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

The two of them looked down at their thin, bony arms at the same time, their eyes filled with resentment at their months of taking medication.

What a great opportunity!

What a dream invitation.

Then they heard Ivan speak slowly and deliberately.

"Sorry, I have to go to the docks to carry sacks this weekend, I don't have time."

He turned to leave.

Erdin's eye twitched.

This is the second time in a week that she has lost to the phrase "carrying sacks".

"you!"

Ryan and John pounced on Ivan's wrists from either side.

His face was filled with disappointment and frustration.

The two people's fingers gripped him tightly like crab claws, as if they wanted to force him to kowtow in front of Erdin.

Erdin took a deep breath and quickly adjusted his mindset.

"Are you short of money?"

Ivan nodded seriously.

"We're really short of food. We've been eating a lot lately, and we're almost at our wits' end."

Erdin's eyes darted around.

"Okay then. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, three days in total. I'll give you a commission of three dollars per day."

Ryan and John, who were standing next to him, nearly popped their eyes out when they heard the number.

For them, going to a football match with such top-tier aristocratic beauties is already an immense honor.

There's even money to be made.

Three dollars a day.

Nine dollars for three days.

Nine dollars is equivalent to their earnings for a week of drug trials, or the equivalent of a dockworker working for more than ten days without food or drink.

The envy and jealousy in their hearts were about to burst out of their skulls.

They both turned and stared intently at Evan, their eyes conveying the same message: if this guy dares to say "I'm going to carry sacks" again, they'll pin him to the ground and beat him up on the spot.

Upon hearing the word "commission," Evan's attitude immediately underwent a complete 180-degree turn.

The casual "I'm busy, I don't have time" attitude from before completely disappeared, replaced by a fawning smile.

"Miss Hearst, you have a very good eye for people."

He raised his hand and pounded on his thick chest.

"Please rest assured, Miss, I will protect your safety with my life."

Erdin was speechless for a moment as he looked at Ivan's face that changed so quickly.

She muttered to herself.

"I can clearly smell the surge of male hormones emanating from this guy; he doesn't look like he's impotent at all..."

Why is there no reaction to my appearance?

She suppressed her confusion and regained her usual composure.

"Be at Bolton South Station by 9:00 AM tomorrow."

"You don't need to prepare any clothes; I will arrange a special uniform for you."

After saying that, she turned and left.

The hem of the deep purple coat drew an elegant arc on the wooden floor of the corridor.

As soon as Erdin's figure disappeared around the corner of the corridor, the people around Evan went wild.

"Arkham, you're fucking lucky!"

"Damn it, I'm so jealous!"

Evan smiled and patted Ryan and John on the shoulder.

"Try to take less medicine in the future. Good health is more important than anything else."

Amidst the envious and jealous gazes of the crowd, he quickened his pace, ran down the steps of the teaching building, and out of the school gate, only to see a tram just closing its doors and leaving.

Ivan could only stand on the roadside in frustration, waiting for the next bus.

Only Ryan, John, and a few poor students remained on the open space in front of the playground; they did not follow.

Ryan sighed.

"Stop looking. Arkham and we are no longer on the same side."

He paused for a moment.

"Remember to volunteer at church tomorrow."

John rubbed the toes of his shoes on the ground a couple of times and muttered something.

"Why? They're both poor kids from the bottom of society, so why is he healthy and able to go to the ball game with Miss Hearst after taking the medicine?"

"But we're going to do volunteer work at church."

Upon hearing this, the others instinctively clenched their fists.

People are not worried about scarcity, but about inequality.

Maliciousness grows quietly in the cracks of jealousy and discontent.

……

Ivan rushed home.

It was completely dark when I got off the tram.

The night wind was already a bit chilly in mid-November, and the temperature had dropped to around 3 degrees Celsius.

As usual, the familiar alleyway on Guding Street was piled with garbage, and moldy vegetable leaves and damp, rotten newspapers were scattered on the cobblestone pavement.

He slowed down as soon as he entered the alley.

The stray cat has disappeared.

Every morning and evening, the skinny gray stray cat would appear punctually by the garbage heap, squatting there and using its paws to search for fish bones.

It's been going on like this for a week now.

But today, the alley was unusually quiet.

There was no meowing of cats. There was no rustling of mice.

Even the whistling sound of the wind passing through the clothesline seemed to have been swallowed up by something.

Something's not right.

At that very second.

A sharp pain exploded from deep within his abdomen.

It's as if someone had planned it all out for me.

The pain was no longer the dull, tolerable burning sensation it had been before.

It was a piercing pain that went straight to the bone marrow, like countless red-hot wires piercing through the nerves at the same time.

Ivan's legs buckled, his knees slamming directly onto the cold, wet pebbles, and his whole body began to convulse uncontrollably.

With trembling fingers, he pulled a bottle of copper pills from his jacket pocket, poured one out, and put it in his mouth.

Useless.

The analgesic effect of copper pills was as if it had been suppressed by an invisible hand in the face of this level of pain.

He could clearly feel countless invisible hands inside his body manipulating his blood vessels, internal organs, brain, and eyeballs.

Each fiber is being peeled off and rewoven.

"The potion needs to be completely digested!"

"Damn woman, if she hadn't wasted my time and let me catch that bus, I would be home by now!"

Ivan gritted his teeth.

One hundred and sixty-eight hours is the digestion time for the Demon Hunter traits.

Now only thirty minutes remain.

That's why he's in such a hurry to go home today.

He knew this moment would come, and he didn't want it to happen in front of any strangers.

Chapter 43: Pris's Attack, Senior Brother Richard (Please continue reading)

Ivan braced himself against the cold wall, struggling to move forward.

With each step he took, the raging fire in his abdomen burned even more intensely.

Just then.

A light, airy figure appeared at the front of the alley.

Appearing and disappearing, like a silhouette seeping out from the darkness itself.

A slender figure.

A well-tailored black long shawl cape reached down to her ankles.

He and his entire being seemed completely out of place in this dirty alleyway filled with garbage and reeking of dampness and mold.

It was as if a meticulously retouched portrait had been mistakenly pasted into the crime section of a newspaper.