Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 54: No Visitors Allowed

Salaar said nothing, and he didn’t turn around.

Myss reached out and felt around again, only to discover that the muscles elsewhere on Salaar’s body had gone taut too, and a thin layer of sweat had broken out over his skin.

Huh?

At once, Myss threw sleep to the winds, and even Fork woke up. After all this time, he had finally found Salaar’s weak point.

More than three hundred years of darkness, loneliness, suffering, injuries, and sickness had failed to wipe the smile from this man’s face. Faced with the Fallen Child’s maternal summons and Perfected Creation’s mental scourging, Salaar had handled it all with ease.

And now, great and formidable Salaar, for the second time, was frozen solid like stone beneath his touch.

He kissed Salaar on the forehead, and Salaar had stood rooted in place. He had touched Salaar a few times by accident, and Salaar had lost composure again.

The answer was blindingly obvious. A few days ago, he had stirred Salaar with a kiss. And tonight…

“You dreamed about your old lover,” Myss declared with utter certainty.

Salaar was undoubtedly pining for a love that had been defiled by his enemies. With so many tawdry legends swirling around this man, surely at least one of them had to be true.

Salaar shook Myss off him and swiftly wrapped himself up in the blanket like a cocoon. When he spoke again, he directly changed the subject. “Where did you even learn all this nonsense?”

Salaar hadn’t drunk any water, so his voice was still a little hoarse. His tone, meanwhile, sounded helpless.

“My body’s brain may be dim-witted, but it still has eyes.” Myss snorted, crawling closer to the Salaar cocoon. “I still know the most basic things.”

This body, being a “premium commodity,” had been preserved very well. Ordinary slaves had neither been that lucky nor that constrained. Myss remembered seeing slaves amuse themselves or getting intimate with each other.

Further back, there had been plenty of couples in Salaar’s army too. There hadn’t been much entertainment in the darkness, and they often did that sort of thing.

It was just that, back then, Myss hadn’t understood what those humans were doing all piled together. He had been too busy looking down at Salaar.

Even now, Myss still felt nothing about it, just as humans wouldn’t find the sight of flies mating particularly interesting.

…But he was genuinely, exceptionally, incredibly curious about Salaar’s reaction.

Because Salaar absolutely wasn’t the kind of person to wallow in lust. Myss was entirely confident of that.

During those three hundred years, Salaar had practically been an iron-blooded administrator. He had lived apart from the others and never gotten particularly close to his companions. A few people had once gotten bold enough to invite Salaar to “have some fun” together—only to be met with Salaar’s fists.

The times Salaar had been physically closest to his companions were when he buried their corpses.

And after he had fallen alone into the darkness, he hadn’t even entertained himself that way. All he ever did was harass Myss’s tentacles.

For someone like that to actually have desire now—this was an unprecedented discovery.

Seeing that Salaar had bundled himself into a ball, Myss’s eyes shifted, and he picked up the water jug from the bedside table.

“Didn’t you want water? Why aren’t you drinking anymore?” He stared brightly at Salaar. “Want me to feed you?”

Salaar glanced at him, then slowly tucked his head into the blanket too. He didn’t run, but clearly, he wasn’t planning to, well, face this situation with any sort of candor.

Myss burst into delighted laughter.

He couldn’t help but think of the shabby little shack Salaar had built inside the seal. At their core, they were no different. Just some soft shell serving no purpose other than self-deception.

“Good morning?” He tapped on the blanket bundle, imitating Salaar’s mocking tone. “Anybody home?”

“There are matters at home. No visitors allowed,” Salaar replied in a muffled voice.

Ah, yes. This was the feeling. Revenge tasted sweet. Myss felt a sense of pure, unadulterated satisfaction wash over him.

He didn’t even bother using magic. He deliberately pawed at the blanket-wrapped hero with his bare hands. Feeling the other man squirm in embarrassment improved his mood immensely, and suddenly inspiration struck—

It wasn’t that he hated being around Salaar. He just hated being on the losing side in front of his archenemy.

Thinking about it carefully, if the contents of “Sweet Trap” hadn’t been “the noble hero toys with the Chaos Witch,” but instead “the Chaos Archdemon toys with the noble hero,” he definitely wouldn’t have hated that book the way he did now.

Salaar was always composed. He had been like that when reading “Sweet Trap”, and he was still like that when dealing with him. Myss only wanted to smash that infuriating calm expression of his.

…If he could make Salaar this uncomfortable, then he was very willing to stick even closer.

“So you’re planning to suffocate yourself to death, huh? According to the contract, I’m here to save you. Hurry up, let me see your face!”

Like he had discovered a whole new continent, Myss excitedly patted the blanket lump. “Or I could just beat you through the blanket and help you get back to normal?”

“No visitors allowed!” Knife coiled on the highest bulge of the blanket and solemnly repeated Salaar’s words.

Salaar stayed curled up inside and refused to make a sound.

Myss didn’t care. He leaned closer, his nose almost pressing against the blanket. “But without my cushion, I can’t slee—wahhhh!”

The moment Myss leaned in, Salaar suddenly moved.

Taking advantage of his larger build, he yanked up the blanket and cast it over Myss like a net. Then he swiftly gathered the four corners together, and Knife cooperatively tied them up—

The whole thing took barely two seconds. The Archdemon had been brutally bagged up and turned into a wriggling sack on the bed.

