Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time
Chapter 235: Settling In

Chapter 235: Settling In

A tired old woman greeted Han Yu at the front desk, barely glancing up as he slid two silver coins across the counter.

"Simple room. Back left. No fires after midnight," she said, her voice raspier than a dry lizard’s hiss.

Han Yu took the key and climbed the narrow stairs to find his room.

It was... adequate.

A wooden cot with a straw mattress. A chipped basin with cold water. A table, a stool, and a single paper lantern. He closed the door and locked it behind him, then immediately stripped off his outer robes.

His bandages had held up, but sweat and dust had soaked through everything.

He spent the next hour washing up. Wiping down with wet cloth carefully to not aggravate his injuries, applying fresh salve to the still-raw burn marks across his neck and side, and replacing the wrappings with cleaner ones. He cut strips from a clean inner robe to reinforce the bindings.

’I should get some more bandages here as well as a set of robes. These won’t last me long if I keep on tearing them for bandage strips.’ He thought.

By the time he was done, he looked more like a wandering herbalist than a battle-scarred infiltrator.

He let himself lie on the straw mattress for a few minutes. Not to sleep, just to breathe.

Then, the lantern flickered with the wind, and he sat up.

Rest could wait.

The night was the best time to move unseen.

Pulling his bag over his shoulder, Han Yu slipped out of the inn and into the quiet streets of Caldera Edge Town.

The moon overhead was a thin silver blade, casting shadows long and sharp across the cobblestone lanes. A few drunks stumbled between alleyways, and the distant clang of metal told of a blacksmith still at work.

Han Yu moved with purpose, eyes scanning signs, windows, and people.

He was looking for anything—any building tied to the Mist Eye Sect, any signs of secret dealings, any patterns. Even whispers in the back of a gambling den might prove useful.

For now, he needed more pieces of the puzzle.

The altar was real.

The Magma Ancestor—whatever it truly was—was real.

And the Mist Eye Sect wasn’t just here for show. They were preparing for something.

Han Yu didn’t know what.

But he intended to find out.

That night though, Han Yu found nothing.

He prowled the town’s alleys and dark corners for hours, eyes peeled and ears sharp. But there were no secret meetings, no cloaked figures exchanging documents, no suspicious movement through the streets. Just the occasional drunk stumbling from a tavern and the lonely bark of a stray dog.

The town, despite the shifting powers around it, still slept like any other small outpost clinging to life near dangerous lands.

Han Yu returned to his room in the dead of night, disappointed but not surprised. Intel gathering was rarely swift. It required patience—something he was still learning to master.

Back in his room, he removed his bandages carefully, reapplying the salve he’d taken from the outpost. His wounds had stopped oozing, but they still throbbed beneath the skin, red and tender. He wrapped them again, tighter this time, then lay on the stiff straw mattress.

Sleep took him quickly. This time, it was deep and dreamless.

Morning came with a dull orange sky and the low buzz of town life outside his window. Han Yu rose feeling better—not fully healed, but more mobile, more focused.

His first priority was to blend in better.

The bandages, though necessary, made him look more like a wandering vagrant than a cultivator. They attracted curious glances, and in a place like this, where new faces weren’t common, that wasn’t ideal. If he wanted to stay longer, he needed to look the part of someone ordinary.

After a quick wash and a cold breakfast from the last bits of dried rations in his pack, Han Yu slipped into the town market.

The stalls had begun setting up for the day—simple wooden frames draped with faded cloths and stacked with baskets of goods. There were dried herbs, basic pills, worn tools, preserved meat, and even some low-grade talismans for travelers.

He browsed quietly, eventually stopping at a small textile stand where a young woman was laying out folded robes in neat stacks.

"Looking for something?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

Han Yu gave a small smile and nodded. "Something plain. Durable. Doesn’t attract attention."

"Ah, you’re a hunter type," she said knowingly. "Got just the thing."

She handed him a pair of brown-gray traveling robes—made from beast-hide thread, reinforced at the sleeves and collar. They weren’t flashy, but they looked sturdy and offered decent movement. Perfect.

He purchased them along with a pack of clean bandages and a light traveling cloak. She wrapped everything up in paper string and handed it to him with a polite bow.

"Anything else you need?"

"Information," Han Yu said casually, keeping his tone light. "I’ve seen Mist Eye Sect disciples passing through here. They set up anything official in town yet?"

The vendor’s brow furrowed as she shook her head. "Not here. They’ve passed through, sure—buying up tools and food, mostly. But no base, no outpost. Just travelers like the rest."

Han Yu nodded thoughtfully. "Strange for them to come all this way, isn’t it?"

She shrugged. "Stranger still that they’re here now. The border path to the west is the usual way in. This town... well, it’s mostly used for hunting and gathering from the Plateau or the Caldera outskirts. Not for sect business."

He bought an extra satchel just to keep up the appearance of a traveling scavenger and moved on, visiting several other stalls throughout the morning.

A blacksmith who sold cooking pans and weapon oil.

A pharmacist with dust-covered bottles of cooling ointment and snakeweed poultices.

A grumpy old man selling tanned leather from a half-rotten stand.

Each conversation was the same. Han Yu talked like a curious passerby, casually bringing up the Mist Eye Sect in the hopes of learning something deeper.

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