Chapter 6 Greedy Mammon and the others went to Hell Technology Research and Development...
Seeing the argument was over, the other students finally sat back down to eat breakfast, their minds still fascinated by the excitement. The entire meal was filled with whispers. Aurelio simply skipped eating and trudged back to his dorm to change.
After dinner, Si Ling followed A Zhu to the "Hell Technology R&D Department" on the third floor on the south side of the castle to collect some necessary props.
This department is headed by the notorious demon Mammon. In legend, he is the symbol of greed among the seven deadly sins and is known as the "evil god of wealth." A Zhui said that he is very suitable for this position "because he is greedy enough and always wants to achieve the greatest effect with the least cost."
They walked together to the entrance of the Hell Technology R&D Department, which was wide open.
Mammon was squatting on the ground with his back to the gate, busy counting some props. The first thing Si Ling saw was the back of a man in a black suit who was a little more muscular than Lucifer, except that he had a pair of black wings.
Azhu knocked on the door twice out of politeness. Mammon turned his head and Si Ling saw a bird's head with scarlet eyes①.
...It looked like a crow's head, covered in black feathers and sporting a sharp beak. However, it also had a pair of dark horns that curved backwards and had coils of whorls on them, giving it a more hellish look.
Ah Zhui was not surprised by this: "Good morning, Professor Mammon."
"Oh... Good morning." Mammon stood up, a little dissatisfied. "Next time you bring a new student, you'd better tell me in advance, Miss Azhu." His beak smacked twice. "That way I can at least activate my transformation first and look more friendly, don't you think?"
"That's not necessary, Professor Mammon." Ah Zhui couldn't help laughing, "You're too lazy to transform more than 90% of the time anyway. Any new student will see your true form within three days."
"Don't say that." Mammon said with some embarrassment, "You say that as if I represent 'laziness' instead of 'greed'."
After saying that, he looked at Si Ling and extended his right hand in a friendly manner: "Hello, new classmate from the East."
"Hello, Professor Mammon." Si Ling followed A Zhui's lead and shook hands with him, but secretly felt that it was strange to call a world-famous demon "Professor".
"Come, I'll get you the necessary props first. They're all ready." Mammon took her to a wooden cabinet not far away. The cabinet was brown-red and directly attached to the wall. It went from the ground to the roof in this room that was at least six or seven meters high.
When Si Ling saw the cabinet, he began to understand why Mammon was "too lazy to transform more than 90% of the time", because he needed the pair of wings, otherwise he would have to keep moving the ladder when taking and putting away props.
"This is a SAN value meter." Mammon had already placed several things he had prepared in advance in a grid at the bottom. He handed the "SAN value meter" to Si Ling. Si Ling took it and saw that it was a badge in the shape of a crow's head.
Mammon told her, "Bring it with you when you go on a mission. It will automatically display the SAN value of living people, with a maximum of 100%. The lower the SAN value, the more likely they are to be killed. If it's below 10%, they will usually be killed directly."
As he introduced it, Ah Zhui whispered to Si Ling, "I've observed it before. It's actually about scaring away a person's three souls and seven spirits... Each one is equivalent to 10%."
"Uh..." Si Ling was speechless. "I don't quite understand. I'm a fierce ghost. Can't I just kill people directly?" She paused and added, "There aren't many ghosts that can beat me."
"Oh..." Mammon laughed, "It seems you've never hurt anyone before. You're such a good ghost."
There was no expression on Crow's head, and Si Ling found it difficult to tell whether he was praising her or mocking her.
Mammon patiently explained, "Yes, you can't. Otherwise, why do you think ghosts in horror movies have to come back and scare people? No matter how powerful your magic is, it only works on demons and monsters, not living people. Of course, you can also make good use of the mechanism."
Si Ling: "What do you mean by making good use of the mechanism?"
