My Servant Is An Elf Knight From Another World-Chapter 896 The Man In The Suit

Dave took something out of his suit pocket, pausing once, throwing Michael a single raised brow.

"You smoke?"

As with most questions, and most indulgences, Michael eyed the glossy sheen of a small silver case in the stranger's hand, and simply shook his head curtly.

Dave unlatched the case, pulling out two cigarette sticks, one of which he tucked between his lips while the other, after another brief moment's pause, he extended out forward.

"You look like you should."

Matt smoked almost as much as he drank wherever he could, and as generous as he was indulgent, he'd often offer Michael a spare to share, nudging him, goading him, and blowing out a thick cloud of disappointment when he was ultimately turned down.

And Michael always turned the offer down. He had no interest, no desire, if anything, it just seemed like a mere distraction, and at worse, a hindrance… especially in Matt's case.

But something about Dave, this peculiar stranger's act, demeanor… that felt resonating… in a way that Michael found strangely familiar… familiar enough to slowly reach out himself… not turning him down as he had originally intended.

Suddenly, he had the cigarette between his fingers, and he eyed it, smelt it, before a quick spark of light pivoted his attention. Dave had struck a match, a small bead of fire swaying about as he wordlessly lit the opened end of Michael's stick before lighting his own and promptly snuffing the flame with a single, smooth flick of the wrist.

Michael just stared for a quiet while, continuing to feed that uncanny sense of intrigue he felt. Dave took his first puff, a bright orange aglow, smoldered ashes peppering the table as wisps of swirling gray smoke leave with his breath.

He followed after him, the cigarette in his lips, emanating his own glow, billowing his own ashes, but when Michael attempted to breathe out, he found himself only with the strong urge to cough, managing to stifle it down to what sounded like a weak sneeze.

"Take it gently," Dave advised, blowing out another small cloud. "Slow but deep, don't hold it in for too long, and then you breathe. That's it."

Though slightly dubious, Michael tried again - inhaling another mouthful of smoke, crumbs of ash nearly spilling into his glass. This time he felt a whirl in his head, a whipping surge of energy coursing as he slowly emptied his lungs.

Dave took another puff after him, smirking, nodding, and for a long moment, there was nothing but the continuous stream of vapor shared between them. Then Charles snorted in his sleep, and muttered something about drinks before slumping his head onto a small puddle of condensation.

"He comes here at least once a month," Dave gave Charles a quick glance, his words and breath tinted in a light fog. "Gambles - loses more often than not. Sometimes, he's accompanied by friends. I see them too on occasion. That old man, that young boy, many, many times… but this is the first I'm seeing you."

Michael looked back at him, catching his stare reflecting his.

"You work here," Michael said, more a statement than a question.

"I suppose," Dave said with a shrug and shifting himself more at ease, completely taking Rudy's spot for his own. "And in this fine establishment, it's customary to get to know our patrons as much and as best we can, their interests, their taste… for instance, here… why don't we start with your name?"

"You don't need to know it," Michael said.

Dave blew his last puff of smoke with silent intrigue, flicking his cigarette to the side, a hint of a frown on his puffed lips. "Any particular reason why?"

"I don't trust you."

Again, Dave went quiet, speaking up again a moment after and barely able to hide the confusion in his voice. "You took a cigarette from me but yet you don't trust me?"

"Because you intrigued me," Michael said, his burning cigarette finally whittled down to a stub of ashes as he puffed his last. "You don't anymore."

"Hmm…" For some reason, the stranger remained unfettered, simply reaching into his pocket again and pulling out the same silver case. "In that case, why don't we start over?" 𝚋𝚎𝚍𝚗𝚘𝚟ｅｌ．𝚌ｏ𝚖

Then, unlatching, he took out another stick, wearing that same smile, extending that same offer.

"Care for another?" He asked.

"No thanks," Michael said, glancing off into the nightly bustle in front of him.

Faintly, he heard the snap of a case clasping shut, trailing close behind a small chuckle.

"Something I did?"

"No," Michael said. "I'm just not in the mood for offers."

"Then, how about a drink, at least? My personal recommendation," Dave said, undaunted. "On the house. A round for your friends too. Consider it a token of gratitude for your continued patronage."

"Leave."

Michael flung his gaze even further into the surroundings and through a clutter of bodies spotted the wobbly figure of Rudy stumbling and shambling his way back from the restroom.

"Very well," from the corner of his eye, Dave stood up, straightening his suit, finally relenting. "But should you change your mind at any point, find me. I'll be around."

And once more with that same accounting smirk, he strode off, disappearing into the vast sea of people and reemerging on the other side into a vacant armchair of another group of patrons that welcomed him graciously into their fold with drunken revelry.

"Oh, didn't know you smoked," Rudy announced his return with a series of loud stuffy snorts. He took his seat, eyeing down the cigarette butt still faintly aglow atop the table with a furrow in his brow. "You know those things are bad for you?"

Michael's eyes were still all the way on the other side of the room, watching the slow rise of white smoke swaying high, and the source of it all, the man below wearing his usual crooked smile.

"Yes," He responded, finally snuffing the glow on his. "I know."

Time passed, and it was nearing the stroke of midnight before something of note would arise from nowhere once again.

In the midst of one of Matt's drunken tangents, utterly falling to grasp a joke Rudy had made, and Charles' snores filling the brief gaps in between, Michael had noticed it.

Dave was missing from his seat.

Lightly scouring the room, Michael found no sign of him either… and everyone else from the table he sat with didn't seem to have noticed anything amiss - and indeed, perhaps nothing was.

