socalfunplaces Page 169
Page 169
You gently rubbed the gold coin, which featured "Houst Palace" and its denomination on one side and the portrait of Runetic II on the other, then flicked it and slipped it into your pocket.
In the twentieth year of Runetiq II's reign, a pair of "male and female devils" suddenly appeared in the United Nations of Janium, causing unrest and becoming the talk of the town.
The lord of Landry, north of Pandora, was such a kind man. Every day, he warmly greeted the citizens and personally imparted divine pronouncements to them, regardless of gender. One day, after finally gathering a large crowd for a grand party, the "Male and Female Demons" suddenly descended from the sky, freezing everyone in place with a single spell. Then, the female demon, wielding a longsword, instantly struck. The divine power on her sword irresistibly shattered the lord's protective divine power, and with a flourish, she sliced the lord's small sword into minced meat.
[The wanderer at the crossroads, what a kind man! He indiscriminately massaged the backs of passersby with his chain, even helping them sleep on crosses so that the gods might have mercy on them. That day, he had just woken up from a sleep in an abandoned carriage and stepped outside when the "Male and Female Demons" suddenly descended from the sky. The male demon frantically used his fists to teach him that he was already a member of the new generation and shouldn't be randomly soliciting people for proselytizing on the street, while the female demon used her newly researched divine power to suppress him, and surprisingly, through the wanderer's divine kingdom, delivered a powerful blow to the god behind him.]
[There's also the nameless nobleman of the City of Tears, the masked thief on the airship, the priest in the little boy's room...]
"Why do I feel like we're getting further and further astray?" You scratch your head, holding the map you snatched from the city lord whose name you've forgotten. "Shouldn't it be more prosperous the closer we get to the capital?"
"Ah..." Jennifer glanced at the map in your hand, speechless for a moment before finally saying, "This, this seems to be a master map used for replication... its cardinal directions are all reversed..."
"What? There's such a thing?" You paused, let out a long breath, and said, "It was better when the Magic Network was around..."
"I actually get lost more easily when the magic network is on!" Jennifer couldn't help but make a self-deprecating remark, then said, "Shall we change direction?"
"Wait a minute..." You took a deep breath, put down the map, focused your attention back on your senses, cleared your throat, and said:
"Um, you can now have your second battle with the boss."
"Huh?" Jennifer stopped her stroking, raised an eyebrow, and said, "We've already finalized the schedule, and you're still thinking about a rematch? Watch how I quickly take care of you! Hah, Forbidden Word Technique!"
Then, she chuckled, leaned down, and bit your lip, saying, "Hey, I'm going to go all out on you!"
["Ugh! What on earth did you learn from me?!" You clutched your head, in a state of utter despair, and began to enjoy it.]
You immediately changed direction and began a new adventure.
A week later, you learn from a traveling adventurer that a mage from Norard had used magic to cleanse Anium a month ago, breaking the original negotiation agreement and initiating a new round of negotiations.
[After hearing that the negotiation team was still led by Zerris, you sympathetically mourned his lost vacation, then felt slightly relieved. After all, Zerris was quite capable, sometimes even a genius in ideas, and would definitely not suffer any losses in negotiations.]
[A little over a month later, on your journey north, you encounter a chosen ascetic of the Three Gods, terrifyingly powerful like a monster. You fight with all your might but cannot defeat him, and are forced to change course.]
Two weeks later, while you and Jennifer were traveling in an interstate airship, concealing your identities, you unexpectedly stumbled upon a firefight between two groups of religious believers. Initially, you didn't want to get involved, but then you noticed that some passengers on your airship, feeling despair, began singing a farewell song similar to "See You Again." Sensing this as an ominous sign, you immediately intervened and shot down the two airships engaged in the firefight.
Amidst the shocked and bewildered gazes of the crowd, you gestured with your hand and said, "Basic operation," just as you were about to continue resting, when two explosions rang out in the distance.
You peer out and are horrified to discover that the two airships that had just crashed have struck a building that looks like the Twin Towers, one on each side. Your heart sinks instantly, and you feel as if all your good deeds have been wiped out in that instant.
Fortunately, the passenger told you that it was a landmark building in Radien, the main city of the southern state of Dankola, and that its main purpose was to communicate with the gods and create monsters similar to the chosen ascetics of the Three Gods. Only then did you feel relieved, and you felt that your merits had increased rather than decreased.
After a slow flight, you successfully arrived in the central region of Janium. From here, you can return to the border city of Dirtmouth to the west, or head east to the capital of the Janium United Nations. After a moment's thought, you decided to head east first, since there's a delegation of mages in Dirtmouth, and nothing should go wrong.
However, once you leave the city, you realize that the closer you get to the capital, the more ascetics there are checking your status along the way, making it virtually impossible to travel any further.
[As if on cue, the moment you showed yourself, two ascetics approached you. You frowned. The biggest difference between ascetics and other believers was their extremely strong physical bodies. Even if you could defeat them, it would take a long time, and you had no intention of getting entangled in a fight with these monstrous things.]
Just as you were preparing to fight back, a massive red dragon suddenly landed not far from you, crushing the two ascetics into a bloody pulp. The dragon raised its head, sniffed around, and then spotted you.
