Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 108

Louis halted his steps, eyeing the swarming black tide of rats approaching from the direction of Dock Street.

He had intended to order the Azalea to set sail early, but judging from the sky full of crows, the waters weren’t much safer.

A young bodyguard from the Wolf family threw off his black coat, and as it hit the ground, a wall of flames, as tall as a man’s shin, erupted, illuminating the dock with a burst of light and halting the advance of the rats. However, the rats didn’t retreat. Instead, they huddled together, seemingly strategizing their next move.

Another bodyguard glanced at the ships beside the dock.

“I’m afraid that won’t work,” he told his colleague.

Animals feared fire, but rats controlled by someone wouldn’t act on instinct or reason. If they charged, they could extinguish the firewall with sheer numbers.

“Watch those crows!” Pambrick also shouted. “If the witch is targeting us, boarding any ship might draw the crows to it.”

“There’s a mage on the Azalea. He can keep the crows at bay while we board,” suggested the man who had shed his coat. As if in response to his words, the gangway of the Azalea opened, and the ornately carved stairway descended with the sound of gears turning.

Louis’s expression was grim. “Escaping to a ship might avoid the rats and crows, but not the witch.”

A few hours ago, he had explicitly ordered that the safety of Priscilla on the Azalea take precedence. Logically, they wouldn’t lower the gangway amid a dockside disturbance. The only explanation would be that Priscilla knew what was happening and had instructed them to let those trapped on the dock board the ship.

“Hiding isn’t a solution,” agreed another man. “Charles will bring people from the other side of Dock Street. Alman, conserve some magic for clearing the way, and we can retreat to the east side.”

The east side led to another route to Dock Street. If they could bypass the encirclement of rats, they could meet up with the main group. With the witch now revealed, there were plenty of bounty hunters in the city eager to claim her life, and soon, the roles of hunter and prey would naturally reverse.

Alman, the man who had created the firewall with his coat, was also a mage. However, his magic wasn’t as potent as Elena’s currently demonstrated, and facing her in a magic duel wasn’t feasible.

At this moment, the firewall was trembling under the sheer number of rats outside, and indeed, it seemed to falter. Just then, several watermelon-sized fireballs fell from the sky into the midst of the rats, causing chaos like cold drops in hot oil. The rats scurried in panic, nearly extinguishing several sections of the firewall.

The group looked up to see a mage from the Azalea continuously hurling fireballs at the swarm of rats.

“Tell him to pull up the gangway. We’re not boarding!” Alman shouted to his colleague. “Don’t waste magic and provoke the rats… Ah.”

Their warning came a bit late. The continuous impact of the fireballs incited the rats into a frenzy. Temporarily overtaken by instinct, they heedlessly trampled over their own and breached the firewall, the flames visibly dying as they did. Faced with thousands of rats, the group had no choice but to flee.

Louis was at the forefront, leaping onto a neatly stacked pile of wooden crates at the edge of the dock, covered with a tarp to keep them dry, which hadn’t yet been loaded onto a ship.

Elena must be nearby. Controlling such a scale of disturbance remotely was implausible. But the dock had been cleared. Where could she be hiding? On a ship? Or still on the dock? Now, other than the sea of rats, there was only the foreman lying by the carriage…

The foreman.

Louis widened his eyes, observing the middle-aged man still lying there, unresponsive. The river of rats continually ran past him, his half-bloodied body and the brown-green striped trousers stark against the black mass.

After being stabbed with the holy light sword, the puppet enchantment had drained away with the blood from the wound. Yet with such a severe injury, aside from an initial scream, the remaining strength had only allowed him to moan softly. As the rats passed by and everyone fled for their lives, no one thought to carry him along. Louis thought he’d have been gnawed to a skeleton by now if he hadn’t looked back.

Why did the rats specifically avoid him?

