Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 32: A Half-Day Tour of the Dungeon

Myss wasn’t sure whether he had been knocked senseless by the saddle or had simply fallen asleep, but by the time he was properly awake again, he was already sitting inside a dungeon cell.

Yes, a dungeon cell. The cavalry hadn’t bothered with any interrogation at all. They had simply thrown them straight into prison. Most importantly, that cavalry captain hadn’t kept his word at all—

He, Salaar, Kalen, and that damned Truman had all been locked up in the very same cell.

The cell door was made of thick oak planks, with a viewing slot set with densely packed iron bars so narrow that not even a gecko could squeeze through. Through the tiny opening, they could see two guards standing outside the door.

All four walls of the cell were stone. Near the edge of one wall was a vent narrower than an arm, and the air inside was somewhat stale.

The floor was covered in straw. In the corner sat a clay jar capped with a wooden lid, presumably the chamber pot. Fortunately, the cell itself was fairly dry, and there was no unbearable stench of waste.

…But Myss still found it unbearable.

This hellhole wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. The dust in the air made him sneeze several times, and his ribs ached faintly. If he didn’t want to become a fugitive again, he would have torn that offensive prison door right off and walked out.

He could be flexible about lodgings, but only when he was the one choosing them, not when he was being dragged down by some imbecile.

So the very first thing Myss did after recovering from his sneezing fit was seize Truman viciously by the collar and hoist that damned white-powdered fool into the air.

Truman cast a glance at the two guards outside and raised his voice. “I’m nnngh, I’m innocent! That gem was given to me by Lady Avril when she was drunk… Mmph!”

His face was still badly swollen, and he spoke as if his mouth were full of spit.

“When my father finds out… He’ll definitely come take me away… You just wait and see…”

Myss let out a cold laugh and lifted Truman even higher. Fork stared at that mouth with keen interest, as though considering which teeth to destroy next.

“Calm down, Myss.” Salaar rested one hand on Myss’s arm and pressed down gently, his gaze indicating the guards outside. “Things are troublesome enough already. We can’t become murderers too.”

Knife poked its head out from Salaar’s collar and nodded solemnly along with him.

“You talk as if you got a solution.” Myss clicked his tongue and finally let go. “What was it you said earlier? ‘Prisons are excellent sources of information’? Well? This place has nothing in it except this useless pest.”

He glared at Truman, slumped on the floor, and enunciated each word carefully, making sure every syllable landed squarely on Truman’s head.

Kalen, on the other hand, remained quite optimistic. He sat on the straw in a relaxed posture. “We just came from Rosha City, so we’re not short on witnesses. The misunderstanding will definitely be cleared up.”

“No. We have to find our own way out.”

Salaar glanced at the guards outside the door, then at the listless Truman. “…And as luck would have it, we happen to have a very good key. It’s growing right there in our friend’s mouth.”

Curious, Myss pinched Truman’s mouth open, but found nothing except faint bad breath and an irritating tongue.

“Where’s the key?” Myss turned to Salaar irritably.

“Come here. Let me show you a magic trick.”

Salaar cleared his throat twice and stepped close to the cell door.

“Honored gentlemen.”

Pressing himself right up against the viewing slot, Salaar addressed the two guards outside. “This place never sees the sun and it’s cold as hell. Terrible for the joints. You two are wearing such heavy armor. No trouble with your health?”

“Shut up and get away from there!”

One of the guards barked, pounding the viewing slot with his gauntleted hand. A layer of dust drifted down from the oak door.

“If I get that punk to confess, that ought to count as merit for the two of you, shouldn’t it?”

Salaar stayed pressed to the little window, his tone turning even more frivolous, his smile split into countless tiny squares by the frame of the opening.

“I don’t want my darling to suffer in a place like this. I specifically brought him to Semper to buy jewelry and cheer him up. If this keeps up, he’s absolutely going to break up with me.”

As he spoke, he deliberately pointed at Myss, as if worried neither the guards nor Myss would notice.

Kalen immediately shot Myss a look that plainly said, I knew it. Myss covered his face in despair, utterly baffled as to what sudden fit of madness had suddenly seized the Great Hero.

