Chapter 382: Venomous Snake in the Treasure Vault
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
Although the people in the tiny cockpit appeared to be discussing major issues that could shake multiple nations, they were speaking casually, as if they didn’t feel they were discussing anything important.
“Bardi… Orloss means you should hand over the assassins and treat this as a case of a personal grudge. Of course, the Mage Country should also sign a formal apology and make reparations on the surface… Yeah, I know you won’t agree. At the very least, you should hand over the assassins. They’re just a few Dark Elves. Otherwise Orloss won’t be able to explain it to his citizens.”
Evelyn didn’t mince her words in the least. Who knew if it was because Copper Dragons naturally loathed Dark Elves or if it was her who didn’t like my Dark Elves?
“If you truly understand me, then you should know that this is absolutely impossible. I only listen to softball methods; I won’t accept anyone playing hardball with me… Fine then—actually, neither method works on me. You can call me overly protective or unreasonable, but I have zero intentions of handing anyone over.”
All that happened was that my Dark Elves killed an evil criminal. I didn’t feel that they did anything wrong. And since my subordinates didn’t do anything wrong, as their boss, how could I possibly retreat and compromise? So what if a mega empire was pressuring me? They wanted me to hand the Dark Elves over? Never.
” Tsk ! As stubborn as in my memories. I suppose it’s to be expected. If you were someone soft who gave up easily, you wouldn’t have fought against the entire Bardi Empire by yourself back then. And, the Eve—the Cher from that year wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.”
She whispered the last part in a tiny voice, but I still managed to hear her clearly. However, I preferred to pretend that I didn’t, as I truly did not want to know the events of the past.
“Aren’t you curious?”
“…I would be lying if I said I wasn’t, but considering the troubles I’ll meet after I remember, it’d be for the best for me to not know. Or is there something I absolutely must be know?”
I smiled as I said that, but Evelyn grit her teeth in anger.
“…An even slyer smile than what’s in my memories. You wicked deceiver of emotions!”
Alright then, I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry. It seemed I accidentally stepped on some landmine.
However, it was fortunate that we represented the negotiation between two major factions. Cher, especially, simply watched the two of us, setting all personal issues aside. For the time being, at least.
Once we finished our discussion, Evelyn got up and said goodbye. She took Cher along with her, saying that she wanted to “Have a long evening talk with Cher to deepen our mother-daughter relationship.” However, I felt that Evelyn intended to tell Cher about the entire messy relationship from back in the year.
I considered the fact that I needed to cure Cher, so I would also need her cooperation. Rather than me spending lots of effort to obtain her trust, it would be much easier to have Evelyn explain everything to her. I didn’t stop the two of them from leaving together.
” Sigh , this relationship is impossible to understand with how messy it is. Forget it. Let’s let things play out naturally.”
“You’re just avoiding the problem.”
“You’re so right that I don’t even know how to counter you, silly cat.”
The more I thought about my personal affairs, the messier I felt things were. I decided instead to concentrate on the main task at hand.
“Aso… I truly underestimated you.”
From a certain standpoint, Aso was an incredible individual.
There was no need to go into any more detail about his numerous past accomplishments. None of us were that young, at the age where we needed to brag about our achievements. So-called “past glory” to people as old as us would typically be nothing more than burdens and frustrations. He had personally led and coordinated all the invasion efforts by himself and had left several hidden killer chess pieces, such as the potential Bardi “Undead Plague” or the Salo’s Crystal “nuclear bomb” aimed at the Truth Symposium—this was best evidence of his amazingness.
At the very least, if I were in his position, there was no guarantee I would do any better.
Perhaps the only part where he was lacking was in luck.
In the game’s history, Aso had successfully led the undead invasion, but he met with the problem of two robbers reaching their hands into the same pocket. He just happened to run into the revived Titan Giants—he could only end up fighting against them.
Yet in this version of the world, once Aso discovered that his scheme was exposed and that the few Dimensional Doors he opened might be closed by us, endangering the Tark Republic’s plan to return, he unhesitatingly sacrificed himself. All in the hope that the Tark Republic would be able to inevitably return.
The flip side of the coin was that he had led the entire undead invasion by himself. While he had great authority, he had been far too important to the Tark Republic.