By then, Alman and the others had also climbed up, with rats already at their feet. They broke down several crates to make makeshift torches, which Alman helped swing to fend off the rats attempting to climb onto the cargo. But their manpower was limited, and increasingly agile rats broke through their defenses, biting at any opportunity. Pambrick, unfortunately, got bitten on the ear by a rat that had leaped onto his shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain and nearly fall into the water if not for his comrades catching him.

Louis kicked over a crate that several rats had climbed upon. The box crashed back to the ground, splitting apart and revealing the straw and wine barrels used as fillers inside.

Amid the chaos, Alman, the only one who could use magic, was frantic. Louis handed his light sword to another young man.

“It has a holy circle,” he said succinctly. “Throw it over there—I suspect Elena is in that direction.”

His gaze rested on the still unmoving foreman.

The man immediately understood Louis’s intent but chuckled wryly. “You’re giving me too much credit with that distance.”

The so-called light sword was relatively lightweight. Initially designed for civil officials to defend themselves in chaotic situations, it could penetrate the defenses of lightly armored assassins at close range. Compared to a knight’s heavy sword or the great swords used by warriors, it was significantly lighter and smaller but still made of steel and retained its lethality. Truly using it as a dart or dagger was a bit far-fetched.

Louis gave him a cold look. In the time it took for their brief exchange, the relentless surge of rats had already started to destabilize the heavy pile of goods. Spurred by his gaze, the man, putting aside all else, took a deep breath and adopted a javelin-throwing stance. He hurled the sword with all his might, the cold gleam of the blade piercing the drizzle, tracing a silver arc directly towards the foreman!

However, the distance was indeed too great.

The group watched as the sword gradually slowed in mid-air, curving downward about twenty yards short of the foreman and sticking into the ground. The holy circle it carried did activate, clearing a large circular area in the black mass of rats.

Louis could only sigh in frustration.

Knowing he had botched it, the man nearly collapsed under Louis’s stern gaze. Just as he was about to make an excuse, a distinct whooshing sound cut through the air. An arrow shot from afar with lightning speed, aimed precisely at the foreman’s head.

Almost simultaneously, the seemingly unconscious foreman convulsed, rolling just in time to narrowly dodge the arrow—though it grazed his shoulder.

Immediately, the rats nearby surged towards him like a boiling pot, covering him completely in moments. From a distance, only a vague human silhouette was discernible.

“Be careful!” Alman shouted, drawing everyone’s attention back just in time to see that the pile of goods, which had been stable moments before, now teetered on the verge of collapse due to the frantic activity of the rats.

“Into the water.” Louis decided on the spot. He took a couple of steps back and was the first to leap into the chilly canal waters.

Alman and the others, no longer able to hold their ground, followed suit, jumping off the crates with splashes.

With no torches to fend them off, the swarm of rats quickly overran the cargo pile. The chewing and scrabbling sounds of their gnawing made a grating noise on the wood and tarp.

As a fire mage, Alman naturally struggled with water and had to be semi-dragged by his companions—they couldn’t stay on the rat-infested shore, but the Wolf reinforcements were already arriving. Explosions of fire burst on the dock, much more intense than Alman’s earlier efforts.

Pambrick swam up to Louis. “The boat is coming soon, sir—”

He didn’t finish his sentence before Louis abruptly pushed him under the water, pulling him to dive deeper. Underwater, Pambrick’s eyes widened in alarm when he saw, not far away, a crow also diving into the water, its sharp beak aimed downward, penetrating the water to a depth of half a meter.

If they had been a bit slower, Pambrick would likely have another bloody hole in his body, which wasn’t a pleasant prospect in this weather and icy water.

But at that moment, things took a turn. More crows began to drop into the water, one after another. Taking advantage of the moment they surfaced to breathe, they saw arrows flying from the shore, scattering the crows that had blanketed the sky like small, dark statues perched on ships’ rigging.

Several swift warships bearing the Wolf Family’s crest approached, which were the reinforcements.

“Make them aware of the crows,” Louis said, looking up at the still overcast sky. He suddenly took a deep breath and dove back under the water.

Pambrick: “Sir?!”

