Read Novel Full Chapter 617: The Salesman?
Chapter 617: The Salesman?
Lillian returned to her spiritual body and found herself in an unfamiliar room, hovering just above a seat; her current position made it seem as though someone had struggled to get her seated, but eventually gave up after a few tries.
’Where the hell am I?’ Lillian thought to herself.
She looked around, surveying her surroundings.
It was a medium-sized room that was dimly lit with candles; it had an eerie atmosphere and felt incredibly shady to be in, especially with how the wall to her left was hidden under a dark curtain.
For some odd reason, she felt this place was strangely familiar to her in some way...
’Before I got distracted, I remember that both of us got kicked out...’
She recalled that because of her and Millis’s suspiciously high win rate at the casino, they were forced to exit the establishment.
’So, would that mean we’re in the salesman’s den...?’ Lillian thought before shaking her head, ’No... He has at most a 10% chance of spawning before the player; there’s no way we got him on the first try.’
In the game, due to the salesman’s low chance of appearance, the player would constantly need to visit other casinos. And only by flaunting your wealth would you increase the chances of the salesman catching wind of you.
The Rabbit continued to look around, eventually turning beside her and—
"Ah! Ya finally awake now?"
—Locking eyes with a golden-eyed Heroine.
Millis, who had noticed Lillian stirring awake from her sudden state of inactivity, smiled broadly - locking eyes with the Rabbit, who felt relieved at the sight of her.
Lillian chuckled slightly, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.
"Sorry about that, I got a little bit distracted..."
Hearing this, Millis pouted deeply as she folded her arms, "Hmph! Ya got me all worried and scared with how still ya were. I was starting to think ya somehow kicked the bucket!"
"S-sorry." Lillian apologised again. "Could you fill me in on what happened?"
Millis’s pouty expression soon dissipated, becoming replaced with a grin.
"Bet, alright! So, basically, after we got kicked out some salesman came over and..."
The Heroine filled Lillian in on what happened, garnering a variety of hidden surprised expressions from the Rabbit.
’She... She did everything...’
After the player manages to attract the salesman’s attention, they would be approached by him and taken to an unknown location.
Then they would need to answer various questions from him just to soothe his suspicions about whether or not they were some kind of police.
’To think that we were so lucky to attract the salesman on the first try... And to think that Millis had already answered all of his questions!’ Lillian’s eyes blinked with a complicated light, having been prepared to go through a gauntlet of slot machines and roulette wheels.
She then shook her head internally, staring at Millis, who seemed to tilt in her head cutely at her focused stare.
Although Lillian didn’t know how Millis knew what to say, that didn’t matter; this was still a good thing.
However, there was just one thing that Lillian had to speak up on.
Millis watched as Lillian raised her hand, moving it slowly towards the side of her face.
The Heroine widened her eyes, then cupped both of her cheeks - feigning a bashful look - as she turned to the side.
With a silly smile, she said shyly:
"Oh my~... Ya wanna do this here, Lils? Ya mustn’t, Lils, even if ya are frustrated, ya gotta think about Red Eyes—!"
"What the hell are you assuming?"
"O-OW!"
Lillian pinched Millis’s cheek and harshly pulled it, causing the Heroine to squeal in pain as she tried to get Lillian to let go.
The Rabbit narrowed her eyes scoldingly.
"What were you thinking to follow some person you didn’t know?" Lillian scolded, pulling again, "What if they did something something to us?"
The spiritual soul was fragile and vulnerable.
Although Lillian was wearing the [Soul Sovereign’s Robe], which gave a 75% damage reduction against her spiritual body, she would undoubtedly still feel the unreduced pain.
"O-ow!" Millis cried out again as she gently grabbed at Lillian’s wrist, trying to get the Rabbit to let go.
"I-I get it, I get it! Now, please let go, Lils!"
After Lillian finally let go, Millis cupped her reddened cheek - nursing it - with a pouty look in her eyes.
"This is abuse..." Millis sulked quietly, feeling wronged.
Lillian couldn’t help but smile at this, even letting out a small chuckle.
