Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 35: An Eventful Night

Myss and Salaar returned to Mr. Anti’s residence without any warning.

Unfortunately, it was already quite late, and Mr. Anti himself had gone to bed. The one who opened the door was a temporarily hired valet. The servant observed proper professional etiquette and merely asked the two of them with utmost courtesy, “Good evening. Is there anything you require?”

“A late-night meal. Meat included,” Myss said. The effects of those little chocolate treats had worn off, and he was hungry again.

“Iced botrytized wine, roast veal, almond milk chicken soup, and seasonal fruit pudding, preferably with raspberries.” Salaar dutifully played his role as a spoiled young nobleman. “For two. Bring it to the bedroom door. We won’t be eating in the dining room.”

The string of nouns drifted through Myss’s brain like sleep-talk, but he caught the word veal and didn’t object.

The servant nodded obediently and withdrew with elegance. Myss returned to the guest room and immediately hurled himself onto the soft, spacious bed.

“I’m exhausted,” he groaned, stretching his limbs as far as he could.

“Wash up first, then rest,” Salaar said.

“You’re not exactly running low on magic, are you? What happened to your cleansing spell?”

Myss refused to move no matter what. Fork had already slithered out of his pocket and was happily coiling itself on the pillow.

“Kendrick Karns can’t use magic,” Salaar said cruelly as he reached down to haul Myss up. “Either you bathe first, or I drag you in to bathe with me. Your choice.”

“The Karns family would never tolerate themselves eating while filthy.”

Salaar clearly had his mind made up, so Myss had no choice but to leave the bed in misery.

The real Kendrick Karns spent all day indoors, probably with enough hair grease to squeeze out by the pound. Did “turning over a new leaf” really require acting the part this far?

But the moment Myss saw the bathroom attached to the guest room, he brightened again.

The bathtub was made of white porcelain, smooth and warm to the touch, with plenty of room. The brass faucet had been enchanted, and the flowing water came out at exactly the right temperature. On the edge of the tub sat fragrant spherical magic devices that released dense foam as soon as they touched water.

Myss poked every button around the tub one by one and discovered a mechanism that produced massaging streams of water, as well as a warm-air enchantment with different built-in scents. He even found a music function. It was controlled by a dial, and he could choose from four different kinds of music.

On the wall beside the tub was a swan relief. The swan’s eyes were carved from obsidian, and the workmanship was exquisite, exceptionally detailed.

Truly big cities were a different breed. Compared to this, the bathtub in Ring Town had basically been just a somewhat oversized bucket.

Myss chose a sweet fruit fragrance he liked and rolled around in the warm water. Then he created a huge amount of bubbles and buried himself completely inside them.

He was reveling in his fun when suddenly a chill breeze brushed past him.

The current of cold air was extraordinarily faint, as light as a breath, and carried a trace of magical fluctuation.

Myss instantly ducked beneath the water, exposing only half his face as his emotionless gaze swept toward the source.

The fluctuation came from the relief swan on the wall. More precisely, it came from one of its obsidian eyes.

The magical fluctuation was almost nonexistent, but Myss would never mistake it. His first instinct was to blast it with black magic, but the Salaar in his head shouted No! Don’t exposed too much at the start of an investigation, and so on.

So Myss simply flicked his arm, sending a mass of foam flying over to cover the obsidian eye completely.

Whoosh.

The fluctuation paused slightly, then slipped quickly out of the obsidian like a startled fish. A few seconds later, one of the crystal bottles on the platform gave off an almost imperceptible tremor of magic.

…Interesting.

Smack!

Another glob of foam flew out and engulfed the little bottle of essential oil.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

The gems on the statues, the crystals on the chandelier, even the glittering inlays in the floor… White foam pursued that strand of magical fluctuation, attacking every corner of the bathroom with equal vigor.

Lord Archdemon’s string of actions was anything but small. Water splashed all over the floor, and bottles and jars were knocked askew all over. At last, after that relentless hunt, the fluctuation disappeared completely.

The taste of victory was sweet indeed. Myss stretched lazily in satisfaction and blew a string of bubbles into the water.

“Myss, dinner’s here…”

Salaar pushed the door open, and the chaotic wreck of the bathroom came into view. A huge lump of foam slid off the chandelier and plopped down into his hair.

Salaar: “…”
Salaar: “You seem to be enjoying bathing quite a bit.”

“That’s what you get for not knocking,” Myss said gleefully, flinging a handful of foam at him.

Salaar dodged with practiced ease, looking as though he wanted to sigh again. “As though you’d have let me in if I had knocked.”

Then, right there in the open, Salaar cast a cleansing spell on himself.

