When Poulsen had led Marcus to the door, he opened it acting like a gentleman but as Marcus was walking through the door, he felt a pair of eyes locked directly on his rear.
'Augh, I know that it is hard to not stare at a pretty woman, but this guy is oozing creep energy, he plays his nice guy façade well but as a fellow man I can easily see through it.'
Marcus then followed Poulsen around the base seeing the barracks, the mess hall, and then the weapons depot.
'Wow they have all manner of weapons from swords and spears to war hammers and whips. I guess in a world where people get varied skills, they will have proficiencies with a number of different weapons.'
Seeing Marcus' fascinated gaze Poulsen began speaking about the weapons that the town guard have.
"I can see you are interested in the weapons we have here, these are the mass-produced weapons that all of the guards have access to, and when you join you can pick one out. Of course, the higher quality and special weapons are stored elsewhere and can only be accessed by an officer like me. Though it should not take you long to become an officer and once you do, I can help you obtain one of the special weapons we have."
'Wow this guy, he has already decide I will be joining, and he plans to put me in his debt, this is definitely not the first time he has done this.'
Poulson went around picking up weapons and letting Marcus try them out and see which ones he had the best affinity for.
'Of all the weapons I have tried the spear feels the best but there is still something about it that does not quite feel right, oh well I can figure out my main weapon later since I have no intention of joining the guard anyways.'
Continuing to be herded around by Poulsen, Marcus saw just about everything the guard headquarters had to offer before Poulsen told him he had one more place he wanted to show him. Calling for a carriage Poulsen had Marcus get on and they began traveling towards the outskirts of the town.
'Where the hell are we going, is he just taking me straight to his house, I have not even agreed to any such thing. I have tried to make myself seemed as interested as I can without giving a commitment, do not tell me he has given up and decided to just take me to some kind of sex dungeon.'
While Marcus was thinking about possible horrible fantasies, the carriage he was riding in hit a bump in the road pushing Marcus into Poulsen. He then saw the driver look back and give a little smirk and Marcus quickly separated himself from Poulsen.
'That bastard did that on purpose, how many women has this guy done this to.'
After that Marcus made sure to keep a good grip on the side of the carriage to not let himself be moved around again. Soon after the carriage stopped right at the city walls and Poulsen said, "Here we are, the town wall is the final thing I wanted to show you, the view from up there is magnificent, and only guard personnel are allowed up there, so normally it would not be something you could see."
Leading Marcus through the guard station and up a set of stairs the two of them soon came to the top of the wall where Marcus got a breath-taking view of the scenery. After staring out for a while Poulson guided Marcus over to a device that was mounted on top of the wall.
"This here is one of the mana cannons that is placed at intervals on top of the wall, it is used to fire a projectile of pure magic and is very useful during the occasional monster attacks on the town. Since you have the magic circulation skill when you join the guards you may even be able to man one."
'Wow now that is cool, I am almost tempted to join just to have a chance to fire this thing, but I can probably find one later down the road especially since, I can live forever.'
Once Poulsen had finished giving the tour around the top of the walls he asked Marcus a question.
"So, what do you think impressive right, have I convinced you to join the guard, I guarantee that you will enjoy it."
"I really am tempted and probably will take you up on your offer, but I need to talk to my family down south first, since I did tell them I would be coming to work with them. Once I have done that I will come back up here, and we can discuss more about me joining."
At Marcus' reply Poulsen seemed visibly angry, with a vein on his head throbbing, however this lasted only for a brief few moments before he collected himself and responded.
"Very well, I understand, then how about I treat you to dinner tonight, my chef is an excellent cook, and I would love to get to know you better."
'Got him hook, line, and sinker. Now all I have to do is successfully navigate the night and plant the evidence.'
"Of course, I would be happy to have dinner with you tonight, I guess it has started to get late and I am quite hungry."
The slight bit of anger left Poulsen's face, and he and Marcus made their way back to the carriage that had been driving them around. Once inside the carriage began its route towards Poulsen's manor. The carriage took what seemed like over an hour to finally arrive at Poulsen's manor and the sun was already setting.
'I think he intentionally took a longer route to waste time; he almost certainly plans to keep me here till dark so he can insist I stay the night.'
Seeing the three-story manor house Marcus was quite impressed by its size.
'Wow he is not a noble for nothing I think this house is over fifteen thousand square feet and he had an impressive garden as well. There are even servant quarters on the left side of the lot, and it is up against the river.'
While marveling at the beauty of Poulsen's estate, Poulsen soon grew a bit impatient and started to usher Marcus inside. Once inside Marcus was led to a large dinning room and sat down at one end of a small table before Poulsen took the other.
