City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Conspiracy

The Third Prince’s expression warped a few times, but eventually he just glared at Nyris and let him go. Nyris’ steps were graceful and steady as he made his way into the distance, the Third Prince’s expression growing even gloomier at the sight until his eyes were nearly spurting fire. He grabbed a follower beside him, “Go, find out why he used up all of his loan! Use whatever method you want, I want to know!”

At that very moment, the doors of the warehouse slowly opened up. A group of strong, muscular men carried heavy magic chests outside and piled them up into carriages nearby. Soon after, a troop of royal guards escorted the three carriages towards the island’s portal.

“Wait!” the third prince stopped the captain, “What are these, and who are they being sent to?”

Seeing that it was the Third Prince, the guard captain immediately replied respectfully, “Magic equipment, purchased by Young Master Richard of the Archeron Family.”

“Oh, alright. You can go,” the Prince stepped aside while maintaining his composure. It was only after the procession was far away that a shadow flashed in his eyes, “Richard? Don’t tell me he’s already ganged up with Nyris…”

“Richard?” a follower asked, “Is that the new royal runemaster?”

The Third Prince’s expression grew even darker. “Who cares about his status,” he said with a snort, “I can give him double what Nyris can! But if he’s not interested… Hmph!”

“I hear the dead would be more interested!” a follower tempted, but the Prince said nothing in reply.

……

The next afternoon, in Faust’s most famous restaurant. Nyris was sat together with Agamemnon once more, but looking at the spread of dishes on the table he actually seemed to have no appetite.

Agamemnon raised his head to glance at him and said harshly, “Eat! I’ll pay the bill.”

“Stop looking down on me!” Nyris shouted in reply, “I should be the one paying bills this month!”

“A pauper has no right to be arrogant,” the normally-silent youth responded, leaving Nyris speechless. The Prince then bowed his head down, pouring his anger onto the table of dishes. Even a full table could not bear being ravished by the two youths, wiped out entirely in the blink of an eye.

Agamemnon called the waiter in, “Another table.”

His tone was very dull, but in the face of a table full of dishes worth nearly 10,000 gold these words sounded somewhat domineering. “You look like you came into money recently,” Nyris snorted.

“Yes, I won a bet and taught several narrow-minded fellows a severe lesson.” Agamemnon was clearly proud of his victory to be saying so many words.

However, Nyris couldn’t care less about his friend’s flaunting. He instead leant against the table listlessly, “Oh, all my points this year… They’re definitely meeting a tragic end!”

However, high spirits returned to the prince in a flash. He pulled at Agamemnon, “Say, Ag, are there any good methods to earn lots of points without much effort?”

Agamemnon snorted, answering with a single word, “Deepblue.”

Nyris immediately grew listless once more. Philip was an eccentric Emperor. Many years ago, he had suddenly introduced an extremely complicated point system to evaluate the performances of his children. Every royal child was given a yearly budget that depended on their performance in previous years, but they would be given nothing more. Anything could earn points, from growing more powerful individually to obtaining more support for the family to performance in planar wars. The higher the points one accumulated, the higher their budget. And a higher budget was also an easier way to accumulate points. Thus, it was quite easy to fall into a spiral that went either up or down; every royal was racking their brains to maximise their advantages.

And this hitherto unknown system came exactly from the Deepblue. The core of it all came from Her Excellency Sharon. Nyris understood what Agamemnon meant when he mentioned the Deepblue; the legendary mage was a master in mathematics, so he definitely wouldn’t be able to find any flaws in her system.

Once he finished his meal, Nyris suddenly found Agamemnon looking at him with an expression that was half anger and half regret.

“What’s wrong?” Nyris began to panic in his heart.

“You forgot something important.”

“What?” the Prince started to feel more and more discouraged.

“Richard. He’s already back at Faelor. Didn’t you wish to go with him?”

“DAMN IT!” the Prince shrieked immediately.

“Treat this as a lesson. You should know to keep calm regardless of setbacks…” Agamemnon’s tone was almost exactly the same as Philip’s. Only when chiding his friend did he not drool in the slightest.

……

Indeed, Richard was already back in Faelor. He’d spent all of his time in Norland making the proper preparations, leaving him quite satisfied. If not for Nyris giving him such a large batch of supplies from the royal warehouse, he would not have been able to make such a swift return. It was already late night in Faelor, seven days since he had left.

