Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 37: An Embrace

‘No,’ Myss thought.

“No,” Salaar said with a beaming smile. “Child, that sort of request isn’t very polite.”

The child’s mouth flattened, and he looked as though he were about to cry. “Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sirs… I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Here we go again. It was that same attitude that made it feel like punching cotton.

Salaar considered for a few seconds, then revealed the fresh graze at the side of his neck. “A very dangerous flying insect landed on the pendant just now. I was only worried about you.”

The child froze on the spot. Salaar picked up the pendant, and golden magic swept over it.

Accompanied by Cinnamon’s hiss, a thread of magical fluctuation shot out and fled. There were too few gemstone objects nearby, so the Dragon Fae’s presence quickly vanished into the distance.

If it couldn’t ambush them, it ran. What a despicably slippery little thing. Myss glared in dissatisfaction towards the direction where the presence had disappeared.

“There, the bug has been chased away.” On the other side, Salaar smiled and patted the child on the head.

Myss realized that he had somehow gained a fascinating new ability. He was gradually becoming able to tell whether Salaar’s smile was genuine or not.

Take this moment, for instance, the Great Hero was absolutely putting on a fake smile. Salaar never smiled like this inside the seal.

Come to think of it, wasn’t this Great Hero just too good at acting?

Salaar played “Kendrick Karns” as though it were second nature, and he shifted his attitude toward other humans at will. Myss himself also retained faint memories the slave had, but never mind acting, he was already using all his strength just to suppress his instincts.

Is acting perhaps one of humanity’s social requirements…?

Myss was still pondering when Salaar stepped in front of him, his tall shadow brushing over Myss’s face.

“Let’s go first. We need to find Kalen.” Salaar kept it brief.

“You’ll still be needed after this, Mr. Bodyguard.” As he spoke, he scratched Cinnamon under the chin. Cinnamon purred happily, rubbing its forehead into Salaar’s palm.

Myss gave an absent hum of acknowledgement but remained standing where he was.

He had slept badly all night, so he was already somewhat groggy. At the moment, half his mind was filled with doubts about Salaar’s acting, and the other half with doubts about the truth behind Semper. He didn’t have much energy left to spare.

Salaar seemed to assume he didn’t want to go back into the Red Amber. His expression grew serious. “Listen. If you can’t handle enclosed spaces, then say so now. I still have time to change the plan.”

“If you lose control and explode inside the collection hall, this won’t end well.”

Myss finally snapped back to attention. “What do you mean?”

“It means I can sign the contract myself, and you and Kalen can stay outside and investigate. That Dragon Fae is after me, not you. You’ll be fine.”

“No.” Myss answered without a second thought. “That Dragon Fae isn’t weak. You can’t handle it alone.”

Salaar blinked. “Didn’t Iver say so himself? The Red Amber has strict internal security. I’ll bring more cats in with me. I can defend myself.”

“That’s still a no.” Myss insisted, “That thing can’t kill you. There can’t be even the slightest chance of it. Your life belongs to me.”

“Besides, it’s just a stone building. It doesn’t have the right to make me lose control. I just dislike it.”

“All right… Your words.”

“My words.”

……

A few blocks away.

Father Kalen walked contentedly down the street, biting into a rabbit meat pie. To him, today’s Semper wasn’t all that different from yesterday’s.

At his side followed a calico cat. This calico had never been kept by humans. As a pure stray, it knew every corner of the city like the back of its paw.

Its name, however, was quite a mouthful. Cats raised by humans might be called “Cinnamon,” “Cookie,” or “Sunshine.” Pure strays had longer names, like “White Kid with the Torn Ear” or “Cranky Old Tabby”*.

*Clarity: Compared to Cinnamon (肉桂), Cookie (曲奇), or Sunshine (阳光), White Kid with Torn Ear (缺耳朵的白色小孩) or Cranky Old Tabby (坏脾气的虎斑老头) has a lot more characters (and syllables) in Chinese.

At present, Father Kalen was traveling together with Miss Sharp-Claws the Calico.

After negotiation, Kalen had decided to call her simply Miss Claws.

“That shop won’t do, because humans are always arguing there? All right, thank you for the warning.”

Father Kalen passed a bright and elegant artifact shop without slowing down. Miss Claws moved gracefully along the low wall, mewing softly.

“The shop ahead gets more customers… Thank you very much for the recommendation!”

Kalen handed Miss Claws a dried little fish and strode toward the store the cat had recommended.

The shopfront was a bit old, dull and gray-looking. The owner was an elderly woman. When she heard the bell at the door ring, she looked up.

“Ma’am, I’d like to buy a few communication artifacts,” Kalen said warmly. “Do you have any recommendations?”

This was something Salaar had told him to buy, and it counted as “investigation necessities.”

The old woman pushed up her glasses and rummaged through the counter, pulling out a few odds and ends.

“This type of communication crystal has very good sound quality, works over long distances, and the magic on it lasts two years. But they’re heavy, so they’re better suited for use at home.” She pointed to a square transparent crystal.

Then she gathered up several snow-white conches set with pearls. “If it’s just for emergencies, I recommend these. They only work in Semper and last one month. But they’re light, sturdy, and aren’t affected by magical barriers.”

“Ten silver shields each. Buy more and I’ll give you a cheaper price.”

“Four, thank you.” Kalen took out his purse.

The old woman deftly wrapped up the magic conches and even threw in four handwoven cords for fastening them. “Thirty-five silver shields. Anything else?”

Kalen looked around. The little shop felt more like a combination of a secondhand store and general store. It even sold dried chicken treats for pets.

The Father picked out a small bag of dried chicken as well. As he passed the display case labeled Secondhand Ornaments and Jewelry, his steps paused slightly.

Kalen felt there was a strange kind of discordance about the display. He stepped back and looked at it several times. At last he realized the subtlety of it. The secondhand jewelry came in all kinds of color combinations, but the more red in the setting, the higher the price.

And that red setting couldn’t be garnet, red agate, or any other reddish gemstone. It had to be the standard dark red blood amber.

Kalen’s gaze shifted to the elderly shopkeeper herself. He noticed that her brooch, ring, and pendant all had different settings, yet every one of them included at least a little blood amber.

“Ma’am, I only arrived in Semper recently. Does blood amber have some special significance here?” Kalen asked. “Jewelry with blood amber seems to cost more than the others.”

“This is the latest fashion. You see, other gemstones are only stones. Amber is different. Amber is the product of life.”

The shopkeeper perked up immediately and launched right into the topic.

“Have you heard of that gem called the ‘Saint’s Blood’? How can a cold, lifeless rock be called the blood of a Saint? Only blood amber deserves a name like that. It is a proper ‘tears of God,’ a symbol of perfection.”

Tears of God? A symbol of perfection?

So this was a fashion trend of recent years. That made things troublesome. The priest’s brow twitched.

With this level of cultural influence, it would be very hard for him to judge whether the “red gemstone jewelry” Cinnamon had witnessed had any actual connection to the recent deaths.

“…So everyone buys this kind of jewelry,” Kalen continued.

The old woman’s tone grew more impassioned. “You don’t understand, child. The allure of art far exceeds your imagination. Come here.”

She stretched out a hand tipped with cherry-red nails, just about to press a blood amber pendant into Father Kalen’s palm—

“Meow—!” Miss Claws let out a piercing cry from outside.

“My apologies. My companions have come to find me. It was a pleasure talking with you.”

Father Kalen stepped back half a pace and picked up the bag containing his purchase.

“Goodbye, child. You’re welcome back anytime.” The old woman smiled kindly and waved at him.

That blood amber pendant was still pinched between her fingers, glowing with a soft halo.

Outside, Salaar and Myss were both pressed against the trunk of a tree, giving off a strangely suspicious burglar-like air. Cinnamon sat at their feet, mewing back and forth with Miss Claws about work matters.

With Cinnamon guiding them, it was no surprise they had found him. But—

“You two are here this early…?” Kalen asked in surprise.

They had arranged to meet at dusk. It was only afternoon now, and yet the two of them had already followed the cat here.

“Go buy some food,” Myss said miserably, twisting his face. “Something filling. And get some portable biscuits too.”

“Remember to buy for two, and you go alone. Sorry to trouble you, Father,” Salaar added wearily.

Cinnamon: “Mrrrow~ mm!”

Kalen: “……”

He didn’t understand, but it wasn’t an unreasonable request, so he decided to buy the food first and ask later.

Very soon, Father Kalen returned with greasy rabbit pies, grilled fish on wooden skewers, and coarse oat bread mixed with bits of dried fruit. He had also picked up two bottles of light ale along the way.

Salaar and Myss hugged the food and plunged straight into a dark alley. First they carefully checked through the meal, then they devoured it like a storm. Cinnamon buried its face in the grilled fish and ate with obvious delight.

All of Myss’s focus went into eating. His mouth was stuffed full. Salaar’s eating was relatively more refined, and he managed to free his mouth long enough to summarize the strange events they had encountered.

Father Kalen gravely raised his left hand, closed his eyes, and once again spent five long minutes sensing. At the end he sighed and gently shook his head.

“This is different from Rosha,” Kalen said. “The infected people in Rosha were points I could perceive. But here… the entire city of Semper is soaked in an even layer of ominousness. I can’t distinguish anything.”

Myss struggled to swallow a mouthful of pie. “Speaking of that, if that ‘Fallen Child’ had really been born… what would happen to the Abnormal Fruit—no, to Rosha?”

Kalen’s expression grew somber.

“To be honest, I’m not sure,” he said quietly. “I once saw a village destroyed by an Abnormal Fruit, but not because the monster was born. At the time, an astrologer from the Stargazers Society intervened, causing the Abroma Fruit to explode on the spot.”

Salaar chewing slowed to a crawl. “In other words, you don’t know what happens when the monster fully manifests.”

“That’s right. Neither my brother nor I have ever dealt with a monster that made it into the world.” Father Kalen let out a long sigh.

“But please believe me, monsters are not so easy to bring into being. Miss Scintilla from Rosha is already the most serious case I’ve ever encountered.”

‘No. I’m the most serious case,’ Myss thought, taking a vicious bite out of his pie.

Salaar gave him a subtle glance. Clearly, he had thought of the same thing.

Half an hour later, Cinnamon had eaten its fill of grilled fish and voluntarily requested overtime.

Miss Claws, who had originally been scheduled to take over, had no objections. Hearing that they were about to head to the Red Amber, she admitted she didn’t like staying in human buildings for too long. She promised she would recommend two more cats that had previously been pets.

Before they separated, Kalen handed the conch artifacts to the two of them. “Will the Red Amber really let you bring these inside?”

“We have our ways.” Salaar weighed one conch in his hand.

To Myss’s surprise, Salaar didn’t head to the Red Amber right away. Instead, he took Myss to… rent a room.

Salaar covered Myss’s head with his coat, claimed that “his friend was feeling unwell,” and booked a temporary room at an inn that looked highly improper.

Most of the people coming and going had their faces partly concealed, and Salaar used Myss’s scarf to cover the lower half of his own face as well. The innkeeper, evidently accustomed to such a sight, grinned broadly at the gold ring Salaar tossed his way and waved them straight upstairs.

The room was very cramped, with a bed that was ludicrously oversized for the space.

At the head of the bed were piled lubricating oils, heavily scented floral essences, and cloth towels of indeterminate cleanliness. Even so, the cheap floral perfume couldn’t hide the faint stench beneath it.

Myss sneezed and swiftly capped the perfume bottle. Cinnamon sneezed twice in succession and reluctantly followed them into the room.

In a sense, Salaar had chosen the room quite well. The shabby little place had very small windows covered tightly by thick curtains. There were no gemstones in the room, not even a shard of glass.

From next door came rounds of shrill cries and moans, which at least served as a form of soundproofing.

Salaar cast defensive magic over both the door and the windows before sitting down by the bed again.

“What’s your plan here?” Myss asked, plopping down on the floor. The bed linens smelled foul; he felt the floor was cleaner than the mattress.

Salaar also made no fuss about it. He sat down across from Myss. Three conch magic devices were laid out on the wooden floor between them. Just in case, Kalen had specifically given them one extra.

Cinnamon ran between the two of them and started pawing at the conches, only to get distracted by the dried chicken Salaar handed over and devote itself fully to chewing its snack.

“Your eyes can see the critical nodes of magic.” Salaar picked up one of the conch devices. “That means you can also identify the ‘non-critical’ parts.”

“You could put it that way.” Myss stared at the conch in Salaar’s hand, his pupils gradually losing its focus.

Sure enough, he quickly found the vague “terminal point.” The communication magic on the conch wasn’t complicated at all. It was easy to see through.