"Yo, Little La!" The red dragon came running over, causing the ground to tremble. She jumped in front of you with a bang, sniffed your scent, then blinked her intelligent eyes and instantly transformed back into human form, hands on her hips, laughing wildly as she shouted:
"After circling this world, Serfal has finally returned!"
Chapter 185 Janium's Abstract Portraits of All Beings
"Excuse me, do you know where this is?"
The man standing on the street, lost in thought, snapped out of his reverie upon hearing this and slowly turned to look at the three people behind him. All three were dressed in hooded robes, and one of them even had a pair of sharp dragon horns protruding from his head, making him look extremely suspicious.
"I don't know," the man replied calmly, showing no suspicion towards the three.
The question mark stuck in your throat, and a feeling of frustration made you scratch your head involuntarily. You continued, "Aren't you a civilian living around here?"
"I forgot." The man looked dazed, then smiled knowingly as if he remembered something, before saying casually, "Oh, I drank a little too much..."
"Damn!" You couldn't help but make the face of an old man staring at his phone on the subway, and exclaimed loudly, "He calmly said something terrifying!"
"Hmm... I guess so." The man nodded hesitantly.
"What is it?!" A feeling of being speechless welled up inside you. You took a deep breath, wanting to end the conversation quickly, so you directly asked the question you originally wanted to ask:
"Do you know how to get to the Grand Palace of Horst from here?"
"...Houst Palace?" The man slowly widened his eyes and murmured, "So, I'm already in the capital, 'Vitare'? Strange... I thought I wouldn't be heading to Vitare for three days..."
"This is bad." He spoke slowly, his eyes unconsciously half-closed again. In this state, he turned around unsteadily, muttering as he walked, "The city lord is dying from kidney failure, and we still have to find a sorceress for him..."
He hadn't taken two steps when he collapsed to the ground with a thud, peacefully falling into a deep sleep.
"He's probably dead." You didn't know who you were referring to when you delivered the death sentence. After kicking the man's back and realizing he probably wouldn't wake up anytime soon, you sighed, glanced around at the scattered people sleeping on the street, pulled your robe tighter, and waved to Jennifer and Serfal.
[For the past month, you had planned to ride the Serfal quickly to the capital of Janium, but since you're already here, you might as well see the so-called Runetic II before leaving.]
[However, the directionally challenged dragon is indeed directionally challenged. Even though you repeated the route to her three times—"First head east to reach the mountain range that runs north-south through Janium, then travel 300 miles north along the mountain range to bypass the storm zone, and then head southeast to reach the capital"—she still rushed too recklessly and plunged headlong into the storm zone hovering high in the central heart of Janium.]
Of course, given Serfael's limited brain capacity, she probably only remembered the three words "first east," so it's not entirely her fault.
In short, you quickly lost your way in the storm zone. All sorts of strange things were swept up by the storm and hit you, like a fake bull with a whip and rings... It was terrifying. Luckily, you still had the wind-stabilizing bead from before, which allowed you to land safely.
[But being in this "no-fly zone," you couldn't fly high to identify the area, so you had to ride your Serfal and fly low, searching for sparse villages and figuring out your direction. After fighting a few ascetics you encountered, you finally managed to break out of the storm zone and then made your way to the capital, "Vitare."]
"What bad luck..." You glanced at Serfal and Jennifer, who were chatting and laughing beside you, then casually took two steps closer to eavesdrop on their conversation.
"...So Serfal had already memorized Little Ra's staff aura!"
"That's amazing? Then smell mine!"
"...Huh? Knight, you smell like Ra too, and...you've grown a little staff too?"
"Yeah, pretty impressive, right?"
"You're impressive, but why do you all have the same staff?"
"Oh, let me tell you a secret, Lazi's staff automatically gets replaced every once in a while. I just put his old staff on."
"(???)! Really? I want a dragon too!"...
You stood with your toes pointing outwards, silently keeping a distance from them, wiped your sweat, and then looked up at the murky sky.
[Janium's capital is not as bustling as you might imagine. On the contrary, it resembles a dwarfed version of the Kowloon Walled City, with all sorts of strange building materials piercing the sky overhead. The crisscrossing roads leading to the abode of the gods fragment people's vision into pieces of gray, creating a sense of oppression and chaos.]
Suddenly, you notice a sober female pedestrian. Seeing her relatively steady gait, you brace yourself and rush towards her.
"Excuse me, miss! Excuse me!" you shouted as you ran up to the pedestrian, about to ask for directions, when the woman shook her head with a wry smile and said:
"I really can't go on anymore, I've already had twenty-five today, maybe next time."
"Wha...what, twenty-five?" you asked, completely bewildered.
"I'm a customer..." the pedestrian suddenly realized and said awkwardly, "Oh, didn't you come to ask about prices?"
"..." You suddenly fell into deep thought, then shook your head, rationally ignoring the meaning behind her words, and asked with a twitching of your lips:
"Do you know how to get to the Grand Palace of Horst?"