However, just as he stepped out of the portal he heard a faint shriek coming from the distance; it seemed to be Viscount Zim’s voice.

Richard was startled, immediately instructing his followers, “Zim! Hurry, take a look at what’s going on!”

Even as those nearby rushed out, Richard scanned his mind for anyone present at the scene. He sensed Phaser at the location, sending down an order for her to check up on the Viscount immediately. However, the special unit did not respond.

Richard did not have the time to wait for her response either; he rushed out of the Lighthouse of Time, casting a haste spell on himself before rushing towards the scream. The Viscount was a sensitive target; over 10,000 elites serving him were present in Bluewater, so he could not meet with any mishap. Having learnt about the significance of the unicorn bloodline, Richard grew anxious; his entire body began to shine with moonforce as he activated the footwork of the elven secret swords, increasing his speed another half-fold as he bounded into the distance like lightning.

The yelling was coming from an ordinary house. Originally burnt down during the attack, it seemed like the roof had only recently been rebuilt. Phaser was standing right outside the door, acting like the matter did not concern her at all.

“Where’s Zim?” Richard asked as he neared the door, and she pointed inside the house. He walked in only to find Zim lying on his back, hands covering his neck with a pool of blood at his chest. Richard was taken aback, but closer inspection revealed that the Viscount’s heartbeat was still strong and lively; he hadn’t sustained any serious injuries at all.

Richard squatted beside the youth, patting his shoulders as he called out softly, “Zim?”

The fatty’s eyes moved slightly, Richard’s figure reflected in his widened pupils. “Yes… Richard?” he responded weakly, “You’re back?”

Richard frowned, “Mm. Don’t move yet, let me take a look.”

He didn’t expect Zim to suddenly shout his name, throwing himself into his embrace before bursting into tears. Richard was flustered by the Viscount’s actions, eventually using a calming spell to end Zim’s breakdown. The fellow cried on and off as he slowly filled Richard in on the story.

Zim’s womanising attitude had returned recently, and he’d started to pursue beautiful women once more. However, now he had stopped using force and instead tried to seduce them all. The title of the Highland Unicorn was still very useful; over the past few days, he had managed to get his hands on two young beauties one of whom was a cleric of the Goddess of Spring Water. Today, Zim had seen the human side of Phaser’s face and taken her for a fairy; desperately pestering her and making endless promises, he managed to bring her to this house. He had been pleasantly surprised, thinking he was about to have sex, but just after he entered the house a dark silhouette suddenly pounced on him from outside the window. It bit him at his neck, ruthlessly sucking out his blood.

Zim wasn’t a daring fellow by nature. The sight of a large, unknown creature sucking his blood scared him into a breakdown on the spot; he only shrieked repeatedly, falling face-up as his limbs turned ice-cold anticipating death.

Richard pulled down Zim’s hand and looked carefully at his neck. There were two deep marks, making it seem like he had been attacked by one of the giant bats. Zim’s description matched as well, except the wound had already stopped bleeding. The injury wasn’t serious at all; a simple lesser heal would be enough to fix it.

However, aside from his own, where would one find bats big enough to attack humans in Bluewater?

Richard patted Zim’s shoulder repeatedly, “Alright, you’ll be fine! We just need to find a random cleric to treat you, let’s look for that girl you hooked up with!”

Zim was overjoyed, “Really? But can she do it? Her skills in bed are much better than her magic.”

Richard stood up and pulled the fatty to his feet as well, stuck between laughter and tears, “Hurry! It might be poisonous!”

Zim was scared immediately, rushing out of the house and into the distance. Richard made his way out as well, looking at Phaser who wanted to sneak away. “Stop right there!” he said in a deep voice, “What exactly happened?”

Phaser slowed her footsteps, but without even turning her head she mumbled a string of words that nobody could understand. The problem was that even Richard had no idea what she was saying. “Stop playing tricks, speak!” he shouted

Phaser subconsciously pulled back, speaking slowly, “Zim thought I was a human female and wanted to do the things you and Flowsand always do. I lured him into a place with no one and called an elite bat to bite him. He won’t die or become disabled anyway.”