He could have just simply left; gone home from a long day's shift from indulging the feisty and inebriated. If so, then there was really no cause for concern after all. Then Michael peered just a little closer, spotting through the twinkle and sparkle of various lights, the distinct glint of silver left resting atop the table.

Once again, his curiosity was roused.

But, and he reminded himself firmly, there was no reason for him to place himself between foreign affairs. He was only here in the first place to unwind, to relax… and have a little bit of fun. Pursuing a complete stranger's absence had absolutely no potential to be anything riveting…

…maybe.

Michael took a final sip of glass and slowly stood up.

"Hm?" Rudy narrowed bleary eyes to the blur of movement, head swaying loosely about. "Hey, Mikey, where are you going?"

Michael smacked his lips, a lingering trace of pleasure surging in the back of his tongue, his senses, and marched forward.

"Clear my head," he answered.

Another cigarette would admittedly be nice.

A minute later, Michael was standing outside the establishment, the sound of music still blasting through the entrance in soft, muted beats. The night sky had a touch of red and blue intertwined along with the glimmer of stars, city lights, nightly rays, keeping the city rife with the amorous air of exuberance and life.

In the streets, along the sidewalk both left and right, Michael could not find anything out of the ordinary to be seen nor heard and he did not expect any different… if only such heinousness would be so brazen as that.

He walked a little more, finding a narrow space between buildings before long, a dark alley stretching far into the darkness - and there, affirming his sneaking suspicion true - a loud deafening crash rippled out of the concrete gap.

Following the noise, slow and subtle as can be, Michael stumbled upon quite the scene as the darkness gradually gave way with every creeping step.

Four figures surrounded an extremely disheveled Dave, his suit wrinkled and wrung out of all its elegance, his nose dribbling with a fresh stream of blood, seeping together with the profuse flow dripping from his busted lips. He was low to the ground, kneeling amidst scattered cans of waste and rubbish.

Yet in spite of what his vulnerable state may imply, Dave remained ever civil, staining his gloves in red as he wiped his face clean, and glancing up at his assailants, who couldn't look any further opposite from his demeanor.

"Friends?" He said, and Michael almost heard the ghost of a snigger. "Decided I deserved more comeuppance? Your surprise visit this afternoon wasn't enough to sate you?"

The most enraged of the group suddenly lashed out, swinging a hard kick aimed deep into Dave's gut that had him keeling over in anguish.

"Friends?" the man gave him a look, as disbelieving as it was rageful. "What, Dave? Don't recognize them? See so many faces in a day, can't even be fucked to remember the ones you royally screwed over?!"

"What can I say?" Dave contorted his blood-spattered lips into a smile. "Business has been booming as of late."

A smile that was instantly ripped off of him with a crunching stomp to his pelvis.

"If you're still talking shit, then clearly it wasn't even fucking close to enough!" The man roared. "You haven't learned your lesson, not a shred of fucking guilt - don't even have the humanity to see your fault!"

"Fault?" Dave wheezed, coughing, a painful grimace breaking through his calm expression. "I only offer opportunities, chances. At the end of the day, it's your own choice to make. It's on you what you do with it."

But the man refused to hear any of it, he gave another swift kick, prompting the other three to join in on the beating, a relentless series of blows and smacks sporadically interrupted by the sounds of gruntings and growls.

"II FUCKING LOST EVERYTHING BECAUSE OF YOU!" The man screamed deranged, delivering one last rattling jolt into his ribs, before stumbling back in a fit of gasps and spit. "MY HOUSE, FAMILY - I HAVE NOTHING! NOTHING NOW! AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"A-Again… you… you made that choice," Dave struggled to speak out, bloodied, beaten, his arms trembling hard to keep himself sitting upright. "And… in case you don't realize it, I'm making this easy on you, George. Do you even realize what you're doing? Who exactly it is you're making an enemy of right now? The people I'm with, the people I know. I rather not make things worse for you than they already are, so if you would just - "

"Worse?!" the man cut in, very nearly on the verge of attacking again. "How can you possibly think you can make things already worse for me?! After all you've done!"

"I am willing to let this go now if you just walk away," Dave raised his voice, regaining his composure, his gaze hardening into a scowl. "You're alive. You can still recover from this. Take this as a lesson, and if you really, truly value your own life, you will leave now."

"Life? What life? What's left? You tell me - what's left?!" the man shook his head, vigorously, maniacally, and reaching into his pocket, Michael saw the familiar sharp glint of a knife. "No. You die here. I don't care. We don't care. This is all we have now. The least you fucking deserve."

For a moment, just for a moment, Dave's eyes widened with a fleeting flicker of panic and fear, recoiling, scrambling… much too late…

The man plunged his blade forward.

All was quiet. Time frozen. Seemingly eternal. A second spanning decades, that's what it felt like. A stream of thoughts, of questions, all going without answers.

Maybe it was just instinct. Honed muscles and practiced senses spurring from dormancy in the heat of the moment. Maybe, surely… or perhaps, it was again that debilitating sense of intrigue.

The person, the life before this life, reaching out, blitzing forward.

There was the loudest, shrillest echo, a snap resounding far. A gust of powerful wind shot out of both ends of the alley.

In less than a second, half a second, or even a fraction of it, Michael was suddenly standing elsewhere, over there, looming before the assailants, gripping in a single fist, the shattered blade of the knife.

"Leave," Michael said, casually dropping the blade down with a clatter. "While you're still breathing."