Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 41: Severely Weakened

Never before had Myss’s killing intent boiled like this.

Not even back in the darkness, when Salaar sang that stupid dancing-snake tune to his tentacles, had he been this furious. His enemy—his enemy—had actually been stolen away by some unknown thing, and right under his nose at that.

He was absolutely going to tear that damned thief apart with his bare hands.

“You go to the studio first.”

Holding Cinnamon tightly in his arms, Myss said stiffly, “I have something to deal with. We’ll talk later.”

“Handle it tonight. It’s our first day of work. We shouldn’t be too casual, or people will gossip,” Salaar—or rather, that thing that looked like Salaar—said very gently in an attempt to stop him.

“Oh, my stomach doesn’t feel so great. I need to go throw up. If you dare follow me, I’ll vomit in your face. And if you insist I hold it in, then later I’ll vomit on your canvas. You know how much I ate for breakfast.”

Myss hissed, staring fixedly at those blood-amber eyes.

“Salaar” let out a sigh that was quintessentially Salaar. “Fine. I’ll wait for you in the studio.”

With Cinnamon in his arms and Tass in his pocket, Myss dashed back to the residential quarters.

He shut the door, tossed Tass into a teacup, and connected to Father Kalen’s communicator. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

Seeing that it wasn’t Salaar on the line, Kalen froze slightly. “Mr. Myss?”

“If you’ve got something to say, say it. Don’t make me repeat myself,” Myss snapped. He had no intention of saying something like something happened to Salaar.

Fortunately, Father Kalen wasn’t the sort to drag things out, and in only a few sentences he explained the strange situation at Danton’s parents’ house.

“There’s something very wrong with blood amber. It’s extremely ominous,” the Father said gravely. “I could only sense it the moment I touched it, which means its power may be no weaker than a holy relic. That likely means…”

For the first time, hesitation entered his voice.

Myss urged him, “Go on.”

“…That likely means it is a form of ‘Divine Power’,” Father Kalen said, sounding as though he had steeled himself to say it.

“The anomalous space where the Fallen Child existed was very much like the ‘Divine Realm’ my brother once described. But it wasn’t strong enough, so I couldn’t be certain. That’s why I never mentioned it to the two of you.”

“Divine Power… Divine Realm.” Myss rolled the new concepts around in his mind. “You’re saying there’s a god in Semper—and unlike the Fallen Child, this one may already have been fully born.”

“As for the power inside the blood amber, I can think of no other explanation.” Father Kalen’s voice tightened. “The two of you should leave the Red Amber first. There are only more blood-amber ornaments there, not fewer. Semper is far too dangerous. I suggest suspending the investigation for the time being.”

“Too late,” Myss said expressionlessly.

According to Father Kalen, a god could construct a special space and use it as a nest in which to reside. In a Divine Realm, there would be many things beyond common sense. It would be even more dreamlike than a dream.

In that case…

“By your standard, the Red Amber is very likely that god’s Divine Realm. Salaar and I are trapped inside it. Even the cats can’t get out.”

Father Kalen was stunned. “But you were able to enter and tour it before.”

“Maybe the employee area is special. At the very least we didn’t enter the employee area last time,” Myss said.

He realized, not very happily, that Salaar had been right. Fortunately, they hadn’t brought Kalen in with them. Otherwise, this would have been a total wipeout.

Then he realized even more unhappily that Salaar wasn’t here right now. In more than three hundred years, this was the first time they had been separated for so long.

“The test is simple. Find a cat and try it,” Myss said, speaking faster and faster. “Don’t worry. So far, the lunatics here only kill themselves. They won’t trouble animals.”

Kalen: “…”

Kalen: “I’ll look for a volunteer. But if this really is a Divine Realm, then the two of you likely can only either get its master to spare you, or—”

“Or find some way to kill the god here, the same way we dealt with the Fallen Child.” Myss snorted. “You keep investigating the blood amber. I’ll think of something.”

“Mr. Salaar…?”

The instant he heard that Myss would be the one thinking of something, Kalen immediately caught on.

