was already moving to the next step. He needed hard data to figure out how to handle these two powerhouses.

He closed his eyes for a split second and secretly activated his Examiner skill, aiming it directly at Lena to try to gauge through her massive power level.

Before the blue text could even begin to formulate in his mind, Lena moved.

She was fast.

Her hands darted forward and grabbed Julien right by his cheeks. She squeezed hard and pulled him way closer to her face.

Since she was significantly taller than him, he was forced to stand up on his toes just to keep his balance and avoid getting his neck snapped.

Kyle instantly took a step forward, his massive hand gripping the hilt of his own sword to defend his employer.

But Julien quickly raised a finger in the air to stop him.

Starting a fight with an S-class Awakener over a grabbed face was pure suicide.

"What did you just do?" Lena demanded, her gold eyes burning holes into his skull.

"Huh?" Julien mumbled, his cheeks completely squished between her strong fingers.

He was genuinely shocked.

He did not know high-tier Awakeners could actually sense a system skill being used on them. It felt like she caught him trying to pick her pocket in broad daylight. But he knew he could not show his nervousness towards them right now.

If they smelled blood or weakness, they would kill him.

He forced himself to relax his shoulders, kept his face totally straight, and replied with absolute confidence.

"Nothing," Julien lied.

Lena did not let go.

She stared deeply into his eyes, looking for any sign of a lie, and then started rapid-firing questions at him like a machine gun. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"What is your exact purpose here?" she asked, her tone sharp and demanding.

"I am a merchant," Julien replied smoothly.

"What do you sell?"

"Potions."

"What kind of potions?"

"Health, strength, and mana restoration."

"Where did you get them?"

"I made them myself."

"How?" she pushed, her grip tightening just a fraction on his face.

"By imbuing my own mana with various pharmaceutical chemicals created during the pre-apocalypse era," Julien answered without missing a single beat.

It was a lie, of course. He just pulled the items directly out of his infinite system inventory.

But it sounded completely plausible in a ruined world where magic and old technology constantly mixed.

Lena was throwing these questions at him one after another to see if he would trip up on his own complex story.

But Julien replied to every single one without breaking a drop of sweat.

Back in his old life, he had answered corporate job interviews that were way harder and much more stressful than this.

A grumpy military commander interrogating him in an alley was nothing compared to a board of angry investors demanding to know where their money went.

Lena finally stopped asking questions.

She studied his calm face for another long, tense second.

"How good is your potion?" Lena asked. It was her final test.

"You can check it yourself," Julien replied easily.

Lena finally let go of his cheeks.

Julien dropped back down to his flat feet and rubbed his sore jaw.

He assumed she was going to ask him to hand over a free sample so she could take it back to a military lab for testing.

But she did not do that at all.

Lena reached down to her waist and pulled her sword from the hilt. In one smooth, blindingly fast motion, she stepped to the side and slashed her blade right through the air.