Allergic to Humans

When Yaxiu bounced up from the bed, his first reaction was to rub his eyes furiously, wishing he could pop out his eyeballs and scrub them clean several times over. "Yaxiu, you're awake? Then I'll open the curtains." Harvey's voice came from the upper bunk. Then the bay window's curtains were drawn back, and piercing morning light roused the dust motes on the desk as pure, golden text echoed through the cramped, dim room. Igola was sitting on the opposite lower bunk, flipping through his Book of Gospel. Dappled sunlight, cut into pieces by the floral curtains, fell across his pajamas, making him look serene and tranquil. Speaking of which, Yaxiu remembered that the Swindler's Book of Gospel used to be dazzlingly golden, practically having the word "materialistic" engraved into its title brackets. Recently, however, the Swindler's Book of Gospel had begun to change; though it retained its gold and silver palette, its pattern style had grown very similar to Yaxiu's. What did that prove? It proved Yaxiu had better aesthetic taste—even Igola couldn't resist copying his Moments cover. "Where's Banjie?" Yaxiu glanced at the opposite upper bunk, where the blanket and pillow were already neatly folded. "Making breakfast." Igola noticed Yaxiu staring at him thoughtfully and raised an eyebrow. "Could you not look at me like that? It's kind of disgusting." "Nah, I just spent a long time looking at beautiful women, so I feel like I've thoroughly grasped all their defining features." Yaxiu offered a very professional suggestion. "Igola, if your blond hair were just a little longer, you'd completely meet the hardware requirements... No, you wouldn't even need to grow it out; giving it a slightly layered cut should be enough... You get what I mean, Igola?" Having looked at the Sword Princess and the Witch for a solid hour, Yaxiu now saw afterimages of them lingering over everything. Overlapping their lingering images with the Swindler, he quickly discovered that the Swindler's appearance still had room for improvement. "I get it. Of course I do. You woke up looking for a fight and want to trick me into shaving my head bald, right?" Igola said. "Harvey, aren't you going to show Yaxiu the fruits of your labor from last night?" "Hm? Yaxiu wants to see?" From the upper bunk, Harvey handed down a box. Yaxiu took one look, and the lingering images of the Sword Princess and the Witch vanished in an instant, leaving only the magnificent spectacle of densely packed, writhing cockroaches squirming over one another in his mind! *Smack!* *Honeyed Words and Daggered Heart* plunged straight into the opposite wall, and in the next second, Yaxiu turned into a streak of light, fleeing onto Igola's bed. Pressed flat against the wall like a cat with its fur bristling, he stared unblinkingly at the cockroach necromancer, as if he would teleport away again at the slightest provocation. "You're actually afraid of cockroaches?" The corners of Igola's mouth twitched with suppressed laughter as he tossed the blanket beside him over. Yaxiu immediately pulled up the blanket to form a 3D perimeter defense. "Anything can scare me if there's enough of it—even Lalafells or gold coins! Harvey, hurry up and use your invincible cold flowing fire to burn them to ashes! Are you saving them for a midnight snack?!" "First, cold flowing fire can't ignite physical matter." The necromancer closed the lid on the box of cockroaches. "Second, your train of thought is correct. In a bit, I'm going to marinate them in venom and make them into food." "I-Igola, my legs are a little weak right now. Do me a favor and notify the Red Hats. Report that there's a perverted necromancer here..." "Don't be so tense," Harvey said, looking at him as though he were making a fuss over nothing. "It's not for you guys to eat." "Why does that sound so much like a threat? I'm still shivering with fear and can't stop!" Yaxiu said. "Can't you do something human for once?!" "It's for Alice," Harvey explained with open hands. "I'm preparing a ghoul enhancement for him, and an essential step in the ritual is devouring carrion feeders. The best materials would be scarabs, threadworms, or corpse beetles, but given our current situation, we can only make do with cockroaches." Yaxiu looked blankly at Igola. The Swindler said, "Scarabs can burrow into the human body and crawl into the brain; threadworms can squeeze into blood vessels and flow into the heart; and corpse beetles have extremely potent corpse poison... They're all fairly common scavenger pets in Blood Moon." "Pets?" Yaxiu was genuinely shocked. "You guys... our Blood Moon is that hardcore? Why not keep cats and dogs as pets?" "It's the result of overlapping psychological tendencies eroding and entangling one another—self-destruction, fascination with deformity, craving for filth." Igola brushed a strand of hair behind his ear. "In a nation where everyone suffers from mental illness, you need to lower your expectations of them." "I've already lowered them so much they're scraping the floor!" "If you had worked as a psychiatrist for a few days, you'd know you need to dig up the ground with a shovel until you uncover those rotting, foul-smelling, twisted roots. Only then have you truly seen the real Blood Moon." "What about you, Igola? If you kept a pet, what would you get?" Yaxiu asked suddenly. "Hm?" Igola paused slightly. "Probably... a cat?" "Aha, just