Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 31: Accident

Myss frowned at the picture book resting on his knees.

This copy of “Brave Salaar” looked quite new. Scintilla had probably bought it specially for him.

Who knew whether it was the very same copy he had seen in the bookstore back then. Mina had twisted his memory, so who knew whether that book had really been bought or not.

This merchant caravan carriage was a spacious “four-person cabin.” Besides the three of them, there was also a fashionably dressed young man drenched in perfume.

With an outsider present, Myss couldn’t very well use magic to destroy the picture book, so he had no choice but to tolerate its presence on his lap.

“May I take a look?” Salaar asked.

Myss immediately perked up. “Take it—and be quick about it.”

“Ah, Brave Salaar.”

The fashionable young man glanced at the cover and spoke in a singsong tone. “I truly don’t understand why people glorify such a useless pest—a mere puppet of no substance whatsoever…”

Before he could finish, Myss narrowed his eyes, and a black shadow shot forward.

Damn, it was Fork!

Salaar reacted quickly and caught it in a flash. The little snake writhed furiously between his fingers, hissing nonstop at the fashionable young man. Knife hurried over and wrapped its body tightly around Fork, just short of tying itself into a knot.

Myss rarely even spared other humans a proper glance, but now he fixed the man with an icy stare. “Shut up.”

“Oh my, did I ruin your childhood memories?”

The man blinked as though he thought himself witty. “The truth is always hard to accept, darling. By the way, your pet snakes are absolutely adorable.”

Myss stared expressionlessly at the human. His knuckles cracked sharply.

Fork struggled wildly in Salaar’s grip, its hissing growing shriller and shriller, to the point Knife could barely hold it down.

Salaar, helpless, covered his mouth and whispered to Fork, “Why are you so angry?”

…He had thought Myss would be delighted to hear someone badmouthing him.

“He actually dared call you useless? He actually dared call you useless! Then what does that make Myss, who’s been harassed by you for three hundred years?”

Fork bared its tiny fangs. “Only Myss in this world has the right to call you useless! If he insults you, he insults all of us!”

Knife sucked in a breath and hurriedly slithered to Myss’s ear, jabbing the tip of its tail hard against Myss’s neck. “Calm down. Don’t kill him. If something happens to him, we won’t get to stay on the carriage!”

Myss blew out a breath and turned his face toward the carriage window, no longer looking at that peacock-like fool. But the lines of his cheek remained tight, and anger still lingered on his face.

“And you are?”

Seeing that the man was about to open his mouth and court death once again, Salaar hurriedly redirected the conversation.

“Me? You can call me Truman, Truman Who Speaks Only the Truth.”

The fashionable young man declared loudly, “Of course, that name is a pseudonym, haha.”

Truman cackled endlessly at his own little joke, and the fragrance in the carriage grew even stronger. Unfortunately, no one humored him, and the atmosphere instantly turned awkward.

Truman let his laughter die, then looked at them with displeasure for a while. After that, he unhurriedly took out a perfume bottle and sprayed some on both sides of his neck.

Myss sneezed angrily, while Salaar silently observed him.

Truman’s nails were round and neatly trimmed, and his hair bore traces of having been curled. But he had applied far too much white powder to his face, and his brows had been drawn into what he clearly thought were stylish thin arches, making him look rather awkward.

His clothes used a great deal of glossy satin. The collar and cuffs were piled with ruffles, and every button was adorned with a gemstone. The moment he moved in the sunlight, the reflected sparkle was enough to blind a person.

Considering that their destination was Sepanti, the “Capital of Crafts,” Salaar could more or less guess Truman’s identity: an idle rich boy, insufferably full of himself.

People like this were easy enough to handle. All one had to do was laugh along and go with their opinions. The only question was whether Myss could stomach it.

Salaar was still considering his response when Father Kalen spoke first. “Why were you laughing just now?”

There was no finesse whatsoever in the priest’s question—only sincerity.

Truman: “Huh? The name Truman means ‘a true man.’ I said I only speak the truth, but it’s also a fake name… get it?”

Kalen looked puzzled. “But doesn’t that just mean you lied?”

Another stretch of awkward silence followed. Truman took a deep breath. “It’s only natural for a country bumpkin to not understand refined jokes like this.”

“I really was born in the countryside.” Kalen nodded. “My apologies. If you could please elaborate…”

“I don’t want to!”

Truman snapped irritably. “Listen, I don’t know what sect you belong to, but I have no desire to talk to pretentious windbags like you.”

Kalen froze. The smile on his face stiffened slightly.