“I’m not sure yet,” Myss said. “But that bastard isn’t so easy to get rid of. Otherwise, I’ll never let him off.”

Kalen did not ask further. He merely gave a solemn “Mm.”

Myss cut off the communication neatly, grabbed the badge, and directly annihilated the blood amber on it.

“So you trust me that much?”

A thin little voice spoke.

The voice was wrong, but the irritating tone was perfectly right. Myss paused slightly and instinctively reached toward the source.

The little snake Knife coiled itself around his finger. Its movements were unexpectedly clumsy, and a pair of lapis-lazuli eyes stared fixedly at Myss.

It’s Salaar’s snake, Myss thought blankly.

Just now, in order to restrain Tass, it and Fork had both helped bind up the Dragon Fae, and Myss had stuffed them into his pocket. Knife wasn’t as unruly as Fork, nor would it make such a ridiculous joke.

Unless…

“It’s me. I’m Salaar.” Knife coiled elegantly in Myss’s palm. “I transferred my consciousness over. I told you before, I’m very good at mental magic.”

Myss couldn’t quite sort out what he was feeling. He pinched the cool little snake and locked eyes with those bean-like blue eyes.

“So it seems you understand ‘body-swapping’ quite well,” he said, slipping into mockery with practiced ease. “Are you sure you know absolutely nothing about our situation? You really haven’t been hiding anything from me?”

“Oh, that’s different. Knife was born from my mind. Our compatibility is extremely high, and it’s willing to lend me its body.”

Snake-Salaar tapped the tip of his tail against his mouth as if stroking his chin. “Actually, it was the body-swapping situation that gave me the inspiration for this… ow!”

Myss reached out and gave the snake’s head a light, gentle poke. The soft little head flattened slightly under the pressure.

That inexplicable irritation faded away, even though this version of Salaar, well, looked even more useless.

“All right. I know it’s you. Knife isn’t this irritating.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Myss noticed Tass perking up his ears, and decided to change the subject first. “Forget that. Tell me what actually happened just now.”

“When I was talking to Anti, I was mentally attacked.”

The little snake wrapped around Myss’s finger, its tone turning serious. “I suddenly became terribly dizzy, and in an instant I remembered many… awful things. The pain is hard to describe. It made me want to disappear immediately.”

“Luckily, you were beside me. I couldn’t just throw away such a huge nuisance and ignore it, so I managed to preserve a sliver of clarity. Unfortunately, I still couldn’t control my urge toward self-destruction, so to escape the attack, I had no choice but to resort to this.”

The little snake pointed at itself with the tip of its tail and sighed.

“My consciousness fled into Knife’s body. That human body was left mindless. The attacker may have assumed I had mentally collapsed, and the attack didn’t continue.”

“But my body was taken over by something else. It’s imitating my behavior. You absolutely can’t trust it.”

Myss snorted. “That’s it? …If that thing is so ridiculously powerful, why didn’t it attack me too?”

“Maybe because you’re too thick-skinned and heartless, and don’t have many painful thoughts?”

Snake-Salaar said, “My guess is that a god’s influence requires conditions. Just like the Fallen Child could only infect a Magibase if ‘the victim recognized Mina as Mother.’”

Myss listened seriously, waiting for Salaar to offer an actual theory. But the little snake simply closed its mouth, tilted its head, and flicked its tongue lightly.

Myss: “And then?”

“I don’t know.”

Salaar looked at him innocently, resting his head between Myss’s fingers. “Knife’s brain capacity is too small. I got dumber along with it.”

“And right now I can’t use very strong magic. According to our agreement, you absolutely must protect me properly.”

Myss: “………………”

This was bad. The Great Hero had somehow become even more useless.

After all this, he still had to rely on his own brain. Worse, Salaar’s body had been snatched away by that ill-intentioned god, which meant it would no doubt cause him trouble.

He should be angry at Salaar.

But Salaar kept rubbing around between his fingers and somehow rubbed the anger out of him too. All that remained in Myss’s heart was a faint sense of helplessness.

“…Still, don’t worry.”

