Chapter 119: Reward (Monthly vote additional update)

Osta tried hard to squeeze out a smile:

"I didn't cheat you, there really is a Samaritan Woman's Spring!"

"Really?" Lu Mian approached Osta step by step and said with a smile, "When the time comes, you drink a sip for me to see. If it works, you will forget that I haven't paid you the reward. If it doesn't work, why should I pay you the reward?"

Osta didn't know how to answer for a moment, could only pile up a smile and nod:

"Believe me, believe me..."

Suddenly, he looked behind Lu Mian, his eyes staring straight, as if he saw some terrifying object.

Lu Mian "subconsciously" turned around and looked at the door, but there was no one there.

Taking this opportunity, Osta lowered his body, passed by him, and ran wildly toward the open door.

Thump!

Osta was tripped by Lu Mian's right foot, which appeared out of nowhere, and fell straight to the ground, causing his high nose bridge to be stained with blue, and his thin face to swell up.

Lu Mian pulled the door shut slowly, pulled over a chair and sat down, looking down at Osta, who was playing dead on the ground:

"You don't want to tell me that your inspiration is high, you just 'saw' some strange creature behind my back, and you rushed to the door to deal with it for me?"

Osta was stunned for a moment, turned over and stood up, nodding repeatedly:

"Right, right, right, that's it!"

Lu Mian smiled, cast his gaze toward the rectangular wooden table against the wall.

There were silver daggers, white candles, several small bottles containing different liquids or empty, two pieces of imitation parchment, and paper boxes emitting the scent of grass and trees.

Has a certain amount of mystical knowledge... Lu Mian took back his gaze and said to the uneasy Osta:

"Who was that guy holding the pipe just now?"

"Baron Brignell!" Osta said hurriedly, "He is the leader of the Sawa gang in the Market District."

Sawa is the name of an inland province of the Int

"Baron? Are there still barons now?" Lu Mian asked back, amused.

Ever since Emperor Luo Saier died and the Republic was established, noble titles had disappeared from daily life.

Aosta said quite fearfully:

"That's a nickname he gave himself; perhaps his ancestors had such a title."

Lu Mian leaned back against the chair, asking with a quite relaxed posture:

"Why did he look for you? Do you owe them money?"

Seeing Lu Mian's harmless appearance of chatting with a friend, Aosta, despite his fear, felt slightly more relaxed inside.

He said bitterly:

"In order to buy, buy, buy an item, I borrowed 3,000 Fels from a loan shark. Later, that merchant sold this debt to Brignier."

"I've already repaid at least 3,000 Fels, but he told me there's still 2,000 in interest!"

"If you delay another two or three months, what you owe won't be 2,000, but 4,000." Lu Mian successfully saw Aosta's expression collapse, no longer possessing that mystical, rambling temperament from before.

He then lowered his voice and said in a seductive tone:

"If it were me, encountering this kind of thing, I would think of a way to lure Brignier and his men underground, to some quarry cavity, and then collapse the stone layer above, letting them sleep there forever."

"Without a creditor, there is no debt."

The more Aosta heard, the more panicked he became, looking at Lu Mian as if he were looking at a devil.

He suspected the other party already intended to do so, only the target name in the plan wasn't Brignier, but Aosta Truel!

"This is murder! This is a crime!" Aosta shouted in terror.

"Keep it down, you don't want to lose the ability to speak forever, do you?" Lu Mian reminded him with a smile. "You also know this is a crime? Then did the detectives ever tell you that fraud is also a crime?"

Aosta couldn't find a suitable word to respond for a moment.

Lu Mian stood up and patted the dust off his gloves:

"Just kidding, I was just testing your character."

"What?" Aosta looked blank.

Lu Mian certainly wouldn't tell him that the real reason for saying those things just now was to establish a cold, bloodthirsty, and terrifying image in his heart, which would help with the subsequent 'communication'.

Forced trust is also trust!

"Congratulations, you passed my test, which proves you aren't that kind of bottomless criminal." Lu Mian smiled and spread his arms.

He suddenly pulled the topic back on track:

"What did you buy with all that money?"

He then looked around, adding while observing:

"There doesn't seem to be anything valuable here..."

Aosta subconsciously opened his mouth, wanting to make up a lie on the spot, but instantly remembered the words the other party had just said.

He shivered and said:

"Do, do you know about potions?"

"You really are a Beyonder?" Lu Mian laughed.

Seeing that he knew about Beyonders and potions, Aosta secretly breathed a sigh of relief, glad he hadn't lied just now.

The story he wanted to make up was full of holes in front of a real Beyonder, easily punctured, and if that happened, he might have to 'sleep' in some corner of underground Trier tonight.

Aosta took two deep breaths and said:

"A few months ago, in order to buy the main ingredients for a potion, I borrowed 3,000 Fels from a loan shark, and combined with the 4,000 Fels I had saved, I successfully transformed from an ordinary person into a Beyonder."

"Which sequence are you? How can you not even deal with a few gang thugs?" Lu Mian asked deliberately in a suspicious tone.

