Kaimeng City, Sin Hunting Hall Pearl Branch.
"Huh?" The young hunter glanced at the blinking coffin lamp and sprang to his feet. "Someone died."
Beside him, a potbellied orc hunter chomped on potato chips as he asked, "Where?"
"Let me see..." The young hunter switched the sin hunting light screen to the surveillance feed. "The scene of death is over by Third Spirit Lake Avenue."
"I know the place. Aren't there a bunch of abandoned construction projects around there? Those idiotic developers—give them a tiny puddle, and they have the nerve to call it 'Spirit Lake' with scenic waterfront views. Give them two trees, and it's a 'private forest,' a haven for health and vitality. If the distance from the entrance to the staircase is a fraction longer, they'll call it a 'ten-meter grand corridor'!" The orc hunter spat. "They marketed it so aggressively, yet it still wound up an abandoned eyesore. Good thing I gambled away my salary, or I would've gotten trapped buying property just like Bernie."
He tossed a whole stack of chips into his mouth, crunching noisily. "By the way, who died?"
"Two of them. Louis Mill, human male, thirty-two years old. Niablin Aiden, goblin female, fourteen years old..."
"History of sugar usage?"
"Six years for the former, three for the latter."
"Then they definitely hid in the abandoned building, took too much sugar, and died during a sugar melt. Though a human and a goblin melting sugar together is rather rare..."
Even an ogre, who possessed the highest natural toxin resistance, would suffer mild hallucinations after consuming moon sugar, let alone any other race. In addition to hallucinations, it brought on intense sexual urges and euphoric excitation. As a result, "sugar folk" frequently broke out into violent altercations or engaged in mating after taking the drug. When multiple males and females took sugar and mated together, it was referred to as a "sugar melt."
The young hunter found it hard to accept. "A fourteen-year-old goblin hasn't even reached the age to leave the rearing institute, right?"
"Oh, looks like you didn't come from the Vegetable Market Rearing Institute." The orc hunter chuckled. "You'll understand once you've worked a few more shifts here. The rearing institutes around here are all low-grade. For the little brats inside, crawling out is easier than taking a dump. The core members of several small gangs are underage kids. Thanks to the Child Protection Act, even if they get caught committing crimes, they get reduced sentences. They're utterly brazen. When they grow up, they either join a syndicate or spend the rest of their lives digging platinum ore in prison."
"Then... shouldn't we go take a look? An underage goblin died. If she's rushed to the hospital in time—"
"No need. Handle it like last time—send the location data straight to the hospital and let them dispatch someone to clean up the bodies." The orc hunter spread his hands. "If hunters deploy, we have to file a case, right? We have to write up a case file, right? We have to process the corpses, right? We have to secure the scene, right?
"Most importantly, with all that hassle, our pay won't go up by a single silver coin, yet our workload increases. And in the end, doesn't the hospital just haul away the bodies anyway? Isn't it better to cut straight to the chase right now?"
The young hunter struggled to stomach it. "If gang shootouts leave people dead, we ignore it. If someone dies from taking sugar, we ignore it. Then what do we hunters actually manage?"
"Now I understand why a university-graduate hunter like you got banished to such an out-of-the-way branch," the orc hunter said calmly. "You must have been an obnoxious, overly righteous comic-relief character back at the hall."
The young hunter shook his head, pulling on his trench coat to leave.
"We hunters only protect the living, not the dead," the orc hunter said. "For scum like that who choose their own ruin and don't value their own lives, leaving them to their own devices is the responsible thing to do for society."
"Since when does a fourteen-year-old goblin girl who hasn't even left the rearing institute get to choose her own path?" the young hunter shouted in anger. "It's not about her being responsible to society—society should be responsible to her!
"And after everything the two Blood Moon races have done to us, how can we just stand by and watch people get destroyed by this society?"
*Bang!*
Watching the young hunter slam the door behind him, the orc hunter scratched his head. "Who would've thought that clean-cut college kid would secretly watch the Blood Moon Trial while on duty... Hmph, talking so high and mighty. Once I file a little report on him and dock his bonus for the month, he'll know better...
"Young people are just young people. Whatever that ogre said, he swallowed whole, without stopping to think that anyone sitting in that position is an old, cunning fox of a politician—spinning fallacies when it hurts them and playing it up when it helps them. Still, the way it looks now, plenty of youngsters are probably going to get stirred up by that ogre...
"The two Blood Moon races... The most savage civilized society..."
The orc hunter peered into his empty chip bag, licked his fingers, and gazed out at the blood moon. "Come to think of it, why was I exiled to this branch all those years ago?"
