Chapter 797: Old Friend

The leader of the law enforcers was about forty, with a clean-shaven beard and deep brown eyes.

He answered Lu Mi's question without expression:

"There is no such rule."

He meant there was no regulation stating that all belongings of a deceased thief belong to a single victim.

Lu Mi smiled and asked in return:

"But there's also no specific law prohibiting this, right?"

"Correct." The lead law enforcer nodded slowly.

Lu Mi's smile widened:

"Does arriving in Morola mean a complete break from the past?"

This was inferred from the words of the clergyman Heraiberg inside the church.

"Yes." The law enforcer did not deny it.

Lu Mi pressed further:

"And this thief has no other heirs in Morola, correct?"

Before entering Morola, serious criminals are all sterilized; unless they commit crimes as a family or find a spouse here who shares their criminal philosophy, no one in Morola has a legal heir.

The law enforcer did not immediately answer Lu Mi's question. He pulled a thick book from beneath his black robe and searched for the relevant record.

"Do you know this thief? Do you know his name?" Lu Mi asked thoughtfully.

The law enforcer nodded:

"He was Wurms."

Soon, the record was found. The law enforcer spoke without inflection:

"His parents and siblings are not in Morola, and he never married here—at least, never registered a marriage."

"So, according to the laws of our homeland, when a thief's belongings have no heir or other victim claiming them, they become the property of the victim who captured him." Lu Mi began fabricating a rationale. "It's like in a legal duel—you kill your opponent, you take the spoils."

The law enforcer stared at Lu Mi for several seconds.

"Fine."

He and his team stood patiently until Wurms's extraordinary trait separated and fused with one of his fingers, snapping off and turning semi-transparent black.

After retrieving the extraordinary trait, Lu Mi did not leave immediately. He stayed where he was, idly watching the law enforcers drag away the corpse and clean the blood and charred marks from the alley.

The dark clouds overhead grew thicker; flashes of lightning and muffled thunder grew more frequent.

Finally, the alley was clean and quiet again—left only with Lu Mi.

Lu Mi nodded thoughtfully and muttered silently:

"The law enforcers seem to remember every Morola resident's face and name…"

"After becoming law enforcers, they're still human—but not quite human anymore…"

He felt these people, called law enforcers but in truth experimental personnel, acted like puppets following fixed procedures, as if they had lost self-awareness and the capacity for deep thought.

He had deliberately asked whether Wurms's belongings belonged to him—not out of greed for the impending extraordinary trait, though greed did play a minor role, since extraordinary traits were still valuable. But Lu Mi had already realized Wurms was certainly not at Sequence 7 of the "Thief" path, because Sequence 7 is called "Cryptologist," who must be able to decipher at least partial secrets of the items inside the "Traveler's Satchel," understand their danger levels, and would never die after merely examining three items.

Lu Mi even suspected Wurms hadn't even reached Sequence 8, "Con Artist," because the thief had shown no signs of intelligence.

Lu Mi had asked the law enforcer those questions not to demonstrate his "Lawyer" talent or his knack for exploiting loopholes, but to use this exchange as a test—to probe the state of the law enforcers, the experimental personnel!

Then, he reached a conclusion.

He felt that after becoming experimental personnel, these serious criminals had become something like a fusion of the wax figures inside the Soren family's Red Swan Castle and the "Supervisor" Olson of the Ironblood Cross, yet without the violent madness—instead, they were mild, detached, and grotesquely numb.

"Is this the combined effect of '0—01's contamination and Morola's sealing of it?" Lu Mi wondered whether, if he joined the experimental personnel, he could still retain his self-awareness—or whether he would merely obey Morola's rules, becoming a puppet of this "City of Exile" or of "0—01."

This shook his original plan to approach "0—01" as an experimental personnel member.

He let out a low laugh and asked:

"Therimpolos, would you be willing to become a puppet of Morola?"

Therimpolos ignored him.

Whoosh!

The rain finally fell, plunging all of Morola into a haze of splashing mist and apocalyptic gloom.

Lu Mi followed the overhangs of heavy buildings, avoiding the downpour, heading toward the nearest location where the "Pus-Swollen Stump"'s fragmented body gave the strongest feedback.

When he arrived, his clothes were half-sodden from wind and rain, and the puddles on the street were nearly lapping at the steps.