"I'll explain the detailed instructions in the 'Practical Goblin Skills Class,'" Mammon said generally. "In short, it's all about adapting to the situation. For example, if you're near a cliff, you can create an illusion to lure your target toward it. That way, even though their SAN value is 100% and you can't kill them, they'll still die if they fall off the cliff."
"Okay, take this too." Mammon handed over another thing, a small triangle folded out of yellow paper, with some words written in cinnabar faintly visible inside.
Si Ling understood: "Sound transmission note?"
"Yes." Mammon nodded. "Imported from China, 5G version. It allows for voice communication at any time during a mission, without any delay. And this..."
He handed over the third object, a crudely made white doll, only the size of a palm.
"A substitute puppet," Mammon said. "It's used to save your life in the event of an accident. It can replace you without you noticing, and you will be teleported five meters away."
Si Ling raised his eyebrows as he looked at the white puppet in his hand, feeling a bit complicated: When humans and ghosts fight, can ghosts be so cowardly?
This was not what she had expected before she set out.
"Finally, this." Mammon held up a black leather backpack in front of her. "I call it the Mammon Backpack—because I made it exclusively for me, haha! It's much larger than it looks. It could easily fit the entire Hohenzollern Castle. Oh, but—friendly reminder, don't go in there just out of curiosity, otherwise... unless someone knows you're in there and takes you out, you won't be able to get out."
This is very practical.
Si Ling took it with a smile: "Thank you."
"Okay, that's all the basic items." Mammon dusted off his hands. "Before each mission, you can come back and choose your items. I'll ask Principal Lucifer to reimburse you for the common items. We'll negotiate a price for anything too expensive." Mammon's eyes gleamed. "I promise the price will be fair."
...It's actually for sale?
Si Ling suddenly had a clear understanding that he symbolized greed.
She put a few props into Mammon's backpack and left the "Hell Technology R&D Department" with Azhu and headed to the classroom where the advanced class was located.
The classroom was located on the top floor of the tower on the west side of the castle. This part of the building was too high, so Lucifer installed an elevator for it when he set up the barrier. It was an old-fashioned elevator with a cylindrical space inside and a bronze sliding door. When it was pulled, it rubbed against the upper and lower tracks, making an uncomfortable noise.
As soon as Ah Zhui entered the elevator, he laughed: "This is the only supernatural legend in the school."
"What?" Si Ling asked curiously
It’s quite magical that the Ghost Academy is doing “supernatural legends”.
"I heard that if you take the elevator alone late at night, you'll hear ghosts howling from the depths of hell—this story has been circulating for fifty years." Ah Zhui curled his lips, "But many people have tried, and no one has heard it. Now everyone generally believes that this is a lie made up by the elf exchange students back then—they have a closer relationship with nature, have a stronger sense of perception, and usually present themselves as noble and elegant, so it's easy to deceive people with such a lie."
The elevator rose to the third floor and stopped. Before it came to a complete stop, they saw Lucifer holding a folder outside the fence.
Although Lucifer was a dedicated principal, he didn't teach in person and therefore rarely appeared in the tower. As the elevator began to rise, Ah Zhui asked, "Any new assignments, Principal?"
"Yes." Lucifer answered calmly. Si Ling noticed his gloomy expression and thought for a moment before deciding not to ask.
But twenty minutes later, she knew the reason why Lucifer looked so unhappy.
After the class bell rang, he asked Azhu, who followed in, to take Professor Mimir, who was responsible for teaching the theoretical class, out - to be more precise, he carried him out, because Mimir only had a head full of knowledge left, which was preserved by Odin's magic②.
A Zhui carefully held the skull by its sides and lifted it down from the podium. Professor Mimir didn't mind, but simply warned A Zhui, "Put me on the public bench in the hallway, not on the windowsill! The windowsill is made of marble and is freezing cold. It will chill you from your neck all the way to your brain, freezing all your knowledge!"
"Okay, Professor Mimir." Azhu agreed.
After Azhu placed the head in place, Lucifer began to distribute the documents in the folder.
