Chapter 1765: Iron Badger

"Achoo!!!"

With a sneeze like muffled thunder, the crows roosting in the Dead Realm's 【Sage Cemetery】 were startled into flight, countless feathers blacker than ink scattering down onto one mound after another.

"Fuck!"

Only a curse full of annoyance was heard; under the old locust tree on the east side of the Sage Cemetery, the thirty-eighth mound counting from left to right bulged upward extremely abruptly, and then was actually pried open from the inside by someone.

Damn it, my coffin actually grew mold!

After kicking open his own coffin lid and sitting up from inside the mound, the Third Generation Bureau Chief, face full of ill luck, took out a handkerchief and forcefully blew the mold spores that had fallen into his nose, then looked toward his own tombstone with a hostile expression and snapped:

"The moisture on you is annoying the hell out of me! Can't you piss off somewhere farther away?"

"Iron Badger, I've come to find you."

From the thick white mist behind the tombstone came a series of hard, crisp hoofbeats; a tall doe wreathed in dense fog belts stepped out from the sky-covering, earth-covering water vapor and stopped beside the Third Generation Bureau Chief's coffin.

"Where's your mask?"

Glancing at the Third Generation Bureau Chief's haphazardly piled coffin, the Flesh Doe likewise asked in an unfriendly tone:

"According to our past agreement, whenever the mask transmits a signal, you must put it on and then answer us a question about the Cleanup Bureau. Where did your mask go?"

"It's not that whenever the mask moves I have to entertain you. According to our original agreement, I only need to entertain you once every twenty years, whenever I feel like it, and that's enough."

After correcting the Flesh Doe's statement, the Third Generation Bureau Chief climbed out of his own coffin, then waved his hand to smash open the neighboring mound and dragged his neighbor's coffin out.

Amid the panicked shouts of the neighbor who had been woken up, the Third Generation old man pried open his coffin lid, took a black Honey Badger mask off the neighbor's face, and tossed it to the Flesh Doe not far away.

"Here. I was worried I'd lose it so I put it in someone else's grave, so I wasn't planning to break the agreement... but since you're already here, don't bother with extra formalities. Whatever you want to ask, just ask directly!"

This old thing... doesn't take keeping promises seriously at all!

Lowering her head to look at the mask thrown at her feet, the Flesh Doe couldn't help but show an angry expression, but seeing the Third Generation Bureau Chief's shameless look, she finally suppressed her anger and asked in a hostile tone:

"Was the anomalous object of that Cleanup Bureau staff member named Li Ang from the Virgin Branch Bureau forged by you? If so, what exactly are its effects?"

"Hm?"

Hearing the Flesh Doe's question, the Third Generation Bureau Chief, who was picking his ears, couldn't help but freeze slightly, then narrowed his eyes and sized up the Flesh Doe, counter-questioning with a suspicious look:

"A once-in-twenty-years chance, and you ask this?"

"Right!"

"Mm~ that's interesting~"

Patting off the mold spores that had fallen on him, the Third Generation Bureau Chief shook his square skull, walked two circles around the huge doe, then asked curiously:

"To actually make you use up this question, and even take the risk of coming to find me directly... so that little brat Li Ang caused you a lot of trouble?"

"Iron Badger! Right now I'm asking you, not you asking me!"

The Flesh Doe's heart felt faintly creepy under the Third Generation Bureau Chief's greedy, material-assessing gaze, and she couldn't help but snap: "You'd better understand the situation! If it weren't for us, you'd have dissipated long ago! Now I demand you answer my question honestly according to the pact we made in the past!"

"Heh."

After hearing the Flesh Doe's angry rebuke, the square-skulled old man couldn't help but let out a cold laugh, then said with a face full of contempt:

"I'll repeat: the pact I made with you Slaughter King Association in the past was that I only need to pick one question from yours to answer truthfully every twenty years, and you have to maintain my existence continuously.

So whether or not to answer this question ultimately depends on my mood. If you still don't understand this, then piss off right now!"

"You're not afraid we..."

"Afraid my ass!"

Spitting at the threatening Flesh Doe, the square-skulled old man curled his lip:

"The one who made the pact with you was the me who was still alive back then; what the hell does that have to do with the me who's already dead through and through? And right now I'm just an obsession — dead or alive, how much difference can it make?

If you've got the guts, just break the pact, stop the sustenance and send me on my way; from then on when you run into things you can ask whoever you want. If you don't have the guts, then hold it in for me, answer my question honestly, and if you coax me into a good mood I might even entertain you a couple more times... understand?"

"..."

This damn old thing!

Looking at the Third Generation Bureau Chief playing the rogue before her, the Flesh Doe couldn't help but raise a hoof and angrily paw at the cemetery's stone slabs twice, but she indeed had no way to deal with him and could only swallow her anger and speak:

"That Li Ang... after he returned from your place, he's already ruined our operations three times in a row, not only destroying the Korok Kingdom, subverting the Snow Owl and Black Owl, but even nearly eating the Thrush alive..."

As the Flesh Doe continued her account, the Third Generation old man's expression shifted first from curiosity to surprise, then from surprise to shock, and finally from shock to enormous bewilderment.

That guy who couldn't even figure out his anomalous object? Last time Olivia didn't say he hadn't been in the Cleanup Bureau long? This has forced the Slaughter King Association to specially study how to deal with him? Has that stupid brat grown a bit too fast?

"In short, this person poses a huge threat to us."

After briefly recounting what Li Ang had done and the terrible impact those things had on the Slaughter King Association, the Flesh Doe said patiently:

"I've answered your question; now it's your turn to answer mine! Iron Badger! What exactly did you forge for him? Why can he directly strip the Nightmare King's authority? And what's with that nearly flawless undying body?"

"..."

The anomalous object I forged for him... I remember it was a small fork that makes people dream, a snakeskin scroll that forcibly swaps someone else's anomalous object, and later, to get back at him, a pair of gloves that hurt the wearer when they hit someone.

None of these three anomalous objects have anything to do with an undying body, and stripping the Nightmare King's authority is even more unrelated. Although I don't know what his core anomalous object is, it definitely wasn't forged by me!

It's just that, although this matter has nothing to do with me, I can't just say so directly.

"Hmm... I've got a slight clue. That brat's situation is indeed very special; he left a very deep impression on me back then, so..."

Stroking his chin, a look of sudden realization appeared on the square-headed old man's face, then he turned to look at the Flesh Doe with her urgent gaze and said with a laugh:

"Gotta raise the price!"

(End of Chapter)