The moment Truman realized he had landed a hit on Kalen, he pounced like a shark smelling blood. “If you ask me, among all these messy religions and organizations, only the Stargazers Society looks halfway respectable.”

At the keyword “Stargazers Society,” the smile vanished entirely from Kalen’s face. He frowned at Truman, and faint anger showed in his aquamarine eyes.

Seeing the mood turning sour, Salaar stepped in again to put out the fire. “The Stargazers Society? This is my first time hearing of it. Would you mind telling us about it?”

Myss kept his head turned toward the scenery outside, but one ear twitched slightly.

Truman swept his gaze over them all with the look of someone thinking country bumpkins really are ignorant, then cleared his throat. “Of course. It’s an extraordinary esoteric organization, entirely invitation-only. The Stargazers devote themselves to studying the essential nature of magic, exploring its deepest mysteries…”

“…A group of lunatics preaching doomsday prophecies, spending all day researching incomprehensible nonsense,” Father Kalen cut in sharply, a rare edge in his voice.

Truman let out a derisive laugh. “Of course, of course. Naturally the Stargazers wouldn’t be popular with the clergy, considering none of them believe in God! They don’t blindly submit—”

As Truman continued his passionate speech, Salaar raised his brows slightly. He didn’t interrupt again, only shook his head toward Kalen.

Leaving aside whether the Stargazers Society’s doctrines were absurd, Truman’s tone was wrong from the outset. Rather than sincerely agreeing with the Society’s views, he seemed to regard them merely as “fashionable” —as though the Stargazers Society were just another one of his flashy gem buttons.

A person like this could never be persuaded. Trying to reason with him was completely pointless.

When Truman finally finished his lofty lecture, Salaar smoothed things over. “Perhaps God really does exist. They may simply be different from what we imagine.”

“I’ve heard that Sepanti is fairly tolerant toward religion and doesn’t have any particular taboos…”

Truman’s powder-white face immediately swung toward Salaar, completely ignoring the graceful exit Salaar had prepared for him.

“Aha, God really exists? You don’t mean the Chaos Archdemon, do you? That was clearly fabricated out of thin air by the Karns family to push that clown Salaar forward.”

“Come to think of it, your eye color is rather interesting. Could it be that you… ow!”

Truman suddenly clutched his face, his features scrunching together as tears burst from the corners of his eyes. Salaar noticed a thread of pitch-black magic slipping out from the corner of Truman’s mouth, quietly dissipating into the air.

Without Truman’s shrill voice, the carriage instantly became much more peaceful.

“Hmph.” Myss let out a short, contemptuous snort.

Salaar looked at Myss with some surprise. The strange plague in Rosha had clearly given Myss more than a little inspiration. This thread of magic had been used with extreme stealth, almost without producing any magical fluctuation at all.

“What did you do?” Salaar asked under his breath.

“I drilled a hole in one of his teeth,” Myss said darkly. “Serves him right for never shutting that filthy mouth.”

As he spoke, he cast Salaar a wary glance. “You’re not about to heal him, are you?”

“Oh, no, not at all.” Salaar smiled. “After all, I’m just a useless pest—an empty puppet with nothing but a pretty face. How could I possibly know healing magic?”

“I hate that way of putting it.” Myss looked back out the window. “Maybe a thousand insults would suit you, but ‘useless’ and ‘empty’ definitely aren’t among them.”

Myss’s voice was all mutters and grumbles. It was hard to tell whether he was afraid Truman might overhear him, or afraid Salaar might hear him too clearly.

“…Go read your children’s picture book,” the Archdemon said at last, with exceptional clarity.

Salaar lowered his head. Fork, finally quiet in his hand, was dozing in the warmth of his palm.

“Your snake?”

“Just keep it with you for now. It’s a bit hard to control,” Myss said without turning around.

Salaar smiled and shook his head, then opened the picture book. He gently turned the pages and lowered his eyes to the simple drawings rendered in soft strokes.

When he reached the page where Salaar brandished a sword and charged toward the giant bedsheet ghost—or rather, the Chaos Archdemon—his movement paused slightly. Fork stretched lazily and plopped down onto the picture of the “bedsheet ghost.”

Salaar stared fixedly at the “himself” holding the sword, and at the “Myss” pierced through by that sword. His gaze lingered on the page for quite some time.

Then suddenly, a warm, damp breath brushed the rim of his ear. Salaar instinctively turned his head, only to find that Myss had leaned over at some point, his nose almost touching Salaar’s face.

