Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 38: A Sense of Wrongness
“It’s an honor to work with the two of you.”
After the contract was signed, Iver once again wore a smile fit for a lover.
Unfortunately, one of the people he was smiling at was busy petting a cat, and the other was also doing the exact same thing.
Myss was currently playing with the orange cat Butter, while Salaar was occupied stroking Cinnamon. At the moment, the ragdoll cat Apple was on guard duty. It sat solemnly by Myss’s feet, its bright blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on Salaar.
Regardless, the contract signing had gone smoothly.
The End of the World would temporarily be held by the Red Amber Collection Hall, with a weekly lending fee of two hundred gold rings, six hundred of which the Red Amber paid in advance. Salaar and Myss were both hired by the Red Amber at the same time, with the work period tentatively set at one month. Their combined pay came to two thousand eight hundred gold rings, with half of it paid upfront.
In other words, the moment they signed the contract, they received the enormous sum of two thousand gold rings. That was enough money for a commoner to live comfortably for an entire lifetime.
Compared to that, what they had to do was pitifully simple.
Salaar only needed to complete a new work within one month, with Myss as the main subject. Quality didn’t matter. If one month wasn’t enough, the two sides could extend the work period depending on circumstances.
During that time, all expenses would be covered by the Red Amber. As long as the two of them didn’t cause some vicious incident that led to injury or death, it wouldn’t count as breaking the contract. On top of that, Iver cheerfully agreed to let them move in with the cats.
…The terms were suspiciously good—so good, in fact, that not only Salaar, but even Myss began to suspect there was a catch.
So they “scrutinized” the contract in their own respective ways. Myss even let his pupils dilate and secretly looked at it that way.
Curiously enough, there was no additional magic attached to the contract itself.
Iver led them through the exhibition area and up a flight of stairs. Thick carpeting covered the steps, swallowing all sound beneath their feet.
As he guided them, he enthusiastically introduced matters related to daily life.
“If either of you has special dietary restrictions, you may inform the butler in the residential area. The dining hall provides unlimited food at all hours. Of course, the two of you may also ring the service bell in your room and have meals delivered to your door. However, for the sake of protecting the artworks, food is not allowed in the work area, so please keep that in mind.”
“There are dedicated pet servants in the residential area. They’ll prepare food for your cats.”
“…Oh, right. How are the cats to be divided between you?”
Myss had been getting sleepy, but this woke him instantly. “What do you mean, ‘how are the cats to be divided’?”
Iver turned his face to them, all innocence on his handsome features. “It’s like this. The rooms we provide are all single rooms. Models stay in the model wing, painters stay in the painter wing. It makes management easier, so I hope you understand.”
“I don’t understand,” Salaar said immediately, stopping in his tracks. “Why should I be separated from my darling?”
“No, no, please don’t misunderstand. We won’t restrict the two of you from seeing each other. It’s just that in daily life—”
“I’m staying with him. This is not negotiable. If he’s away from me, he’ll die.” Myss said it in a tone that made it sound as though Salaar weren’t an adult man, but a swaddled infant.
Salaar: “…”
Salaar cleared his throat. “…That’s right. Without my darling’s body heat, I can’t even sleep properly. If you want me to paint normally, then I absolutely need to share a room with my muse.”
For once, the always easygoing Iver hesitated.
A moment later, he forced a smile. “There’s certainly no problem with it in terms of conditions, but the two of your reputations…”
“Doesn’t matter,” the two of them said in unison.
Iver stared at them for a moment. “Very well. I’ll arrange for the two of you to stay together in the painter’s wing.”
“If the two of you change your minds later, you’re welcome to come to me at any time and ask for a reassignment.”
……
The room the Red Amber provided them was on the fourth floor. It had large floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the prosperous streets of Semper. The room was decorated with considerable taste. Compared to it, the guest room at Mr. Anti’s house seemed utterly drab.
Inside, a comfortable double bed had already been prepared, along with three cat beds made of printed cotton. This wasn’t the work area, but there was still an easel and painting supplies by the window, along with parchment and charcoal pencils laid out in full, just in case inspiration struck and the occupant lacked tools.
At Salaar’s request, there were no gemstone decorations anywhere in the room.
“My darling is the most radiant gem of all. No other adornment is needed,” was how he explained it.
At the moment, Salaar’s usual air of foppish indulgence vanished without a trace. He expertly drew all the curtains, making sure no one, including the Dragon Fae, could see what was happening inside.
The three pet cats wandered in circles through the unfamiliar-yet-familiar environment, looking for places they liked. Myss happily joined the cat patrol squad, attempting to dig out whatever secrets the room might be hiding.
