In the Imperial Capital Telios, near midnight.

The sounds of footsteps meeting the stone pavement rang loudly, though no one would hear it at this hour.

"She ran this way!!!" - said one of the hooded man while pointing towards a barely lit alleyway.

In that direction, there was a shadow of a girl running desperately away from the group of hooded men. Her steps are unstable and shows signs of fatigue as if she's about to fall over any minute. And yet, she kept on running, not sure if she even knows where she is heading.

As the men drew near, she suddenly open a door on her left and ran inside. Barely able to breath properly, she immediately uses the lock that's hanging near the door and shortly afterwards, she sat down, leaning on the door as her feet gave way and the adrenaline rush loses effect. Now calming down, she starts to look around the place she ran into...

Or she would've, if a male voice didn't interrupt her train of thought.

"A late customer eh? No matter. Welcome to the Unlikely Haven, would you care for a drink?" - said the man cleaning the wineglasses behind the counter, while humming a strange tune, with his back turned to her.

The girl, now finally catches her breath, uttered: "Where am I?"

"Just a small bar inside an alleyway" - said the man as he turns around, with smiling eyes.

He have messy black hair, wears a white shirt with sleeves neatly pulled up to his elbow, with collar tucked in and draped around it, a loosened tie. His clothes is further supported by his slim, tall but firm look. In short, he describes the word "suave" perfectly.

As the girl look around, she's even more astonished, the furniture looks so different from her commonsense. From the almost-holy-looking colored glass decoration behind the counter, the unusually tall box in the corner, the myriad of bottles, undoubtedly alcohols, all branded with names she never heard of despite her background, to the strange looking chandelier which was using an orb of light magic between a formation of transparent crystals for lighting.

As she was about to ask again where she was, she was interrupted by the man - "You look tired, something wrong?"

Shortly after he said that, there was knocking on the door accompanied with yelling - "We know you're in there, come out quietly or we'll have to break this place down!"

"Friends of yours?"

"N-no, umm... Please hide me somewhere safe, I'll reward you later."

"First of all, who are you?"

"It's complicated."

"If you don't want to say it, that's fine, I'll see if I can reason with the people outside, they sure are loud this late into the night."

"No, don't do that..."

"Why?"

She can't say "Because they'll kill you too" to a random stranger whose bar she barged in and she doesn't want to implicate an innocent bystander. And so, she decide to just say: "You can't, they won't listen, just keep the door barred and hide me somewhere, and then let them in."

"Are you sure you're not a wanted criminal?" - said the man, his expression turns grim.

"NO!!!" - the girl exclaimed while fuming with embaressment.

"So it should be fine then" - the man said as he unlocks the door and steps outside.

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"So why are you guys knocking on my door this late into the night, screaming no less?"

"Where's the girl?" - one of the hooded men asked impatiently.

"What's she to you?"

"None of your business."

"See, I don't like people randomly trespassing other's properties while demanding them to do their biddings. But since you guys clearly are gentlemens of class and style, let's do this again tomorrow's morning yeah? The neighborhood are not going to be happy with this kind of noise this late."

"Shut up and give us the girl!" - one man raised his sword, preparing to strike down the whitedressed man.

To his suprise however, he suddenly find himself disarmed and his sword now lie on the ground, under the whitedressed man's feet - "It's been quite a while since someone raised a weapon against me, the last one wasn't of the human race though..." - he said as his mind seems to have drifted off somewhere, reminiscing about the past.

"Who the hell are you?" - the seemingly leader of the hooded men said.

"Just a bartender" - came the reply.

It took less than 3 seconds. All of the previously intimidating hooded men now lies unconscious on the ground, save for the leader which is now being held by the neck by the whitedressed man - "Mmm, been a while since my last brawl, feels kinda nice to de-rust your limbs now and then. Now, can you tell me why you're chasing this girl?"

"What are you?" - the leader replied weakly.

"Tch. Guess I don't need to know eit-" was the last thing he heard before his conscious blacked out.

********************************************************************************************

As the whitedressed man returns to his shop. The girl stares him dumbly - "Why are you still here?"

"This is my shop?"

"Not that, I mean what happened to the hooded men."

"Oh, they got knocked out by something, I couldn't tell."

"...As if I'll believe that."

The man shrugged.

"So can you contact anyone?" -asked the man while looking uninterested.

"Yes, I can contact the Royal Guard through this crystal, it took time though so I can't used it while being chased so thank you-" as she said she noticed the expression of the whitedressed man turns grimmer by the second.

"The Royal Guard???" he muttered, eyes opened wide like he had seen a ghost.

"Ah yes, I should formally introduce myself, I'm Alexia Whitefield, the current Imperial Princess, pleased to meet you-"

While she was preparing to make a proper bow, she noticed the whitedressed man is now holding his head while grimacing and muttering: "I've made a terrible mistake...I've made a terrible mistake...How could I've been so careless..."

"What's wrong?" - Alexia confusedly asked.

"Ok, this can still be salvaged" - he said while looking suprisingly a lot more serious than before "Can I trust you to keep a promise?" - he asked while looking as if the world would end if she said no.

"...Yes?"

"Promised me you wouldn't tell anyone from the palace or royalties about this place."

"Eh?"

"And also, do not mention to anyone about me, understand?"

"Why? Don't you run a shop? Surely you want people to come?"

"I don't need that kind of customer here. You, also, should not return here, at least not under the Imperial Princess name."

"Certainly the Imperial Princess name would help boosts the store popularity?"

"Again, I don't need that kind of customer here. Please promise me."

"Okay, I promise then." - as she said this, the face of the whitedressed man lighten considerablely. Puzzled by his behavior, she asked him.

"Why do you hate royalties so much?"

" I don't hate them, I find them troublesome, just like the consequences of this encounter, oh just thinking about it make my stomach hurts..." - he said while twisting his face and holding his stomach. After a bit, he stands up straight and look at Alexia and state:

"Okay now that's over, please get out." -

"Huh?"

"Call your Royal Guard and get out of here, the store is closing."

And just like that, she found herself standing outside the door to the bar, surrounded by unconscious hooded men with their weapons strewn about. She turns around and yell at the door:

"At least give me your name!"

"Don't yell, it's late at night, also my name huh? Guess if you kept your promise it shouldn't matter. Call me Ray. Ray Al-, actually just Ray is fine. Now call your bodyguards and get the hell out, ohhh my stomach..." - came the reply behind the door.

Alexia managed to stifle her laughter for now and use her communication crystal to contact the Royal Guards to let them know where she was.

In barely anytime at all, there was an entire platoon of armored soldier bearing the royal insignia showing up in this remote area.

"Thank goodness you're still fine" - said the captain, running out of breath as he speaks.

"Yes, it's great." - replied Alexia, still thinking about something.

As the captain calmed down, he looks at the bodies that was scattered inside alleyway with fear and relief at the same time.

"Who saved you from those assassins?" - asked the captain worriedly.

"Honestly, I have no idea." - Alexia replied with a smile.

********************************************************************************************

Somewhere, within the palace.

There hangs a row of painting of past emperors from the Whitefield family with their names engraved in gold below it.

But there's a painting which was put prominently at the end of the dead end hallway at the center of 4 more empty painting frames.

If they were to see it, it would look exactly like the whitedressed bartender the princess ran into.

Under it wrote: "In Memories of Ray (Year 973 - 992), Savior of Mankind, may his rest be forever peaceful."

End of Chapter 1.

Writer's Notes: This is my first attempt of writing a real story, please help me by reviewing and pointing out errors. Thank you for reading this. :wave: