Loran crouched down and looked into Joe’s eyes, which were almost consumed by fear and numbness. For a moment, he felt a sense of trance.
Those eyes had once flickered with the ruthlessness and greed of a desperate man in the ice lake, but now, only a dying hollow and a plea remained, reflecting no light at all.
Suddenly, the sound of steady footsteps and clanking armor came from a distance — the patrol guards were coming.
After a brief thought, Loran pulled the limp Joe away from his leg and dragged him behind a pile of moldy discarded wooden boxes and rags.
After finishing this, he stepped back to the side of the street, straightened his clothes, and turned around as if nothing had happened, looking like a mere passerby stopping briefly in the dark alley.
Two guards wearing standard-issue armor approached with lanterns. The dim yellow light swept over Loran’s face and the pile of junk by the street.
Loran nodded expressionlessly to the guards and stepped aside to let them pass. After glancing at him casually, the guards continued forward with slightly tired steps.
The sound of footsteps faded, eventually disappearing at the other end of the alley.
Loran waited for a moment until he was sure there was no further movement before dragging Joe out from the clutter.
“Follow me.”
He led him away from the main alley and turned into a more secluded dead end.
Loran tossed Joe onto a relatively dry stone step and then crouched down himself. He reached out, a trace of mana condensing at his fingertips, and quickly scanned Joe’s body.
The man’s condition was even worse than he had expected.
There were multiple internal injuries, his mana circuits were disorganized and exhausted, and his mental state was on the verge of collapse. If he hadn’t encountered Loran, he likely wouldn’t have lasted three days in these dark alleys in such a state, potentially turning into an unnoticed roadside corpse at any moment.
And dead bodies were the most common sight in the Dark Alley District.
Loran frowned as he looked at Joe’s still-vacant and fearful eyes. In his current dazed state, it was unlikely he could provide any valuable information. However, leaving him here alone was not an option either, as Loran still had many questions to ask him.
With a thought, the small iron book transformed from the Atlas Magic Cube quietly appeared in his mind. The pages flipped rapidly, stopping at the chapter recording the Synthesis function.
Loran’s gaze quickly scanned the entries, looking for things he could synthesize with the materials he currently had on hand.
Healing Potions, Nutrient Mixtures, Basic Mental Stabilizers, and the Compound Recovery Potion that fused them all together… He silently noted the materials required for the recipes, which happened to be the items he had just purchased.
‘I might as well test the quality of the potions produced by this magic synthesis.’
Loran turned around and synthesized the materials he took from his bag into two bottles of amber liquid.
These were Basic Recovery Potions optimized by the Magic Cube’s functions. Their effects were much purer than similar products on the market. In addition to accelerating the healing of external wounds and restoring physical strength, they could temporarily relieve extreme hunger and mental exhaustion.
He tossed the two bottles into Joe’s lap.
“Drink them.”
His voice still lacked warmth.
Joe stared blankly at the warm bottles in his lap, then looked up at Loran.
“What, are you afraid I’ve poisoned them?”
Joe gritted his teeth and opened the cap with trembling hands. He tilted his head back and gulped down the first bottle, which brought a faint sense of warmth.
He practically couldn’t wait to chug the second bottle.
Visibly, the deathly grayish-blue hue on Joe’s face faded slightly. Although he was still very pale and haggard, he finally had a bit of the aura of a living person.
Loran stood by and watched him quietly until Joe’s gaze was finally stable enough to meet his own. Only then did he speak slowly.
“From now on, I ask, and you answer.”
Joe flinched subconsciously and then nodded weakly.
“First question,” Loran said indifferently. “Why did you show up here looking like this? I remember you were taken to prison by Paris to await trial.”
Hearing Loran’s words, Joe’s eyes stared straight at the ground. After a long while, he spoke in a voice so dry it sounded forced, telling Loran about the riots in the Royal Capital a few days ago from a different perspective.
***
It turned out that ever since Prinval’s group had been imprisoned, they were already marked for death.
“…Once we entered that dungeon, Brother Prinval was still very calm at first. He told us not to be afraid. He said the Boss… the Boss knew we had failed and been locked up… He said the Boss would never give up on us… He would find a way to save us…”
“…We believed it; we really believed it. Brother… he always kept his word. We were even planning to have a good drink once we got out to calm our nerves.”
“And then?”
Loran asked calmly, his voice devoid of emotion.
“Then, in the middle of the night, the cell door really opened.” Joe’s body began to tremble again. “The entire prison was blown open from the outside. It was a huge commotion… A few people came from the outside. They were dressed in black with their faces covered, and they threw us some high-quality weapons. The leader told Brother to head west after leaving the prison, saying someone would meet us there to take us out of the city.”
“So we all rushed out together. The streets were chaotic, people were running everywhere, and guards were shouting. But the people who rescued us seemed very familiar with the city. they led us through deserted small alleys… We ran all the way to the so-called rendezvous point… but there was no one there to meet us. Not a single person!”
At this point, Joe’s voice suddenly grew louder.