Myss objected on the spot. “How can you use magic? Didn’t you say Karns doesn’t—”

“With the state you’ve turned this bathroom into, they’ll only think we bathed together.”

Salaar wiped at his face. “Hurry up and put on your nightclothes. Come out and eat.”

Myss grumbled, climbing out of the warm embrace of the bath only to catch the towel Salaar threw at him straight in the face. This bath had actually been rather fun, so he decided not to argue with the Great Hero this time.

The meal Salaar had ordered was delicious. The beef was tender and fresh, the wine sweet and crisp. Myss ate and drank his fill, his whole body still warm from the bathwater, wrapped in a blissful haze of satisfied dizziness.

He flowed onto the bed like syrup and didn’t bother fighting Salaar for territory this time.

Of course, Lord Archdemon wasn’t voluntarily playing the role of a “lover sharing a bed.” In reality, he had already mastered the key to fighting Salaar over sleeping space. As long as he could turn the Great Hero into a cushion, sharing one bed was perfectly acceptable. Salaar himself didn’t seem to mind, so why not?

Come to think of it, should he tell Salaar about that magical fluctuation?

Myss thought drowsily, settling his face onto Salaar’s chest with practiced ease. The muscles there were warm and springy, much better to sleep on than an ordinary pillow.

Forget it. The fluctuation had been so weak. Maybe it was just some kind of bug… and now he couldn’t sense it at all anyway. Telling Salaar in the morning would be fine, right…

…Less than two hours later, Myss regretted that decision.

In the middle of the night, he was sleeping soundly when that same presence woke him again.

Myss opened his eyes in annoyance and frowned at the jewel lamp by the bedside. The lamp was giving off a faint but irritating fluctuation, like a mosquito buzzing by his ear.

“What is it?” Salaar stirred awake at Myss’s movement.

“A strange presence,” Myss muttered. “There’s something wrong with the gems in this room. They keep giving off weird magical fluctuations.”

“It could be the craftsman’s work,” Salaar suggested. He had heard that gems cut with magic sometimes retained traces of the artisan’s own magical signature.

Myss rubbed his eyes. “No, that’s not it. I know what residual fluctuations feel like. This is different… but I don’t know what it is either…”

He had only just woken, and the presence on the lamp had already vanished again. Now he had no idea where it had gone.

Salaar touched the front of Myss’s sleep shirt, confirming that the Red Amber protective badge was still there. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

Myss made a sleepy sound and buried his face into Salaar’s chest again.

He had been asleep for less than an hour when that maddening magical presence drew near once more, flicking at his nerves—

Crash! A burst of annihilation magic shot out and shattered the jeweled flower vase on the table.

That was enough. It was too irritating.

Myss sat up off Salaar, grabbed the half-asleep Fork in one hand, and decided to drag out that damned “mosquito.” Salaar was jolted awake again, and this time he simply turned on the light.

“Deal with it before going back to sleep. Don’t use too much magic. You pin it down, and I’ll seal it with defensive magic.”

The moment he finished speaking, Lord Archdemon began ricocheting wildly around the room.

Myss lunged toward the gem lamp at the bedside and snatched it up, only to hurl it aside the next instant and throw himself at the agate-inlaid clock on the wall. He had barely snapped off its hands before he slammed open the balcony door and seized the silver tray with the colored glass decoration. The tray went flying downstairs, and Myss bounded up to the ceiling to tear the ornamental crystal from the top of the bed curtains.

Salaar watched the Archdemon darting all over the room with an expression that defied description. He kept a wooden face and, one-handed, shoved the bed rhythmically as if providing accompaniment.

But the longer he watched, the more serious his expression became. During the chase, quite a few injuries had appeared on Myss’s body.

The Archdemon was too worked up to care, and because the wounds didn’t do much real damage, he didn’t pause for even half a second because of them.

But Salaar saw them clearly.

There were bruises like impact wounds, bloody gashes like cuts from blades, even a few droplets of blood on the carpet. Myss’s sleepwear was loose, and his skin was exceptionally pale, making the wounds stand out starkly.

…And yet Salaar could see only the injuries, not the “thing” that had inflicted them. Even the hostile presence he had sensed during the day had vanished. The whole situation was indeed strange.

Whatever had slipped into their room was absolutely no simple matter.

Finally, with lightning speed, Myss tore the citrine crystal from the floor lamp shade. “Now!”

Salaar’s protective magic activated at once, wrapping around the citrine from all sides. With a shriek, the mysterious being finally revealed itself.

A beam of light shot out from the citrine and condensed into a humanoid shape.

The thing was only about the length of a hand. At first glance it looked like a tiny person with wyvern-like wings.