But Myss didn’t say a word. When one interrupted Salaar in the middle of one of his antics, the person who suffered for it was usually oneself.

Hearing that they might get a confession, the guards exchanged glances. They didn’t chase Salaar away again, but neither did they answer him directly.

“That brat’s a noble, so I know it’s inconvenient for you to lay hands on him. I can do the dirty work for you. I guarantee I won’t leave any marks… that way I can get out sooner, and you two might even get transferred to better posts. Just imagine that glorious sunshine waiting outside…”

Salaar’s voice dropped lower, full of a cool, creeping temptation. Coupled with that face of his, the whole scene was so wicked it sent a chill down the spine.

Perhaps the thought of warm sunshine was simply too enticing. In the end, the guards failed to resist.

They coughed twice and deliberately turned their backs. Their metal boots scraped harshly across the stone floor with a clacking sound.

Against that chilling background noise, Salaar kept smiling as he slowly turned toward Truman.

Truman shuddered on the spot. He scrambled backward on hands and knees until he hit the corner, his swollen face twisting. “I mmmph… really am innocent…”

“If you dare lay one finger on me… the Manning family won’t let you off…”

Salaar crouched down in front of him, turning his back to the viewing slot.

“Shh. Quiet now.” Salaar pressed one finger to his lips and spoke softly. “Trust me. It’s not frightening at all. You just need to relax.”

Tears streamed down Truman’s face as he shook his head frantically. His pleas and threats slurred together into an incoherent mess that sounded more like an animal’s wail.

Myss instantly came alive.

While Salaar was certainly detestable, at this particular moment, Truman was far more a greater nuisance. He darted behind Salaar in a single step, helping the Great Hero block the viewing slot.

Salaar gave him a faint smile and quietly extended his left arm.

Under Truman’s terrified stare, Salaar conjured that lute of flesh and blood once more, its strings glowing with a faint red light.

Myss was a little surprised. He had almost completely annihilated Scintilla’s magical core, yet Salaar still retained Mina’s magic somehow. There was no telling how much power it still held.

…In the end, the Great Hero had only plucked three soft notes before Truman broke down completely.

He burst into tears on the spot, sniffling and trying to throw himself into Salaar’s arms, only to be stopped in place by one of Myss’s fingers. There was a good chance Myss would have to use Salaar for warmth again tonight, and he certainly didn’t want this brat’s snot getting on him.

“Waaah, Mommy, waaahhh!”

Unable to get his hug, Truman seemed to forget all about his toothache and cried like an oversized infant.

“Tell me. What exactly happened?”

Salaar played another stretch of extremely soft melody, making sure not a single sound could pass through the oak door.

Myss felt the caution was a little unnecessary. Truman was already bawling so loudly that it was starting to hurt his ears.

“Wahhh, I-I was just confused for a moment…!” Truman wailed as he sobbed, recounting the whole story in broken pieces.

Truman’s family, the Manning family, was an old aristocratic house from the capital. Not a major one, but reasonably wealthy.

At a salon gathering not long ago, Truman had met the famous “Queen of Society,” Lady Avril.

Lady Avril happened to be wearing the renowned Saint’s Blood, a priceless ruby ring said to possess miraculous effects against curses and amplify magical power.

That day, Lady Avril had been in a good mood. She drank a little wine and dozed off in the garden.

Coincidentally, Truman happened to have brought with him an exquisitely made imitation of the Saint’s Blood.

Such things were rather popular among the capital’s noble circles. Their workmanship was far better than ordinary jewelry. But compared with the original, those rubies always had one subtle flaw or another, which greatly reduced their value.

Truman had only just acquired his imitation. The gem’s quality was quite good. He had meant to admire it together with friends and hadn’t yet worn it on his finger.

At that moment, he saw the sleeping Lady Avril, and in his own words, he “lost his head.”

Truman gently slipped Lady Avril’s ring off and replaced it with the replica, so similar that the switch was almost impossible to detect.

…He had intended to use the stolen Saint’s Blood to create a top-tier magical artifact and attract the attention of the Stargazers Society.

Yet he had underestimated Lady Avril’s sharpness and influence. On the fourth day after leaving the capital, he was caught red-handed by an investigative cavalry unit that had been lying in wait here.

