Academic gathering with Lich colleagues

Chapter 159 Past Events

The gentle smile on the man's face on the coin carried a hint of mockery in Lyle and William's eyes, a mockery of the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of the two self-important newcomers to the mysticism.

"Wow, Kevin, you really can control your luck!" Lyle, who had been repeatedly belittled by those around him, quickly accepted the fact that his noble friend Kevin possessed this extraordinary talent. After regaining his composure, he sincerely expressed his envy. This world wasn't scientific; the fact that his close friend could have such a remarkable talent to protect him must have made Lyle feel reassured.

Kevin smiled sheepishly. "Actually, this ability has limitations. It can only help me change my current situation, and it's just my luck. This means that my good fortune won't affect other people. Most importantly, it's almost uncontrollable most of the time, subtly altering my destiny. And when I want to use it actively, I have to pay a considerable price."

That's understandable; the price of power is the sacrifice, the more you gain.

"What's the price, Kevin? The cost of magic?"

William used ice to soothe the pain in his finger. "Mental strength or physical strength, Kevin doesn't have any magical fluctuations."

Lyle looked at Kevin carefully, and a very bad but reasonable answer came to mind. His face immediately turned worried as he tried to find the pale skin on Kevin's face, and his words were filled with unease.

"Kevin, this price isn't going to be your life force or... lifespan, is it?"

Isn't it perfectly reasonable to trade lifespan for good fortune?

"No." Kevin first calmed his friend's worries, then looked a little embarrassed.

"This ability is a bit... a bit... a burden on friends."

"????""What's the meaning?"

Kevin's earnest eyes held a hint of apology.

"My good fortune doesn't come out of thin air. My talent is more like a tool that draws in good luck. Whenever I'm lucky, the people around me always seem to have bad luck. So, my good fortune is a bit of a drain on my friends, which is why I have so few friends. Because they rarely stay by my side for long."

"..."

Lyle instinctively took a step back, while Nia hid completely behind Lyle, peeking out only one big eye to look at Kevin, as if she were monitoring some ancient beast.

William felt the burns on his hands start to hurt again.

Lyle sat down not far from Kevin.

"So, the reason I became your friend is because you went easy on me?"

"No, Lyle, this is not something I can control. The reason we became friends is actually because we share the same ideals, plus, you endured all the misfortune and are still unharmed. Even if Eiffel Academy went bankrupt, you are still alive and well."

"...Is your curse that severe?"

“When I was six years old, I had a friend, and we were resting under a tree. I was feeling a bit thirsty when a big apple fell from the tree and hit him in the face. He was knocked unconscious, and the apple rolled to my face. Later, his worried parents took him to the hospital.”

"What about you?"

"I'm eating an apple." Kevin seemed to be reminiscing about the taste of an apple, watching the sparks fly into the sky and become stars. "Lyle, do you still remember Polvyn and her gang, about the Eiffel Academy incident?"

“Polvine, are you talking about the time when that short, fat guy gave me trouble? I remember.”

"Actually, they didn't like me and wanted to cause me trouble. But when you waved your hand and said, 'I'll do it!', they just took you along. That's probably my talent."

Lyle recalled that back then, he seemed to think those guys disliked him for being a poor, unconventional guy, and that he stepped aside because he didn't want to involve his friends. He was even touched that Kevin stood beside him. It seemed like he was the one who was looking for him all along!

"I remember it was originally two against four, but it seems like it was some kind of talent that caused all the punches that were aimed at me to land on you instead. You were tough enough to fight back, so in the end, it became four against one..."

"Are we still friends?! You're just going to watch me get beaten up?"

"No, I went to find Mr. Ralph. In the end, the four of them were the ones who suffered the most."

"But I saw that they went back to school as usual later on."

"That was a week later. Their parents' two illegal bars were forced to close, and another one had its assets seized for illegal activities. It seems Mr. Ralph extorted a lot from them. Those guys got a severe beating from their parents and it took them a week to recover." Kevin shuddered as he said this, and as if it were a contagious disease, William shivered too. It was as if the howling of wolves echoed through the night.

William used magic to increase the size of the flames. "Lyle, you have a good uncle. Otherwise, you would have suffered a lot, you silly boy."

Kevin immediately retorted, "Lyle isn't stupid. He's a member of the Buller family. He's never suffered a loss at the academy; he's just been mild-mannered. You have no idea what he's done to those who have offended him."

"What did you do?"

"He poisoned it."

William slipped and nearly lost his balance. Looking at his two companions, their faces shadowed in the firelight, William began to regret agreeing to join the trip. "What did Lyle do?"

"He stole the meat from Professor Mansstein's collection of pathogen-cultivating materials and added them to his classmates' meals. To make it work perfectly, he did it three times before finally succeeding. The unfortunate guy became our teaching material because of a respiratory infection."