The orc opened his light screen and flipped through old photo albums until the display stopped on a picture from three years ago. In the image, he had just joined the Sin Hunting Hall, clad in a handsome dark-red uniform, looking robust and valiant, his face brimming with a sunny smile.
He glanced at the nearby mirror, only to see a decadent orc bathed in crimson moonlight.
"The only ones who are ruined are us middle-aged and older folks. The youth still have hope.
"Mr. Mayor, you died splendidly."
* * *
On Third Spirit Lake Avenue, an abandoned unfinished building collapsed with a deafening roar, startling a flock of birds into the air.
Yaxiu took cover behind a broken wall, glanced at the blood spreading beneath the adjacent rubble, and said, "Stop messing around. If we don't move, the Sin Hunting Hall will be all over us. Gerard must be so furious at my message that he'd use fart propulsion to chase after us, but if you want to be the ones a Three-Winged Sanctuary Sorcerer vents his rage on, I won't object."
Igola, hiding behind another wall, asked, "Did you really leave a message for Gerard? How did you know he'd be the first to arrive at the trial scene?"
"I guessed. You'd better pray I guessed wrong." Yaxiu asked, "So, do you still want to fight?"
"I'm done," Harvey said from the shadows of the second floor. "I can't interface with any chip processor around here right now. Killing you would be too much trouble."
"Is it just my imagination, or did Harvey get a lot more arrogant after breaking out of prison?" Ronald chuckled.
"Do you still have time to laugh, Ronald? Aren't you worried Langna beside you might swallow you whole in one bite?" Igola provoked. "There's no healer around here to save you."
"No need for the 'Fair Beast' to trouble his pretty head over that," Langna chuckled. "Once word of your jailbreak gets out, your old clients will surely be itching to do a few more big business deals with you. Your infamy is known to everyone from Feimeng City to Kaimeng City. Even in prison, I knew plenty of people who hated your guts."
"In that case, let's part ways—"
"Wait!" Yaxiu called out suddenly. "Before we split, I want to ask a question—do any of you know of any channel to leave the Blood Moon Country?"
After a brief silence, Harvey said faintly, "Setting aside whether there is one, even if there were, why would I tell you?"
Yaxiu said, "It's just like confessing your feelings. If you don't confess, nothing will come of it, but if you do, maybe the other person will have a momentary lapse in judgment."
"Speaking of which, Yaxiu, you still owe me a wish," Igola said playfully. "The jailbreak went so smoothly that I never got the chance to use it... Say, what should I use this wish for? How about having you step out into the middle of the rubble right now and do push-ups?"
"I think wishes ought to be grounded in reality—preferably something that doesn't trouble me and benefits you. How about wishing for me to buy you a birthday cake? I think a fruit cake sounds wonderful."
"What a coincidence—I don't need any benefit for myself; I only want to see you troubled," Igola barked. "And clearly you're the one who wants to eat fruit cake!"
"No idea," Langna replied briskly.
"I have a few ideas, but I can't tell you," Ronald said with a smile. "The fewer people who know, the better."
"You guys really don't have a shred of sharing spirit..." Yaxiu grumbled. "Harvey, could I trouble you with a favor?"
"Hm?"
"I have two injured people on my side. They must have been near the building just now, and the shockwaves of our fight brought it down, burying them under the rubble. After we leave, could you save them? I'll dig through the ruins."
Harvey fell silent for a moment. "I sensed the area. Over on your side, you're the only living person."
"Is that so..."
"Which means I can save them."
"Huh?" Yaxiu blinked.
Two rays of dark-green light shot out from the second floor, sinking into the rubble beside Yaxiu.
"If they weren't dead, I wouldn't have any way to save them. But since they are dead, this miracle of mine can temporarily turn them into living corpses, halting the progression of their corpse transformation for ten hours. If they receive medical treatment during that window, there's a chance they could come back to life. You don't need to dig through the rubble either; otherwise, they'll attack people," Harvey said. "Still, this is the Pig District. They'll need a bit of luck."
"Thank you."
His thanks went unanswered. Yaxiu blinked, realizing the others had already departed.
Using Heart Sword to clear away some of the debris until the living corpses' heads were exposed, Yaxiu quickly took a long detour to another street. He stripped off his prison guard uniform, changed into the crow suit given to him by the healer, and strutted into the unfamiliar city.
*Since I haven't found a way to leave the Blood Moon Country yet, I'll put that aside for now and finish my character-exclusive side quest first...*
Standing before a public bus stop, Yaxiu checked the city map and soon located the stop for "Kaimeng Comprehensive University."
"Professor Xilin, your student has returned from his advanced studies in prison."
Chapter 139