The Heroine pouted at Lillian’s chuckle. When she was about to raise her head to get a good look at Lillian, she flinched - feeling a hand land on her head, patting her.
Lillian patted the Heroine with a smile behind her mask before looking over the Heroine’s head, her eyes narrowing as she found a line of seated people.
When the player finally gets past the salesman’s wall of questions, they would then be taken to an underground waiting room to queue for his wares.
With a row neatly arranged against a wall, a line of people sat - waiting impatiently with dishevelled appearances and a sleepless look in their eyes.
Lillian didn’t expect much from people in the Underworld to know how to make themselves appear presentable, but with how these guys looked, they appeared more like they had been going through an extreme level of relapse.
And that was exactly what it was.
The Rabbit felt every single individual in this room, besides Millis and her, was a mage no higher than Tier 1.
Using her heightened senses for mana, Lillian looked towards a partially decrepit mage and narrowed her eyes on his Mana Core.
The singular shell wrapped around the man’s Mana Core was wrinkled like a raisin and was steadily losing its solid structure and approaching destruction.
This was the work of the syringe.
And because of its current state, it was steadily shrinking in mass - in turn, gradually decreasing the man’s overall mana reserves.
Lillian grimaced with a dark expression.
’It’s failing...’
The Mana Core was an organ; no matter how many ties it had to the magical aspects of this world, it was still an organ, thus, it was still prone to failure.
Just like the liver of a man’s body, if exposed to too much abuse, which in this case would be alcohol, it would start to fail and eventually die.
This was the same with the Mana Core, but what the man took was far more harmful than alcohol.
’There are many ways for a person to overabuse their Mana Core...’
Usually, in the form of forcing their Mana Core to refine more ambient mana for use. This type of abuse was normal, especially in highly intense and stressful environments, like life and death scenarios - luckily, if left long enough to rest, it would heal.
Fortunately, Lillian never had to push her Mana Core that hard with the help of her Parasitic Element. And even if it did, she had always been able to rest in between.
While Lillian continued to inspect the man’s Mana Core, the decrepit mage began to signs of relapse.
He frantically looked around the room, pumping his legs up and down erratically as he rubbed the side of his shoulders, feeling rather cold.
He was impatient!
It has been days since he had his last syringe.
At first, he was hesitant and even suspicious of the mysterious contents of the syringe, especially when the man selling it was someone he didn’t know. But after being shown what they could do, he was immediately hooked.
Thus, he had bought a box for five syringes - each syringe costing him over 1,000 Semis.
It was stated that the batch should last him up to five days if he followed their suggestions: one injection a day. Unfortunately, the effects it had on him were more than he had expected, thus causing him to use them all up in the first two days!
"The withdrawals... the withdrawals..." He breathed half-raggedly.
He needed more!
As he continued to bump his legs up and down, he managed to catch the stare of someone several seats to the right of him - Lillian.
Assumably locking eyes with them, he growled:
"Who are you looking at!?"
Lillian wrinkled her face in response, slowly turning away and shaking her head.
After a moment or two, the dark curtains to the side parted.
From in between the curtains, a partially dishevelled man walked out, tightly holding a crate to his chest as he was closely followed by a tall and lean man behind.
The tall man wore a dark, black suit, pants and a tie, with a white dress shirt underneath, and also had a pair of sunglasses.
He also emitted the aura of a Tier 3 mage.
"Haha, I hope you enjoy that, sir. Please, do come back whenever you are in need of a new fix - I’ll even give you a 20% discount on your next purchase!"
After walking the man to the exit and bidding him farewell, he turned to those waiting in the room for him. He grinned amiably, revealing a golden tooth in place of his upper right canine.
"Alright, who’s next..." The tall man asked rhetorically before coming upon Millis and Lillian, "Ah, it’s you two!"
He pushed his hand out and helped Millis out of her seat. Then, he turned to Lillian to do the same.
"I see that you’re awake, that’s brilliant!"
The Rabbit stared warily at the hand that hovered in front of her, which silently asked her to grab it.
She then looked up at the man, who smiled down at her, revealing his golden tooth with a suggestive look in his eyes.
’The salesman...’