Chapter 4

"You are really too much, too much!"

Drunk Charlie slung his arm around Lumián’s shoulder and walked out of the tiled bar.

Inside, nearly twenty people were singing, gambling, and shouting, venting their inner emotions to the fullest.

Only at such times did they seem not to be poor devils with meager salaries, but masters of their own fate.

"I thought you would play Bilibi with them." Lumián, supporting Charlie’s back, laughed as he walked toward the stairs leading upstairs.

Bilibi was a popular gambling game in Trier, and Lumián had just learned about it.

Unlike the "Evil Fighting" game that Trier people loved the most, Bilibi only required a piece of paper to play—depending on the number of participants, the host would draw a different number of squares on the paper, ranging from 9 to 64, each square numbered, allowing participants to choose one to bet on.

Finally, the host would determine a lucky number through methods like drawing lots, flipping coins, or rolling dice, and the person who bet on the lucky number would take all the bets.

If no one bet on the lucky number, the money would all go to the host.

The people who came to the "Golden Rooster Inn" underground bar were either guests of the inn or nearby poor people, all with empty wallets, and they mainly used alcohol rather than money to play gambling games, for example, the winner of each round of Bilibi would only get a cup of wine bought with the money pooled by everyone. Charlie let out a long belch: "I haven’t received my salary for this week, I can’t indulge too much!"

He then said to Lumián in an excited tone, "Do you know? I’m now an apprentice waiter at the White Swan Hotel, the one on the new street in the hot spring area.

"When I get rich, I’ll open my own hotel, no, a grand hotel. At that time, I’ll ask you to be the head waiter, that damn guy, doing nothing but walking around in a tuxedo, finding faults with us, and earning 150 Ferkins a month!"

An apprentice waiter earns a bit more than a laborer... Lumián, who smelled of alcohol but had no signs of drunkenness in his eyes, nodded slightly.

At that time, Lumián did not have a clear concept of this, not knowing if it was a lot or a little. After all, when he was wandering, he only cared about how much food he could get each day and whether there were any kind-hearted people who would give him a few rik. The villagers of Cordu mainly earned in kind, which made him only understand the prices of specific goods and the gold content of different banknotes, lacking a clear understanding of the overall situation.

Of course, this was also because Aurore’s income was very high, making him almost worry-free about the family situation.

According to Lumián, after Aurore became famous, with the increase in published books and signed columns, her annual income had significantly increased, and last year’s total royalties seemed to have approached 1.3 million Ferkins.

However, Aurore earned a lot but also spent a lot, with magic spells, materials, and esoteric knowledge being her main expenses. Moreover, she might be helping some struggling members of the "Curly Baboon Research Society" and making long-term donations to charitable organizations set up by the government or the church.

But what puzzled Lumián was that when he left Cordu, he couldn’t find a single savings slip at home. He knew very well that Aurore had always had the habit of saving, and the premise of spending a lot was that she had already saved a considerable amount of money in places like the Susiter Bank.

For this, Lumián temporarily suspected that during the time he and his sister were chosen as sacrifices or vessels and lost their personal freedom, the main hall priest, Guillaume Béna, and his gang had taken the money.

Just as he and Charlie walked arm in arm up to the second floor, Lumián heard a mournful wail: "You bastard!"

Bang!

As a door slammed shut, the wail was cut off, leaving only the echo lingering in the corridor.

A figure in a neat black tuxedo walked from the end of the corridor toward the stairs.

This was also a young man, probably around Charlie’s age, with light brown hair combed in a 70-30 part, deep brown eyes showing no emotion, and thin lips tightly pressed together.

He was quite good-looking, holding a black top hat, as if attending a salon in high society, which seemed out of place in the "Golden Rooster Inn."

Accompanying this man was a woman’s wailing, filled with pain and despair.

Watching the man’s back disappear down the stairs, the flushed Charlie pursed his lips: "What a bastard!"

"Do you know him?" Lumián was quite "concerned" about his neighbors, after all, he might stay here for some time, and the more he understood the environment, the safer he would be.

"He’s called Laurent, the son of Mrs. Lacazan in room 201.

