Chapter 62: Beast-Taming Melodica

"By the way, how come it's you who rushed over here, Sister Thea? Where's the Captain?" Rekedon asked curiously.

"He took some injuries. Jessica took him and Mr. Korth back," Thea's voice carried a rare hint of anger.

"Injured?" Rekedon was somewhat surprised.

"Yes, we ran into a Sequence Five Crimson Scholar, but it's fine now—the other party has already left Ma Dan City," Thea said in a low, heavy voice; clearly this was not a pleasant memory.

"Ma Dan City is really chaotic enough. In just this short period of time, it's already overturned everything I knew about this city since I was little." Rekedon was truly speechless—this tiny city was practically a den of hidden dragons and crouching tigers.

Other than major metropolises like Backlund and Trier, what ordinary city would gather so many Sequence Five and Sequence Six Beyonders? And earlier there was even a bloodkin who wanted to advance to Sequence Four.

"What are you thinking about?" Thea asked curiously, seeing that Rekedon hadn't spoken for a while.

"I'm thinking about how we're going to get back? It seems like no carriages are willing to come here." Rekedon changed the subject.

"I've already notified the Captain. He'll send someone to pick us up." Thea offered an explanation.

Rekedon finally breathed a sigh of relief. He was genuinely worried that Thea would make him, an injured patient, walk back—something Thea was absolutely capable of doing.

Tu Ba Ge carried that red wooden melodica and walked to Rekedon's side, leaning back against him. As for the cane it had been holding earlier, it had long since been tossed to who-knows-where.

"What's that melodica in your hand?" Rekedon asked in confusion. He didn't remember his rabbit having such a thing.

"Your spoils of war—a sealed artifact from that werewolf." Thea offered an explanation.

"Spoils of war? Did you take the werewolf's Beyonder characteristic?" Rekedon only then remembered he still had spoils of war, and hurriedly asked Tu Ba Ge.

"Mm-hmm! It's gone now." Tu Ba Ge first nodded, then shook its head.

"What do you mean? You had it? And then it was gone?" Rekedon was a bit bewildered by this rabbit's answer.

"I took that mass of werewolf Beyonder characteristic. It had a restriction left on it by an evil god—you wouldn't be able to use it even if you kept it, and it would also attract hostility." Thea explained the reason.

"Ah! But that's a Sequence Seven characteristic! I can't use it myself, but I could have exchanged it for cash or a Beyonder item of equal value!" Rekedon said with considerable disappointment.

"Smack!" Thea slapped Rekedon squarely on the forehead.

"Don't be so greedy. It's not like you're short of this little bit of money. Even your pet can casually hold two sealed artifacts—if other Beyonders saw that, they'd die of rage!" Thea said, speechless.

"How is that the same? These are spoils of war I won at the risk of my life! And even the richest landlord has no surplus grain! I have to cover the expenses of two Beyonders at the same time—where would I still have money?" Rekedon directly started crying poor.

"Oh~ So the young master has no money either! Would you like to consider that shortcut you recommended to Josie?" Thea said teasingly.

"No thank you, unless the other party is a great beauty like you, Sister Thea!" Rekedon shook his head proudly.

"Others won't do! I'm still waiting to take this shortcut of yours myself, little brother!" Thea said with a face full of pity.

Then she returned to her normal tone: "The Church will record your merits. Afterwards, you can apply for Beyonder items or materials of roughly equivalent value."

After Rekedon and Thea had chatted for a good while, the carriage sent by the Captain finally arrived. Rekedon was dragged by Thea and tossed into the carriage compartment. Tu Ba Ge followed behind, hopping and bouncing as it too boarded the carriage.

"Hiss~ Sister Thea! You're too much! I'm still an injured patient! How could you be so brutal?" Rekedon's already dizzy head was rattled completely senseless.

"Is there any injured patient this full of energy?" Thea retorted.

This guy had clearly been half-dead when he first arrived, yet in just the time it took to wait for a carriage, his spirits had recovered this much. Thea even felt that Rekedon didn't act at all like a Beyonder of the Reader pathway.

"By the way, Sister Thea, do you know the effects of this melodica?" Rekedon wisely changed the subject.

"Mm." Thea spoke plainly and explained the specific effects of this sealed artifact:

The red Beast-Taming Melodica corresponds to the Apothecary pathway's Sequence Eight Beast Tamer. It can play soundless music to attract ordinary animals in the vicinity and can also issue some simple commands to them.

However, it does not grant the ability to communicate with animals. In other words, you can simply direct the animals around you, but the effectiveness of communication and the feedback received varies from person to person.

The negative effect of this sealed artifact is that as usage time increases, the user will uncontrollably take on animal habits, until finally, psychologically, they fully accept themselves as an animal rather than a human.

Rekedon frowned slightly. The effect of this sealed artifact wasn't strong. He couldn't figure out how the werewolf had used it to make those birds monitor him—surely the werewolf couldn't speak the language of birds.

"The werewolf mastered some dark-type spells. He can obtain certain information through corpses, and since he was a werewolf to begin with—counting as half an animal—the negative impact of this sealed artifact was thereby minimized." Thea seemed to see Rekedon's confusion and offered an explanation.

After hearing Thea's explanation, Rekedon roughly understood why the werewolf had kept this seemingly useless sealed artifact on his person. For a werewolf who wasn't lacking in offensive means, this sealed artifact was quite perfect.

As a werewolf, he could make good use of its abilities while not being too affected by its negative effects.

"No wonder you gave this sealed artifact to Tu Ba Ge, Sister Thea. This is practically a sealed artifact tailor-made for an extraordinary animal like it." Rekedon remarked with a sigh.

"Although your rabbit can avoid this sealed artifact's negative effects, are you sure it can communicate with other different species of animals? Otherwise, this sealed artifact will just become a rabbit-summoning device." Thea asked in return.

Rekedon wasn't clear on this point either, and could only turn to look at Tu Ba Ge, which was clutching the melodica and lying beside him.

"Waa~ I'm just a rabbit! I can only understand what cats, dogs, and silly birds say. I haven't even met other animals." Tu Ba Ge said with righteous confidence.

"Whoa! You sure know a lot of foreign languages. Later I'll take you to meet the fish in the sea, and we'll try to pick up a few more dialects." Rekedon said with considerable surprise.

Tu Ba Ge choked for a moment, then lay stiffly on the seat in the carriage compartment, sleeping very peacefully.

"This rabbit sure has a lot of drama! Worthy of being the rabbit you raised." Thea couldn't help but remark, watching this scene.

"Let me clarify—the rabbit's conduct has nothing to do with me personally!" Rekedon felt his reputation had been damaged.

"Alright, stop being a chatterbox and just shut up and rest. I need to quietly think about some matters." Thea rarely turned serious.

Rekedon reached up and made a zipping motion across his lips, not caring whether Thea understood or not, and, just like Tu Ba Ge, leaned against the carriage compartment and rested with his eyes closed.

Thea shook her head helplessly, ignoring the two drama queens in front of her, and began to ponder everything that had happened today.

On the surface, it looked like people from the Rose School were hunting down a defector, but why would they need to dispatch a Crimson Scholar for a mere Sequence Seven defector? Moreover, the purpose of that Crimson Scholar who suddenly appeared seemed different from the other Rose School members.

"A bloodkin who worships the Primordial Moon? I wonder if that bloodkin viscount from before who wanted to switch pathways to advance to demigod has any connection to them." Thea frowned in deep thought as she looked at the scenery outside the carriage.

This string of events that had recently occurred in Ma Dan always made Thea feel that behind it all lay some hidden purpose or conspiracy.

(End of this chapter)