Taming the Protagonist

Volume 3

Chapter 21 : Hitana Had Big Trouble

This commission, in theory, did not have much possibility of being completed.

After making a round through the human traffickers’ den, Anselm did not find any trace of the commissioner’s son.

Either he had already become a corpse in the lower city’s gutter, or he had already been sold somewhere else as a slave.

Of course, for Anselm, if he truly insisted on searching, finding the target was nothing more than a single thought—but that did not fit the style of an adventurer.

“Was it here?”

In front of the old wooden door covered in mold, the adventurer lord, bringing a servant along, looked utterly out of place with the surrounding environment.

“You clearly have something in your hand that was connected to him.”

Mingfuluo kicked Anselm’s arm very unhappily. “You insisted on making me waste time and energy searching for a needle in the sea? My time was very precious, Anselm.”

“I remembered a certain adorable lady who told me she was going to learn to make a change.”

Anselm knocked on the wooden door, turned his head to glance at Mingfuluo, his expression rather astonished. “Who was she again?”

Miss Scholar’s expression stalled slightly.

Her slightly opened mouth seemed like it wanted to say something, but in the end she rarely did not talk back stubbornly, nor did she do anything else.

She sat obediently on Anselm’s shoulder.

Anselm had promised Mingfuluo he would not casually disturb her, but as time passed, he had some new thoughts, and Mingfuluo’s reaction now also proved his thoughts were correct.

—Miss Scholar, who had been trapped guarding her obsession for twenty-one years, still sank all her mind into research and study. Did she really want to continue like this completely?

Anselm felt not necessarily so, and if Mingfuluo truly thought that way, then he had to do something to correct this awkward woman’s thinking, because friends should help each other.

He had deprived Mingfuluo of the chance to walk in the mortal world, so naturally he also had to take responsibility, and go together with her to see this human world.

Before long, the old wooden door slowly opened. From within the half-closed door leaf, a haggard man gripped the doorboard and asked cautiously, “You are...?”

Anselm handed that commission slip to the man: “This commission from the Executioner, you posted it, right?”

The man’s expression froze; even that heavy fatigue froze at this moment.

He did not reach out to take the commission, but his hand gripping the doorboard made creaking sounds.

That appearance of wanting to say something, yet because of layered fear becoming as if mute, murmuring—made people feel sorrowful and pitiful.

“Yes... I did. You... you are an adventurer lord?”

He almost could not control his emotions, but as if he feared offending Anselm, his voice therefore choked and even deformed: “My son, he—”

“There was no trace of him at Varied Snake’s den.”

Anselm shook his head, and when the man almost fell to the ground, he calmly added:

“But it did not mean he could not be found.”

The young Hydra watched the laborer in front of him, who lived in Strife Fortress’s sunless lower city.

He had to work in mine pits with almost no safety facilities, or other places, taking the risk of dying at any time.

He probably had already lost his wife, leaving only this son.

The problem was that Mingfuluo and Hitana could not understand—why these people still insisted on living here.

As for this, Anselm had already gained understanding during his travels and tempering three years ago.

In fact, at that time Anselm already had the ability to make a change, but he did not.

And this time...

Anselm did not speak. He turned his head to look toward the girl following closely behind him.

At the instant her gaze met Anselm’s, Marina understood his meaning, and immediately stepped forward, speaking on Anselm’s behalf:

“For Mr. Faust, this was not a difficult matter. But correspondingly, compared to its difficulty, the reward you gave...”

When saying this, Marina had actually already prepared to clash with Mingfuluo.

Garden had no right to record in meticulous detail the most intimate people around Anselm, but Marina could infer from the known records what kind of person Mingfuluo was.

Although this Miss Scholar in the archives appeared extremely cold and inhuman, her essence was still inclined toward good.

That grand wish to reform the world and open up the future—Marina believed she could never reach it no matter what.

But the petite woman sitting on Anselm’s shoulder did not say anything.

She only quietly looked at the man trembling all over at this moment, her gaze somewhat complicated, and that was all.

Miss Mingfuluo... unlike Hit, did not have a persistence toward goodness and justice that allowed not the slightest darkness.

While Marina was thinking this, the man inside the door had already pushed the door open and prostrated himself to Anselm, saying with a trembling voice: “As long as I can get my son back, no matter what price, I’m willing to accept it! Please help me... help me!”

Anselm still did not speak.

He simply handed the right to name a price to Marina, letting her become the one being begged—the omnipotent adventurer lord, high above... a transcendent being.

How could Marina not understand Anselm’s meaning?

But she did not speak at once.