"Heh, he thinks he’s very talented..."

They insulted each other.

"The couple on the third floor, when they run out of money, they fight like this every day." Charlie tsked and laughed, "Friend, you have to get used to it. This is the Market District, the Chaos Street, the 'Golden Rooster Inn.' There are people with serious illnesses, bankrupt guys, vendors who trick tourists into buying things, strangers who only come downstairs to drink and never leave the inn, poor streetwalkers, madmen who occasionally regain their sanity, unemployed stonemasons, retired soldiers, old men pretending to be poor, wanted criminals...

"They must thank Mr. Ev for being a good person, as long as they don’t owe rent, he’s very lenient in other aspects."

Charlie laughed, "Yes, a kind miser, he even provides free sulfur to everyone!

"Burp, I haven’t seen Mr. Ev for several days, I’m really worried that to save money, he won’t go to the Wall Street, the Red Princess District, or other places, but just find a woman on Chaos Street and get seriously ill..."

Saying this, Charlie waved his hand, "Charles, burp, I’m going to sleep, I have to leave at six tomorrow morning and must arrive at the hotel by seven.

"Burp, if you can’t find a job, you can tell me, I can introduce you to our hotel as a helper, you can earn 50 Ferkins a month, and if you work long enough, even 75, and you’ll get free meals and a liter of wine every night!"

"Okay." Lumián smiled as he watched Charlie walk upstairs.

At the same time, he muttered to himself, "Simple provocation doesn’t help much with the digestion of the potion..."

He had assembled the "Fool Device" in the bar to provoke everyone there, and it was quite successful, but it didn’t lead to further digestion of the potion.

Previously, during the journey from Daliège to Trier, Lumián often provoked people, occasionally feeling the potion digest, but most of the time, there was no significant progress.

If he couldn’t find a more correct method of role-playing, he suspected it would take him at least a year to fully digest the "Provoker" potion.

On his way back to room 207, Lumián heard violent coughing from upstairs, the woman cursing her lover as a "lazybones" and a "waste," and the sound of a gunshot and a group of people chasing each other outside.

This was the "Golden Rooster Inn," this was Chaos Street.

Taking out the bronze key, Lumián pushed open the door and walked back into the room.

The bedbugs seemed to have some kind of strange perception and didn’t return here.

Lumián, smelling the sulfur, looked up and saw a letter lying quietly on the wooden table by the window.

He walked over and picked up the folded square of paper.

"A response from the 'Magician' lady?"

Lumián muttered as he unfolded the letter and read it by the crimson moonlight streaming in from the window: "I am glad you have arrived in Trier safely, which proves that you have already mastered the basic skills to evade pursuit and have regained the experience of moving in the dark side of society."

This Sunday at 3:30 PM, Mason Café in the Botanical Garden District, seat D, one of the psychologists will provide you with treatment.

"In the next few days, your task is to go to the underground cemetery near the Observatory District and find a man named Osta Trull. He often pretends to be a wizard there, tricking tourists and citizens out of their money.

"Regardless of the method you use, gain Osta Trull’s trust and, at the appropriate time, demonstrate that you also possess extraordinary abilities."

The Botanical Garden District and the Observatory District are both west of the Honest Market District, adjacent to each other, the former to the south and the latter to the north, bordering the Selen Left River.

Lumián read the "Magician" lady’s response repeatedly, memorizing the corresponding locations, times, and names, then struck a match and burned the paper filled with Intis words.

After doing this, he went to the nearest washroom to clean himself, then drew the "Fallen Mercury" wrapped in black cloth, took off his coat, and lay down on the bed.

The ceiling, marked with bedbug traces, came into view, and the intermittent coughing, crying, and arguing sounds quietly echoed in the room.

Soon, the couple who had eloped used intense movements and unbridled panting to tell everyone they had made up.

Outside on the street, a few rough voices sang vulgar songs, interrupted by gunshots, followed by curses, the clashing of sticks, and the sound of sharp objects piercing flesh.

Compared to Cordu, the nights here were very noisy.

PS: Second update, seeking monthly votes, additional update at 12:05 AM.