Ch62 - [The struggle for the Scepter] You stole something of mine.

“Sirius, I heard you helped testify for Nalun. All’s good now?”

The voice of his older cousin could be heard. Nalun paused for a few seconds: “En. It’s fine.”

The Emperor: “That’s good…… wait, who are you?”

Nalun asked: “Where’s Xi Jin?”

The other side sank into a deathly silence. It took a long time for the Emperor to finally ask: “Nalun?”

Nalun: “It’s me.”

As soon as he finished speaking, there was the sound of something heavy falling onto the ground on the other side. Then Nalun heard Xi Jin’s vigorous and youthful voice: “Hello hello, is it Nalun?! I’m here!!”

Nalun asked directly: “Where’s the gem you gift me?”

Xi Jin gave an ‘ah’: “Gem? Kacha kacha.”

Nalun: “……En. I’m at Xier Street. I heard Luye say you lived here previously?”

Xi Jin: “Kacha kacha. Here I wanted to give it to you myself. I hid it inside Mister Landlord’s safebox.”

Nalun: “……What did you say?”

Xi Jin: “They said that hiding things inside a safebox was the safest. Kacha. So I secretly placed it in Mister Landlord’s box.”

Nalun fell silent.

“How did you put it in there?”

Xi Jin: “Kacha kacha, I bit a hole at the bottom.”

Nalun: “…….”

A static sound came from the personal comp.

Xi Jin: “A little hard to bite.”

Nalun: “….. what kind of taste?”

Xi Jin: “Kacha kacha, cream flavor.”

Nalun: “What are you eating?”

Xi Jin: “Luye gave it to me.”

Just at this time, the Emperor’s anguished cry came through the personal comp–

“Xiao-Jin! That’s a personal comp, not something to eat!”

After a wave of electronic static, the call ended completely.

Nalun thought: it may be impossible to contact the Emperor for a while.

When they asked Mister Landlord about the safebox, his expression changed, looking almost somewhat unwilling. However, these two people were clearly government officials and currently searching for something. As a lawful citizen, the Landlord agreed to bring them to inspect the safebox after looking cautiously around: “Then just do it fast, you guys!”

His safebox was very well hidden. During this time, Mister Landlord looked around frequently, seeming very ill at ease. Nalun thought it was strange. As a result, the other asked Nalun a strange question: “Kid, you must still be single right?”

Nalun: “……”

“After a man gets married, he loses complete control over his finances.”

Nalun was confused and puzzled.

“This is where I hide my secret stash of money.” He said in awe: “Even my wife doesn’t know about this, yet you guys managed to discover it. The investigation abilities of the Empire are really too powerful!”

Nalun: “……”

As Mister Landlord spoke, he opened the box: “Huh? Why’s there a hole?”

Nalun glanced at it and felt amazed by the strength of Xi Jin’s teeth.

The landlord then took out the items inside one by one. In the end, he pulled out a round cloth bag and said in confusion: “What’s this?”

The cloth bag was opened, revealing the glistening, translucent heirloom gem.

At the same time, Nalun felt the ground shake beneath his feet.

A rustling sound appeared in all four directions. The landlord suddenly swayed: “What’s that?”

Some unknown time ago, a group of black ants had gathered densely beneath his feet. It picked him up completely. The landlord let out a loud scream. His entire person was forced to lean backwards. In the end, with a ‘pa ji’ sound, he fell onto the ground.

The gem in his hand instantly dropped and rolled a few times on the floor before stopping in front of a pair of boots.

“So it’s here.” A certain criminal Insectoid picked up the gem, narrowed his eyes, and enjoyed the view of the gem under the sunlight from a moment. Then he turned his head and said politely: “I’ll accept this generous gift.”

Nalun: “……” Lan Jia.

With a wide grin, Lan Jia opened his mouth. His pretty thin lips swiftly stretched in size as he swallowed the gem down completely.

Even Alida’s eyes froze.