"Oh, so they're not here to overtake me, they're here to overtake the Führer..." a pedestrian muttered, then said, "Just walk along this main road, then go up to the spiral staircase and onto the roof, and you'll see them."
"Okay, thank you..." You hesitated for a moment, then asked curiously, "If I heard correctly, you just said you served twenty-five customers today? Why is that?"
The pedestrian, who was about to leave, paused upon hearing this, then, thinking that he had nothing else to do, dropped his bag, plopped down on the railing, and replied:
"Actually, it's not so bad. I just met a senior who does thirty jobs a day yesterday; she's got an iron fist."
She pulled a tuft of slightly moldy leaves from her pocket, and after you firmly refused, she popped them into her mouth and began to chew. Then, she glanced curiously at the dragon horns outside Serfal's hood, asked nothing, and continued:
"As for the reason, there's really nothing to it. My boyfriend was recently laid off from 'Houst Palace,' and since we don't have any money, he can only find jobs that pay quickly."
"Huh? You have a boyfriend?" you asked, bewildered.
"Hmm." The woman spat out the rolled leaf, picked out the corpse of an insect from it and threw it away, then put the rolled leaf back into her mouth and said:
"He's twenty years older than me, and he has a wife and daughter. Originally, I didn't want to continue the relationship, but he said his wife and daughter were about to be taken away by the 'Houst Palace,' so I thought about it and decided to continue. However, next time, I probably won't date an older man like that."
"There shouldn't even be a first time!" you couldn't help but mentally curse. You shook your head, took a deep breath, and asked:
"So he was laid off because his wife and daughter were confiscated, and he was unhappy about it, so he went against his superiors or something?"
Chapter 186: Watching Shenren TV as a child shattered my worldview.
"No? What is that, some kind of retro spirit?" The female pedestrian looked at you strangely and said:
"It's because he always hits Fei Kun while he's at work."
"What the hell?!" You couldn't help but cover your forehead and take a step back. It took you several seconds to recover from the dizziness, and you frantically complained in your mind, "Is he under that much pressure at work? He deserves to be laid off!"
"Besides that, he really is a good person!" the woman said, still chewing on a rolled leaf. "There were a few guys who should have been exiled or executed for doing too much kowtowing, but he took money from them and let them go."
"I see, how kind of them." Your mood suddenly calmed down, and you silently thought to yourself, wanting to laugh but unable to, "But they should do their duty properly! Let these poisonous insects die a miserable death in prison!"
"So, I'm already planning to marry him," the woman said with a smile.
"Congratulations... Huh?" You snapped out of your daze, scratching your head in utter confusion. "But wasn't he just laid off? You guys probably don't have any money, right?"
"Yes, we're planning to have another child," the woman said, a hopeful look on her face.
"No, I mean you guys probably don't have any money!" you couldn't help but repeat, continuing, "Getting married and having children must be very expensive, right?!"
"Oh." The woman paused, spat the rolled-up leaf onto the ground, then pumped her fist, gave a thumbs-up, and flashed an energetic smile, saying:
"Then let's give it our all!"
After the woman left, you and your companions stood bewildered in the wind, your emotions unable to settle for a long time.
"...Janium, no, the Janium people, are truly amazing..." you exclaimed sincerely, glancing at the pile of chewed-up leaves on the ground. Although the leaves were old and moldy, the Janium people could still taste the flavor. You could only say, they truly lived up to their name...
You and the dragon knight looked at each other in silence, sighed, and continued walking forward following the route indicated by the woman.
On the way, you suddenly realized that the novel you copied shouldn't be called "The Book of the Goddesses of Janium," but rather "The Book of the Gods of Janium"... In this place where gods and men are everywhere, that title would be much more fitting...
As you reached the rooftop, just as you were wondering how the "Houst Palace" would appear before you, a vast expanse of white suddenly appeared before your eyes.
You frowned, looked up, and finally saw the entire "Houston Palace." It truly lived up to its name as a grand palace; even from the rooftop of a residential building, it was less than a quarter of its height. It stood like a colossal mountain in the center of the city, a truly imposing and overwhelming structure.
The columned palace blocked the sun from reaching the common people, casting shadows across the land. You see different entrances on different floors leading into the palace, and at the bottom of the palace, many children are playing by the pristine white walls, their clothes tattered and covered in mud. But what lies within the palace, just a wall away...?
Seeing the shock and solemnity on Jennifer and Serfal's faces, you patted them on the shoulder understandingly. For Jennifer, who came from the gentle mage kingdom of Norard, she couldn't understand how the enslaved commoners of Anium could have built such a miracle; as for Serfal, it was simply the fear of getting lost in the palace that terrified her...
[You went undercover and began to study the palace to understand its contents, while also observing and recording the movements of the rulers to gain a deeper understanding of the country.]
Not long after, you found an opportunity. The Emperor of Janium was about to summon the citizens to the ground floor of the palace to mobilize them for battle, intending to encourage everyone to spontaneously launch a counterattack against Norard. It was said that this was a decision made by the gods after much deliberation.
On this day, you and your teammates blended in with the civilians and entered a massive palace. Only then did you realize that it was less of a palace and more like a single-story residential area for the common people.