as expected." Yaxiu wore a knowing look, leaving Igola somewhat baffled. "See? So just collecting cockroaches is completely normal," Harvey sighed. "Ah, why can't cockroaches grow to the size of a palm? This size isn't nearly enough to eat." "If cockroaches were palm-sized, it would still not be enough to eat—as in, I wouldn't be enough for *them* to eat." Yaxiu suddenly realized something. "Wait, Harvey, how did you catch this many cockroaches?" "I have a sorcery spirit specifically meant for gathering carrion creatures. I came back from the Void Realm in the middle of the night, and since I had nothing better to do, I collected some while I was at it. This is the entire building's supply," the necromancer said. "After all, the necromancy faction has quite a few rituals that consume scavengers." "Th-then when the cockroaches gathered," Yaxiu swallowed hard, "didn't they crawl... crawl over us—" "No." Igola said calmly, "I returned early last night as well and watched Harvey collect cockroaches the entire time. Those cockroaches all scuttled along the ceiling and dropped pitter-patter into his box. They didn't come near our beds at any point." "Exactly," Harvey waved a hand and said. "Don't judge me by my looks; I'm actually pretty considerate. I wouldn't let food touch you guys." "Watched the entire time...?" The cult leader stared at the Swindler with reverent awe. "Self-destruction, fascination with deformity, craving for filth." Igola closed the Book of Gospel and smiled faintly. "Care to guess which ones apply to me?" "Breakfast is ready!" Banjie's voice drifted in from outside. Seeing Harvey actually bringing the box of cockroaches down, Yaxiu immediately warned, "If you dare take that box outside, I'll fight you to the death!" The necromancer shot him a strange look and nodded. "As you wish." He summoned a dark green sorcery spirit, squeezed a turbid purplish-blue fluid out of thin air to drip into the box, closed the lid, sealed it, and shoved it under the bed—and since Harvey and Yaxiu shared a bunk bed, it was beneath Yaxiu's bed. "The conversion requires contact with the floor. I originally planned to put it on the balcony, but under the bed works too." Harvey shrugged. Yaxiu stared at the silent box resting in the shadows under the bed, feeling the hair on his neck stand on end. "Igola, how about we swap beds?" "Not a chance." "I see your bed is pretty big, so why don't we—" "You can either squeeze in with Banjie or sleep with Annan and Lisi." Igola flatly refused. "I'm allergic to humans." "You weren't this fussy back in prison!" "I developed it after meeting you. Go reflect on yourself." The three left the bedroom, stepping into a living space of around twenty-odd square meters. The kitchen was separated from the living room by a single wall. Banjie was not wearing his butler uniform, but had casually tied on an apron and set out six servings of breakfast on a folding round table, looking just like a gentle high school boy from a galgame. Lisi sat on a bench wearing oversized pajamas, yawning, her long white hair all curled up. Yaxiu and Harvey wanted to head into the washroom to brush their teeth, but the moment they stepped in, Annan shooed them out: "The boss goes first." The cult leader stepped out and saw the Swindler combing his daughter's hair. He asked curiously, "Igola, why haven't you gone to brush your teeth?" "I've already finished taking a bath." Igola steadied Lisi's shoulders to keep her from squirming. "Refusing to do things with you lot is a simple trick to improve my quality of life." Left with no choice, Yaxiu and Harvey went out to the balcony to brush their teeth. Barely three meters away sat the opposite building's balcony, home to a quintessential mixed-race family of five: an orc grandfather, an elf grandmother, an orc father, a siren mother, and a siren son. The siren son seemed to be sleeping in and refusing to get up. The elderly orc grandfather was sitting on a rocking chair on the balcony, sipping tea and reading his Book of Gospel. Seeing Yaxiu and Harvey, he raised his teacup slightly in greeting. Yaxiu and Harvey nodded in response, then took a big gulp of water, tilted their heads back, and gurgled noisily before leaning over and spitting directly into the balcony's drain gutter. Although roaming the Void Realm was equivalent to resting, after this morning routine, Yaxiu did feel noticeably more alert. He looked up to see the bright sky cut to ribbons by power lines strung between residential buildings. Early-rising commuters traversed the streets and alleys on balance scooters. In the distance, chaotically sprawling and haphazardly expanded apartment complexes formed a jagged post-modern forest. Further down the street lay several drunken goblins, stripped bare of their clothes, whom everyone walked around while stray dogs peed on them. Morning light poured down like oil paint, slathering this bizarre city that was both utterly chaotic and bursting with vitality. Advanced technological items were ubiquitous here, yet they coexisted with grotesque, ugly urban landscapes and chaotic public order—resembling nothing so much as a toilet with gold leaf trim. This was the chaotic metropolis that consistently ranked dead last on every city leaderboard, boasted a resident population among the nation's top five, was dubbed the "Noise of the Gospel," and was world-renowned for its freedom—Feidengla.