In a room filled with all sorts of corpses, an old man who was busy arranging the bodies turned his head to look at Asa and let out a regretful complaint: "I had wondered why that skinny monkey would suddenly think of delivering goods to my doorstep today, and he didn't even haggle over the price. If I had known it was too good to be true."

  Asa tried to prop himself up, his hand had just supported the ground, a sharp pain in his chest, let out a painful cry, and fell back to the ground, the re-broken ribs intersecting with each other, so painful that he didn't even have the strength to speak. The old man ignored him, fiddling with the corpse while muttering to himself.

  After gasping for a few breaths, Asa struggled to move his head and look around. This was a very large room, or rather a very large house, with a simple structure, a very high roof, a very spacious space, a very wide door, and several large glass windows on the upper part of the four walls, making the room very bright. Every corpse inside could be seen clearly.

  It's not entirely accurate to say corpses, because apart from a dozen or so intact bodies, there were also dozens of incomplete ones, as well as countless organs floating in glass jars, arranged on shelves and tables of varying heights. The house was essentially a human specimen museum. Asa lay surrounded by a male nude corpse and several arms and legs, while the old man was dissecting a female corpse.

  After a burst of footsteps, the very wide wooden door was knocked open, and a voice outside shouted: "Is old Sandru in? Open the door." The old man retorted: "He is, come in yourself if you want to." The door opened, and more than ten fully armed soldiers walked in. Among them, several immediately let out low cries of surprise at the sight of the interior decorations.

  A young team leader-like man asked an old man: "Is there anyone else here?"

  "Human?" The old man named Shan Drew nodded, "Everything placed here is human, go find whatever kind of person you want."

  "I'm asking if anyone has seen any suspicious living people they've never seen before."

  "I've never seen this one, and I haven't seen that one either." Old Sandru pointed at several soldiers. Those soldiers looked at the fingers pointing at them, their faces twisted in disgust, which had just been pulled out of a woman's corpse, covered with bloodstains and other liquids.

  "This old man... is like this, today a prisoner escaped from the city's big prison, he's a very ferocious and cunning spy, and he killed everyone in the prison, including those two guys who often sell corpses to you, the fat one and the thin one. The prisoner is still hiding in the city, we have orders to search." said the squad leader.

  "Traitors haven't been seen here, and there's no one hiding either. If you want to search, then go ahead." Old Sandru bowed his head again to arrange the corpse.

  "Everyone, search carefully everywhere. Remember, it's a man around twenty years old, slightly tall, with black hair and eyes, and an injury on his left hand. Also remember, if you find him, don't talk to him, just kill him on the spot. This is the order of Duke Mlak, he might still have some dark magic, so everyone be careful." The captain gave a stern command, and the soldiers slowly dispersed to search, with a few still standing in place, trying their best to hold back the urge to vomit.

  What was the order of Duke Muraaku? Asaka didn't make a sound, but he heard it clearly. Although he didn't know how he had killed everyone in the prison and escaped here in this state. But just now, 'Kill immediately, don't speak', he also heard it clearly.

  The best thing to do now is to close his eyes and continue pretending to be dead, waiting for the crisis in front of him to pass. However, unfortunately, the lighting in this room was sufficient, and his appearance could be seen clearly, including the bandage on his hand.

  "Hey, come take a look." Old Shandru pulled something out of the female corpse's abdominal cavity and held it up triumphantly in his hand, as if he had made some earth-shattering discovery. "I bet this woman has never given birth, but she's had an abortion. There are actually people in Wang City who do such things."

  "Ugh——" "Puke——" The two soldiers next to the captain finally couldn't hold it in and started vomiting. The sound seemed to be contagious, and several other soldiers also started vomiting one after another.

  "What the...! Who brought this new recruit here?" The captain's boots were splattered with vomit, and he jumped up. Seeing other soldiers starting to vomit one after another, he took a look at what Sergeant Sandru was holding in his hand, which still had several tendons connected to the female corpse. Feeling nauseous, he shouted: "Fall back! Fall back! Move quickly!" The soldiers immediately ran out like they were escaping from disaster.

  "Hey, clean up before you go." Old Shandru chased a few steps, scolded a few words, came back to close the door, and then walked to Asa with a grumble, staring at him strangely: "I don't know how you were dragged here as a corpse by Skinny Monkey, but you still managed to go back and kill him."

  Ah, now that he took a closer look, this was a rather tall and imposing old man, wearing a filthy monk's robe that had lost its original color. Due to the greyish-white beard and hair being tangled with the silk threads of his robe, only his facial features could be seen within a limited range. The only thing that stood out clearly were those eyes, black and white, without any signs of dullness that one would expect at his age.

  "I don't know what's going on either. Since you knew they were looking for me, why didn't you just hand me over to them?" Asa asked weakly, each word causing his broken ribs to wail in agony.