She instead looked at this man kneeling on the ground with slight confusion, her expression somewhat dazed.

In Chishuang Territory, as Anselm’s agent, it was not as though she had never seen scenes of others begging her like this.

This kind of plea that staked everything and used one’s life as the price was not rare either.

But they were all not... the same as the feeling in front of her.

A mortal’s plea to a transcendent being, and another’s plea to me as Hydra’s agent—what was the difference?

The daze lasted only a moment.

Marina came back to her senses.

What she should consider now was how to name a price that would make Anselm nod, not these empty things.

She also very much hoped Anselm could help this man get his son back, but above all else, it was still Anselm’s attitude.

After thinking for a short while, Marina softly spoke:

“How much money do you still have on you, right now?”

The man’s expression blanked.

Then he immediately scrambled and crawled back into the room.

From the dilapidated house came a clattering sound of rummaging.

Before long, he held up a box containing roughly dozens of scattered copper and silver coins, and knelt before Anselm.

Marina walked forward.

When her gaze fell on the somewhat dirty coins in the box, her expression showed slight reluctance, but she still silently poured all the coins into the cloth bag.

Taking all of it was necessary to beg an adventurer’s assistance; taking only this was Anselm’s mercy toward the other party.

Anselm did not express any opinion on this; it seemed he had acquiesced to Marina’s approach: “Within three days, I would find your son. Whether dead or alive, you would see him.”

After saying this, he turned and left, no longer looking at that pitiful father even once.

But Marina still could not help it, and secretly glanced at him.

She saw, on the man’s face streaming with snot and tears, that contradictory expression as if he had obtained redemption—both grief-stricken and freed.

It made Marina unable to stop herself from thinking—

Could it be that being willing to help mortals was already a transcendent being’s mercy?

On the bridge road spanning the two streets, Anselm listened to Mingfuluo complaining very unhappily in all sorts of ways:

“Three days to find a person who didn’t leave even a bit of clue or trace behind? And you wanted me to do it?”

“Were you too good at ordering people around, Anselm? I’m not your subordinate... not really.”

“And besides, taking one copper coin symbolically should have been enough. Was there a need to take it all?”

Hearing this, Anselm coughed lightly: “The one who took it all was Marina, not me.”

“Shameless little brat!” Miss Scholar became even more unhappy and stomped Anselm’s shoulder.

“Don’t throw things onto others. Without your meaning, would she take it all?”

Marina originally wanted to say she acted according to her own thoughts and did not receive Anselm’s instruction, but the moment she opened her mouth, she realized she had no qualification to insert herself into their conversation, and Mingfuluo definitely was not serious either.

“Stop complaining, dear monster lady.”

Anselm casually pinched the tiny Mingfuluo by the back of her collar, smiling as he lifted her up before his eyes. “If we didn’t hurry and find that boy, my reputation would be damaged.”

“What did your reputation being damaged have to do with me... let go!”

—Although she could scatter and then reassemble at any time, Mingfuluo still told Anselm to let go.

After she sat back on Anselm’s shoulder again, although her expression was still very displeased, her mouth was already saying, “Go back and look around that den again. That human trafficker should have other places where he imprisoned slaves. If it really didn’t work...”

Miss Scholar paused, then snorted lightly: “Then ask your little dog. She would definitely wag her tail and help you.”

This look clearly showed dissatisfaction that Anselm did not avoid Hitana, but instead openly met her.

“Hit? She didn’t have the time. If nothing unexpected happened—”

BOOM!!!

In the lower city like a deep well, in the central vertical high sky, a blast suddenly came that made livers and gallbladders split. More than half the lower city trembled in this loud sound.

Anselm shrugged: “She was busy now.”

“Dealing with a few third-tier transcendent beings holding some toys, and it had to make such a huge commotion?”

Mingfuluo raised her head to look at the sky, slightly frowning. “No, it wasn’t her, it was... hm?!”

Sensing something off, the petite woman’s expression changed slightly. She turned her head to look at Anselm, her gaze tightening:

“Not going to help her?”

“Even if I help, it wouldn’t be me helping.” Anselm said slowly.

“I didn’t come here to help Hit anyway—who could have thought she would suddenly come to Strife Fortress?”

Mingfuluo, who had been slightly worried just now, immediately narrowed her eyes upon hearing this:

“You were mocking me for being jealous?”

“I didn’t say you were jealous.”

“Then you were saying I was being unreasonable?”

“You indeed were a bit unreasonable.”

“What, you hated me now?”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

The words clearly sounded like quarreling, but that tone truly sounded, no matter how you listened, somewhat cloying.

