Chapter 170 Fabrication
It was early morning when Nova greeted the light again. There were a few snowflakes floating in the sky. It should be the last snow of the year. Nova could smell that clean and cold scent floating above the fishy and smelly odor of the port city.
As the strips of cloth fell one by one, he felt the light shining through his thin eyelids, causing a slight warm sting, but soon someone gently covered his eyes with a hand. The professor was silent for a moment, then slowly pinched the other person's wrist and pulled the hand down.
In the abundant light, the depths of his translucent, smoky-gray irises were lined with a wondrous, intricate pattern woven from bundles of blood vessels and muscle fibers. It seemed to be breathing, like the traces left by the tide on the lunar soil. Stimulated by the light, a few natural tears fell from his eyes. Azuka endured for a moment, then finally leaned forward and touched his eyes with her lips, tasting a delicious salty taste.
The black-haired young man blinked in confusion. When the savior couldn't help wanting to lick the smooth and flexible eyeball with the tip of his tongue, the other party seemed to sense some sign of danger and resolutely pushed his face away.
"...I don't think this is the final stage of treatment." His old enemy frowned at him. "Or is this part of the reward you demanded?"
The savior smiled and said, "No, it's just that I want to kiss you."
professor:"……"
He seemed bewildered by this utterly unreasonable and illogical answer, a rare moment of stunned silence. The other man took the opportunity to kiss the corner of his eye, then returned to a normal distance and nonchalantly asked if his vision had improved.
"...Very clear." Nova's attention was quickly diverted. He stared out the window and could even see the tender buds on the dry branches of plants in the flowerpots on the opposite building clearly - as clear as when he was a child who had not yet overused his eyes.
"Thank you." The black-haired young man turned around and thanked someone solemnly with blue eyes that were filled with a gentle smile. After thinking for a while, he asked again, "Do you want me to pay you with a kiss?"
"You don't have to pay me." The other man's eyes softened, and he reached out to rub the back of his nemesis' neck. "If you ever kiss me, I hope it's out of emotion and instinct, not rational judgment or the product of an exchange of interests."
"...But you kissed me before when I wasn't looking," Nova frowned and pointed this out seriously, "and you swore it was a reward."
"Because I'm a bad person." The guy replied calmly and without blushing, "I was bullying you and lying to you. I'm sorry, it's my fault."
He was so confident that even the professor was speechless. He was silent for a moment, then, expressionlessly, brought the topic back to the point.
"I want to get in touch with the slaves in the Scarlet Bazaar."
The topic jumped too quickly, and anyone else would be confused - but the savior had long been accustomed to his enemy's jumping thoughts and did not show any surprise.
"What did you find?" he asked gently.
"Those prostitutes at the docks," the professor said expressionlessly. "I've been puzzled by this. According to Ole Asaqi, their best targets are probably young, impoverished sailors from other places who have just started sailing. They're strong and healthy, so they can fetch a good price on the black market. Their poverty means they're less likely to be harassed even if they disappear for no apparent reason. The next best targets are small, wealthy businessmen from other places."
"—But in fact, although it was not obvious, among the guests they deliberately and enthusiastically recruited were slaves."
Azuka narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "...You mean, these prostitutes are likely to have some kind of 'delivery of information'?"
"That's right." The professor gave him an approving look. He enjoyed talking to smart people. "Of course, at first it was just a guess. Someone was watching them in the shadows on the street corner, probably thugs and spies hired by the slave traders. So they kept watch for each other, and when they noticed something was amiss, they would deliberately rush forward, even arguing or fighting over 'customers', deliberately hiding from their sight. Then I noticed a prostitute stuffing something into the palm of a slave's hand."
The black-haired young man spoke faster. "So I asked Ole Asaqi and Maxine to gather relevant intelligence, including price fluctuations in the slave market, the whereabouts of large slave ships in the port, the movements of the Temple of Night, and so on. Many clues point to the slave market. From the information we currently have, there's a high probability that Port Morris is hiding a resistance force formed by the slaves themselves."
"I'm very interested in it." Finally, the professor concluded: "But first, we have to find a way to get close to it."
After learning all this, Ole Asaqi couldn't help but twitch his lips: "...So the solution you came up with is to ask me to pretend to be a slave trader?"