Myss thrashed a few times before realizing he could still use magic. With a sharp rip, he clawed a huge hole in the thick blanket.

Myss angrily stuck his head out, only to find that Salaar had already slipped into the bathroom.

“You actually ran away!” Myss shouted in disbelief.

Damn it, there were even layers of golden defensive barriers stacked at the bathroom door. When they had fought in the seal, Salaar’s movements had never been this fast.

“This is a strategic withdrawal following a victory!” Salaar shouted back from inside.

His shout came together with the deliberately amplified volume of the bath music.

Pouting indignantly, Myss drained the glass of water sitting on the beside table; he gave his mouth a fierce wipe, not leaving Salaar a single drop.

By the time Salaar emerged from the bathroom, dawn had broken.

Salaar had turned back into that composed, unruffled Salaar again, looking as if nothing had happened the night before. Myss clicked his tongue in regret.

Still, whatever. Salaar hadn’t suggested sleeping separately. He had already found Salaar’s weakness. There was plenty of time ahead.

……

But Myss hadn’t expected the day to become even more unpleasant. The moment he entered the Red Amber, he got handed a notice regarding compensation claims.

With testimony from the fourth-floor guards, Myss had been identified as the primary culprit who had “let the cats inside,” and he was required to compensate the Red Amber for the related losses.

The promised gold-ring payment was gone, and most of the two thousand gold rings they had already received were reclaimed. After everything Salaar and Myss had gone through, they were left with only five hundred gold rings.

That wasn’t exactly a small amount but compared to the huge sum they had had before, the terrible gap made the loss sting.

Salaar calmly contacted Kalen to confirm that this wasn’t some kind of scam. Considering the extent of the damage at the Red Amber, it was actually a fairly reasonable sum for compensation.

“We clearly saved those humans, and they still dared demand money from us.” Myss ground his teeth in irritation.

Salaar: “Just think of it as us paying for the Abnormal Fruit here.”

Compared to the Abnormal Fruit, that money truly was no better than dirt. Myss made a sound of acknowledgment, and his mood slowly eased.

At the very least, by the time they entered the reception room, Myss’s face didn’t look quite so foul anymore.

The Kingdom Archmage, Professor Gentry, known as “The Colossal Elephant”, was sitting upright in an armchair, waiting for them.

Professor Gentry had a head of slightly curly white hair and a particularly warm, approachable face, with a somewhat large nose. He was said to be over seventy, yet his skin bore very few wrinkles, his figure was far from gaunt, and he looked physically no older than forty.

Myss wasn’t particularly surprised. He had known long ago that humans with strong magic tended to live longer. The strongest people in Salaar’s army had all lived past one hundred and aged much more slowly than others.

Salaar himself had lived for more than three hundred years, a feat truly earning him the title of “monster.”

“I’m very glad to meet the two of you. My apologies for summoning you so suddenly.”

Professor Gentry’s voice was warm and full. He stood up to greet them, utterly free of pretension.

“You’re too kind.” Salaar immediately slipped into social mode.

His tone was neither as aggravating as Young Master Karns’s nor as mature as Hero Salaar’s.

Myss knew very well that Salaar was on guard. If Gentry asked them about the Perfected Creation, then every answer Salaar gave would need to be flawless.

Professor Gentry watched those blue eyes of Salaar’s for a while.

Just when Myss thought he was about to ask about the “Divine Realm,” the Archmage instead veered off topic. “I would like to hire the two of you.”

Myss, Salaar: “?”

“I plan to take my students exploring underground ruins, and I happen to need two sharp-witted assistants.”

The old man smiled cheerfully at them with his light brown eyes. “It would last about four to six weeks. One thousand gold rings per person per week, and I would assume responsibility for all losses that might occur.”

“Why us?” After a moment’s thought, Salaar asked very directly.

“Why you?” Professor Gentry’s smile widened even further. “Because I have a fondness for handsome young men. And I heard that the two of you have recently been targeted by some unsavory characters, making it inconvenient for you to walk around big cities. Earning a bit more money is a good thing, wouldn’t you say?”

His gaze swept over Salaar and Myss again and again. Myss suddenly realized that not once had he called Salaar “Karns.”

“Thank you for your kindness, but unfortunately, we already have plans for the near future.”

Salaar refused at once. One thousand gold rings a week—only a fool would think that was the wage of a “normal assistant.”

A Kingdom Archmage making such a crude proposal. Since Professor Gentry was so obviously probing them, Salaar had no intention of stepping into the trap.

“What a pity. In that case, I can only report my findings honestly to the Aufon Royal Family.”

Professor Gentry sighed. “Honestly, it’s rather embarrassing. The Red Amber kept me trapped for almost a month. I’ve been living on the fourth floor, and my joints are practically rusting… The way you two broke through left quite an impression on me.”

Myss’s brows twitched, instantly on guard. “I didn’t detect any scrying magic.”

“That’s because I was looking with my own eyes.” Professor Gentry gave a little chuckle. “As everyone knows, I’m a nimble old fellow. Long-distance observation is basic fieldwork for an explorer.”

Myss: “…”

Salaar let out a sigh and sat down opposite Gentry.

He dropped that half-in, half-out attitude and cut straight to the point. “What exactly do you want?”

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The author has something to say:

I just realized the two of them fit that whole “both my wet dream and my nightmare are you, huh” theme perfectly. [rainbow farts]

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