Chapter 1246: with translation of chapter title

NO. 150: After all, it's coercion of striking first and reporting later.

In fact, the number, teaching staff, and the level of official departments that come to inspect the nursery in the demon realm make it easy to see their special nature.

Although the threshold for children to enter the nursery is not high—just needing no family to look after them—few dare to make an issue of admitting infants.

They dare not, yet they cannot simply ignore or abandon those children's potential value.

Thus most far-sighted people choose to make do, waiting quietly for those children to finish their studies or reach the age when they must leave the nursery.

A friendly gesture, or even a more straightforward invitation—even if they perhaps haven't managed to get on good terms with the nursery staff, investing when there is still leeway is always easy.

However, even if there is no leeway, it doesn't matter.

Demons have always had a gambling habit; each demon realm even sets up a magically synchronized stone monument—or what is called a pillar of shame.

On it are listed the names of those disgraceful gamblers who, when the mood strikes, wager everything and end up losing even themselves.

Even the so-called 'true names' marked there are referenced and derived in many works.

Like a function called in code, true names that possess unique power in rituals and hardly ever overlap are not owned by all demons, but the vast majority deliberately pursue them.

After all, in a sense this also counts as a symbol of status and identity.

Just like having one's own seal is 'cool,' it also has practical utility.

—A true name in another's hand is quite lethal, but conversely, when it is held solely by oneself, whether forming a contract, drawing a magic circle, or constructing any other ritual related to source energy, it is several times swifter and more efficient than ordinary methods.

—That said, the vast majority of those who seek true names are not doing so for adaptability.

They simply think it befits their status, and it's Coooooool!

In Aomo's view, this is the demon realm's biggest unhealthy trend, meaning that most big shots who appear invincible have found a exploitable mechanism to take them down.

There is a kind of feeling as if the entire race's genes have been engraved with a self-destruct factor, making it hard to endure.

If it weren't that many big shots naturally choose to cling to life, he would truly suspect that the demons and devils of the demon realm, like the Faction, have had something inserted into their genetic foundation.

By comparison, loving gambling this tag is really too ordinary.

So ordinary that many humans also have it.

The more confident one is, the more one craves stimulation, the more one has madness in one's bones, the harder it is to resist this alternative extreme confrontation, until one loses utterly.

On this road there is no eternal victory.

Each victory actually adds fuel to the fire in one's heart; the more one wins, the more one's vision is twisted by the blazing flames.

From barely seeing reality at first, to ultimately disregarding reality, at that point—you only need to lose once to spit out everything you previously won.

Believing one has a chance to win before gambling—this sounds like a cautious statement, but in fact it's the psychology of all gamblers: before losing, they truly believe they have a chance to win.

However, this is the path to ruin for perpetual victors; most gamblers walk a road of wins and losses, making it hard to replicate a miracle of losing everything at once.

The demon realm is full of such gamblers.

These gamblers are not necessarily ferocious in appearance, nor necessarily radical in speech; they can even speak clearly, think meticulously, contain goodwill—and believe you will surely achieve something in the future, support you unreservedly, help you, care more about your interpersonal relations, encourage you to bravely seek those you wish to find, and even remind you not to forget those who have helped you, and when you have time, remember to return to the nursery to thank the teachers who educated you…

By this point, the fox's tail is pretty much exposed.

Although the demon realm always hides dragons and crouching tigers, making it unclear how many big shots there are, those few at the nursery are always obvious and hard to ignore.

Even though most of them are bound by the nursery's contract, making it hard to recreate their former glory, this merely limits their most superficial value.

Whether it's power, knowledge, or influence, true capitalists always have the eye to squeeze out everything, and the demon realm never lacks capitalist minds.

In certain circles, the nursery's children are regarded as future seed contenders, just as horse girls entering Central are seen as having G1-level potential, able to attract far more attention than those from Difangteleisen.

Demon investors can also be angel investors; as for little Aomo, who was adopted midway, he is the kind of wastrel that investors prefer not to notice—having not completed a normal term, not having built good relations with teachers, and taken in by a nobody to live a life of scrambling for a living… This situation, no matter which demon realm big shot sees it, feels pitiful.