He—or she—wore light armor and had an extremely slender build, with no visible sexual characteristics at all. That beautiful face was just as androgynous, youthful, exuding an aura of adolescence.

The tiny figure had short rose-gold hair, and from within it protruded a pair of miniature draconic horns. His eyes resembled emeralds, and his limbs were covered in beautiful jewel-like scales… In his hand he gripped a citrine blade, and there was blood on its edge.

“What kind of thing is that? A fairy?” Myss stared at it in confusion.

Yes, the magical fluctuation had been coming from this creature all along. Now it had gone stiff-faced, looking so terrible it was almost frightening.

But when it came to fairies, they existed only in tales spun by bards. At least, Myss had never seen a living one.

“I’m a Dragon Fae!”

The tiny figure was furious. While shrieking in a high voice, he hacked furiously at the magical shield with his citrine blade. “Damn it, damn it—why is this thing so hard—”

Myss turned blankly to look at Salaar, only to find the Great Hero equally bewildered.

“A Dragon Fae?” Salaar murmured, stepping closer. “Truly the world is filling up with stranger and stranger things…”

The moment Salaar drew near, the Dragon Fae’s mouth twitched.

Myss’s hair stood on end. He slammed bodily into Salaar.

At the same moment, Salaar’s defensive barrier shattered into dust.

The Dragon Fae shot out at astonishing speed, like an arrow aimed straight at Salaar. Fortunately, the Archdemon had reacted fast enough. The two of them fell back onto the bed just in time, and the Dragon Fae merely sliced through the back of Myss’s pajamas.

Fork opened its mouth wide. Myss fired a black beam backward with one hand.

The black magic pierced through the Dragon Fae’s wings. He immediately dove into the jewel lamp by the bed. The next moment, the gem there crumbled to ash, as if it had taken the damage in his place.

By the time Myss came to himself again, the presence had vanished completely. The Dragon Fae had fled in a flash, leaving only a complete mess of a bedroom behind.

Stepping over overturned furniture and shards, Salaar sat down by the bed. “Very likely an assassin sent by the Karns family.”

“The End of the World is in Iver’s hands, and I just agreed to paint a new work for him. Even if the Red Amber wanted to murder us and steal our belongings, they wouldn’t pick such an idiotic time.”

For once, Myss didn’t mock Salaar. He could tell that even though the Dragon Fae was tiny, he was by no means weak.

That creature had hidden his presence almost perfectly and moved at terrifying speed. So far, he also seemed able to conceal himself inside gemstones and possessed a high degree of magical resistance. Salaar’s defensive spell wasn’t something that should have been so easy to break.

A highly dangerous assassin.

Whatever the actual quality of the Dragon Fae’s magic, speed alone would let him punch straight through Salaar’s chest. Myss had protected him this time, but he couldn’t stare at Salaar every minute of every day.

Salaar’s face was grave. He appeared to be thinking exactly the same thing.

Since sleep was clearly no longer an option, Myss’s eyes shifted, and he decided to drag Father Kalen out of bed too. The priest knew a great deal of modern information. Maybe he had some strange trick.

But just as Myss was about to go, Salaar grabbed him.

“Bite my shoulder,” Salaar instructed, pointing to the area between his shoulder and neck. “Then scratch my arm and back a few times.” 

Myss blinked in confusion. “?”

“This is for the performance. It’s a rare opportunity for you to strike without me fighting back. Don’t you want to try?

Oh, he definitely wanted to try.

Myss braced one knee against the bed and happily bent down, biting into Salaar’s shoulder and neck. Salaar’s skin was smooth and firm, actually rather satisfying to bite. Myss bit very slowly on purpose, applying slight pressure with his teeth as his sharp canines leisurely pierced the skin. A few tiny beads of blood welled up, and he couldn’t resist licking them, tasting a faint sweetness tinged with iron.

True to his word, Salaar offered no resistance; he merely gave a slight twitch as Myss licked the wound.

Golden magic floated lightly into the air, healing the small wounds on Myss’s body.

Then Myss set to work with his fingernails. Unfortunately, not long ago Salaar had thoroughly groomed him. The slave’s long nails had been trimmed neatly and smoothly, so all he could manage were a few faint bloody marks.

“That’s enough.”

Before Myss had scratched to his satisfaction, Salaar had already thrown on a loose sleeping robe. He deliberately left the neckline hanging open, exposing the bite marks.

“Now we can go visit Mr. Kalen,” he said softly.

……

“A Dragon Fae attacked you?”

Kalen looked deeply shocked, as though he had just heard that Salaar had been bitten by a rabbit.

The priest was wearing his sleepwear with rigid neatness, as if he had only just woken. For some reason, there was also a calico cat asleep on his bed with all four paws in the air.