Salaar gave a low hum of acknowledgement and handed the conch to Myss. “Try annihilating the least important part.”

Myss lifted a brow and did as instructed. He could already vaguely guess what Salaar was thinking.

Black magic washed over the device little by little. The magic conch visibly melted down like ice in midsummer. Before long, only about a third of the original shell remained, looking utterly hideous,

“That’s the limit. If I strip away any more, the magic won’t function properly,” Myss said.

Salaar picked up the remains and examined them carefully, then handed them back. “That’s fine. Keep going. Preserve only the core.”

Myss pursed his lip, then took a deep breath. His magic became fine black threads that carefully devoured everything around the core of the device.

He had to admit, this was delicate work, finer even than what he had done with Scintilla. Myss held his breath completely, carving away at the shell with total concentration. Until—

Salaar: “Stop.”

Myss came back to himself. In his hand, the shell had been reduced to a thin little slice. The core of the magic array still remained, but the formation as a whole was incomplete and could no longer operate.

“This thing’s ruined,” Myss said with a shrug.

“No. You’ve done it perfectly.” Salaar took the little hard slice from him. “Now it’s my turn.”

Under Myss’s curious gaze, golden magic wrapped around the shell slice completely. It followed the pattern of the shell itself, carving delicate new traces into it.

…Interesting.

Using the intact core as a base, Salaar was reconstructing the communication formation from scratch, like restoring a damaged pocket watch.

The new array was smaller, denser, and much more mind-boggling than the original. The carved lines spread across every remaining part of the shell, and the finished product looked bizarrely compressed.

But it had exactly the same effect as before. As a result, the communication conch had been reduced to perhaps one-twentieth of its original size, or even less.

Then Salaar removed the openwork silver clasp from his belt and the badge from the Red Amber Collection Hall. Golden magic distorted the silver and used the shell slice as a backing, setting it into the rear of the platinum badge.

The shell slice and the spiral-shaped badge became one seamless whole, even more elegant than before.

“You’re using the badge’s strong magical fluctuation to hide the communication magic, aren’t you?”

Myss turned the newly made badge over in his hand, seeing straight through his archenemy’s little trick at a glance.

“In theory, a shell piece this small shouldn’t be able to hold a communication array, so they won’t inspect it too closely.” Salaar tossed Myss another conch magic device. “And we can simply say it’s to make the badge a bit more distinctive. After all, the relationship between you and me is one of a kind.”

“That much is true.”

Myss skillfully began trimming the second conch device. The first time was practice, the second was mastery. This time around, he could already spare some attention for other things.

“Hey, Salaar. Is there anything in this world that you can’t do?”

Salaar was well-versed in the lifestyle habits of the nobility, possessed talent for painting, and excelled at interacting with all kinds of people. Myss could begrudgingly accept all that as part of human “elite aristocratic education.”

But being able to redesign jewelry too? That was rather too much.

The year Salaar sealed himself into darkness, he had looked under thirty. How could he possibly have learned so many things?

“…Something I can’t do? Of course there is.” Salaar propped one hand against his cheek and smiled.

Myss’s ears perked up. “Like what?”

“I can’t bear children,” the Great Hero declared gravely.

Myss: “…”

Myss: “…I’m not joking with you.”

That one didn’t count. He couldn’t do that either. In fact, Myss thought about it quite seriously for a while and concluded his original form had no reproductive instinct whatsoever.

“Besides that. I can’t eat spicy food, I can’t perform court dances, I can’t judge cheese…”

Salaar scooped up the drowsy Cinnamon and kneaded the cat’s paw pads while its tail swished in contentment.

Knife had, unusually, left Salaar’s side. It was coiled at Myss’s feet, watching him work on the conch. Fork circled around it, eyes fixed on the tip of Knife’s tail.

Salaar went on listing the little trivial things he couldn’t do, all of them were just mundane minutiae of daily life. The more Myss listened, the more he frowned. The mood was starting to feel a little strange.

Indeed, something was definitely off.

Rather than “learning the enemy’s weaknesses,” this atmosphere felt much more like an exchange about personal habits before moving in together.

“Stop.” Lord Archdemon bared his teeth. “Not those. I mean something more serious. Something that actually matters.”

“…I don’t know what to do with you.” Salaar said, “Does that count? That’s all I can think of.”