Snake-Salaar lifted his head again. “Even if Knife’s brain isn’t great, it’s still more than enough to assist y—hey, hey, what are you doing?”

Myss stuffed the snake’s head straight into his mouth, then drew the rest of the body in after it.

He could feel snake-Salaar struggling hard inside his mouth.

The supple snake body was toyed with effortlessly by his tongue, bumping around against the soft interior of his mouth, the silver tail tip poking out between his lips from time to time. Salaar twisted desperately and made tiny little shouts.

“I was saying, my decision-making experience is greater than yours… Don’t curl your tongue around me, ugh—”

A few dozen seconds later, Myss magnanimously opened his mouth.

Snake-Salaar slithered over his bright red tongue and plopped back onto the tea cloth. The little snake curled up and used a thin layer of magic to clean itself off.

“This feeling of looking down on you… really takes me back.” Myss poked the soft little snake head again. “That’s your punishment for losing your body and for your insolent remarks. How does it feel to be ‘sealed away,’ hm?”

Salaar looked at him with those round blue eyes. “Not as bad as I’d imagined. Next time, do you want to try toothpaste with a spearmint flavor?” 

Myss was displeased at once. “Then I definitely won’t.”

“Can you two pause the flirting and bickering for a minute?”

Tass, who had watched the whole thing, finally could not help himself. “What god? What Divine Realm? Who’s going to explain this to me? …And what’s with this name Salaar?!”

“Oh, it’s a very long story.”

Snake-Salaar turned his head with great seriousness. “You’ll have to trade a story of your own too, friend of Mr. Anti.”

……

Tass Ga and Antis Crosien had first met by accident.

As a highly individualistic Dragon Fae assassin, Tass belonged to no organization. He had only three requirements for the jobs he accepted: the pay had to be high, the method of death could not be specified, and the target had to be a verifiable scoundrel.

Still, working alone had its downsides.

One day four years ago, Tass completed an assassination, only to be injured by the target noble’s magic artifact and pass out in a bird’s nest.

When he woke up, he found himself lying on a spotless wooden table.

A young man sat nearby, feeding a nestling with a pair of tweezers. His movements were precise and cold, as though what he held wasn’t tweezers but a sharp dissection knife.

There wasn’t an ounce of warmth in the man’s face, making the whole scene especially unsettling.

And yet he had prepared a soft warm cloth for the bird and heated its food to exactly the right temperature. Tass himself had even been given a chocolate pastry and milk loaded with sugar.

“You’re awake.”

The young man turned his head sharply. He looked down at Tass with dead-looking eyes.

“You should apologize to that chick. That nest is soaked in your blood scent now. Its parents won’t come back.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” Tass asked bluntly.

“My name is Antis Crosien. I wish to hire you, ‘Tass Ga the Unfailing.’” Antis said, “Please count this rescue as part of your compensation. My funds are somewhat limited.”

His tone was completely flat, as if they weren’t discussing murder. The chick chirped and rubbed its beak against Antis’s fingertip.

Tass remained noncommittal. “Since you’ve heard of me, then you know my standards. I don’t take just any job.”

“I know.”

Antis nodded without surprise. “Believe me, my father fits your standards perfectly.”

“Your what?”

“My father,” Antis said calmly. “Please allow me to explain…”

…The Crosien family possessed a hereditary taxidermy craft.

Antis’s skill had been taught to him directly by his father. Or rather, everything he knew had been fed to him little by little by his father, who acted as his sole instructor.

Antis’s mother had died young, and his father had been extraordinarily strict. If Antis ever displeased him, he usually received a whipping from a vine rod that drew blood, or two days of confinement without food or water.

Antis described his father’s character objectively, as though none of it had anything to do with him.

“Our family rarely makes specimens from human beings, unless the deceased explicitly left such a wish.”

Antis spoke slowly. “But my father would occasionally accept commissions from nobles to kill beautiful young people and turn them into specimens.”

“He even converted my confinement room into a secret chamber, and he kept some… humans there as part of his personal collection.”