Marina watched the tiny figure sitting on Anselm’s shoulder, pressed close against his cheek. After a moment, she lowered her eyes, only staring at the road ahead.

For Marina, who had already gotten used to the Imperial Capital’s broad avenues, these black, filthy, dirty, chaotic little roads in the lower city were not easy to walk.

***

At the same time, Hitana did not know that, about forty to fifty meters below her, the boy she longed for happened to pass over the bridge road.

With murderous light fully exposed in her dark red eyes, she was now half-squatting on the railing of the passageway, like a hunting wolf poised to pounce.

Before the girl, four transcendent beings—some frightened, some forcing themselves, some calm—also maintained battle stances. Both sides looked like they could erupt at any moment, but neither side moved.

“You’d better think it through...”

Hitana said word by word: “If even one more innocent person died, I would crush one more of your bones before letting you die.”

The brutal words she spat between her pink lips were like sharp blades, or rather... that ferocious aura that radiated from inside to outside made every move of hers carry a terror that ordinary transcendent beings simply could not resist.

Among these four transcendent beings, two had already developed the intent to retreat under Hitana’s gaze, but there were still people who were unafraid, instead saying extremely calmly:

“This... Miss Fenrir, we never intended to harm any of Strife Fortress’s citizens.”

“Then you trash bastards right now undo the blasting spell formula buried in the lower city, immediately!”

Hitana roared loudly. Behind her, the red-black phantom that coiled around her seemed to be some strange beast; it was hard to see clearly, but that magical beast merely cast a glance full of murderous intent, and it made the least resolute among these four transcendent beings immediately go weak in the legs and fall to the ground, shrinking back.

Hitana did not expect that the reaction from that guy above would be so fast—almost not long after, he sent a team of transcendent beings down.

This squad had nine people in total, all of them third-tier transcendent beings.

Hitana, who caught their aura, naturally went to see them at the first moment, but she did not get the result she wanted.

They were not here to manage the lower city; they were here to size up her weight.

Then Hitana let them see it—within ten seconds, she directly crippled five people.

These ten seconds were even because Hitana wanted them to know pain and deliberately slowed down.

Only afterward, she had to regret her little “arrogance.”

No matter how ferocious and brutal Miss Wolf’s expression looked at this moment, her heart was not steady in the slightest.

The construction of Strife Fortress’s lower city was like a deep well; all buildings were stacked in layers along the “well wall.”

Hitana had asked the lower city’s residents why it was built like this.

The answer she got was that this had originally been a huge mine pit dug out when Strife Fortress expanded outward, and after the ore vein here was mined out, because it was extremely close to Strife Fortress, the adventurer lords above, when expanding Strife Fortress, transformed it into an even larger lower city.

And to maintain the city’s stability, there were a large number of spell arrays on the rock walls around this original mine pit that maintained the stability of the rocks.

In the adventurer lords’ words, this was the blessing of giving them a place to live.

Hitana was not a sorcerer, but after being reminded like this, using Head of Wind to probe, she indeed discovered the existence of many spell arrays.

At the time, she even felt the people above Strife Fortress were fairly decent, knowing to protect the lower city residents’ safety.

But when this group of transcendent beings came down, she finally understood... what protection or not—those spell arrays could reverse their effect at any time and become bombs that would collapse the entire lower city!

They could even control exactly where to collapse, limited to some specific region.

Hitana could not understand: transcendent beings... Why did they have to mess with mortals?

What was the purpose of designing such a thing?

What was the meaning?

If from the very beginning they were going to destroy the lower city, then why build it?

Before the girl could figure out the answer to this question, she was already constrained by this question.

It was not that she had never encountered people who threatened innocents—the lowest of the low, scum among scum.

But those people all underestimated her speed and underestimated her power.

What was more, no one would be like this bunch of lunatics, ready at any time to bury a whole district’s people in a bottomless mine pit!

Just now, Hitana even used some real strength to intimidate the other party, but even if she displayed herself as ferocious, as strong—so long as the other party was calm enough and discovered she absolutely did not want to see any innocents implicated, they would not fall into disadvantage.

And obviously... adventurers who had spent most of their lives crawling and scrambling in this chaotic world, seeing through the essence of this girl whose joy and anger were far too plain, was not difficult at all.

The leading adventurer was still unhurried: “This wasn’t any blasting spell formula, Miss Fenrir. This was a necessary spell to maintain the stability of the lower city’s buildings.”

“Bullshit!”

Hitana wanted nothing more than to directly twist off this beast’s neck.