"You're the most suitable." The professor was a little dissatisfied with his tone. The trick was indeed old-fashioned, but it worked. "Miss Marcylin is a woman, and Azuka's face is too conspicuous. Even if you are the son of the Bloody Duke, as an assassin, don't tell me you are not good at disguise and impersonation. Most importantly, you should have seen many slave traders and understand the ins and outs of it."
Ole: “…”
Damn it, he convinced him. Just like before, he was dragged dizzily into the depths of an untouchable vortex of thought. Every word the other person said was something he had never heard before in this world, making him shudder—but there was always a voice deep in his heart whispering that the person was right.
A single conversation might cause a significant change in a warlock's resonance circuit, either weakening and collapsing or strengthening and growing. This is one of the significant meanings of the theologian's existence.
But for a moment, Ole suddenly felt that the other party seemed to be a being from hundreds of years later, and compressed the history of mankind's continuous fall and rise over the centuries into a concise few dozen minutes, pouring down on him arbitrarily and domineeringly. He was "not allowed" to make mistakes, and was naturally required to crawl hard in the direction of "truth".
...Too arrogant, as arrogant as ever.
When he left the tyrant's room, his good friend was standing outside the other's door, silent, but his eyes were like molten gold, which scared the assassin.
The origin of your soul has stabilized, but the scent of the God of Night has also faded, your friend pointed this out after looking at him carefully for a while, and this will alert the God of Night and Death.
Ole looked at him silently. The huge shock even made him unable to delve into the two bastards who had taken his change of mentality into account.
No wonder these two guys are involved together. Even in his confusion, he couldn't help but think that they were exactly the same arrogance and coldness - but he found that he could no longer control his brain, thinking involuntarily, to... exert the "subjective initiative" in the words of the tyrant.
...What a scary guy.
The scary guy was still enthusiastically making up characters for them. Ole, who was forced to take on the role of a heartless slave trader, endured it for a long time, but finally couldn't bear it anymore.
"There's already a Confusion spell, so why make it so complicated?"
Yes, he admitted that just by looking at someone's face, he could tell that he could be auctioned for a legendary high price in the slave market, but when he thought about who this guy was, especially when he thought about the experience of being deceived in his previous life, it made him feel sick to his stomach - not to mention that the tyrant was ruthless to him and made up an extremely miserable setting.
For the sake of his own stomach, Orel couldn't help but question the emperor's decision in public. However, perhaps because of his earlier honesty, the other party, though his voice was cold, finally explained patiently, "Because our goal is to contact a group of slaves, although it is ultimately a deception, we also have to consider the subsequent issues. The confusion spell is equivalent to completely sowing the seeds of conflict."
"The simplest example," the professor said, staring at him coldly. "Ole Asachi, if I used a confusion spell to force the Shadow Chasers to participate in the White Tower University student riot, forcing them to be involved in a complex situation against the Church, what would you do next?"
Ole was silent for a moment: "...I will do everything in my power to kill you."
"Very good." The professor nodded at him gracefully. "Now you understand."
"There's one more question."
"Why do you insist on calling me by my full name?" Nova was startled, then saw the assassin leader cross his arms and raise his eyebrows at him. "Look, you call Maxine "Miss Maxine" and Azuka by her given name—but you always call me by my full name."
In the process of gradually leaving the faith, the surname "Assachi" became extremely harsh in the ears of the assassin leader - he had long wanted to ask, is this person discriminating?
The professor stared at him expressionlessly for a while, until the assassin was so frightened that his whole body was filled with horror and his arms dropped involuntarily.
"…Is it possible," Nova said coldly, "that your stupidity destroyed my dorm, my collection, and my glasses—and I'm still mad at you?"
Ole: “…”
After learning the whole story from Azuka, Mashilin began to laugh wildly.
The assassin leader turned around in a frenzy. He suddenly felt that it was childish to compete with such a guy. Too childish. He had lived two lives, and this guy was still getting angry over the corpse of an insect - it didn't seem so difficult to apologize.
"My Dark Night—" He swallowed his long-accustomed prayer with difficulty, and promised with a headache: "I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I was wrong. I will definitely compensate you for your losses. Is that okay?"
Stop calling him by his full name; he's starting to develop a psychological problem with the word "Assachi."
The professor frowned in dissatisfaction: "Don't call me Your Majesty."
It’s bad enough that this guy was superstitious before, but now he’s starting to promote feudal superstition.
Ole, who stumbled over his words, said: "...Okay, Mr. Nova."
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