As a typical Undead Emperor, he lacked trust in both his subordinates and fellow Undead Emperors. The end result was that after his death, the secrets that only he knew were lost. His killer traps didn’t have anyone to activate them.
Still, Aso was evidently unwilling to die off just like this and take all his knowledge to the grave. This great scheme he had been planning for several centuries would be ruined just like this.
And so Aso had handed over the keys to his knowledge to the only other Undead Emperor present at the time—me. But he didn’t tell me much. Obviously, he didn’t trust me, and it could even be said that he had a grudge against me.
However, a nuclear bomb with a lost activation code would be nothing more than a hunk of metal. As long as the activation code existed, it would forever be a threat. That’s why, as long as he handed over the activation code, he wouldn’t lose out in the end.
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Since I now knew about the lock, finding the right key on the keychain was simply a matter of time.
“…A potion created out of thirteen common ingredients. Only a miniscule amount of this potion needs to be dispersed on the air, and it will begin the mutation of the bloodlines all Bardi citizens who inhale this fragrance. And this mutation will be impossible to stop once it begins.”
This was clearly important. However, it wasn’t locked together with other top-level secrets in the deepest portion of Aso’s memories. Instead, Aso put this potion’s recipe together with all his other alchemic knowledge. It was labeled as “Aso’s Gift,” and the explanation beneath it was simply a vague description titled “Has the effect of strengthening certain undead magic spells.”
Right now, I could only be thankful that I had recently been quite busy, and that I wasn’t very interested in alchemy and potion-making. Otherwise, if I had been curious enough to casually create one of these potions to test its effects, perhaps I would already be in the top ten of the Calamity Rankings.
For an ordinary mage, new knowledge and secrets were what they lived for. If an alchemist received this knowledge, where Aso proudly labeled his own unique recipe with his name, they would definitely try crafting this potion immediately, which would have caused a tremendous incident.
Aso was quite generous. Apart from this “little gift,” his other gifts were all his accumulated experience and knowledge. But Undead Emperors were Undead Emperors. If one was numbed by his so-called generosity and tricked into believing that this entire treasure vault was safe, then this one tiny little gift would give you a proper education on what an Undead Calamity was.
Evelyn had arrived quite casually, but she left very carefully. If that bottle of the potion I made let even a little tiny droplet out, the end result would be catastrophic.
Of course, I wasn’t crazy enough to play around with an Undead Calamity. But the greatest threat of nuclear weapons from my original world wasn’t the fact that they were destructive. Nuclear weapons would be enough of a threat on their own simply by letting your enemies know that you possessed a “large-scale AOE weapon” and that “you were crazy enough to use it.” As for the latter, my reputation as Yongye “backed me up.” Nobody would likely doubt my courage in being willing to use such a weapon. Perhaps in some people’s eyes I could be considered to be a maniac more dangerous than even Aso. As for the former, seeing was believing, so I just finished preparing a tiny, weak version of Aso’s potion.
Evelyn took along with her a potion bottle containing only three or four droplets. If she released it in a sealed room, it would likely be able to create several hundred undead. I didn’t care what the Bardi royalty would do with this tiny amount of potion after receiving it; for all I cared, they could throw it away or experiment with some death row criminals.
What the Bardi royalty intended to do to deal with this incident no longer mattered.
Once the Bardi royalty finished experimenting with this little potion I sent them, I was confident that unless Orloss was an idiot, he would know what to do. Now that I had some good cards up my sleeve, I was finally able to relax.
I exited the cockpit to find the Dark Elves still kneeling in the airship’s room. Diana had an expression of humble resolution and sincerity, appearing as if she was prepared to face any consequences, and Yawen had a regretful expression with dried tear streaks on her face. However, Victoria had an unhappy expression as she kneeled there. Her legs had gone numb long ago. If it wasn’t for her older sister Diana watching over her, she would have long ran off.
Actually, she was indeed not to blame. She had simply helped out and hadn’t personally acted throughout this whole incident, but she was still dragged into it… and if I recalled correctly, she was the one with the lowest luck stat.