But he still came up empty-handed.
The place still felt wrong to him, but it was a particularly vague kind of “wrongness”, like an uncertain sourness hidden in the smell of food. Myss even began to doubt himself, wondering whether they had invested too much over this “Flaw” business.
A few seconds later, though, the thought vanished like dew.
Why should he doubt himself? Salaar understood the human world better than he did. If there was a problem, then it was Salaar’s problem.
“What if we find some way to get Kalen in here? He can hide his presence, after all.” Tired from searching, Myss buried himself in a heap of feather pillows. “Send him to ambush the mail collection room and look for clues about ‘Flaw’…”
“It’s best to leave someone outside. We can investigate the letters ourselves.”
Salaar pulled over a sheet of paper and began writing a letter to Scintilla in a perfectly convincing fashion.
Bored, Myss emerged from the pillow pile and wandered over to look.
As expected, both the style and handwriting of the letter were exactly like Kendrick Karns.
Still, the letter said nothing at all about magical theory. Instead, it rambled on at length about Semper. At the end, it mentioned that he had entered the Red Amber and might run into “Flaw.”
“Come on. Let’s go on a dinner adventure.”
Salaar flicked the hastily written letter and jerked his chin toward Myss.
The mail collection room was right next to the public dining hall. Myss carried bodyguard Apple in his arms and entered the dining hall together with Salaar.
Faced with the grand interior, Myss found himself wondering about the Red Amber’s structure. Was this stone building really that large? From the outside, it absolutely didn’t look it.
Then his attention was lured away by the food.
Each small round table held exquisite dishes, from thick cuts of beef leg to roasted skylarks glazed in honey, from fresh grapes to candied plums. The standard of the meal was no different from that of wealthy nobles.
So far, the employees coming and going didn’t resemble the bewitched civilians outside. Their gazes merely swept politely over the two of them, perhaps leaving behind a friendly smile at most.
Salaar stopped a waiter and began asking for details about mail collection.
Meanwhile, Myss surveyed every table, preemptively locking onto the night snack options. While he was doing that, his eyes happened to lock onto a face that felt strangely familiar—
He had inadvertently spotted Truman.
Without the terrible makeup, Truman couldn’t really be called handsome, but he was decent-looking enough. He sat stiffly at a table, glancing nervously around like some startled little animal.
Just like that, their eyes collided head-on.
The instant he saw Myss, Truman leapt to his feet, his face flooding with hopeful light.
Then… Then a certain someone stepped directly in front of Myss and blocked him completely from view.
Myss lifted his eyes and looked at the tall man standing before him.
This person had satiny honey-colored skin and strikingly handsome features, with long hair loosely tied at the back. He was even more heavily built than Salaar, his ample muscles stretching his clothes taut.
He was also covered in blood amber ornaments. Earrings, rings, necklaces aside, even his cufflinks were set with blood amber. He looked like some sort of human display stand devoted entirely to blood amber.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t speak to that one,” the blood-amber display stand said.
If I were me, I wouldn’t want to speak to you either.
Myss applied the same principle to everyone equally and turned to leave.
The man didn’t seem embarrassed in the slightest and simply moved around to block Myss again. “I know who you are. You’re the model from The End of the World. I’m a model for the Red Amber too. Danton Domini. I assume you’ve seen portraits of me.”
No. He had not.
Myss turned his head as far as it would go, looking for his heroic human shield. Unfortunately, Salaar was still talking with the waiter and didn’t have a free mouth to rescue him.
Noticing Myss looking toward Salaar, the man’s expression grew stern. “I heard you insist on living with that Karns. As a colleague, I ought to remind you of something. You’d best move out immediately and stop entangling yourself too deeply with him.”
“Why?” Myss finally snapped. Even Salaar didn’t manage him like this.
“Everyone in noble circles knows what Kendrick Karns’s reputation is like. His bad character can, to some extent, serve as a ‘gimmick’ for his work.”
Danton crossed his arms and spoke earnestly. “But we models aren’t the same. Being involved with that sort of person will only become a stain on your image. If it comes to it, you can sneak around with him in private, but you absolutely cannot openly live with him.”
Where had all these bizarre rules even come from? Myss picked up Apple, using the cat to restrain his urge to kill.
“That cat isn’t any good either,” Danton continued. “Its facial markings aren’t symmetrical enough, its eyes aren’t blue enough, and its fur isn’t glossy enough. Keeping a third-rate mongrel cat like that… hah. Imperfect things don’t last long here.”
The ragdoll cat Apple wrinkled its nose, barely holding back a hiss.