Myss clicked his tongue. Fine then. In the end, the Great Hero had still told him nothing.

The second modified badge was finished soon after. Using the remaining shell and silver, Salaar made Cinnamon a pet tag with a tracking function. It had no communication capabilities, so the Red Amber wouldn’t interfere with it.

With a snap of Myss’s fingers, all the silver filings and shell fragments on the floor were devoured by black magic. Everything looked exactly as it had when they first entered.

Salaar looked around, tugged the bedclothes into greater disorder, and used a cloth to wipe away a large patch of lubricant.

Then he discovered that his constitution was too strong, and the marks on his body had already begun fading considerably. He stopped Myss. “Bite me a few more times. Don’t break the skin.”

Myss happily stepped forward.

Then he realized the positioning this time was a bit inconvenient. Salaar didn’t want to sit on the bed of dubious cleanliness, and Myss didn’t want to touch it either.

So he wrapped his arms tightly around Salaar and rose onto his toes so he could leave bite marks in more obvious places.

Myss liked this.

He liked marking his enemy. He liked the warmth of the other man’s body, the sensation of his fangs scraping along Salaar’s skin, and even more, the satisfaction of dominating it all.

Salaar’s body was always like a fully drawn bow, as though he had never truly left the battlefield. At this very moment, that bow had to lay down the arrow it had already nocked and could do nothing but strain uselessly. A strange urge toward destruction rose in Myss.

Not that he wanted to snap the bow. He was suddenly curious what it would look like slackened.

Myss’s embrace came too suddenly, and far too naturally that Salaar’s breathing hitched for a brief instant.

This wasn’t sleeping while leaning together in a carriage, nor was it like their ambiguous sprawl across a bed. Myss’s chest was pressed against his, both hands wrapped steadily around his back.

Without question, this was a standard embrace.

Salaar’s body froze in place, as if Myss hadn’t hugged him but stabbed him. For a second, he almost reflexively shoved the other away.

“You really did hide something from me.” After finishing his assault on the Great Hero’s neck, Myss licked his teeth with lingering satisfaction. “You obviously have something you’re extremely bad at.”

“You’re bad at being hugged by humans, Salaar,” he said, still holding him tightly.

Salaar was silent for a few seconds, then smiled with curved eyes. “That’s right. You got me… So, are you going to use hugs to attack me, Myss?”

“Believe me, I’ll consider it,” Myss huffed.

As he said it, he couldn’t help imagining Salaar’s death again.

Only this time, in the fantasy, he was holding Salaar’s body in a tight embrace until the other let out his final breath.

……

By the time night fell, the two of them were once again standing outside the Red Amber Collection Hall.

The communication conch devices, or perhaps “communication shell slivers” now, had already passed testing. They had successfully contacted Father Kalen and also brought over Cinnamon’s shift replacements: a ragdoll cat named Apple and an orange cat named Butter.

Fortunately, the Dragon Fae hadn’t attacked again. Who knew what kind of trick it was planning.

Two people and three cats still looked tiny before the stone building. Every window in the place was lit, and the silhouette resembled a crouching beast, its countless eyes wide open and staring down.

Myss blew out a breath at those windows. He had discovered that he disliked this place even more now.

…And, faintly, he had a bad feeling.

“Salaar.”

“Mm?”

“Once we go in, don’t stray far away from me.”

“I understand.”

“No. You don’t.” Myss muttered toward the windows, “No matter what kind of ridiculous rules are inside, no matter how human etiquette is supposed to work, you’re not allowed to compromise.”

“Swear it. Don’t leave my side by even a single step.”

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The author has something to say:

Salaar: ? Is that… really how this works?

Myss: It is, it is. [hugs]

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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone—!!! [fireworks]

Also, something I wanted to say:

I hope everyone can keep the comments friendly. People are naturally going to have different interpretations of the plot and characters, and that’s fine, as long as it’s not the kind of comment that attacks my CP (ship-bashing, anti-shipping, self-inserts/reverses). [prayer hands]

In any case, please be tolerant of differing opinions. Conflict between these enemy-lovers’ positions is unavoidable. The two lovebirds will work out all their contradictions themselves.

Let’s all keep things civil and harmonious… Pretty please? [begging] [begging] [begging] [begging] [begging] [begging] [begging] [begging]

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