The entire affair was full of stupidity and shortsightedness. The more Myss thought about the fact that he had been dragged down by someone this idiotic, the angrier he became.

“There’s still a way to fix this… right, Mommy?”

Truman whimpered pitifully, the powder on his face long since washed into streaks by tears. “As long as she knows which family we are, Lady Avril won’t go that far… right, Mommy?”

“I’ll say… I’ll say she was drunk and wanted a little amusement… and swap the Saint’s Blood with mine…”

Salaar gave no reply. He merely withdrew the lute strings with cruel finality.

Truman came to himself as if waking from a dream. He dimly realized what he had said and began gasping in despair. Father Kalen had just started to move toward him when Truman went limp and fainted onto the straw.

“He’s just badly frightened. Nothing serious.”

Kalen checked his condition in passing, then dragged him into a corner of the room and symbolically covered him with some straw.

“So, that’s how things stand.” Salaar rose to his feet and brushed bits of straw from his coat. “You two gentlemen heard it. The kid just had a complete mental collapse and screamed all his secrets out.”

“Now that you know the exact time of the switch, it should be easy enough to find witnesses and physical evidence.”

“You’ve got some skill after all.”

One of the guards said this, his tone softened considerably. The other had already hurried off, eager to report the matter to the investigative cavalry.

“Just a minor little trick.” Salaar leaned back by the door again.

“If things go smoothly, you should be able to leave very soon,” the guard said. “Still, I’m afraid you’ll probably have to spend the night here. Even if that confession proves useful, the higher-ups always have procedures and formalities. Tomorrow is the earliest possible.”

In other words, if they endured today, they would be fine. Myss let out a breath of relief. He had no desire to have Truman as a long-term cellmate.

Even from this distance, Truman’s body odor was reaching him. In comparison, Salaar smelled practically fragrant.

That said, Salaar’s behavior had been rather strange. Compared to the great hero Myss knew, the mannerisms had actually resembled that crazed Kendrick Karns much more—

“It’s good enough that the matter’s settled.” Salaar grinned toward the guard. “Say, brother, are there any places with a bit more style in the city? I’d like to take my darling around somewhere nice.”

“The bigger jewelry stores are all good, just outrageously expensive, so that’s your own problem.”

The guard was in a decent mood now and actually chatted with him. “No need to look at those messy little shops. They’re all apprentices’ practice pieces, not worth the money.”

“Thanks, thanks. Anything else? I heard there’s a place called the Red Amber Collection Hall…”

“Oh, Red Amber. Whoever told you about it really knows their stuff.”

A trace of pride entered the guard’s voice. “That place houses the finest works of art in all of Aufon, with a huge variety. Paintings, sculptures, specimens, jewelry… Everyone says if there’s a perfect masterpiece in Semper, it must be at the Red Amber.”

“That said, it’s a place only the nobility can enter. Forget commoners like us. Even minor nobles can’t get invitations… though…”

The guard turned his head and looked toward Myss, whose face was full of something he clearly wanted to say but couldn’t. In all the murky shadows of the cell, only that beautiful young man stood out in perfect clarity. It was difficult to look away.

“Though?”

“Besides the top nobility, top craftsmen and models can get in too.” The guard lowered his voice mysteriously. “You could go in under the pretext of ‘recruiting models’ and take a secret look around while you’re there.”

“What an excellent idea. Thank you so much!”

Salaar exclaimed in a tone of perfectly measured gratitude and delight.

The guard laughed amicably. “Hope you all enjoy yourselves.”

Myss: “…”

He had an extremely ominous feeling.

Was there really no simpler method? Why did every path somehow lead back to him getting mixed up with humans?

Perhaps heaven heard the Archdemon’s prayer. Before night fell, the gloomy cell received a new visitor.

A set of elegant, brisk footsteps, utterly out of place in a prison, approached from afar and came to a stop right outside their door.

Truman, who had only just woken up, seemed to seize upon a lifeline and craned his neck desperately to look.

…Creak.

The heavy oak door slowly swung open.

Standing in the doorway was a gentleman in his thirties. He was handsome, clean-shaven, and carried himself with considerable refinement.