She had seen with her own eyes that wherever this person pointed, the rock wall there collapsed with a boom.

Luckily, what collapsed was some uninhabited portion at the very bottom of the lower city, and no one was injured.

She also knew that killing all these people now would be useless.

Unless she could, in an instant, slaughter all the transcendent beings in all of Strife Fortress top to bottom clean, otherwise who could be sure that among the survivors, there wasn’t still someone who knew how to control this spell array?

“You don’t believe it?” The man smiled slightly. “If you don’t believe it, you can go ask the lower city’s residents. Ask them... whether they were willing to cancel this spell array.”

“...”

Hitana did not say a word.

The red-black magical beast phantom behind her grew more and more violent.

She was no longer that stupid and arrogant girl from the past.

The instantaneous change in the Chishuang City residents’ love and hate toward Anselm was still vivid in her eyes.

That surging rage and hatred the crowd had then—Hitana still could not understand it to this day, but she had already understood... she should not expect civilians to cooperate with her actions.

“I’m doing it for their good, so they would definitely stand on my side”—this kind of naive thought, Hitana would no longer have.

But that did not mean she would choose to give up these people.

Rather, it was precisely because of this foolishness that made them unable to protect themselves that Hitana became even more determined to protect them well.

What should she do... The other party seemed to want to talk terms.

Up to now they had not harmed any civilians, which meant they indeed were somewhat wary of her.

How should she use this wariness?

What should she do to protect the lower city’s residents from under these beasts?

While maintaining a ferocious face and killing intent, Hitana’s brain operated with all its strength, but no matter what she did, she could not find a way to break the deadlock.

It made her increasingly anxious and uneasy.

And all of this was seen by the seasoned adventurer.

He had once gone deep into a labyrinth gate filled with alien magical beasts, and he had also slaughtered each other with many companions in the underground ruins of the Celestial Conquest Dynasty.

Even if he had retired from the front line, he could still scheme and fight with people from other territorial cities... The transcendent being before him, like the incarnation of a magical beast, even if she could tear him apart with a lift of her hand, was only a hot-blooded little girl full of justice.

At this moment, he somewhat felt grateful for his legion commander's younger brother’s hypocrisy, otherwise it would not be so easy for him to hold this dangerous fellow in check.

“Earlier, Miss Fenrir’s request was for us to send a few responsible transcendent beings who cared about the citizens down to manage the lower city, right?”

He said with a smiling face: “Previously allowing vicious transcendent beings to control and ravage the lower city indeed was our managerial negligence. Please believe us—we wanted to correct it.”

The ferocity on Hitana’s face did not lessen at all: “This is your correction? Using the lives of the entire lower city’s residents to threaten me?”

“No, no, no... this was only what was necessary for us to talk calmly.”

“Heh, talk calmly.”

Hitana sneered: “It was only after you found you couldn’t deal with me that you planned to talk calmly, right.”

The adventurer acted as if he had not heard, continuing: “We only believed that people always changed. If we sent a few friendly transcendent beings down to manage, what if they turned bad again? So...”

He said to Hitana with extreme sincerity:

“Rather, you should manage Strife Fortress’s lower city.”

In the adventurer’s eyes, a crafty and teasing light flashed.

He looked at Hitana, who looked somewhat stunned, and said with incomparable earnestness:

“Judging good and evil, distinguishing right and wrong, the entire lower city’s order... would all be within your single thought.”

“How about it?”

***

Meanwhile, observing all of this, the Garden executors who had always been doing cleanup work for Hitana all sucked in a cold breath at the same time.

“Bad.”

The executor codenamed Graystone looked at another executor codenamed Bone, rubbing his forehead hard: “This was going to be bad... If we don’t handle it well, Miss Hitana won’t get forcibly tied down here, will she?”

“This won’t do.”

Bone’s expression was equally gloomy. “If it were somewhere else maybe we could stall a bit, but Lord Anselm is also in Strife Fortress!”

“In the end, this was also Miss Hitana’s tempering and choice. Lord Anselm shouldn’t have a reason to blame it on us... right?”

“The key is that this situation completely exceeded the scope for Miss Hitana—she absolutely has no way to harden her heart and sacrifice part of the people. If this continues, she’ll be controlled here the whole time.”

“Then... ask that stinky cat?”

“...There’s no other way, right.”

So, at night.

Marina, who was organizing today’s course and later plans, waited for the communication she had been waiting for a long time.

“Marina.”

“What is it, Ms. Rhine?”

“...”

The other side of the communication magic crystal fell silent for a moment, then a sigh came through.

“You won.”