Si Ling had never encountered such a murder mission in her 30,000 years. Before she got the document, she was only curious. But when she quickly scanned the document, a chill spread from the bottom of her heart.
Near the window, the three werewolf brothers pounded the table angrily: "What a beast!" roared the eldest brother, Fenric.
The werewolves were physically strong, and even in human form they were much stronger than ordinary people, with greater lung capacity. Their roar made the surrounding ghosts rub their ears.
The second oldest, Ulric, expressed his anger more directly by knocking the desk in front of him down with one punch.
The third brother, Orrick, was more polite. He simply bared his wolf fangs and said in a low, sinister voice, "No one would eat this kind of garbage even if it were made into wolf feed!"
"Alright." Lucifer laughed and said, "Ulric, this is the third table you've smashed this semester. Mammon has been wanting to collect the fine for a long time."
"Hahahaha!" The students burst into laughter.
Si Ling's attention was completely focused on the thin piece of paper in his hand, and he sighed in his heart: This is really the devil on earth.
The paper said the target of the mission was a man in his forties and his four brothers. The man's name was John Sterman. His wife had died in childbirth over a year ago, leaving behind an eight-year-old son, Elliott Sterman, and a daughter, Cynthia Sterman, who had recently turned one.
The five brothers, all heterosexual, had an indescribable interest in young children. Before their wives died, they confined this interest to pictures and videos, but when their wives died, they were like demons freed from their shackles, starting with their father, and then reaching out to the eight-year-old Elliott.
No one knew what had happened to Elliot in the past year. Even Lucifer only knew that he had fallen into a coma due to serious injuries yesterday.
For a whole day, his soul drifted between the Yin and Yang realms, until last night, when he returned to the human world due to a moment of final revelation.
——When everyone read this paragraph, a small picture appeared on the page. It was the scene before the boy died.
Elliot climbed out of bed and struggled to get to the ground. There were clear bloodstains on the sheets and quilt printed with superheroes.
He walked to the desk by the window. On the corner of the desk was a palm-sized metal cross, which was the symbol of God.
Elliot picked it up woodenly, held it between his hands, knelt on the ground devoutly, closed his eyes, and obviously wanted to pray to God.
But two seconds later, he opened his eyes again.
He spread out his palms and stared at the cross coldly, then turned it upside down. He then looked around, opened the desk drawer, took out a paper clip, straightened the paper clip, and wrapped it around the cross in circles.
The poisonous snake wrapped around the cross is a symbol of Satan③!
Then he folded his hands again, knelt on the ground devoutly again and closed his eyes: "I have always prayed to God, but God has never blessed me."
“Now, I pray to the evil spirits…Satan, Lucifer…I don’t know if you are the same person, but either way, please protect me and keep my sister Cynthia from harm, so that she can grow up happy and healthy.”
"Satan is furious about this, and so am I." Lucifer's voice came from the front of the classroom. The teasing tone just now was gone, and there was an uncontrollable anger in his indifference.
"Now, Elliot's pure and beautiful soul has gone to heaven. Jehovah will protect him."
"His prayer is our mission. Go and get rid of those demons. Elliot's innocent sister will be taken in by a welfare agency. Satan has already arranged the best adoptive parents."
"As for those demons—the flames of hell are already waiting for their souls, and the three-headed dog is already starving."
The warmth in Lucifer's expression disappeared, even the anger was hard to find any trace, replaced by a cold murderous intent: "Kill them, all of them."
The author has something to say:
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【Notes】
① The connection between Mammon and greed comes from the Seven Deadly Sins. Mammon is the demon that symbolizes greed. The bird form is also mentioned in the Seven Deadly Sins.
② Mimir comes from Norse mythology. He is Odin’s teacher and is well-versed in the nine realms. He almost died in a war, but Odin saved his head.
③[The poisonous snake wrapped around the inverted cross] is indeed a symbol of Satan, and it is not my original creation.
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