Just as Raiden Ei was about to head toward the inn she had spotted earlier, she suddenly noticed several people approaching her with expressions of arrogant wildness on their faces.
Her brow furrowed slightly. After carefully observing that they were indeed coming for her, she sighed and muttered to herself, "As expected, no matter where I go, some clueless people come looking for trouble."
Her figure stopped heading toward the inn and instead turned toward a less conspicuous alley.
She didn't want to cause too much of a stir right now; she would find a place to take care of them!
"Hey! Blue Sea person, stop right there." Five men who looked like local gangsters shouted at Raiden Ei, drawing the attention of the people nearby.
However, they didn't find it strange. It was just like their own children bullying someone else's; as long as their own children weren't being bullied, the parents wouldn't bother getting involved.
The five strong men, dressed similarly to the locals, saw that Raiden Ei didn't stop at all, so they chased after her, muttering curses under their breath.
Raiden Ei wouldn't stop just because someone shouted. She quickly turned a corner and entered a narrow alley between two buildings. The five men followed right behind her.
The alley had no end; it led all the way to the next street. Raiden Ei found a spot where neither of the adjacent streets was visible and stopped, preparing to see what business they had with her.
Not long after Raiden Ei stopped, the five men caught up to her. They all wore menacing expressions as they shouted at her:
"Hey, Blue Sea person, we called you! Didn't you hear us?"
Raiden Ei looked at these tall, large men of varying builds, and her eyes revealed disdain and contempt, as if to say: Inferior beings without wings.
She wasn't in a hurry to fight. She could tolerate this level of provocation. She spoke in a faint tone, "What business do you have with me?"
The man who seemed to be the leader among the five raised his head and spoke unkindly, "The rule here is you must pay 10 billion eck in protection money!"
Raiden Ei felt things wouldn't be that simple and that some trap was waiting for her. She frowned slightly and said, "Is there such a rule here?"
"Of course. What we say is the rule. Pay up quickly, or don't blame me for being impolite."
"Just the few of you?" Raiden Ei's tone suggested she looked down on them as she sized them up.
The five were enraged by Raiden Ei's gaze. They all pulled out a type of shell Raiden Ei had never seen before from their pockets. They said fiercely, "Bastard, how dare you look down on us! Believe it or not, I'll kill you right now."
Raiden Ei hadn't expected them to be so irritable and had even exposed their leverage. Facing their threat, her expression remained unchanged, and her tone was still unhurried: "Is this the only thing you rely on?"
One of them scornfully retorted to Raiden Ei's words, "Our shells aren't the ordinary ones sold in shops that are only used for lighting. They are attack shells that can kill!"
Are you scared now? We'll give you one more chance: 50 billion eck in protection money, and we'll let today's matter go. Otherwise, you die here!"
Raiden Ei had truly never seen this kind of shell. She had seen offensive types in anime, like the Impact Shell, which absorbs an impact and then releases it, dealing immense power in battle, but the user also suffers a backlash from the force.
There were all sorts of others; perhaps the strongest was the Blast-Breath Shell, which had ten times the power of the Impact Shell, but its recoil was so immense it could be fatal.
These types of shells were also regulated on the Sky Island, and she hadn't managed to buy any. Looking at these few men now, they seemed accustomed to using these shells to threaten others. She just didn't know how much power they could wield with them.
However, she couldn't cause too big of a scene right now, or her plans for tonight would be ruined. Since there was no one around, she would resolve them quietly!
Having made up her mind, Raiden Ei said, "Oh! 50 billion today, and tomorrow it will be 100 billion? You're asking for the moon!"
A plump man holding his shell said to the men beside him, "Simba, let's just kill her!"
She's too long-winded. This way, all the money on her will be ours. Blue Sea people are all the same anyway; they're no match for us."
The man in the middle also frowned, and the hand holding the shell involuntarily tightened slightly. He remained silent for a moment as if hesitating about something.
When the other three men looked at him, he gritted his teeth and said, "Attack!" He rushed toward Raiden Ei first.
The other four heard this and immediately charged toward her without any hesitation, as if they had been holding back for a long time.
"Now you don't have to pay protection money. Die for me!"
Facing the sudden attack from the five, Raiden Ei wasn't flustered at all. She slightly narrowed her purple eyes as she watched their charging figures, muttering under her breath:
"With such weak strength, how dare you provoke me?"
A wave of pressure suddenly swept toward the five before they could even attack Raiden Ei. The five had no chance to resist and instantly fainted with their eyes rolled back.
Their bodies, which were charging toward Raiden Ei, buckled due to inertia, and they fell with a 'plop' sound right at her feet.
Raiden Ei looked at the five men instantly knocked unconscious by her Conqueror's Haki. She didn't mind taking all the shells from their bodies. Even if they were useless to her, she could take them to study and pass the time.
She quickly finished dealing with the situation there and headed toward the street opposite. She couldn't go back to the previous street; so many people had seen those five chase her into the alley.
If she walked out alone, it was predictable that the people here would immediately know she had killed them, leading to endless trouble. To minimize trouble, she could only find another inn. By the time they found out, she would have long left this place.
The opposite street had a layout similar to the previous one. Raiden Ei quickly found an inn and hurried toward it.
Fortunately, no one blocked her path this time, and she successfully entered the inn.
There weren't too many people in the lobby of the inn at this time. Raiden Ei went directly to the front desk and said to the owner, "Boss, I'll take a standard room."
The receptionist looked Raiden Ei over after hearing her words and then said, "A standard room is 1 billion eck per night."
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