Oh fuck, swa, swallowed it?

Nalun quickly composed himself and asked: “How’s the taste?”

Lan Jia licked his lips and said in satisfaction: “Pretty good.”

Nalun nodded his head: “That’s how it should be.”

Lan Jia: “……”

Nalun said: “I had long heard that in the three orifices of a Mist Bug, two of them don’t actually connect to the stomach. Instead, they’re similar to internal storage spaces, used to hold all sorts of things. That’s why in 10 Mist Bugs, 9 have hoarding habits. The last one just doesn’t have enough space. Let me think. How many gems can you hold?”

Lan Jia said: “What do you mean?”

Nalun sighed: “Don’t you know that objects of unknown origins can’t be randomly eaten?”

Lan Jia stared at him in silence.

Nalun said: “Xi Jin also ate too much junk and was injured here.”

He pointed at his head.

Lan Jia: “……”

Nalun: “Who would have thought all of you Insectoids have this kind of unhealthy habit.”

Lan Jia’s expression turned cold: “You think you can deceive me like this? The Asha Scepter isn’t something with unknown origins.”

Nalun said: “En, that’s right. The Scepter.” He looked to the side at the landlord, who was the only bystander here. His tone suddenly turned sharp: “You’d actually secretly stash Scepter privately?”

The landlord shook his head in bewilderment: “What, what Scepter?”

His expression was natural with no pretense, no sign of acting at all.

Lan Jia: “……”

Nalun smiled politely: “It’s nothing. We only borrowed your safebox briefly.”

The landlord realized with a start: “The hole in the safebox was created by you guys?”

Nalun said soothingly: “Don’t worry. The Empire will compensate you with an even sturdier, newer safebox.”

Lan Jia looked at him coldly for a long time, his face ultimately darkened uncontrollably: “So everything here was something you guys planned?”

Of course not. Nalun said to himself.

What Lan Jia had placed in his orifice was indeed Asha’s heirloom Scepter. However, a Mist Bug’s storage orifice was hard to open from the outside. The only thing Nalun could do was to make Lan Jia think there was something wrong with the thing and voluntarily spit out the gem.

Almost in coordination with Nalun, Sirius raised his hand. Andrew, and the others who’ve been hiding in ambush, immediately showed themselves and surrounded the people inside the room.

Meanwhile, as the leaders, Sirius and Nalun both looked calm and composed– extremely like ‘everything was going as planned’.

Nalun said: “The internal area of a Mist Bug’s orifice is very tough and durable. Who knows if an inflation agent will make it……” He raised a fist and then suddenly opened all five fingers, making the gesture of an explosion.

Lan Jia’s complexion changed subtly, but he still didn’t spit out the Scepter: “Wait until I return to the Insect Planet, then I’ll return the Scepter to you guys in its original condition, along with a peace agreement with Asha, what do you think?”

Nalun said leisurely: “Not much. I feel like watching you explode on the spot is more entertaining.”

Sirius said thoughtfully: “Stand a little farther. Don’t get splashed by the dirty stuff.”

With a darkened face, Lan Jia emitted a buzzing noise. Countless unknown insects started climbing out of the cracks on the floor. A few minutes later, they stretched out into the size of humans. Most of their shapes were monstrous, with some human characteristics and insect characteristics as well.

Seeing this situation, Sirius immediately pulled Nalun behind him.

Nalun said sincerely: “So ugly.”

Meanwhile, at this time, one side of Lan Jia’s cheek sharted to bulge. A few seconds later, he spat out the gem and threw it at a subordinate under his feet. Although he didn’t show it so clearly, he was still afraid of the inflation agent that Nalun had mentioned.

Sirius shot a rather complicated expression at Nalun from the corner of his eyes. He actually felt this ability to lie without batting an eyelash to be extremely attractive.

Inflation agent…… The Empire didn’t even produce anything like that.