Aosta looked helpless:

"I am a Sequence 9 'Mystery Pryer'."

"Sounds not weak." Lu Mian made a judgment based solely on the potion name.

Aosta said with both grief and annoyance:

"I also thought 'Mystery Pryer' should be very powerful; the seller even said this would allow me to gain insight into the reality of the world."

"As a result, apart from increasing my spirituality, it just gave me some impractical sacrificial knowledge and ritual magic. Now, besides occasionally sensing the existence of mysterious things and scaring myself half to death, I can't even beat a gang member!"

"Ritual magic should be very useful." Lu Mian said in the tone of someone who had been there.

Aosta had an expression like he was about to cry:

"I have occult common sense; I am a believer of the 'Eternal Blazing Sun'. How can I pray to unknown existences? That's very dangerous!"

"Sigh, the knowledge that came with the potion does have some honorific names, but they all belong to hidden existences. Just hearing them sounds terrifying—what 'Fallen Self', what 'True Attendant', what 'Gaze of Fate'—I don't dare to pray at all!"

He secretly glanced at Lu Mian, pretending to gnash his teeth:

"But I've thought about it: if Baron Brignier and those people come to force me again, I'll pray to a hidden existence and gain power!"

He explicitly pointed at Baron Brignier, but was actually warning Lu Mian not to force him into a dead end.

Lu Mian looked at his anxious face and agreed:

"That is a good choice."

"Baron Brignier and his men underestimate a Beyonder too much. If it were me, I wouldn't give you the chance to reach a dead end at all."

Speaking of this, he smiled at Aosta:

"Before that, you would already be dead."

Aosta opened his mouth and closed it again, his expression uglier than crying.

Lu Mian walked to the wooden table, fiddled with the full or empty small bottles, and said casually:

"You seem to have moved several times, but were found by Baron Brignier each time. I suspect he or the Savages gang has a real Beyonder."

Aosta was shocked.

Lu Mian picked up the silver dagger on the table and said to Aosta while playing with it:

"I can give you 100 Fels as a reward."

"Ah?" Aosta felt blank once again.

He found that he could never keep up with the other party's train of thought.

"Do, do you still want the spring water of the Samaritan woman?" He asked tentatively.

Lu Mian laughed:

"You tell me, does it really exist?"

Looking at the other party's smiling eyes, Aosta stammered for a few seconds:

"I'm not sure."

Lu Mian nodded with satisfaction:

"What I want is for you to take me to the gathering you just mentioned, the one where you bought the main potion ingredients. The reward is 100 Fels."

The reason Lu Mian made this request was, on one hand, because Lady 'Magician's' mission might be related to that gathering involving Beyonder materials, and on the other hand, because he himself also needed similar gatherings to collect weapons, materials, sealed artifacts, and occult knowledge.

Aosta swallowed hard:

"I, I can try, but it must be approved by the gathering's convener."

"No problem." Lu Mian took out a gold coin and signaled Aosta to come over. "This gold Louis is the reward for your help in asking. The remaining 80 Fels will be given to you when I can attend the gathering."

Aosta didn't expect the development of being beaten up to turn into a paid commission, and he was stunned for a moment.

After a few seconds, he carefully came to the wooden table, took the gold Louis worth 20 Fels, and said to Lu Mian:

"I'm not sure when he will give me an answer, but it won't be later than next Wednesday."

"I'm near the catacombs during the day and sleep here at night. You can come find me anytime."

Lu Mian nodded with a smile on his face while raising the silver dagger he was playing with, and with a swish, stabbed it into Aosta's shoulder.

Fresh blood flowed out. Aosta retreated two steps in terror, leaned against the wall, and shouted urgently:

"Don't kill me!"

"I didn't lie!"

Lu Mian picked up a small glass bottle placed on the wooden table and walked toward Aosta with a smile:

"Don't worry, if I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already."

"This is called swearing an oath with blood. I am very afraid of being deceived and betrayed."

Lu Mian said while bringing the empty small glass bottle to Aosta's wound, letting the blood drip into it.

During this process, he smiled at Aosta:

"You have enough occult knowledge; you should know what it means to have your blood in someone else's hands. Don't lie to me."

"A curse..." Aosta didn't know whether to be glad he hadn't died on the spot or to despair that his blood had fallen into the hands of this guy who was even more dangerous than Baron Brignier.

Lu Mian didn't say much, tightened the bottle cap, tore off a strip of cloth in the room, and threw it to Aosta:

"Bandage your wound yourself."

He didn't have Beyonder skills related to curses, but he could try whether the expired blood could trigger the 'Fallen Mercury's' ability to exchange fate.

If it couldn't, it didn't matter; anyway, it was enough to make Aosta believe he could curse.

Looking at Aosta, who was struggling to stop the bleeding, Lu Mian asked casually:

"What do you plan to do about Baron Brignier's side?"

"With this gold Louis, plus a little money I saved myself, they should be able to stay calm for a week." Aosta smiled bitterly. "If they force a debtor to death, they won't get a single kopek."

PS: Monthly vote extra update, asking for May's base monthly votes~

(End of chapter)