“You’re way too calm. How boring,” Myss muttered, then sat back down.

“It’s only a fairy tale.” Salaar picked up the lazily rolling Fork between his fingers and closed the book.

Over the next several days, Mr. Truman’s cheek swelled high as a bun. Every time he opened his mouth he hissed in pain, and even exchanging greetings took effort.

The carriage stayed remarkably quiet. Myss happily ate, slept, and then slept and ate again, looking forward to whatever new Abnormal Fruit might appear next. Salaar continued reading the books he had bought in Rosha City. The atmosphere turned unexpectedly harmonious.

The only flaw was that the weather kept getting colder.

Perhaps the climate near Sepanti was unusual. The place had a ghostlike chill to it, the kind of cold that could creep into the carriage and gnaw on their toes. All three of them had packed lightly, so the nights were somewhat hard to endure.

For the first few nights, Myss pretended everything was fine, but his snake betrayed him first. As yet another night fell, Fork zipped straight into Salaar’s collar.

Myss stared in exasperation. “Get back out here!”

“No.” Fork coiled itself over Salaar’s chest. “I’m freezing him. This is an att… yawn… ack.”

Myss thought about it and decided that made sense. Who would have thought his snake was a genius too?

So Myss moved over himself, wrapping around his enemy like an octopus. True, his body temperature wasn’t as low as Fork’s, but if he thought Salaar felt warm, then conversely Salaar must surely find him cold.

Salaar offered no resistance and simply conceded defeat. He let Myss wrap himself all over him and slept quite soundly.

Kalen had somehow summoned several plump wild chickens and let them perch on him for warmth, while completely ignoring Mr. Truman’s protest that wild birds were filthy.

That night, Myss had a strange dream.

He dreamed of that lifeless Salaar, on the verge of aging into oblivion.

The great hero’s brilliant golden hair had become mottled and dry. His misshapen back was curled like his fingernails. His breathing was weak and hurried, his frail chest rising and falling like a bellows.

Myss could smell the rot unique to old age, and the cold air that accompanied approaching death. Amid the tangled hair, those lapis-lazuli eyes gazed at him in silence.

Salaar, soon to become nothing more than a withered husk, destined to perish in a darkness known to no one.

Salaar, what were you thinking then?

Salaar, why were you smiling?

But Salaar was about to vanish. He could no longer answer any questions.

Whether it was the meaning behind those provocations, or the lyrics of those wretched songs, Myss would never know again.

A sudden, nameless fury surged up, tearing at Myss’s insides. It came with incredible abruptness, and terrible violence, like some malicious intruder.

…Myss’s eyes snapped open.

It was the middle of the night. Outside the carriage window was nothing but darkness.

His face was pressed against Salaar’s chest. A solid, full chest, with a rather pleasant feel to it, utterly unlike the dry-skinned ribs from his dream.

Salaar was still asleep, his head tilted slightly downward. The corners of his eyes slanted sharply upward, and the ends of his black hair curled faintly, like strands of seaweed wet from seawater. Together with that dark navy coat, he gave off a coldness like sea fog.

…And yet there was no question that Salaar’s body was warm. This human had become young and healthy, and death was, for the time being, far away from him.

What a strange dream, Myss thought groggily. Why would Salaar’s death make me angry? Exultant, maybe.

Come to think of it, the last thing that had puzzled him this much was the “trust” Mina had forcibly implanted in him…

Myss gave a massive yawn and tightened his arms a little. Then he burrowed his head farther into Salaar’s collar to steal a few more traces of warmth. Fork was still nestled on Salaar’s chest, stretching itself contentedly.

That inexplicable anger dissipated like mist.

By sunrise, Myss had forgotten all about it, as if it had been nothing more than an ordinary dream.

And besides, he had no time to dwell on it anymore. Their carriage came to a sudden halt, as if someone had stopped it by force.

“Everyone get out!”

The carriage door was yanked open, and a rough shout stabbed into their ears.

Fork bounced inside Salaar’s clothes and poked its head out unsteadily.

Myss also craned his head to look. A troop of cavalry had stopped outside their carriage, the horses blowing out clouds of white vapor. The rest of the caravan’s wagons had stopped too, and people were watching from a distance, not daring to come closer.

Well, this felt like trouble again. Myss, half awake and utterly baffled, followed Salaar out of the carriage.

Truman was the last to leave, moving even slower than a ninety-year-old man. His legs shook so badly he could hardly stand, and his face was as white as lime. Myss was quite sure that wasn’t just the work of the powder.

“Search him.” The cavalry captain swept his gaze around and fixed it directly on Truman.