“The commoners my father sponsored always went missing. I found several of them among those hidden victims. So he wasn’t being forced. He simply liked doing it.”

Tass scratched his nose. “If you can produce evidence, I’m not unwilling to take the job.”

Antis’s tone remained calm and detached. “That won’t be a problem. I’ve been gathering physical evidence all along. It’s just that all the current victims are commoners, and there was numerous implicated nobles, so the process could drag on for a very long time.”

“My father has recently found a new target. If I don’t stop him now, he’ll kill again.”

“Can’t you do it yourself?” Tass asked curiously.

Antis didn’t look weak, nor helpless.

Tass could sense an astonishing amount of magical fluctuation in this human. The boy was plainly a genius. If he truly wanted to kill, he could absolutely do it cleanly and beautifully.

“My father carries many protective magic items, and I have never killed anyone before. The first time is hard to do perfectly.”

Antis lowered his eyes, and at last some emotion entered his voice. “My father always said that in all things, one must… strive for absolute perfection.”

All right then. A thoroughly broken man. A pitiful creature whose mind had been crushed into obedience, only just beginning to wake.

“Fine. I’ll take this one for free,” Tass said generously.

And so old Mr. Crosien quietly “died of illness.”

After that, Tass and Antis exchanged letters now and then, and sometimes Tass came to see how he was doing. Antis still wore that same unbearably perfect ghostly demeanor, but there was now a trace of life in his eyes. He no longer looked quite so much like a specimen.

“You’re a decent human. You should make more friends—friends as great as me.”

Tass hugged a giant chocolate cookie. “That old bastard didn’t teach you the truth of the world. You need to shake off his ghost sooner rather than later.”

“I know, but it’s harder than I expected.” Antis said this earnestly. “Lately I’ve been thinking that I should establish rules that belong only to me. For instance, never using human beings as specimens.”

“Not bad. That’s a good rule.”

“I think so too.”

Antis showed the faintest trace of a smile.

It was somewhat stiff, not entirely perfect, but it was unquestionably sincere.

“In order to assassinate Kendrick Karns, I asked him to pretend to be a trusted associate of the Karns family. Antis’s reply looked completely normal… He even drew a little chick in the corner of the envelope, just like before. That was our private signal.”

Tass said this in pain. “How did he suddenly become this? Turning his own kind into specimens without hesitation? That’s not the Antis I knew…”

“Very useful information,” Salaar said, lightly biting the tip of his own tail. “And to show my own sincerity, I’m willing to be frank as well. I’m not Kendrick Karns. I’m simply an unfortunate man who happens to resemble him.”

“My name is Salaar. As you can see, I know a little magic.”

The instant he realized his professional standards were being challenged, Tass forgot his pain. “Resemble him? What kind of bullshit are you spouting?”

“I looked into it thoroughly. Karns has been carrying out live sacrifices and likely got his magic from that! You’re him—the very same one who ran off with the slave he just bought—”

“Ah, then I suppose Myss also happens to resemble that slave.”

Salaar said this with great sincerity, pointing toward Myss with his tail tip. “My Lord Myss explodes at the slightest provocation and has an insufferably arrogant personality. How could he possibly have been born a slave?”

One of Myss’s brows twitched. Maybe Knife really wasn’t operating with a full brain, because even he thought that explanation was too perfunctory.

And yet Salaar somehow still sounded perfectly justified, while Tass looked close to passing out from sheer fury.

Salaar innocently flicked his tongue and added more fuel to the fire. “The world is very large. There are lots of people who look alike.”

“When Mr. Anti came to fetch me earlier, I simply went along with the situation. You people were already using fake identities, and so were we. Round it off and call it even.”

“Damn it. I don’t care if you’re possessed by evil spirits, shapeshifters, or some other weird thing.”

Tass gnashed his teeth, wings drooping tragically. “As long as you get me out of here, then I—”

“Good,” Salaar interrupted briskly.

Tass choked. “…Huh?”

“I said good. We’ll get you out as soon as possible, and—”

Snake-Salaar climbed up onto Myss’s wrist, his lapis-lazuli eyes gleaming.

