"Did you know? They say that in the moment just before death, a sorcerer's soul enters a state known as the 'Blissful Dream.'"
Yaxiu, lying on the ground, cracked open one eye and saw Annan squatting beside him. Her long legs in purple stockings pressed against her soft, ample curves, pushing them outward. Her short skirt did nothing to ward off prying eyes; instead, it only stoked an urge to conquer and explore.
Annan spoke leisurely. "Time inside the 'Blissful Dream' is infinite. A sorcerer's memories are completely wiped away, and they live through an entirely new lifetime.
"Unlike reality, however, everything in the 'Blissful Dream' unfolds exactly as the sorcerer desires. The person you love loves you back, whatever you want is yours, anyone you hate drops dead on the spot... The sorcerer reigns over the fate of everyone in the dream, indulging every whim in boundless bliss."
"There's actually something that good?" Yaxiu couldn't help but chuckle, only to wince in pain. "I've been on the brink of death a few times myself. How come I've never experienced it even once?"
"How do you know right now isn't your 'Blissful Dream'?"
Annan blinked at him the same way he had, smiling. "The 'Blissful Dream' only manifests in the instant before death. When the dream ends, it means the sorcerer has met their certain demise. Yaxiu, do you know where a sorcerer's soul goes after death?"
"Hell?" Yaxiu ventured tentatively. "Though I've heard the god's Heaven accepts soul immigrants too..."
"That's right—either Hell or Heaven," Annan said. "And what decides whether you go to Hell or Heaven is your conduct within the 'Blissful Dream.'
"If you remain devout in the dream and live your life according to the god's will, you ascend to Heaven. But if you act recklessly and abandon yourself to hedonistic pleasure, you plummet into Hell.
"Yaxiu, if it were you, would you choose a fleeting moment of pleasure, or eternal happiness?"
"Can I just not die?"
"Do you know why I'm telling you this story, Yaxiu?" Annan rested her chin on her hands, meeting the gaze of Yaxiu, who was still lying on the ground. "Even though I can't look into your past, from what Mr. Bogin and Mr. Harvey have let slip, I've deduced that you were fellow inmates. Not long ago, you broke out of prison, fled, and eventually crossed a Void Realm passage to arrive in Gospel.
"Because of that, I was fully prepared for your bottom-barrel moral standards. And precisely for that reason, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Bogin gave me quite a pleasant surprise. Judged by our agency's staffing standards, their moral character is already well above the industry average."
*Then your industry must have no standards at all...*
"If the two of them were a pleasant surprise, Yaxiu, you've given me an outright scare."
Annan glanced at the bruises on Yaxiu's face. "I truly never imagined you'd pull your punches to finish the mission."
"What do you mean pulling punches? I genuinely couldn't beat him!" Yaxiu spoke a little too forcefully, pulling at the bruise on his face and making him grimace in pain. "That was an orc! Setting aside his sheer mass, he seemed to have trained in martial arts too! Thank goodness my fist and claw faction has reached a decent level; otherwise, I really wouldn't have been able to chase him off. Mission accomplished—I carried out your orders and won fair and square."
"You call that sorry state of yours a win?" Annan was rendered somewhat speechless. "At best, that was a seventy-thirty split."
"How am I only at seventy percent?"
"Seventy for him, thirty for you!"
Annan helped Yaxiu up, and Yaxiu very naturally draped an arm over her shoulder, leaning his full weight against her. The Purple Moth said testily, "I need to take a photo of this in a moment. It'll definitely prove I'm cooperating in good faith. Even Mr. Bogin won't be able to accuse me of treating you like slaves—what kind of slave owner helps up her slave?"
Yaxiu laughed. "You're underestimating Igola. He only argues reasonably when reason is on his side. If reason works against him, he'll invoke miracles like 'Double Standard,' 'Logical Fallacy,' and 'Topic Deflection' to find a way to blame you. To a Swindler, since when has reason been such an inconvenient constraint?"
"Understandable, I suppose," Annan hummed. "People cannot betray their own self-interest. 'Reason' is merely a favorable consensus accepted by the majority. If the consensus works against you, there's no need to acknowledge it.
"And precisely because selfishness is human nature, I don't understand you—why didn't you use your sorcerer powers to defeat that orc just now?"
"I did," Yaxiu replied. "I bolstered my skin's defense. I just didn't expect an orc's base attack power to be so high..."
"What about your swordsmanship miracles? What about your defensive miracles?" Annan pressed. "Even without miracles, simply drawing the sword concealed on your person and using the most ordinary swordsmanship sorcery spirit would have brought him to his knees in terror.
"Compared to an ordinary person, as a production sorcerer, he understands the terror of combat sorcerers far better."
"How do you know my sword is hidden on me?" Yaxiu was taken aback. He had never revealed Honeyed Words and Daggered Heart in Gospel Country.
