Strongest Bartender

"One glass of ale!" A drunk man with a flushed face called out. 

Ray grabbed a mug from the counter and poured ale into the mug. "That will be another silver Jon, you have the money right?" Ray asked with a stern expression.

"Ahh shut up and give me the ale. I have it - I have it." 

Ray, the previous apprentice mage is now a bartender at a popular bar in Harlington. From killing magical beasts to serving alcohol to drunks, it was quite a change. But it didn't take long to get used to it.

To be more specific he bought out the entire store with 20 gold, but he decided to bartend himself to gather basic information on the town. The wine cellar downstairs is also the perfect place for his… research. The noise is blocked, and it's his own private space.

"Remember, bad things will happen if you don't pay your bills." Ray told Jon with a playful expression.

Jon slammed his fist on the counter and shouted, "Give me the damn ale!"

"Look at that, old Jon's acting up again." 

"Pfft, when is he not? I swear he's here every night getting drunk and raging at everyone around him."

"I heard his wife left him a year ago and he hasn't recovered since, this is his way of coping."

The chatter continued throughout the night, while Ray patiently served the customers. When they started getting drunk, Ray asked them questions while they were still not in their right state of mind. The amount of information you can get as a bartender is surprising, especially from the drunks who have no one to talk to. The bar was active long into the night, the atmosphere only started dying out at 4 in the morning; it must have been a weekend today. 

Although most of the information was the ramblings of drunk men, there was still some interesting information within. Everybody he talked to liked the mayor; he's kind, generous, and handsome. He was basically the perfect man to govern the town, not to mention his fighting capabilities as a knight. But lately the townspeople have been disappointed with his actions. He rarely left his estate, and didn't fulfill all of his responsibility. 

When Ray asked whether weird things started to happen since the time the mayor started acting weird, one of the men said, "I always feel weird when I go out, like I'm being supressed. It must be my imagination though, or these damn hangovers! Lately my boss has bean asking me to wake up early and work…" Ray stopped listening after the first part, but he also later gained another valuable piece of information. A couple times the Mayor went out in public, there was a young man in a hoodie following him, talking to him about something. Even though he was moving his mouth, nobody could hear what they said, so they could only speculate.

There were many wild theories, one person thought he was raising an assassin group, another person thought it was simply his advisor and it is nothing to worry about. Overall, these average citizens don't know that much.

'This isn't going to get me anywhere is it' Ray thought with a sigh. He went to his private room underneath the bar and continued his training as usual. 

A few hours later the sun started creeping into the sky, lighting up Harlington. There were no cars to make noise, so it was peaceful before people started waking up and making the town lively again.

Ray stopped his training to go and see the town with his own eyes a bit. 'The energy concentration in this place is really shit. It will take me years before I reach the third apprentice level in these conditions' he thought. He realized the importance of being in Mythri even more, the energy density was just too precious to abandon now.

He opened the door to the bar and walked onto the street, letting the sun shine on him. Before he could enjoy the morning, a rough looking man bumped into him and walked straight past him without saying anything. Most people would have been angry and maybe even confronted the man, but Ray only had a slight frown on his face. 'What was that?' he thought while staring at the back of the person. 

When the person bumped into him, he felt a strange aura coming from him. It wasn't that of a mage, but slightly different, as if the entire body was excluding supernatural energy. 'Is that a knight…? No, it can't be. The report only mentioned the mayor.'

He decided to follow the man and see where he went, but nothing special happened. He entered an apartment building, which is where Ray stopped following him to not make it obvious.

'He didn't seem to notice me even when we bumped into each other, so it should be safe to release my mages vision a bit'. He let his aura expand to 15 meters so he could inspect the person without directly seeing him. The aura he felt from the man felt a lot weaker now. Before, when Ray bumped into him, it felt stronger since they were so close. But now that he used his aura to inspect the man, Ray estimated he could deal with him only using his sword. 

He was clearly some sort of knight, but a very weak version. Either a new knight or he had a bad technique, either way he posed no threat to Ray. As he was inspecting the knight in the apartment, another knight walked into his aura. Internally, he was shocked. But he kept a calm expression on the outside as if nothing happened and he was a normal civilian walking down the street. Ray didn't assume there was only going to be one knight/mage in Harlington, but it was still a little surprising when he found out.

He started walking around Harlington trying to find more knights, and he discovered 5 more in 30 minutes. After finding that many knights he was sure this wasn't a coincidence, something strange was definitely going on in this town!

Ray quickly started adjusting his plans. Before he found out about the knight he was planning to scout the town out just to make sure things are as he expects, then simply attack the mayor and kill him. He was just a knight, there was no need for advanced plans to kill him. But these strange knights were a new variable that had to be explored before new plans were made.

And what way of knowing your enemy is better than simple interrogation? An old strategy, but one of the best strategies. Ray promptly set off for the first knight he saw that entered an apartment building. 

The knight was much weaker than him, it wouldn't take much effort to defeat him. But Ray would have to be careful not to kill him; capturing is a lot harder than defeating, and capturing without commotion is even harder.

Ray walked straight towards the Knight's room since he could see exactly where he was based on his aura. He unsheathed his sword and knocked on the door a couple times.

The knight opened the door, and Ray immediately swung his sword flat side down onto the knight's skull without giving him time to react. He put all his force into it but made sure to not cut him so he stayed alive. The sword landed on his skull with a loud 'bang', his skull visibly caving in a little. Luckily his body was strong enough to not die, but he immediately blacked out. 

He had little time to react, and was unarmed himself so there was little he could do. The poor knight could only wonder why someone decided to attack him with a sword because he didn't apologize after bumping into him.