I nodded in satisfaction at this situation. At the very least, Diana and Yawen had rather sincere expressions of knowing they were in the wrong. This lesson had been a useful one.
“You can get up now. I’ve already dealt with the situation. There shouldn’t be a problem anymore. In a way, this is my fault as well. In the future, the work guide for all Judgementors will be modified with an additional rule: Judgementors cannot use the Anti-Crime Slash as the first attack in areas out of their jurisdiction.”
Diana and Yawen didn’t get up and quietly remained kneeling while Victoria crawled away as if she was escaping for her life… yep, that was the best evidence that her legs had gone numb from kneeling.
“No, this isn’t Milord’s fault. I was too rash.”
Yawen was quite regretful and emotional as she blamed herself. I simply shook my head and didn’t say anything. It would be good for her to be regretful. At the very least, perhaps this tomboy would be more cautious and think things through more before taking action in the future.
Since my other subordinates were busying themselves with their own affairs, this room should have had only the few Dark Elves kneeling in punishment. But there was also a somewhat familiar little girl: the half human and Dark Elf hybrid girl who that male Dark Elf had been defending with his life.
There were bandages wrapped on her body. She was looking teary-eyed at the two Dark Elves kneeling in front of me, but when she noticed my presence, she glared at me in an unfriendly fashion.
When I saw how her round ears kept twitching, I became rather curious, and just as I reached my hands out to her…
“Alright, someone explain to me what’s going on. Also, introduce this naughty child to me and then get her off.”
I could only helplessly lift my hand and point at this Half Elf who was biting down on my hand, not letting go and muttering “damned human” all at the same time. Once again, I confirmed that I had nothing to talk about with any naughty child. Next time, I wouldn’t reach my hand out to an untamed pet… wait a moment, something seemed wrong here. Forget it, let’s not worry about it.
“Ria, quickly let go!”
Once the naughty child finally opened her mouth and let go of me, I rubbed the teeth marks on my hand in pain. But soon I learned from them about everything that had happened.
“The Gray Guardians? This is the first time I’m hearing of them.”
“Well, they are the shame of Lorci and Dark Elf society. And they’ve always tried their best to hide themselves. If it wasn’t for Beck who adamantly insisted on living in Ria’s mother’s home, this incident wouldn’t have happened. Now he’s probably changed his mind.”
Dark Elf society was no heaven. And not every Dark Elf was able to accept their cruel and heartless society. Plenty of traitors to Dark Elf society escaped every year. Apart from the Gray Elves who received the Moonlight Goddess’s protection, the Gray Guardians was another organization consisting of a small portion of escaped Dark Elves.
Unlike the Gray Elves, who had sworn to fight Lorci to the bitter end, the Gray Guardians only wanted to live peaceful lives in hiding. However, they hadn’t undergone the Moonlight Ritual, which meant they were physically no different from any other Dark Elf. This made it difficult for them to move about in broad daylight on the surface. Not only that, they still had the typical Dark Elf way of thinking and didn’t trust their gray-skinned “relatives.” These Gray Guardian Dark Elves felt that even if the Gray Elves didn’t have some hidden scheme, they would at least view the Gray Guardians as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder.
And so, with the assistance of a small portion of Gray Elves and the Moonlight Goddess, some of the escapees organized themselves into this “Gray Guardian” group, which was primarily focused on self-help. Their members typically lived in poor alleyways and pretended to be mud-covered farmers. But some of them would accept assistance from the Moonlight Goddess’s church.
Beck was the name of that injured male Dark Elf. He was originally hiding out in a distant mountainous area of Bardi and had successfully married a human with a daughter coming out of their union. However, his wife had died ten years ago due to a disease, leaving two Half Elf daughters behind. It was precisely because his daughters had begged him to take them to see their deceased mother’s hometown that she always talked about so nostalgically that he took the risk and brought his two daughters to the capital.
That was why this had all started today. If it weren’t for the fact that he had sent out a rescue signal in time, with Diana noticing the signal as she too was part of the Moonlight Goddess’s church, perhaps he and his daughters would have been burned at the stake by now.
As I was still digesting all this information, that Beck, who was covered in injuries, struggled to walk over to me. He fell to his knees.
“I beg you, Milord! Please save my older daughter!”