'He really planned this well I can tell by the grooves in the floor that there is usually a much larger table and that he has this table brought out when he is trying to seduce a woman.'
"Ah I hope you do not mind my chef is making an elaborate dish tonight and it may take awhile for the main course to be served, however we have plenty of aperitifs to sustain us until then."
A server then brought out many appetizers to eat such as, a fish soup, some white bread, and even a few fruits. While all of it looked really delicious Marcus trusted Poulsen about as far as he could throw his whole house. Marcus would pretend to eat by sticking the food into his mouth and pretending to chew it before shoving it into his item box. He continued to do this even for the main dish that looked like it came out of a high-class restaurant.
'While that steak and those mashed potatoes looked delicious, I cannot take any chance that this guy might drug me. He may act all nice and friendly, but he is a snake waiting to strike when his prey is vulnerable. I trialed a lot of guys just like him back on Earth for sexual assault and I know he would do anything to accomplish his goal.'
After finishing their meal Poulsen looked a little tense but soon said to Marcus, "Well look at the time I am afraid that I have kept you for a very long time and it is already night. It might be a bit dangerous for you to take the long walk back on your own, I insist that you spend the night here it is no trouble for me."
'Here it is he has been setting me up for this play for the very beginning, I may need to use drastic measures, but I have to avoid ending up in the same room as him.'
Poulsen then led Marcus upstairs and at the top of the stairs abruptly turned around pushed Marcus' hair back and went in for a kiss. Marcus' mind then went into overdrive trying to think of a way out of this predicament.
'Shit, think fast I have to do something; augh this is going to hurt but it is better than being kissed by this sleaze bag.'
Right before their lips touched Marcus thought of a way out and pretended to slip back, falling down the stairs. On the way down he made sure to cause as much damage to himself as possible since normally with his stats a fall doe the stairs would only give minor injuries. He bashed his head and limbs into stairs and the railing he made sure to slam himself as hard as he could onto each stair and did not stop until he reached the bottom. Once he had a second to recover his thoughts Marcus began to assess the damage he caused.
'Owowowow, I have multiple broken bones, my left hand is at an odd angle my head is profusely bleeding and my HP is down to around forty percent. At least there is no way he is going to try to sleep with me tonight.'
Poulsen frantically bounded down the stairs after Marcus, opening up a pouch on his belt and taking out a bottle with a slightly glowing blue liquid. When he reached Marcus, he shoved the bottle into his mouth forcing him to drink. Marcus did his best to try and store the liquid into his item box before it went down his throat but about half of it got by. He then started to feel a cool sensation in his body as his wounds started to close and some of his bones could even be heard creaking back into place. After checking his status, he saw that in just a number of seconds he had healed around twenty percent of his health.
"Irene are you okay you took a nasty fall there; do you need another healing potion."
Panicking a little not wanting to be fully healed Marcus got up onto his feet, gritted his teeth and snapped his broken arm back into place before responding to Poulsen.
"No, it is fine you do not need to waste another potion on me the first one has already helped a lot and I have a self-healing skill so after a good night sleep I will be fully recovered."
Looking a bit disheartened Poulsen agreed and led Marcus to a guest bedroom on the first floor saying that he would leave a servant outside the room in case Marcus needed anything.
'Okay I managed to get through that, now all I need to do is find a place to plant these document.'
Marcus then exited Irene's body and floated up through the ceiling to the second floor. The room he came into seemed to be some type of office and Marcus began looking around for a good place to hide the documents before he zeroed in on a suspicious painting.
'I wonder, people on Earth would often hide safes behind paintings.'
Marcus then fazed through the painting into the wall behind it and passed through one safe and into another.
'Ah the old safe behind another safe, if my momentum had not carried me a bit farther than I intended I would have only seen the first safe but now I know about the second.'
Searching through the first safe Marcus found many gems and gold coins but the second was full of documents with letters and ledgers proving Poulsen's shady dealings.
'That guy was right he really is corrupt, he often takes bribes to lower security at certain times in order to allow illegal goods to pass in and out of the town. As long as they are not sold in the town there would be no extra investigation once they made it in and then out. He even received a large payment three and a half weeks ago to allow for a slave transport to not be searched on its way in and then out. So, he was an accomplice in helping those slave traders, I now have lost even the last dregs of guilt I had for framing him.'
After leaving the incriminating documents in the safe Marcus took twelve gold coins and placed them into his item box expecting that such a small amount only around one percent would not be noticed.. He then floated back down and reentered Irene's body before falling into a deep sleep, in order to recover.