Suppressing the brief thought in his heart, Sirius said with a heavy voice: “Those are irregular bugs. Although their appearances are half human and half insect. From a species perspective, they’re still insects. They do not have the ability to think like humans.” It’s also because of this that Insectoids love to use them in the frontlines of battle.

–As long as the head insects give the order, they would implement it devoutly.

As soon as he finished speaking, a bug crawling on the ground turned around and whipped its tail in their direction.

Nalun’s reaction wasn’t slow. He turned to the side to evade, but he still smelled a strong, pungent insect odor.

Thinking about how he had almost been attacked by a smelly tail, Nalun’s face instantly turned somewhat unsightly.

Andrew and the others immediately entered the battle.

This group of irregular bugs didn’t actually fear pain. If they showed even the slightest hesitation, Lan Jia would let out buzzing insect speech and they’d renew their ferociousness– The orders of the “head insect” in low leveled species had absolute authority.

However, the soldiers of Asha were provided with the most advanced weapons in the entire universe. For the moment, they didn’t lose ground either.

After an exchange from the two sides, victory wasn’t determined immediately. Instead, there was a stalemate.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!” A wave of loud noises came from outside. Immediately afterwards, numerous intermingling screams reached the ears of the people inside.

Nalun felt somewhat worried. Lan Jia clearly came well prepared. The irregular bugs inside the room might be only one of his many weapons. Such a huge incident would definitely affect plenty of people.

After pondering for a few seconds, he seized the chance while the two sides were fighting fiercely to pull out of the battle area.

Thanks to Sirius, he had studied Mist Bug carefully during this period and understood that this kind of bug didn’t have very high fighting powers. As long as he could get close to Lan Jia, a lot of things would become simpler.

Feeling the area behind him becoming empty, Sirius immediately pulled out his lightsword and cut the bug in front of him in half before following Nalun.

After taking a few steps, Lan Jia suddenly yelled loudly: “Get down!”

As soon as his voice landed, the entire building started shaking. The glass windows on the two sides shattered and landed onto the ground. Flames rushed in from the outside. A beetle bug closest to outside received a huge blow. Its insect body slammed onto the ground, countless fragments spraying in all directions.

The Asha people and irregular bugs that weren’t able to grab onto anything pretty much all fell to the ground simultaneously. They looked outside in alarm and fright, temporarily forgetting the fight.

Nalun luckily leaned against a wall and didn’t fall down, however, his complexion didn’t look any better.

He saw a huge Metal Devouring Bug standing longways in the middle of the street, confronting the group inside the building from afar.

Because of his familiarity with Xi Jin, and also because when Xi Jin was with him, most of the time he appeared in bug form, Nalun only needed one glance to discern the difference between the Metal Devouring Bug on the street and Xi Jin.

Its body was very sturdy, 8 legs thick, solid, and powerful. There was no white spot on the tip of its tail. Most importantly, there were some scattered long feathers stuck onto its back.

Even if Xi Jin turned to his largest form, he only gave people a rolly polly feeling. Meanwhile, the one before his eyes right now, gave him an intense feeling of danger.

Nalun’s thoughts turned rapidly. Recalling that Lan Ji once mentioned to Xi Jin about his ‘brothers’, Nalun had a rather terrible hypothesis.

The Metal Devouring Bug very quickly charged over. Its target was clearly to knock the irregular bug that was holding the gem to the ground, and bite a portion of the bug’s body to drag it outside.

Lan Jia’s expression changed subtly. Reacting abruptly, he gave chase outside.

However, it was still too late– In a blink of an eye, the gem had already changed owners.

“You stole something of mine, Xi En-daren.” Lan Jia gritted his teeth.

The Metal Devouring Bug called “Xi En” let out a buzzing cry.

Although he didn’t understand insect speech, Nalun could infer from Lan Jia’s darker expression that it wasn’t anything good.

Lan Jia said coldly: “Speaking of that, your little brother Xi Jin is actually the first person to obtain the Scepter. In comparison, you seemed to be more than a little late.”