Let MapleStory experience the Fourth Calamity

Chapter 65 Bolton's Mental Breakdown

The real world was racing ahead amidst the post-war revelry and preparations for massive infrastructure projects on the forum.

Within the game world, time hadn't stopped either. It had been raining for half a day in the Upper City of Pearl Harbor.

In this continuous rain, Bolton's private villa resembled a desolate island isolated from the world.

The villa was lavishly decorated, with expensive oil paintings on the walls and costly werewolf skin carpets on the floor. But at this moment, the air was bitterly cold.

Burton, draped in an expensive mink shawl, huddled on a leather sofa in the second-floor living room. She clutched a communicator that had lost signal, her long nails digging deep into her flesh.

In the morning, she stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the special envoy's hundred-meter-long airship take off and disappear into the distance. The airship's enormous shadow swept across her rooftop, but didn't linger for even a second. All her dark crystals and black talismans were taken away by the fat steward along with the special envoy.

And it goes without saying that Lynn will take over all the gold coins in her vault.

But what suffocates her most is not being abandoned by the upper class or losing all her wealth overnight, but the scene outside the door now.

Lynn did not send those reckless country bumpkins to launch a full-scale attack, nor did he bring in artillery to bombard the walls of the luxurious villa.

He only sent Night Owl and Rain, along with a few emaciated indigenous laborers dressed in tattered linen clothes.

These people stood quietly in front of the carved iron fence outside the villa, holding umbrellas, letting the cold rain that couldn't hold them down pelt their bodies and stream down their sunken cheeks.

They carried no decent weapons. Some carried rusty shovels used for repairing sewers, some held only half a chipped brick, and others were empty-handed.

They didn't shout for violence, didn't hold up protest banners, and not a single person uttered a single word.

Several pairs of sunken eyes revealed emptiness, numbness, and hatred that had been suppressed to the extreme, almost materializing.

These were the same people Bolton had driven like pigs and dogs, hauling heavy loads at the docks. These were the same people she had cut off from their clean water supply. These were the same people she had her assassins poison, watching helplessly as their comrades coughed up bloody pieces of their internal organs.

Now, they stand at her doorstep, like a group of vengeful ghosts crawling back from hell, staring intently at the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor.

"A bunch of lowly bugs..."

For the first hour, Bolton maintained her aristocratic sneer. She picked up the glass of red wine on the table, took a sip, and looked out the window mockingly: "They dare not come in. Their very bones are etched with fear of nobility and the law. What can these worthless fools, who can't even break down an iron gate, do to me if I don't open the door?"

She even tried to order the two remaining maids in the villa to start a fire and cook. But when she turned around, she found that the two maids had already escaped through the kitchen drainpipe, taking the silver cutlery with them before they left.

In the third hour, the villa's water supply pipes and underground cables were severed by the laborers outside.

The temperature-controlled magic array that maintained the luxurious operation of the villa failed, and the cold and dampness of Pearl Harbor seeped into the mansion like snakes.

The red wine turned cold and bitter. Bolton began pacing anxiously around the room. She kicked over the coffee table and tried to break open a locked door with her communicator, only to find that she was losing the strength to even pick things up.

Bolton wrapped himself tightly in his mink coat, trembling as he walked behind the window and carefully lifted the curtain a crack.

There were no streetlights; the only source of light was a few makeshift torches held by the laborers, teetering precariously in the rain.

Even in the dim light of the fire, Bolton could still clearly see that the dozens of men had not retreated an inch.

Night Owl stood at the front of the crowd, slowly and methodically scraping his nails with a gleaming dagger. Little Rain squatted to the side, quietly watching the carvings on the iron railing.

Dozens of peasants stood there like ghosts. The rain extinguished the torches, and in the darkness, only dozens of dead eyes could be seen, as if they could pierce bulletproof glass and scrape away at Bolton's flesh inch by inch.

"Take it all! Take it all! You bunch of poor bastards, all you want is money, isn't it?!"

Bolton finally broke down. She screamed and rushed into the bedroom, grabbed a heavy jewelry box, and stumbled to the second-floor balcony. She grabbed handfuls of pearl necklaces, gold coins, and even low-grade magic stones, and frantically threw them into the muddy water below.

"Get out! Pick up the money and get out of here! I'm the tax officer appointed by the committee! If you dare touch me, the committee's sorcerers will burn you all to ashes!"

Gold coins thudded into the mud, while pearls rolled onto the edges of the laborers' tattered shoes.

But what horrified Bolton was that none of the poor bastards below, who would fight tooth and nail for half a loaf of bread, bent down to pick up the wealth scattered on the ground.

Old John stood in the rain, coldly watching Burton, who was acting like a clown on the balcony. He slowly raised the shovel in his hand and slammed it heavily on the flagstone.

"Thump."

Immediately afterwards, the laborers simultaneously slammed the shovels, wooden sticks, and bricks they were holding onto the ground.

"Thump!"

The uniform, muffled thud, like a heavy hammer blow, shattered the last bit of defense outside Bolton's heart.

It lacks the oppressive feeling of swords clashing, yet it is far more deadly than actual combat.

The extreme fear of being broken into by the lowest of the low and torn to pieces at any moment, along with the enormous psychological gap brought about by the sudden reversal of class, was like a rusty, dull knife, cruelly sawing away at Bolton's last shred of sanity, bit by bit.

A full thirty hours.

Every minute, every second, she could hear her heart pounding wildly and her nerves snapping.

When the morning light of the third day pierced through the thick clouds and shone on the villa's balcony, she finally broke down.

Bolton, who was once arrogant and looked down on the lives of the lower classes, is now like a stray dog, huddled in the darkest and narrowest corner of the closet in his luxurious bedroom.

Her expensive mink shawl was nowhere to be found, and her exquisite makeup was a mess of tears and sweat.

She hugged her knees tightly, nervously biting her fingers until they bled, oblivious to the pain. Her eyes were completely glazed over, and she could only mumble and repeat one sentence:

"Don't kill me...please...don't kill me..."

Outside the villa, Lynn, holding a black umbrella, slowly stepped over the gold coins and pearls scattered on the ground and stopped in front of the iron fence.

"Open the door," Lynn ordered calmly.

Night Owl stepped forward and, without even using lock picking tools, simply kicked open the iron door that originally symbolized an absolute class barrier.

What Lynn wanted was never a worthless corpse.

A prisoner whose spirit has been completely destroyed and who has lost all dignity and principles is far easier to exploit than a politician who is still trying to bargain.

During the upcoming interrogation, he wanted to make Bolton spill everything he knew about the committee, leaving not a single trace.