“Oh, and its temperament is worrying too,” Danton said, giving it a critical look.
Myss rather wanted to throw the cat straight at Danton’s face, and he was fairly sure the cat would approve. But considering that the cat was still on duty, he merely buried his face in that soft fur, hiding the savage look on his own.
A few seconds later, Myss lifted his head and flashed a grin full of teeth. “I can make your face less symmetrical, if you want to try it.”
Danton frowned. “Do you even understand? If your image worsens, then you become the flaw in The End of the World.”
“A truly professional model ought to be like that—”
His gaze pointed toward a certain round table by the window.
It occupied one of the best vantage points in the entire dining hall. At the table sat a pair of opposite-sex twins enjoying their dinner.
The two of them had delicate features and slender figures, with shining golden hair and golden eyes. They wore fashionably cut silk garments and moved with perfect grace. Their jewelry, while opulent, wasn’t overdone, and unsurprisingly, all of it was clear blood amber.
Objectively speaking, these twins weren’t as good-looking as Myss. But if one factored in clothing and bearing, Myss had no hope of competing. Just that faint smile they wore, for one thing, he couldn’t produce it and had no desire to.
He also thought their manner seemed vaguely familiar. Mr. Anti felt rather the same way.
Sure enough, not far from that table, he spotted Mr. Anti himself.
Anti was dining alone, his knife and fork moving with the precision of clockwork. His gaze remained lowered throughout, never looking at anyone, as if that little round table were the only thing left in the world.
Beside him, Danton continued prattling on, his eyes on the twins full of feverish reverence.
“Did you know? Those two never speak to anyone. Outside working hours, they never make eye contact with outsiders for more than three seconds.”
He was practically licking them with his eyes now, his tone full of a piety that made one uncomfortable.
“They always eat the most fashionable dishes, in the most standard portions… Look there, even the number of times they chew is exactly the same…”
“They never wear the same clothes or jewelry twice… no preferences, no mistakes, no flaws introduced by so-called individuality. Their works will never fade…”
By the end of it, Myss couldn’t quite tell whether Danton was lecturing him or simply talking to himself.
Danton’s speech was getting faster and faster, and fine red veins had spread through his eyes, tinting them with the color of blood amber. As he spoke, his fingertips constantly rubbed against those blood amber pieces, as though pleading for something, or trying to take it.
“Hey. What exactly are you doing to my darling?”
Salaar had finally finished talking to the waiter. He unceremoniously grabbed Myss by the waist and carried both him and the cat off in one smooth motion. Myss clutched Apple tightly and, for once, made no protest.
Danton frowned at Salaar and immediately shut his mouth, as if speaking to Salaar might bring down some terrible punishment. He turned and walked away without looking at them again.
Just like the fanatical townspeople outside, he recovered his “normal” state with startling abruptness.
The ragdoll cat’s spirits had dropped. It gave a limp little meow and clung tightly to Myss’s chest with its paws, as though afraid it would be abandoned.
“Do you know what I’m thinking right now?” Myss stroked the ragdoll cat in a solemn tone. “I think I ought to rename myself the Archdemon of Order. You humans are the truly chaotic ones.”
Salaar worked hard to hold back a smile. “As you command, Lord Archdemon of Order.”
By the time the two of them left, the beautiful twins had just finished dining.
At the same moment, they each took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the corners of the other’s mouth. Then they carefully straightened their clothes and slowly swept their gazes across the room.
The instant they saw Myss and Salaar, their eyes stopped together, but not for more than three seconds. Those eyes were beautiful and limpid, yet carried no emotion at all.
Finally, their gazes drifted quietly toward Mr. Anti.
If Danton had been there to count, he would have found that this look lasted far longer than three seconds. Mr. Anti still cut his food with elegant precision, his knife softly slicing through fish and dividing the cooked fish eye into two perfect halves.
……
On the way to the mail collection room, Myss repeated Danton’s strange theories while gesturing and cursing at the same time. The ragdoll cat meowed from time to time as if chiming in.
Salaar listened very carefully.
Danton Domini really was a somewhat famous model. Even the memories of Karns contained mention of him. He hadn’t expected to run into the man in Semper. But that wasn’t the important part.
At this point, it seemed the Red Amber’s employees weren’t mentally normal either.
Now he was beginning to understand why the pen name “Flaw” had no place inside the Red Amber.
Nevertheless, the investigation had to proceed.
A few minutes later, they reached the mail collection room without issue.
It was a very ordinary room, with pitifully few people in it. The employees didn’t seem to have much need for correspondence.
Inside sat a sweet-faced young woman. Behind her stood a mailbox wrapped in magical runes.