“—we’ll also help you uncover the truth behind Mr. Anti’s transformation. In exchange, you will obey our instructions without question.”

Tass fell silent for a few seconds.

When he spoke again, he sounded less like a desperate Dragon Fae nor like a cornered assassin.

“Fine. If you’re willing to investigate Antis’s matter, then taking a little damage doesn’t matter.”

This time Tass didn’t shriek, even though his body was still trembling nonstop from pain.

At that moment, he sounded like a friend.

……

“You’re using Tass.”

On the way to the studio, Myss squeezed snake-Salaar lightly. “No matter what, we were going to investigate Mr. Anti anyway. His transformation resembles what happened to you.”

“I would rather call it ‘cooperation.’”

Little snake Salaar turned his head and gently bit Myss on the collarbone. He was currently tucked into the hollow above Myss’s collarbone, invisible from the outside but in a very convenient place for conversation.

“If we’re exploiting him anyway, I still think stuffing him into a lantern would be faster,” Myss muttered.

In truth, he understood perfectly well that directly provoking “Salaar” wasn’t a good idea. Even if the thing on the other side possessed only Salaar’s body, that body was nothing to underestimate. Mr. Anti was a much safer research subject.

Just the thought of facing that “Salaar” who wasn’t truly Salaar made his stomach twist.

Soon enough, he arrived back in the Red Amber’s work area.

The afternoon sun was perfect, filling the whole area with bright light that poured like molten gold.

Danton’s body had been removed, but the new female model still lay sprawled on the floor. The pool of blood around her glowed a vivid warm red under the sunlight, like a carefully arranged bed of roses.

Myss had no interest whatsoever in the corpse. His gaze swept instead over the people around him.

Necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches, hairbands, buttons—every accessory imaginable seemed to exist here in a blood-amber version.

That red showed boldly on some people and subtly on others. The staff here were already luxuriously dressed, and Myss had never noticed before just how much blood amber they all carried.

For some reason, more eyes than before lingered on Myss this time. Murmurs wrapped around him like scattered feathers. Stepping through that whispering cloud, Myss pushed open the studio door.

“Salaar” was waiting for him.

Myss scrutinized that face over with extreme displeasure. The eye sockets of “Salaar” were still filled completely with blood amber, yet Myss could distinctly feel his gaze.

“You’ve come, Mr. Myss,” “Salaar” greeted him politely.

“Oh, he’s even calling you ‘Mr. Myss’,” snake-Salaar snickered from inside Myss’s collar.

Myss didn’t find it amusing. That single form of address made his skin crawl.

All he could see was the master of the Divine Realm having stolen away his enemy and now flaunting the prize in front of him.

With ill-hidden resentment, Myss sat down in the model’s chair, refusing to look at “Salaar.” But his whole body remained taut, and he focused with all his might on chewing over the magical fluctuations coming off “Salaar,” searching for a flaw.

“Don’t be angry. I know what you’re thinking.”

“Salaar” spoke gently. “It’s true. The Master of this place chose me specially, and I accepted Him. Regrettably, I was not fully accepted. A part of me—a very important part—escaped.”

Salaar’s voice. Salaar’s way of speaking.

Goosebumps rose along Myss’s arms, and snake-Salaar fell silent too.

“I haven’t been controlled. Every action I take comes from my own reason. It’s the optimal plan I derived through calculation.”

That body said this in a leisurely tone. “I don’t know where my ‘heart’ has gone. But what I want to say to it is this: this is an excellent opportunity, Hero Salaar.”

“Myss can’t leave this place. This is a newer, better, more perfect seal.”

“What you should do is not help him escape but keep him trapped here forever.”

“Forever.”

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The author has something to say:

See? I told you the little couple wouldn’t really be separated—

If anything, they’re stuck even closer together now. [smile]

After all, isn’t “Hero” Salaar just another one of the Archdemon’s precious little treasures? It’s only natural to feel utterly lost and unaccustomed to things when you suddenly lose one. [hugs]

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