Lu Mi turned his gaze to the side and saw a sign mounted beside the door: a knife and fork beside a wine glass, written in Lunbao script:

"Carnivore."

A bar serving meals? Carnivore… Lu Mi chewed over the bar's name and suddenly had a strange suspicion:

"The earlier sensation indicated the Stump's body was scattered across many places in Morola—but originally there were only two pieces…"

"The goat-faced devil of the Underworld cuts and eats the Stump's rotting flesh every day, and the flesh regenerates…"

"This bar is called 'Carnivore'…"

"Could it be that the bar's owner obtained one of the Stump's body pieces, eliminating the need to buy meat, using it as a substitute?"

Bar owners in other cities might not do such a thing, but those in Morola probably would—they were all exiled for serious crimes. This bar's owner might have been a deranged butcher who killed people and sold their meat…

"If that's true, it's troublesome. How many people have eaten and fused with the Stump's rotting flesh? What effects might this have caused?"

"If I find the original two body fragments and help the Stump partially recover, could I then simply draw the rest together?"

Lu Mi muttered silently, then sprinted through the rain and pushed open the heavy wooden door of the "Carnivore" bar.

—Since arriving in Morola and preparing to restore the "Pus-Swollen Stump"'s body to completeness, he had begun calling it "Stump Brother"—partly teasing, partly showing "familiarity," hoping the Stump wouldn't truly attack him later, since other dangers might still arise.

As Lu Mi stepped into the bar, still damp from the rain, he saw a familiar figure.

The figure sat on a high stool before the bar, hair tinted with a reddish hue, eyebrows and eyes darker brown, face undeniably handsome yet too sharp, too aggressive, making it impossible to like.

Albus!

Albus Medich!

Lu Mi's mind tensed instantly, but his face remained calm. He walked toward the bar with a smile.

He had once thought Albus Medich merely mysterious, secretly plotting something. But later, he learned of the "Red Angel" Medich, and that this former Angel-King had orchestrated a grand conspiracy to obtain the Sequence 1 extraordinary trait of the "Hunter" path from Fomenda Soren in the Fourth Era.

Now, every time he saw Albus Medich, he thought of the "Red Angel," suspecting Albus was the Angel-King's proxy, sent into Morola to seek an opportunity to approach "0—01."

For Lu Mi, this was not good news—Medich was the closest figure to the "Red Priest" throne!

Albus Medich sensed Lu Mi's gaze, turned his body, and looked back at Lu Mi, who had made no disguise—only restored his hair to its natural color.

"What are you doing here?" Lu Mi smiled as if meeting an old friend.

Albus returned the same smile:

"What are you doing here?"

"Obviously, I got arrested." Lu Mi sat beside Albus and tapped the bar counter. He addressed the bartender, whose face looked as if he'd just lost his parents: "Give me a steak—sirloin, medium rare."

"Are you copying me? Both of us mysteriously arrested, both ordering sirloin steak." Albus rested one foot on the footrest of the stool and lifted the other, placing it on his knee.

Before Lu Mi could reply, Albus asked, relaxed and smiling:

"What crime did you commit?"

"Murder, desecration, arson, bombings, kidnapping…" Lu Mi recited the same charges he'd told Ge Yi and others, but in a different order.

He asked back, equally relaxed:

"What about you?"

"Me." Albus shook the foot resting on his knee. "Murder, arson, inciting riots, attempting to overthrow the government."

"Which government?" Lu Mi asked in the tone of old friends reuniting.

"Indis." Albus spread his hands. "Don't ask why I tried to overthrow the Indis government but got exiled to this strange city in Lunbao—I don't know either."

Your answer is too dismissive… Lu Mi nodded in full agreement:

"Yeah, I didn't commit any crimes in Lunbao either."

As the two former Ironblood Cross members "chatted," two steaks arrived.

Lu Mi stared at the steak on the white porcelain plate—slightly bloody, the meat looking excellent—and remained motionless, not picking up his knife and fork.

He felt the connection.

This was indeed the rotting flesh of the "Pus-Swollen Stump," cut away!

After a few seconds, Lu Mi glanced sideways and saw Albus Medich staring at the "steak" as well, motionless.

Lu Mi's lips curled into a smile. He asked:

"Why aren't you eating?"

Albus returned a brilliant smile:

"Why aren't you eating?"

(End of Chapter)