“I want to send a letter.”
Salaar draped an arm around Myss’s waist and casually handed over the letter.
“Certainly, honored Mr. Karns.” The young woman smiled brightly. “Please register it here. The Red Amber will arrange for a dedicated courier to send it on your behalf.”
As she spoke, she handed over a piece of gilt-edged parchment.
On it were precisely printed rows of registration fields, including time of posting, sender’s real name, sender’s pen name, category of mail request, and specific delivery requirements. At first glance it looked like some complicated contract.
“Interesting. I’ve never seen such a troublesome process.” Salaar didn’t hide the surprise in his voice. “You really keep records like this? How long do you preserve them?”
“We seal them with professional preservation magic and never destroy them casually.” The young woman said sweetly, “Please be sure to note that if any letter’s contents are leaked, the Red Amber keeps perfect records and will absolutely be able to trace the source.”
Salaar began making trouble on purpose. “‘Absolutely be able to trace it’? How frightening. What if I write someone else’s pen name? What if I change pen names?”
“This is different from the standard contract. It’s bound by strict contractual magic. If you write a lie on the paper, it will immediately catch fire.”
The young woman explained patiently.
Excellent. That was exactly what they wanted, Myss thought. “Flaw” had been corresponding with Scintilla for nearly a year. They had been worried the records might have been destroyed.
But now they were faced with a brand-new problem. If Salaar registered himself as “Kendrick Karns,” would the thing burst into flames on the spot?
Salaar narrowed his eyes at the parchment. “Too troublesome. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Bang.
The door to the mail room closed on its own. The young woman’s smile vanished, and her large eyes stared hollowly at Salaar.
“Why?” she asked loudly. “It’s not late. You don’t look tired. Registration won’t even take five minutes. You’ve already come all the way here. Why would you do something so irrational?”
“Please go ahead and register it. We’ll deliver your letter safely. I hope you understand that your behavior makes no logical sense, and it causes me considerable distress.”
“Do you have some concern, Mr. Karns? …Or were you planning to lie on the registration form in the first place?”
Her voice grew tighter and tighter, sharper and sharper. It was starting to hurt Myss’s ears, and he rubbed one in discomfort.
Faced with these bizarre people, he was beginning to miss Rosha.
He glanced at Salaar. The Great Hero’s mouth was drawn taut, clearly concentrating on a response. Naturally, a perfect response.
Myss’s eyes shifted. A thread of black magic quietly extended outward, silently corroding the envelope and leaving claw-like scratches on it.
“The envelope got damaged by the cat. We weren’t that eager to send it in the first place, so why are you making such a fuss?” Myss patted the bewildered cat and looked at the letter on the table. “What, you’re allowed to pursue perfection, but we’re not allowed to be picky?”
The moment he said it, the young woman’s sweet smile returned, exactly the same as when they first entered.
“I see. I completely understand.”
She checked the envelope, then handed it back with both hands. “I will eagerly await your next visit.”
They had gotten all the information they wanted.
Once outside the mail collection room, Myss lifted his nose in satisfaction. This time he had solved the problem. What did that prove? That Salaar had lost to him in a battle of brains.
Myss turned his nose toward Salaar, smugness written all over his face.
But Salaar didn’t give him the reaction he wanted. The Great Hero was still deep in thought, his expression almost rusted in place.
“That’s no fun,” Myss said. “If you lose, you’re supposed to admit it. If it hadn’t been for me, just now you—”
“Yes. I didn’t do well enough.” Salaar frowned. “I should have anticipated that. I actually failed to respond in time.”
“There has to be a better way to investigate… Let me think…”
Myss’s steps slowed.
He didn’t like the expression on Salaar’s face right now. Not that he especially liked his other expressions either. But this Salaar did not quite feel like Salaar.
Even when his mind had been contaminated by Mina, Salaar had never looked like this. The feeling was like a fly landing on white cream. Myss’s hairs rose all over.
People were still passing nearby. So Myss used the newest and most covert method of attack he had learned.
The ragdoll cat gave a soft meow as it dropped to the ground. Myss opened his arms and hugged Salaar hard.
“If you rot away in a place like this, then so much the better. I won’t need to keep following any human etiquette anymore.”
He hissed the words into Salaar’s ear, mimicking the intimate whispers shared between lovers.
“The instant you lose control, I’ll annihilate all of Semper… This, I promise.”
The author has something to say:
Having won a round in terms of intellect, Lord Archdemon is quite pleased. [dog head]
But Salaar’s condition actually isn’t good, so the victory is incomplete, and Lord Archdemon becomes displeased once again. [dog with rose in mouth]
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