The hag lay on the ground, laughing to the point of suffocation, yet she was utterly powerless to break free from the effects of Hideous Laughter. Only when the druids bound her tightly with vines did Anbaixiu finally dispel the spell.
It had not lasted long, but it had already inflicted severe trauma upon the hag's body. She had nearly laughed her lungs out, and now her mouth was filled with blood, leaving her unable to speak a single word.
The druids of the Golden Vine Clan kept a wary distance. Not daring to approach a lich as formidable as Anbaixiu, they could only pull Naomi aside and question her closely about everything that had happened.
Naturally, Naomi hid nothing, recounting how she had met Anbaixiu at the tavern and teamed up with him to mount a rescue mission in the sewers.
Every druid found the tale unbelievable. A druid cooperating with an undead creature was pure absurdity. According to the teachings of Silvanus, an abomination like the undead—a blight that disrupted the natural balance—ought to be cleansed immediately.
Yet the druids had witnessed Anbaixiu's terrifying power with their own eyes. If they made a move now, they would be the ones dead.
Considering that Anbaixiu had saved their lives, they would let their god's dogma slide just this once.
That was how the druids rationalized it to themselves.
Van Jones struggled mightily to accept the reality of being saved by an undead creature, before turning around and unleashing a blistering reprimand on Naomi.
Cooperating with an undead creature aside, and venturing into the sewers could at least be chalked up to concern for her kin, but bringing the Statue of Silvanus along was an unforgivable sacrilege.
Van Jones said furiously, "Naomi, how dare you steal the sacred statue! Do you have any idea what the consequences are? Even if every last one of us died down here, none of our lives would match the importance of that statue! If anything happens to this artifact, the entire Golden Vine Clan will be destroyed!"
Naomi replied heatedly, "It was the Great Elder's command! He was the one who told me to take the statue!"
Van Jones asked in shock, "How could that be? Has the Great Elder gone mad?"
Naomi countered, "The Great Elder must have foreseen the future again! Weren't our actions this time carried out under his orders as well?!"
Van Jones opened his mouth to press further, but a fellow druid beside him quickly caught his arm and cast a meaningful glance in Anbaixiu's direction.
Van Jones clamped his mouth shut at once. A secret concerning the clan's future was hardly something to argue about right now.
Anbaixiu, however, paid no mind to these druids whatsoever. He had already collected several pieces of magical gear from these clients: enchanted rings, leather armor imbued with nature spells, and a magical shortbow... Added together, they were worth roughly ten thousand gold coins.
Having collected his payment, Anbaixiu completely lost interest in the druids.
He now stood before the ranger Erha, saying, "You see, you've been rescued, and entirely thanks to me. Speaking by common reason, I am your savior, wouldn't you say?"
Erha nodded profusely. Earlier, he had harbored notions of pulling a double-cross and cheating his companion. Who could have known this lich would be so terrifyingly ferocious? He must have been utterly out of his mind to target an almighty figure like this.
Erha said emotionally, "Thank you, Lord Lich, for stepping in to save my life. I truly cannot thank you enough."
"I'm a lich. What use do I have for human gratitude? Give me something practical."
Anbaixiu held up two fingers and rubbed them together gently.
Erha understood the gesture all too well, but he offered a bitter smile. "Lord Lich, I'm a poor man. I really can't produce much coin."
"How much do you have?" Anbaixiu asked.
Erha produced his shriveled coin pouch—this was certainly no spatial pouch. Opening it revealed only two gold coins and a few loose coppers.
"That's all?" Anbaixiu said, thoroughly dissatisfied.
Erha replied awkwardly, "Lord Lich, my brother and I are poor folk. We really can't produce any more coin."
"Is that so?" Anbaixiu said with a sigh. "Well then, your bones look quite extraordinary. Turning you into a skeleton thrall might prove somewhat useful after all."
At those words, Erha's knees instantly buckled in terror. He babbled frantically, "No, no, no! We have money! It's just not on us! The two of us can't afford spatial pouches, but we have money at home! Lord Lich, if you send us back, we will definitely deliver the coin to you!"
Only then did Anbaixiu look slightly appeased. He said to Erha, "You see, I'm not an unreasonable person. I collected ten thousand gold coins to rescue six druids. For the two of you brothers, charging a gratitude fee of two thousand gold coins per person isn't excessive, is it?"
Erha counted on his fingers, then said, "My lord, isn't something off with the numbers? Ten thousand gold coins for six druids comes to less than two thousand per person..."
"Never heard of rounding up?" Anbaixiu shot back.
The soul fire in the skeleton's eye sockets flared fiercely, as though he might turn Erha into a skeleton the very next second. Erha blurted out in haste, "I have, I have! Your math is brilliant, my lord!"
"Mm, good. You're a sensible man. Come, sign this IOU."
Anbaixiu produced a sheet of parchment and drafted Dahei and Erha's debts with absolute clarity, even listing the compounding interest for late payments down to the finest detail—falling just shy of the City of Alchemy's legal threshold for usury.
No one could have found a single flaw in that contract.
Erha signed his name dejectedly, glanced back at his unconscious brother, and said to Anbaixiu, "Lord Lich, my brother is still out cold. Let me sign on his behalf."
"Why make things so complicated?" Anbaixiu replied.
A ray of spell light fell upon Dahei, and the rogue, whose face was still slack with lingering bliss, quickly came around.
Dahei was still in a daze, murmuring, "Goddess? Goddess, where are you?"
Yet as the illusion faded, Dahei froze. The moment his eyes landed on the hag bound tightly in vines, he began retching his guts out.
Seeing Dahei in such agonizing distress, Anbaixiu offered a helpful suggestion: "I know Forgetfulness. Three hundred gold coins a pop. Guaranteed to excise the designated memories with surgical precision, with no adverse side effects. Care to give it a try?"
Dahei signed the contract without a moment's hesitation. Forget three hundred—even if it cost three thousand gold coins, he would pawn everything he owned to scrape it together. Otherwise, he would be psychologically scarred for the rest of his life, perhaps even suffering permanent physiological dysfunction.
Anbaixiu tucked away the contracts with deep satisfaction. He had zero worries about Dahei and Erha welshing on their debt; he had countless ways to squeeze these backstabbing adventurers down to the marrow of their bones.
Next, Anbaixiu produced another sheet of parchment and had Naomi map out the location of the slime gathering grounds. Now that the girl had reunited with her clan, it was unlikely she would continue traveling with him. Naomi naturally dared not violate their agreement either; she diligently sketched the slime congregation area to the best of her knowledge before departing with her fellow druids.
After stowing away all his valuables, Anbaixiu finally turned his gaze toward the dying hag.
The most valuable prize from this venture into the sewers was neither the magic items nor the tens of thousands of gold coins, but the hideous monster before him.
Walking up to the hag, Anbaixiu said with utter earnestness, "Now we both have plenty of time to chat. That prophecy about the sewers' god—tell it to me in detail."
Chapter 30