And little Aomo's being subjected to a strict cut enforced by the staff, precisely monitored by Hana, even if conveyed to them via some people's drunken ramblings, is only seen as being abandoned even more thoroughly, and as giving up attention.

By a twist of fate, little Aomo thus won for himself an extraordinarily peaceful childhood and youth.

Without any scheming or plotting disturbing him, he occasionally felt inclined and, in his own way, probed his homeland's situation like a side strike, gradually realizing the larger environment that his past self had not noticed.

Feeling fortunate, yet also sighing that back then the simple, foolish bunch actually possessed such value.

Nowadays, when he visits the staff at the nursery and learns from them about the current state of the demon realm, he has repeatedly confirmed his earlier lament.

xxx became a company boss, xxx became an xx minister, xxx killed his enemy's family and is now wanted, xxx has thirty years east thirty years west, xxx is striving for the youngest duke record, xxx swore an oath to the demon god, and the latest news is that there were eyewitness reports of a battle in the L52 star system—those who can come to the nursery always have their own reasons, and those reasons have shaped their present circumstances, letting Aomo sigh repeatedly that his own days are actually fairly livable.

Although if we held an alumni gathering I wouldn't know which tier my own muddling belongs to, at least in terms of self-satisfaction it counts as happy and fulfilling.

By comparison, Lars Lessenbra is obviously not very ideal.

Although he has a relative who works as a teacher at the nursery and now also serves as the head of a family territory project, in Aomo's view he ought to have risen to a higher position.

Know this: Aomo's current observational ability stems from having awakened a fondness for deliberate observation since childhood.

And little Aomo's earliest objects of observation were obviously the 'classmates' and 'alumni' of the nursery.

Compared to older brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, grandmothers, etc., which yield little observational gain and are even harder to guess or deduce as 'high-difficulty targets,' peers of similar age with simple thinking—little troublemakers, little silly ones, little companions—are relatively suitable 'upgrade fodder' for one's rank.

He remembers all of those people.

Even regarding the topic of 'what kind of existence one wants to become in the future,' he remembers the evaluations he gave those people in his heart.

He even remembers the demon grandfather's evaluations of each of them.

This kind of nursery, each year, sets aside a few days for discussion and also invites demon elders with prophetic expertise to give educational lessons—a classic item that is also an important reference for the demon realm's big shots when directing investments.

Aomo does not care about such reference, after all prophecies going awry have been proven, he himself is the most direct proof, and that club department head is likewise.

The person who ought to have become the Scarlet Duke instead serves as the club department head here; although he has no interest in delving into the other's past, he is quite keen on mutual benefit through a handy favor—or on enticing collaboration.

After all, this can better achieve the goal.

Now he has, from that company that was attacked by Holleha, obtained crucial information that could be leaked to a certain local official, and also possesses transaction intelligence from the company's true superior organization, Luzas.

This is indeed a familiar name; aside from the radio drama, it's the second time I've seen it.

But whether they are, as the impression suggests, a revenge organization formed by a pack of defeated cosmic beings, currently there is no sign of it.

If so, one might as well probe indirectly.

Could a coincidental major mistake bring some suspicious tension, thereby revealing a new weakness?

Aomo, who looks forward to this, is willing to give that senior schoolmate a cooperation opportunity.

One could legitimately pressure that company to seek a windfall opportunity.

But if he were ambitious enough, with a big enough appetite, he should demand an explanation from the company's superiors.

Indeed, that would be very dangerous.

He is merely the section chief of a small club in the Demon Realm area; even counting the scale of secretly controlling two-thirds of Yachen's blood bank classified resources, the risk of facing a possible true cosmic human group remains high.

But as long as he has a bit of sense, he won't overlook Aomo Lindun, who gave him the opportunity, especially since he is obviously keeping tabs on the latter's recent situation.

But the subtle fact is that this calls for a bit of confidence, a bit of greed, and even a minimal level of intellectual connection—enough to make Aomo wait for two full hours.

Rather than saying an accident occurred, it's more like……

"Childish revenge tactics, just like back then—you really haven't changed a bit."

Facing the other's virtual projection, he let out a long sigh.