Annan is the third employee of the Dawn Tavern.
Apart from the bosses Fast and Martin, Evelyn is the oldest employee in the pub. According to Martin, Evelyn was already here when he arrived. She is a young girl with freckles on her cheeks, about the same age as Annan. She is responsible for working at the counter and serving drinks.
Martin always messed up easily, so he was only responsible for cleaning up the table after the guests left and stealing the leftover food. When Annan reminded him not to do this in front of Mr. Fast, he was still defending his food.
The newcomer Annan does the same job as Evelyn—only the part about serving wine. But usually he and Martin clean up the tables. The guests prefer the only girl in the pub to Annan.
Mr. Fast would occasionally help them share the work when they were busy. Most of the time, he would carry a rapier, fold his arms over his shoulders, and lean against the counter like a thug. He would listen to the noise in the tavern and the old stories of the bard with his eyes slightly squinted.
There weren't many customers in the pub, and even during the busiest and noisiest hours of the night it was only half full at best.
After all, Pinglin Town was just a remote border town with a population of 2,000 to 3,000 people, located on the edge of a forest. The poor couldn't afford to drink beer that cost several copper coins, and the rich disdained such a place where rude people gathered. Only drunkards and adventurers who were looking for information would sit here for several hours.
And a bard.
Annan liked him very much, not only because he could learn words from his never-stopping mouth, but also because of those magnificent and fantastic stories, although in most cases, he could not understand the ups and downs of pronunciation and complex modifiers.
There are also his stories that are vulgar and contain all kinds of slang and dirty words.
It's true that learning a language often starts with swear words.
"…Then, the warlock 'dealt with' the sexy female lizardman in the woods." Along with the low laughter of the drinkers, Annan learned about the concept of polysemous words again.
The bard said that Mr. Fast was a professional warrior of elite level and should not appear in a small place like Pinglin Town. He also tried to probe his past countless times but failed.
Annan had never seen Mr. Fast take action. Many people in the town knew from the bard that he was a "professional warrior with an elite level", so no thief was stupid enough to let him take action.
In fact, Mr. Fast is a very friendly person, not so strict, and sometimes he would make some jokes between men. However, the effect was mediocre, and most of the time he could only get Evelyn's rolling eyes - Annan didn't understand, and Martin didn't understand.
In his spare time, Annan was similar to Mr. Fast, listening to the bard's stories and looking at the guests who had the characteristics of adventurers.
Unfortunately, no elves or wizards frequented the tavern. As for races like orcs or dwarves...even if humans were not so xenophobic, they would be unlikely to come to the remote Pinglin Town.
As the bard's story unfolds, a fantastic and bizarre world of swords and magic, gods and dragons, evil gods and pollution, demons and the abyss opens before your eyes.
Occasionally, Annan felt that the world was not so safe, for example, a rat tide flooded a city in the south, cultists sacrificed a coastal town, greenskins occupied a country, and a magic tide captured a pass.
"Annan."
Mr. Fast's call woke Annan up from his story. He pushed a glass of juice to Annan and pointed to a dark corner of the tavern: "Give this glass of wine to the lady in the corner."
Annan glanced at the figure sitting alone in the dark: "Mr. Fast, my common language is not very good..."
Even this sentence is the most fluent thing he says.
"It's okay, you can solve most problems by just saying 'yes'." Mr. Fast patted Annan on the shoulder encouragingly.
Annan took the wine glass and went to the table as instructed.
She was a beautiful lady with a high nose bridge and three-dimensional facial features. She wore a rose-red floral dress and had long, wavy hair. Her white arms and calves were shining with a hazy luster. She had a temperament that was out of place in this run-down tavern.
As Annan put down his glass and prepared to leave, the lady suddenly asked, "I haven't seen you before."
"Yes."
"You're not from here?"
"Yes."
Annan thought she talked too much, and the lady thought he was a bit boring: "Can't you say anything else besides this?"
"Yes."
The originally uninterested lady now looked at Annan with great interest, brushing her hair as black as night, and paused at the unnaturally gray face: "Boy, have you not experienced the pleasure of being a man yet?"
Annan subconsciously felt that something was wrong and looked back at the counter.
Mr. Fast looked over here encouragingly and nodded.
"Yes..."
"So are you interested in 'solving' me?"
"yes...?"
Annan, who understood what was said, realized that he was being teased and returned to the counter a little embarrassedly.
Evelyn glanced at the owner who was watching the show, but Mr. Fast didn't care and raised his glass to gesture to the lady who seemed familiar to him.
"Why can you chat with the female customers for so long? When I go over, they just tell me to get lost..." Martin came closer and complained.
"Why do you think Mr. Fast hired me?" Annan replied.
Martin's expression became very strange at this time. Well... it was definitely not what he thought. But Annan's common language was not enough to support his complex explanation.
It was late at night, the wine lady had left, and the guests needed to enjoy the quiet. Fast gestured to the bard, who ended the story he was telling and played the lute in his arms.
Mr. Fast went back to the back to rest, and Martin, who replaced him, came to the wooden pillar, standing guard with one eye and keeping an eye on every corner of the tavern with the other.
"How did you do that?"
Annan looked in amazement at the wise Martin who looked to the left with his left eye and to the right with his right eye.
"Why do you think Mr. Fast hired me?"
At midnight, the last two guests in the tavern staggered away, supporting each other, and Evelyn turned the sign on the door to close.
The first day of work was pretty good, and I was even lucky enough to get an untouched pumpkin pie.
Back at Aunt Susan's house, the lights in Aunt Susan and Uncle Hollin's bedroom were not turned off until they returned.
Martin climbed into bed. Soon he began to snore.
Annan took off his coat and placed it beside the bed. With his longing for the magical world in his heart, he fell asleep with satisfaction and fulfillment.
He dreamed of a vast expanse of nothingness, with four points of light emitting halos floating before his eyes.
The green halo spreads life and kindness; the purple halo releases passionate emotions and joy; the red halo is filled with bravery and tenacity; the blue halo radiates wisdom and integrity.
Four balls of light lingered around Annan, spreading beauty. But a pure black halo suddenly appeared, dispersing the four balls of light, and suddenly emitting a golden light - Annan woke up because of the sunlight shining on his cheeks.