  Old San Drul raised his eyes and asked in a matter-of-fact tone, "Why should I hand you over to them?" He shook his five fingers vigorously. "You're worth five coppers to me. Five, mind you."

  "If I get a chance to escape, I'll pay you back." Asa was completely at a loss for the situation in front of him. With such serious injuries on his body, he had inexplicably become a wanted fugitive, and the "don't speak, immediately kill on the spot" order didn't even give him a chance to explain himself.

  "It's no use, it seems you won't be able to leave the city. I can search here too, probably even the women's toilets in the city have been searched already. What exactly did you do?" the old man asked.

  "They just rescued the duke's daughter from the swamp."

  "And then conveniently get into bed with her? Give birth to a child? Or sell her into a brothel? Deliver her to slave traders?" The old man's imagination was very rich.

  "Escorted all the way to Brakada."

  "That's a pretty unusual way for the duke to show his gratitude." Old Shandru shook his head, "But I'm not interested in what's behind it. We're short-handed here, so you can work off your debt. You can't run away anyway. With such a big commotion, they won't relax their guard until they catch you."

  Asa was stunned for a while, and replied weakly: "It seems that's the only way. Just ask you to find a doctor and a pastor first." Due to severe pain, his voice had begun to become unclear.

  The old man looked at him, reached out and touched Asa's chest, then suddenly grabbed both sides of his ribcage and pulled. Asa let out a loud cry, feeling as if several knives had been inserted into his chest and twisted once, almost passing out again. When he caught his breath and became slightly more lucid, he found that the broken bones had been perfectly reattached, and even the pain was almost gone. The treatment that Brakada's dozen or so priests had spent all morning on, this old man seemed to have accomplished with a mere wave of his hand. Asa wasn't very familiar with magic, but he could roughly guess that this was an extremely high-level healing spell.

  "Three months," Old Sandru said.

  "What?" Asa didn't know what the old man meant.

  "I'll cure this for you, but you have to stay with me for three months."

  A Sa hastily raised the left wrist that had been pinched by the werewolf and asked: "What about this one?"

  Shan Derou old man untied the bandage and took a closer look, letting out a sigh like he had just picked up money on the side of the road: "At least three years."

  The Duke's mansion, in the study of His Excellency, the Duke of Mlarak, the Duke frowned rarely, listening to the fruitless report of the Capital Guard.

  Klaus stood upright beside him. Even in this furious mood, he didn't lose his composure at all, still so majestic and dignified, perfectly embodying the concept of a 'knight'.

  But his eyes, cast downward at the floor, occasionally flashed with a look of suppressed anger.

  The Duke did not blame him, the Duke would never blame anyone or get angry with anyone. It was just that Klaus couldn't forgive himself for making such a big mistake, which could lead to the failure of the entire plan and even put the Duke and his own safety in danger.

  The duke suddenly asked: "Why should all the people in prison be killed?"

  Klaatu replied: "I'm afraid the soldier inside has revealed something."

  "When someone is inexplicably locked up, how can they still have the mood and leisure to chat with people?" Duke Mlak slowed down his pace and emphasized his tone: "Most importantly, you didn't even ask clearly about the situation before taking action. How did that soldier lead the prison guard in? How did he knock him out? How did he run out? If every detail is clear, something meaningful will definitely be found." The duke concluded again. "You're too young, too impulsive. You need to have patience, think about problems from as many angles as possible, and you'll find more solutions."

  "Yes. I will spare no effort and think of every way to capture this soldier."

  "Think about it from a different angle." The duke repeated patiently. "It can't be too obvious, or someone might get curious. Let's just leave this matter to the Imperial Guard." The duke thought for a moment, "The chances of anything going wrong are slim, and that soldier probably won't even know why he's being pursued, nor will he dare report it anywhere else. We've done what we need to do. You can go back now, just make sure not to show any connection with the fugitive in front of others."

  "Yes."

  Looking at Klaus's back, the Duke's eyebrows were still furrowed. This was a very ambitious young man, very capable, hardworking and ruthless, absolutely a good deputy, a good subordinate, and even a useful pawn. However, he didn't seem to be someone who could achieve great things.

  If you hope too much, it will block your intelligence. If you pay attention to some things, you can't feel the overall situation and subtle changes of things. Being attracted by a leaf, you can't see the whole forest.

  Being overly ambitious and too ruthless leaves no room for turning back. Excess is just as bad as deficiency.

  This young man also has a large family behind him. The Erni family is a centuries-old aristocratic family, with high-ranking officials in the court and wealthy merchants outside, he is the eldest son of the head of the family, an absolutely perfect marriage object. But he is absolutely not a good husband.

  Living with someone who takes fame and wealth too seriously is very tiring. This kind of person only has themselves in their eyes forever.

  In his own study, Duke Mlak let out a sigh and suddenly felt a bit tired.