Chapter 863: Three down, one purple A-hole to take care of later…
(Un)surprisingly, it didn’t take long for Victor, Simos and Graff to agree to Zhen Liu’s surprisingly generous terms.
After all, between a questionable criminal organization that regularly experimented on orphans, slaves and everything in-between, and a morally questionable young master who could create sentient puppets that were often considered to be rather demonic by the wider populace…both choices sucked, but one was less sucky than the other.
Plus it came with added bonus of them being reunited with their literal dream girls.
“So…it’s nice to finally meet you…again…I guess.”
[Just so you know, I’m doing to grind your hips into dust the next moment we’re alone.]
“O-oh. Okay.”
Granted, whether or not that was a good thing was incredibly debatable.
Regardless, now that the trio had sign the contract with Zhen Liu, they were now officially his spies and could now be considered branch members of the library. Meaning they were now free to leave the-
“Okay. Guys? Please knock out our new associates now please.”
[As you wish]*3
“Wait,wha-”
Thunk, thunk, thunk!
[Hey! Don’t hit them too hard!]
[Oh, they’ll be fine.]
As soon as Victor, Simos and Graff settled in on the idea of being spies for yet another powerful overlord type, they were rendered unconscious by Nepherage, Frosttusk and Hurricroak, simultaneously appearing from above them like drop bears, and knocking them out with a solid boot to the head.
The GalEms were well aware that this was the plan from the start, so they didn’t put up too much of a fuss when their respective darlings got rendered unconscious in such a brutal manner.
It didn’t mean they had to like it though.
Regardless, now that their darlings were rendered inert themselves, each of the GalEm zakos picked up their lovers and prepared themselves for the next part of their assignment.
“Okay, that takes care of that…you girls know what to do from here, yeah?”
[Of course, sir,] the Copper GalEm readily agreed while holding a knocked out Graff…despite not really knowing the plan. [Er…what was it again?]
[Take our darlings out of the library, walk them back to town and situate ourselves in an inn to celebrate our reunions?,] the Wooden GalEm guessed while cradling an unconscious Victor against her impressive chest. [Not necessarily in that order, I think.]
“And…,” Zhen Liu prompted, opting to ignore the obvious horniness of his kaijin.
[Use the manufactured evidence provided by Logos and Pathos to lure out the “Night Parade” to a location far away from either the Library or Stone Claw City so that they can be dealt with accordingly,] the Marble GalEm answered while holding a drooling Simos on her back.
“Excellent!,” Zhen Liu nodded. “By the way, do y’all have human disguises prepared, or…”
[We do.]*3
“Good. In that case, report to the portal gate and you guys can leave with us when we head back. Just make sure to look human when you do.”
[Of course.]*3.
As the GalEms made their exit from the interrogation theater, Zhen Liu proceeded to sit back down in the seat that he had been using as a prop for this entire performance of his. While he sat, the smile that had been fixed on his face finally faded away back into a neutral expression and finally a bit of a grimace.
Needless to say, his face was feeling incredibly sore.
“Blargh. Now I realize that one of the perks of wearing a mask when I do this shit is that I don’t have to maintain a smile the whole time,” Zhen Liu vented to Blazejudicator, Nepherage, Frosttusk, Hurricroak. Evidently, the latter three opted to stay by Zhen Liu’s side after dealing with the idiot thief trio. Partially to make sure they could be there if he needed anything, partially because they were a bit jealous that Blazejudicator was now the closest to their lord in a literal sense.
Granted, they made sure that feeling didn’t get transmitted through the soul link, because Zhen Liu already had other things bothering him as is.
For example, the reason why Blazejudicator managed to exist in the first place.
“Logos, Pathos. Two questions. One, what did mother think about this interrogation session of mine. Two, can I get a view of our other inmate?”
=Of course, milord. Just one moment.=
“Understandable, but new peeve of mine, don’t use my mother’s voice when talking inside my head, I’m fairly certain that is something people went to go see psychiatrists for in my old world.”
“True.”
Bwoom.
Immediately after this short exchange, a display window showed the unusual aetherii warrior known as Olstenna, snoozing away peacefully in one of the Library’s holding cells. Granted, the air around him was wavering due to all the heat radiating off of his body, but there wasn’t anything flammable near him that could cause any issues…any more.
Zhen Liu vaguely recalled Olstenna being given a pillow, but all he saw was a pile of ash underneath Olstenna’s head.
“Oh thank the gods, he is still asleep,” Zhen Liu sighed in relief…before noticing that the display screen said that the aetherii was under the influence of a homemade substance. “The fuck did you give him?”
=Nothing too major, we just flooded his room with enough sleep gas to sedate an elephant.=
“Uh…why?”
“Ah.”
Initially, Zhen Liu had planned for today to be the day he’d take care of all of his prisoners and either send them on their merry way with their memories intact or on rpieves, or bury them in the waters of the Jade Lake so no one could find them.
However, pretending to be a sociopathic dealmaker was a surprisingly taxing affair, especially when he had to perform such a fsrce in front of his mother of all people.
As such, Zhen Liu decided to postpone dealing with Olstenna another time.
Besides, he had other things to deal with.
“Quick question, is my mother still observing me or not?”
[She left a bit after you had forced these three to sign the contract,] Nepherage answered in Logos and Pathos’s stead. [She mentioned something about wanting to confirm something in regards to the zako and how they get influenced by the humans they’re gifted to.]
“Ah…that tracks…I think,” Zhen Liu nodded despite not really understanding what was going on his mother’s head.
It was moments like these that he was thankful he was connected to he kaijin and could technically use them to connect to the memories and feelings of other people. Granted, he wasn’t comfortable with idea of blasting his own mama in the face with the [Possesstol].
Then again, he had already done so with his uncles, cousins and grandfather, so maybe it was only fair?
‘No…no. That’s just crazy.’
As Zhen Liu pushed against the idea of his mother getting possessed by the kaijin, the kaijin themselves had decided to chime in in order to get Zhen Liu to think about upcoming things instead.
‘Besides, I’m gonna need the kaijin to be fighting ready soon.’
For example, the Zhen Clan’s planned expedition into the new Wandering Ruins that was stuffed to the gills with ape-like and monkey type aether beasts.
Quite literally the day before, the Zhen Clan scions were briefed about the type of beasts that appeared within the ruin’s jungles via some captured live specimens that were found near the entrance of the ruin gate.
The Zhen Clan had initially plan to slowly send in more and more scouts in a systematic matter in order to determine just how deadly the rest of the ruins was going to be, but then, something unexpectedly positive happened.
One of the beasts captured was this type of mind reading, hypnotic monkey beast that was known to have a memory so detailed that a trained anima wielder would be able to read their mind to get a clear view of anything that they had seen in the past two years. Unfortunately, such beasts could only have their mind reads by anima wielders of the Fourth Lock or higher due to their powerful innate defenses.
Due to some mysterious reason though, with the only reported informational source being a newly hired curvaceous maid, the aformentioned monkey beast was found unconscious with their defenses thoroughly destroyed.
As such, the Zhen Clan’s only anima wielder, and the one from Imperial Family of the Pearl Scale Empire, were given an opportunity to probe this monkey’s mind and find all sorts of information about the interior of the wandering ruins.
With this information in hand, the Zhen Clan were more or less ready to the raid the ruins and claim it’s prizes.
There was just one thing left to worry about.
[So…why haven’t we have bumrush these ruins ourselves yet?]
‘Because we have yet to determine the place’s upper limit.’
[Ah.]