Two riders immediately seized Truman, and a middle-aged man dressed like an artisan stepped forward and frisked him from head to toe.

“Found it, sir!” He tore off a glittering gemstone button. It had been sewn to the hem of Truman’s shirt and tucked into his trousers the whole time. Myss had never seen it before.

It was a huge ruby, or at least it looked like one. Even the thin morning fog couldn’t conceal its brilliance. Compared to the “ruby” on Salaar’s brooch, it was as different as heaven and earth.

“Lady Avril’s ruby, without a doubt,” the artisan said. “It’s absolutely the stolen one. There’s no way I could mistake it.”

“I’m from the Manning family! I’m a genuine nobleman! …Lady Avril gave me that gem herself!”

Truman shouted. Half of his face was still swollen, making his words come out somewhat comically. “If you dare throw me in prison, my father absolutely won’t let you off—”

The cavalry ignored him completely. “Take him away!”

In the morning fog, Myss wiped his face and poked Salaar beside him. “Hey, looks like you judged that one wrong. He really is just a thief…”

“Take these three as well. They might be his accomplices.” The cavalry captain swept them with a glance.

Myss: “?”

Kalen hurriedly stepped forward and displayed his kingdom religious credentials. “Sir, these two are my companions. I am willing to vouch for them.”

The cavalryman snorted and tugged on the reins in his hand. “How do I know whether that thing’s real or fake? This isn’t a small case. You’d better cooperate quietly.”

Kalen: “…”

Salaar glanced over the tightly packed crowd surrounding them and asked, “Are you all from Sepanti?”

The cavalryman said, “What kind of stupid question is that? Is there any other city nearby? Count yourselves lucky. Sepanti’s prison is much better than the ones elsewhere.”

“All right, we’re willing to cooperate.”

Salaar agreed obediently, then winked at Myss. “After all, we really are innocent.”

“Hard to say.” The man across from them sneered. “He stole a ruby, and you happen to be wearing a ruby. Who knows whether that isn’t some kind of contact signal…”

“What bullshit are you spouting? I gave that to him!” Myss bared his teeth.

The cavalryman arched his brow and let his gaze travel back and forth between Myss and Salaar several times.

“Oh, all right then. How touching,” he clicked his tongue. “I’ll make sure to remember to lock you two in the same cell.”

……

Myss was extremely dissatisfied. They had booked a perfectly decent carriage, and yet they still ended up suffering on the road.

At this very moment, all four of them had their hands and feet tightly bound with coarse hemp rope, lying face-down slung across saddles like four sacks of potatoes.

The main culprit Truman and the broad-shouldered Kalen each had a saddle to themselves. Only he and Salaar had been stacked together on one, and it was hard to say whether this counted as the cavalryman’s “special consideration.”

The only mercy was that perhaps the cavalry feared Salaar might crush him to death, so Salaar had been placed underneath him. Thus the Chaos Archdemon and the Hero had become two sacks of potatoes, jolted half to death by the trotting horse.

“I should’ve killed Truman from the start. Why did you stop me?”

Myss, jostled so hard he felt dizzy, fought down the urge to vomit. “See? There goes our carriage.”

Salaar said, “Don’t you think this is kind of amusing?”

“Which part?”

“The Chaos Archdemon doing jail time.”

“…”

Myss squirmed and bit Salaar’s shoulder. Unfortunately, thick layers of cloth stood between them, so the bite had rather limited destructive effect.

“Alright, jokes aside.”

Salaar chuckled softly. “If our innocence is proven, I’ll make this group of cavalry owe us a hefty favor. That will help a lot with the investigation.”

“And taking a step back, even if they really do throw us in prison, a prison is still a very good source of information.”

“Is there really nothing you care about?”

This ‘Great Hero’ really was too easygoing, Myss thought. Then again, this was someone who had eaten salt-roasted mushrooms in the darkness for three hundred years. His tolerance truly was astonishing.

“You know, there actually is one thing I care about.”

Salaar closed his lapis-lazuli eyes. “If we get dragged into something like this, news of ‘me’ will most likely spread.”

“I wonder how the Karns family will react… I just hope they don’t cause too much trouble.”

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The author has something to say:

Myss: If I think Salaar is nice and warm, then he must think I’m chilly too. That’s one win for me!
(Physics knowledge: zero.)

Salaar: Such a warm Archdemon blanket. Nice. [approved]

Kalen and the enthusiastic birds incubating him: zzzZZZ

A world where only Truman gets hurt has been achieved!

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