“Brother told us the situation had changed and we needed to run, but we didn’t expect many torches to suddenly light up all around us! It was the Holy Church Knights… and the Royal Capital Guard. They were waiting there all along, surrounding us.”
“…We were just a pack of low-life stray dogs trying to make a living… On a typical day, doing some petty thievery might be fine, but trying to escape from those two famous knight orders was nothing more than a pipe dream. In less than half a minute, the only ones still standing were me and Brother. I was scared witless, my legs were weak… Brother grabbed me and desperately charged toward a gap… I remember a Church Knight in a white robe seemed to want to capture us alive, but a Capital Guard knight nearby blocked him for a moment. It was in that instant… Brother suddenly pushed me into a sewer manhole.”
“Brother told me to run and not to trust anyone, and then… the only sound that followed was the noise of a sword hacking into bone… and… and Brother’s… I… I didn’t dare listen… I covered my eyes and crawled desperately… I kept crawling… I don’t know how long I crawled until I came out of another opening and fell into the city river…”
“I hid for a while and then crawled into this Dark Alley District like a rat in a gutter… I didn’t dare look for the Zayed Brotherhood… Brother’s last words were not to trust anyone… When I was starving, I drank dirty water and ate things others threw away… I hid from the patrolling guards and other beggars trying to grab territory…”
Joe suddenly struggled forward and collapsed, his eyes once full of ruthlessness and greed now held only the most humble plea.
“I know those guards out there are still looking for me… They won’t let me go! Once I fall into their hands, death is my only fate… My life was bought by Brother with his own… Sir… My Lord… I don’t want to die… I really don’t want to die…”
He lay face down in the cold mud, his forehead pressed against the filthy ground.
“I know… back then at the ice lake, we offended you and those noble ladies… We deserve to die ten thousand deaths… but please… I beg for your mercy… as long as… as long as you let me live… I’ll do anything…”
The winter chill seeped into this forgotten corner in thin threads.
Loran’s brow furrowed. He looked down at the curled-up figure before him, his lips pressed tightly together, combining Joe’s narrative with what he already knew.
Their boss ordered them to the ice lake, they encountered Loran and Chloe’s group, they were taken to prison by Paris, and Loran happened to bump into the Captain of the Guard excavating ruins that same night… Was all of this happening a bit too coincidentally?
If the attack on the Holy Church was also orchestrated by the boss Joe mentioned, then what was his purpose?
To provoke the Church? To disrupt the capital?
The so-called “rendezvous” was a blatant trap from the beginning. From the moment Prinval’s group stepped into the Royal Capital’s prison, they were likely already destined to be discarded. They were released, given weapons, and guided to the center of the ambush — all of it was just to make them appear legitimately before the Church Knights and Capital Guards so they could be heroically wiped out, thus silencing any skeptics.
In Joe’s description, one detail caught Loran’s attention: someone from the Church side seemed to want to keep them alive, but was stopped by a Capital Guard knight.
The Royal Capital Guard, Paris, the excavation of the ice lake relics, the attack on the Church, the prison break, the massacre of the assassins… and perhaps the Zayed Brotherhood. This series of events was like scattered beads, and the thread connecting them seemed to point faintly toward the Prince Regent sitting upon the throne.
Loran knew, of course, that according to the established plot, this Prince Regent would soon launch a coup that would sweep through the Kingdom of Rhodeland.
This was a historical inevitability, a key factor that drove the plot forward.
Preventing this event was meaningless because the Prince Regent’s coup was a destined occurrence. All he could do was find the most advantageous position in this storm to obtain the greatest benefits.
So, now that many details had already changed, if he wanted to ensure everything developed along the intended path, he had to understand the extent to which the Prince Regent’s brewing storm had prepared and when and in what form it would come crashing down.
Loran raised his hand and rubbed his aching head, temporarily suppressing these swirling thoughts.
The more he thought about it, the more confused he became, so he decided to put it aside for now. He looked back at Joe, who was sitting on the ground with a still vacant and lost expression.
“I don’t want your life, at least not for now.”
His words made Joe shudder, and he was almost ready to collapse in a bow again.
But Loran waved his hand, stopping him.
“Don’t be in such a hurry.” His tone held a subtle chill. “It won’t be too late to kneel after you hear what I want you to do.”
Joe looked up at him.
“Tell me, when you usually succeeded, where did you sell the illicit goods? What route did you use to wash the money? Also, how do you contact the Zayed Brotherhood?”
The expression on Joe’s face froze.
Loran saw every subtle change on his face, but he didn’t rush him; he just waited quietly.
“What? Didn’t you just say you were willing to do anything as long as you could live? If you’re unwilling to speak, then we shall part ways here.”
A struggle filled the man’s eyes as time ticked away in the icy silence.
Finally, Joe took a deep breath and nodded heavily, as if using every ounce of his strength.
“I’ll talk… I’ll tell you everything…”
He cleared his throat and told Loran the names, locations, codes, and meeting methods hidden in the darkest corners of the Royal Capital, one by one.
With every sentence he spoke, his face grew a shade darker, as if a part of his life were draining away with his words.