“This is highly abnormal. Are you certain the attacker was a Dragon Fae? As far as I know, Dragon Fae abhor killing. They’re famous for gemstone craftsmanship. A well-known ‘artisan race’… much like the dwarves.”

Father Kalen poured a cup of herbal tea, his brows tightly furrowed. “A Dragon Fae assassin sounds about as absurd as a dwarf model.”

“He called himself a Dragon Fae.”

Realizing that the priest actually knew what Dragon Fae were, Myss quickly began demonstrating with gestures, carefully describing the attacker’s appearance. “…And he can hide inside gemstones, and his weapon was made of a gem too.”

“He even shattered my defensive magic,” Salaar added.

Father Kalen glanced at Salaar, his gaze touching the bite marks only briefly before averting it.

The whole story sounded deeply unreasonable, but not long before this, he too had heard strange sounds. Now that he thought back, there had always been a gemstone nearby each time.

“What you described are indeed Dragon Fae traits. They claim to be ‘born from magic, buried in magic,’ and they don’t even reproduce like other living beings. They are praised as ‘the purest magical beings’.”

Kalen sank into thought.

“That only makes it stranger… Dragon Fae clearly possesses formidable magical talent and would never struggle to survive. Why would one go into the business of assassination?”

“Oh, I don’t care about his motives.”

Myss said, “I just don’t want that thing bothering me again. It ruined my entire night’s sleep.”

“Perhaps we could inform Mr. Anti—”

“No!” Myss and Salaar said in unison.

“…Then the two of you had best cover any gemstones on you and stay as far from jewelry shops as possible.” Father Kalen advised, “Ah, and I can also introduce the two of you to bodyguards.”

Bodyguards? Myss raised a brow.

Kalen had just described Dragon Fae as almost impossibly formidable. What kind of bodyguard could stop one?

In response, Father Kalen turned around and picked up the sleeping calico cat from the bed. The cat let out a soft sound, stretched long in his arms, and let out a wide yawn.

“Allow me to introduce Mr. Cinnamon,” Kalen said. “He knows many sharp ladies and gentlemen, and their eyes can follow the flight path of Dragon Fae.”

“Dragon Fae have strong magical resistance, but insufficient physical endurance. That means they can only attack at close range. Cats, on the other hand, have exceptional dynamic vision. If the cats help keep watch for you, then the moment a Dragon Fae approaches, they’ll be able to warn you.”

The calico cat sized up the two of them for a moment, then let out a sweet little “meow.”

“Of course, the two of you will need to cover the additional bodyguard fee.” Father Kalen looked slightly embarrassed. “One fat sea bass per day, or two tender chicken breasts.”

Myss and Salaar: “…”

Who would have thought Father Kalen actually did have a trick up his sleeve? Although, admittedly, it was a rather eccentric trick.

After an hour of negotiations, the calico cat Cinnamon officially became the Great Hero’s honorary bodyguard. It stood on Myss’s shoulder with dignified poise, a pretty pale green ribbon now tied around its neck.

“He can provide eight hours of security.” Father Kalen nodded in satisfaction. “And there are two others rotating shifts, which guarantees that Mr. Salaar will have bodyguards twenty-four hours a day.”

“Meow!” said bodyguard Cinnamon. “Hiss—”

“When they notice an extremely fast-moving creature approaching, they will immediately hiss a warning. That sound just now was a demonstration,” Father Kalen translated solemnly.

“Why is it sitting on me? Isn’t it supposed to be Salaar’s bodyguard?” Myss protested.

Fork, coiled around Myss’s wrist, eyed the cat with dissatisfaction. Cinnamon purred and narrowed its eyes from Myss’s shoulder. “Meow.”

The priest translated, “It means that in case they accidentally misjudge things, this arrangement makes it less likely they’ll get caught in the attack.”

Myss and Salaar: “…………”

Was this fluffy bodyguard really reliable?

Still, all things considered, this did currently seem like the most effective defensive measure available.

After briefly discussing the situation, Myss returned to their room with the cat still perched on him and decided to get some more sleep.

But the moment he turned Salaar into a cushion and settled down, the cat jumped onto his back and turned him into a cushion as well. The three of them were stacked together like some bizarre sort of plating arrangement.

Still, the cat was warm, Salaar was warm, and Myss found that, barely, acceptable. Accompanied by the bodyguard’s rumbling purr, Myss fell asleep at once.

…And this time he slept very soundly.

Yet only two hours later, Mr. Anti came knocking at their door.

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The author has something to say:

The cat is lying on Myss’s back, and Myss is lying on Salaar’s chest. In the end, the Great Hero bears all the weight.

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