He wore a severe yet elegant black formal suit, white gloves, and a top hat decorated with unusual gemstones. Only when Myss looked closely did he realize they were carefully inlaid butterfly wings.

The two guards from earlier in the day stood behind him with their heads bowed respectfully, their postures humble.

“Kendrick Karns,” the man called in a deep voice, his gaze locking immediately onto Salaar.

“…Y-you, you’re that Kendrick Karns?” Truman screamed.

Apparently the so-called Karns family was quite a bit stronger than Truman’s, Myss thought. Truman looked even more panicked now.

Salaar sighed and nodded. “If you intend to take me away, you must take my companions as well.”

The gentleman smiled faintly and swept his gaze over Myss and Kalen, lingering on Myss for quite a while.

“Friends? That is somewhat different from what I heard,” he said, gesturing to the guards.

The guards blocked Truman so the other three could leave the cell at leisure. Before long, the heavy wooden door closed again, shutting Truman’s sobbing behind it.

The gentleman stepped in front of Salaar and gave a slight bow. “Antis Crosien, a friend of the Karns family. Just call me Anti.”

“All right, Anti.”

Salaar’s tone turned lazy. “I thought the family had forgotten all about me. Those damned bandits burned down my house. I nearly ended up sleeping on the street.”

“You were supposed to wait for assistance in Ring Town.”

Anti spoke in a soothing, de-escalating tone. “But as far as I know, you ran off to Rosha City first.”

“Oh, my new friend wanted to go home for a visit.”

Salaar reached over and draped an arm around Myss’s shoulders, his thumb brushing lightly over the side of Myss’s neck in what felt like deliberate reassurance.

“…Besides, Ring Town wasn’t especially friendly to me. You know how it is.”

Anti looked him over with an appraising gaze, clearly aware of just how many vile things Kendrick Karns had done. “You really have changed a great deal.”

“It’s the power of love.”

Salaar said this with feeling, tightening his arm around Myss. “The bards all say sweet love can completely transform a person. I didn’t believe it at first, either.”

Their skin touched, and so did their goosebumps.

In a desperate bid to escape this hellhole as quickly as possible, Myss struggled hard to suppress the urge to roll his eyes.

In truth, Myss understood that this time Salaar wasn’t deliberately trying to disgust him.

Even though Salaar was doing his best to imitate “Young Master Karns,” he had changed too quickly and too much. Under those circumstances, it simply wasn’t believable that he had merely “suddenly become close friends with some slave.”

Claiming the two of them had fallen in love at first sight was already a comparatively reasonable explanation.

Anti’s evaluating gaze shifted toward him at once. Myss lowered his eyes and instantly transformed himself into a statue.

Calm down, Myss, calm down. A misunderstanding at this level is nothing. That book “Sweet Trap” was far more outrageous than this.

Thank goodness Anti didn’t pry into their “earth-shattering love story.” “The Karns family will be sending someone soon. Please bear with it and stay at my residence for two days first. Naturally, your companions as well.”

“Oh? We can go out?” Salaar asked in a tone so neurotic it was almost provocative. “You’re not planning to just switch us into a prettier cage, are you?”

Anti didn’t take offense. “Now that you are no longer prisoners, of course you may move freely.”

“Also, if you have any other needs—reasonable ones—I’ll do my best to provide support.”

“Wonderful!” Salaar clapped his hands once. “Then I want an invitation to the Red Amber Collection Hall. Right now.”

“…” Anti fell silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. That’s not possible.”

“Why not?” Salaar said in dissatisfaction. “By Saint Salaar above, is the surname Karns not enough to qualify?”

“This guy promised to take me to the Red Amber Collection Hall,” Myss cut in. “For Chaos Archdemon’s sake, we’re not giving up on that.”

“The Red Amber Collection Hall has been closed for three days already. No one knows when it will reopen.”

Anti explained this calmly. “I know this very well, because I happen to work there.”

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The author has something to say:

Happy National Day, everyone—!!! [panda head][panda head][panda head]

Salaar: Since I’m being wildly misunderstood anyway, I might as well seize the initiative! [eating melon]

Myss: Could this possibly be worse than “Sweet Trap”? [propping chin on hand]Some thoughts of the gong shou dynamics…
(Yes, that phrase is correct.)

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