"As a sword sorcerer, you never carry a blade on you. That alone says everything." Annan cast him a sidelong glance, her amethyst earrings gleaming brilliantly with movement. "Any implement sorcerer keeps their weapons close at hand. Troops like the Red Hats, who all minor in firearms, even take their guns into the shower."
"Then when they take a dump..."
"Why?" Annan cut off his pointless tangent. "Why didn't you reveal your true strength instead of brawling like an ordinary mortal?"
"Didn't I accomplish the mission?"
"Do I have to give you a direct order before you'll answer me seriously?"
"Almost forgot you can do whatever you want with me right now," Yaxiu grumbled. "Well, I just didn't want to bully anyone. Picking a fight with him unprovoked already felt sketchy enough; crushing him with sorcerer powers would have made me an outright villain, wouldn't it?
"Back when I worked my old job, my garbage bosses would also assign me utterly stupid, offensive tasks. But to put food on the table, I had to bite the bullet and get them done.
"Because I knew that even if I refused, someone else would do it. And if I was the one doing it, at least I could minimize the harm."
The cult leader paused. "Well, not that I minimized it by much, considering I kicked the orc into the air with a Shadowless Kick—"
"Alright, alright," Annan said. "So you're accusing the garbage boss who assigned the task—meaning me?"
"'Garbage boss' was just a figure of speech." Yaxiu shrugged. "Living in this world, conflicts with others are inevitable. Something is always forcing you to hurt people—be it survival, desire, allegiances, family... and of course, someone like you, Young Lady.
"I can't defy you right now, and aside from me, you have other enforcers," Yaxiu said mildly. "Since that's the case, I'll complete the task in my own way.
"At most, that orc will spend tonight thinking about how he could have thrown a better punch to take me down, and by tomorrow morning, he'll have forgotten all about the brawl. But if I had used sorcerer power to humiliate him for no reason, he'd probably carry the shame to his grave."
By this point, they had already walked out of the school. Annan clicked the car key to summon the hovercar over.
"He isn't even of the same race as you, his appearance isn't pleasant to you, and you have no connection to him. Why go out of your way to help him in the most troublesome manner?"
"He never wronged me before either. Why would I hurt him in the cruelest manner?"
The two waited in silence until the hovercar arrived. Annan slid into the back seat and gestured for Yaxiu to sit beside her.
"Yaxiu, do you remember the story of the 'Blissful Dream'?" Annan said. "I've always felt the Blissful Dream is terribly unfair. Most of the people I know wouldn't pass the dream's test to enter Heaven, but they aren't wicked enough to fall into Hell, either... myself included.
"The Blissful Dream deliberately creates an environment where malice can run wild, baiting people's desires to justify condemning them to Hell... It's nothing more than arrogance. Just as sorcerers use power to oppress mortals, the god uses dreams to toy with all living beings.
"But you're different, Yaxiu," Annan said. "You don't belong to the vast majority in between. I have a strong premonition that in your Blissful Dream, it would either be a Heaven where everyone is happy, or an unimaginable Hell. You will stand above the heavens, or become an enemy of god."
"I'm deeply grateful for the Young Lady's high praise, but I'm just a zero-star prodigy who hasn't made any rankings." Yaxiu's expression was deadpan; he had zero appetite for the grand pie Annan was baking for him. "Heaven or Hell, I have no desire to visit either."
"Hmph." Annan let out a soft nasal hum and patted her lap. "Lie down."
"Huh?"
Annan summoned the Water Therapy sorcery spirit. "Don't you need treatment? You could always wait until we get back and let Banjie treat you."
"Don't think you can harass me just because you're my boss..." Yaxiu grumbled even as he rested his head onto the lap pillow.
A faint fragrance of violets, supple and elastic thighs, the sleek, silky texture of stockings... Mm, not bad.
Without realizing it, Yaxiu had accumulated quite an extensive repertoire of lap pillow experiences.
Sword Princess's lap pillow, Freya's lap pillow, and now the Young Lady's lap pillow—each had its own merits, locked in a fierce, dead heat. Sword Princess would sing while giving him a lap pillow; Freya would clean his ears; and while the Young Lady lacked any bonus skills, she was currently Yaxiu's boss, which alone earned her two thumbs up.
While Yaxiu was busy ranking them in his head, Annan treated his bruises and asked, "Are we heading back now? Or did you want to buy something?"
"Hm?" Yaxiu paused. "The mission is over already?"
"It's over," Annan said with a smile. "Did you think I'd give you something impossibly difficult? You only wanted money to spend on your game. I wouldn't send you off to kill someone... at least not with your own hands."
"Then why did you want me to chase that orc away?"
"Curious, are you?"
Yaxiu sat up abruptly, turning his head to look at Annan. "If Harvey and Igola are curious, then so am I.
"After all, that was your real purpose in bringing me out tonight, wasn't it?"
Annan pulled him back down onto her lap and leisurely resumed tending to his injuries, offering no answer.
Regardless of what the Young Lady was thinking, Yaxiu made sure to drink his fill with wide-open eyes first.
These amethyst earrings really were huge and dazzling!
Chapter 271