I'm a proper student; I only take nine kinds of potions every day.

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Logically speaking, there should be no mishap.

Pilsson paced back and forth on the carpet a couple of times, cursed a couple of times, and took a deep breath.

He raised his hand.

Under his own gaze, the five originally long and clean fingers quickly deformed and lengthened, turning in the blink of an eye into five thin, grayish-white roots covered with fine hairs.

Treant. Demon. Bloodthirsty race. Serpent-man.

These types of professions are all directly derived from monster races.

Taking this route means abandoning the human form.

The five roots seemed to have their own consciousness, reaching out to different corners of the room and gently caressing the floor, wall cracks, and carpet fibers inch by inch.

With each stroke, the muscles at the corner of Pilsner's eye twitched slightly.

After a long while, he suddenly opened his eyes.

“There is no sign of any remnants of the Dark Plague.”

"There were signs of a struggle; it was Kerry. His body and teeth appeared to have been struck with a blunt object. There were no spiritual fluctuations; it was purely a physical attack..."

He gritted his teeth and made his decision.

"Someone must have come and severely injured Kerry... That's all we can deduce."

"Lily shouldn't be dead. Otherwise, even an expert-level superhuman wouldn't be able to clean that lump of mud so thoroughly."

"The room reeked of many other smells: alcohol, sweat, fish, and a cheap, awful perfume..."

His brow twitched more and more violently.

"That damn monster, how many men have you slept with in the last few days?!"

Pierson was so frustrated he wanted to smash the picture frame hanging on the wall.

Tree spirits are good at sensing, but only if they have at least a clear clue.

But now the atmosphere in the room was completely mixed up, like a bucket of mixed paint, making it impossible for him, as an apprentice, to discern the underlying colors.

He held it in for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out a sentence.

"Forget it. Just report it as... Nyoghda's family ran away on their own. Anyway, I don't want to do this job anymore."

Then, he raised his hand and pulled the five roots back into his palm, letting out a long sigh.

What should we eat tonight?

He stared at the empty ceiling.

"Are people fatter, or are pigs fatter?"

This is the core flaw of the Tree Spirit class.

They cannot consume normal food and can only survive by relying on the manure needed by various plants.

They had absolutely no resistance to those things.

It's the kind of situation where you have to taste the saltiness to see someone before you even meet them.

……

The next morning.

Evan slept until seven o'clock in the morning and stretched.

"You chicken~!"

Accompanied by the familiar scream of the trampoline, Evan climbed out of bed.

He ultimately couldn't bear to wear that brand-new suit.

He changed into the old shirt he had worn for two years, the jacket with a missing button that was fastened with loose threads, and the woolen trousers worn shiny at the knees.

And those secondhand leather shoes with broken soles.

[The side effects of the cadaveric cyst glands have been reversed.]

Your flexibility has increased. Your constitution has been permanently increased by 0.2.

[Your self-awareness has improved. Mental strength permanently increased by +0.2.]

Ivan fastened his belt while looking at the panel, and smacked his lips.

"A decline in self-awareness and a stiffening of the body are quite consistent with the effects of cadaveric poison."

"Giving both spirit and physique at the same time, the attribute bonuses aren't low, but the conversion time is indeed long."

"When there are no potions available, you can choose to eat some."

I went downstairs while thinking about it.

Guding Street was as bustling as ever.

An elderly Italian man with a cart on the street corner is brewing coffee, the pot bubbling loudly.

The young man selling milk walked along the stone-paved road with a metal milk can on his back, his shouts a mix of English and Italian.

Old Tom, the shoe repairman downstairs, was sitting on a small stool by the door, nailing the soles of a pair of men's work shoes.

"Breaking news! Breaking news! The Alcott family is guilty of heinous crimes! A cult that controls women!"

A newsboy on the street corner held up a morning newspaper with the smell of ink in both hands, shouting at the top of his lungs.

The largest line of text on the front page of the newspaper was repeatedly pounded out by the typesetters using the thickest lead type, making it eerily black.

Finally, news from New Haven reached Bolton.

"Since it made the headlines, that means... it's been weighed."

Ivan silently recited a phrase to himself, without stopping.

He walked into the familiar Bee Restaurant, and amidst the wide-eyed stares of the other regulars, he ate a hearty breakfast of forty cents, enough for three people.

After finishing the last bite, he walked through the alley and boarded the tram to go to school.

After the rugby game, the overly excited atmosphere on campus had mostly subsided.

But Evan keenly sensed that another kind of oppressive feeling was quietly spreading.

As soon as he stepped into the school gate, he saw several police cars parked at the main entrance, their bodies covered in mud, and several plainclothes detectives wearing top hats were standing on the steps whispering to each other.

The students walked past them in twos and threes, whispering about the gossip they had heard from who-knows-where.

"I heard it's their son, in New Haven..."

"I thought there were only two or three, but there are actually more than a dozen..."

Ivan didn't make eye contact with anyone as he walked straight to his classroom.

The moment the door was pushed open, the buzzing discussion that had been going on suddenly stopped.

All eyes were on him.

There were quite a few classmates in the hotel lobby that night, and many of them already vaguely knew that Evan was the most crucial person in this series of events.

"Arkham, can you tell us what happened that night?"

A relatively cheerful young man got up from his seat in the front row and walked over, his tone both tentative and filled with barely concealed curiosity.

The entire Phoenix Brotherhood has now become utterly discredited.

The front page of the newspaper!

The crazy and evil deeds of those people were described in great detail even by the dockworkers carrying sacks.

As for Evan, who was once bullied by the entire fraternity, his identity and stance naturally underwent a complete reversal in the campus public opinion.

Faced with the other party's enthusiasm, Ivan gave a lukewarm smile.

"I still prefer you guys, the ones who treated me like I was invisible."

The little bit of renewed energy in the classroom was instantly frozen by that one sentence.

A hint of embarrassment appeared on everyone's face. Several students subconsciously lowered their heads, their shoes shuffling nervously on the floor.

Of course they remembered how they had collectively subjected this poor boy to emotional abuse and ridicule a while back.

After a few seconds of silence, another student, dressed smartly with a shiny lapel pin, forced himself to speak.

“Arkham, this...it's all in the past. We..."

Ivan grinned and confronted him head-on.

"I'll stab you right now."

His tone was even somewhat relaxed.

"And then I'll say sorry to you."

"To reiterate, this all happened a second ago."

"We're friends now. Do you agree?"

The student opened his mouth, but in the end he only managed to exhale and lower his head.

Ivan remained seated in the old chair in the corner, his legs propped up under the edge of the table. He looked around and spoke loudly.

“I am different from other students from underprivileged backgrounds.”