Louis ignored the calls from his subordinates. Having grown up in this port city, he was an excellent swimmer, though he didn’t frequent the docks. He used his memory to navigate underwater towards the dock, moving faster and faster.

The Wolf Family reinforcements were arriving, and bounty hunters still pursuing Elena would soon join them. Louis could easily board a ship and watch from a distance as the witch who had put him in this dire situation was burned at the stake.

But that would only work if she were mute.

Thinking back to the puppet’s hoarse question, “Where’s Charlie?” made Louis’s temples throb.

Charlie…

So that was his name now, or a name he’d once used.

His brother, whom he hadn’t seen in many years.

Even though she was a pain, Elena’s methods were slippery and elusive, which probably encouraged her to cling to him at the sight of his face, thinking they were closely linked, or perhaps wanting to use him to force Charlie to appear.

Louis cared little for Elena’s fate. Indeed, it would be best if this uninvited woman died—yet he couldn’t let her spout nonsense in public.

There had been enough ambiguity in the puppet’s words that Pambrick, who was closest, likely hadn’t caught on. But now with Wolf Family members in place, if she were to say something like “What’s the relationship between Louis and Charlie?” or “Let Louis hand over Charlie”, the ensuing trouble and suspicion would be far harder to manage.

Louis surfaced to take a breath, confirmed Elena’s location, and quietly avoided the ships moored at the dock, swimming towards a staircase that was half underwater and half above water.

Elena stood beside the carriage with her disguise shed. She looked nothing like a witch associated with crows and rats: dressed in a simple grape-colored dress, her face slightly jaundiced with a few freckles on her nose, her expression sullen with hatred as she stared at a young man standing afar, the very one who had shattered her disguise with an arrow.

That young man, Hasting, regarded her indifferently, still holding his bow, calculating his next move.

A direct shot wouldn’t kill her—not with Mr. Charlie making a fuss.

Nor could he simply let her go—her relentless obsession with Mr. Charlie now entangled with Louis meant she saw him as a bright, shiny target, given his prominent public position as a Wolf, unlike Charlie, who could hide his identity and roam freely.

This time, his work was very troublesome.

Hasting thought this as he raised his bow towards the witch.

All the rats on the dock stood up, facing Hasting, a sight that would have terrified any ordinary person.

But Hasting was unshaken. He raised his bow, and shot an arrow aimed at Elena’s left leg.

The next second, the swarm of rats spontaneously gathered and surged up, like a constantly erupting half-man-high black fountain in front of Elena. However, Hasting’s arrow, as if carrying some kind of sharp barrier, effortlessly pierced through their defense. Elena quickly retreated, watching incredulously as the long arrow landed just an inch from pinning her foot.

“I curse you!” she screamed uncontrollably. “Whoever you are, I curse you to grow greasy feathers and live your life eating only worms and beetles!”

Hasting, as if he hadn’t heard, notched another arrow.

Elena’s curse had no effect on him, and more people were coming from the direction of Dock Street, including several mages. The chaotic magical reactions around Hasting created a shimmering aura of light and shadow behind him.

Even if the Empire’s most venerable archmages were present, they likely wouldn’t be able to affect Hasting.

Realizing this, Elena felt helpless and waved her arms defensively as she retreated to the water’s edge.

This was precisely why Hasting hadn’t aimed for her vitals. Since he couldn’t kill her, he intended to drive her away—before the wave of bounty hunters could arrive from behind.

Elena glanced back at the river. Her crows were clashing with the distant archers, and Louis was nowhere to be seen. Today was doomed to end in failure, no matter what.

She resentfully stared at Hasting’s face, as if to imprint his features deeply into her memory. Her purple dress gradually turned black and spread upward, and a small flock of crows flew towards her.

Just then, a figure suddenly emerged from the water. Hasting’s pupils contracted, and before he could react, the figure plunged a dagger into Elena’s back.

Almost simultaneously, someone released a large balloon they were hanging from and descended from the sky, landing on the deck of the nearest double-decker passenger ship. The moment they touched down, they reached up to steady the top hat on their head.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>