"From then on, anyone who opposed Lyle would suddenly fall seriously ill and become a teaching example. Well, I've been a part of it a few times."

Didn't your teachers and professors notice?

Kevin and Lyle exchanged a glance.

"They must have discovered it, but didn't stop it. On the one hand, we only selected mild cases of the virus, just to teach them a lesson, which the professors were capable of handling; on the other hand, there were very few living subjects available as teaching materials at the time, as those patients were used to seeking help from the church, making our lecture samples very rare."

Ultimately, this behavior evolved into a heinous phenomenon.

What phenomenon?

“One day, we were doing our homework in class when Professor Browephy strolled up to us, muttering to himself.”

[Ugh, it's so hard to find live subjects for my digestive system experiments lately! What am I going to do? I really want to teach my students about new illnesses. I think my pathogens are in the third brown bottle on the second drawer of my office drawer. Oh dear, I completely forgot to lock it! What if a student drinks it with room temperature water and gets infected? Even though it's just a minor illness, sigh, I absolutely must remember to lock the drawer tomorrow morning.]

"Your professor actually encouraged you?"

"That's right, Lyle has become a professional at causing illness. Maybe it's because of his high success rate. The professors all like him and he's always hanging around our desks."

Lyle patted Kevin on the shoulder. "Don't you think the scariest person is Professor Fuller? I still don't understand whether he was subtly trying to stop me or if he really wanted to do it!"

What happened to that professor?

"Professor Feller was our anatomy professor. One day, during class, he paced over to our desks and muttered to himself."

[Ah, I really want a corpse with second-degree stab wounds and comminuted fractures of the ribs! Oh dear, I forgot to lock the hazardous materials locker at the bottom of my office! It contains a flail, knives, and a flail! What if a classmate takes them out and plays with them? Will they end up as my corpse?!]

Chapter 160 The Broken Robber Doll

"So you guys ended up doing it?"

“We’re not idiots, of course we didn’t do it.” Lyle rolled his eyes and put down his empty bowl. “Speaking of which, how are those professors doing now that the academy has closed down?”

"They're definitely much better than you. After all, those nobles aren't really idiots; they just went from being public teachers to private doctors, and some of them also run illegal clinics on the side. I heard that Professor Fuller also has a position as an interrogator."

"Interrogator?"

"I heard that he liked to describe to the prisoners how he disposed of their corpses. Although for Professor Fuller it was just a simple educational lesson, in the eyes of those prisoners it must have been no less than the most vicious curse of a demon."

After a hasty conversation that evening, William extinguished the fire with sand. The three went inside the stone wall they had built earlier, laid out two layers of blankets, and William sealed the door with an ice wall. In the summer night, it wasn't cold. Counting the stars peeking through the shadows of the trees, Lyle drifted off to sleep.

……

Before dawn, the three of them continued their journey.

William's refreshing water dispelled their drowsiness, and Lyle and Kevin felt as refreshed as they had the day before.

Besides William, he had red pimples on his face from mosquito bites.

He was seen creating a layer of ice on his face to numb the itching with cold while looking at the other two with dissatisfaction.

"Why do those damn mosquitoes only bite me?"

Kevin shrugged, his tossing blond hair the answer.

“It was Nia who did it! Nia played bug-catching games all night!” On Lyle’s shoulder, Nia’s tiny tentacles were swinging happily, their tips curving and poking Lyle’s shoulder until Lyle rubbed them and they retracted into his clothes.

Lyle gave a wry smile. "I reminded you last night about having Nia help you get rid of the bugs, but you refused, saying you didn't want tentacles on your body." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cloth bag, squeezing out a small dollop of green ointment. "Put some on, it's for relieving itching. Frequently freezing your skin isn't a good idea."

William looked slightly annoyed. "I didn't expect it to be this itchy."

……

The next few days were a relaxed jungle adventure, with occasional stops in villages to wash up. The three spent most of their time navigating barely identifiable paths and through the forest. Kevin even preferred to spend the night in the forest, saying, "I like being in nature; it makes me realize I'm part of nature."

He probably hadn't realized the importance of an elemental mage who was also a cook. On this day, William killed a deer.

Unexpectedly, William could handle such a large animal. Just after the three of them had finished their delicious feast, Lyle and Nia were burying the deer's carcasses.

This piqued William's curiosity.

"Aren't you going to control it, necromancer?"

"It has already lost its life and become our food. It would be rather heartless to requisition its bones. Besides, ordinary animal bones don't make much strength. It's a habit that my teacher taught me. I still prefer to use human bones."

"A necromancer with meaningless benevolence."

Lyle squinted and smiled.

"You'll see how ruthless I can be when necessary."

……

The three had been traveling for about a week and finally managed to leave the kingdom's borders and enter a border region with unclear boundaries.

There were no signs of recent human activity in the surrounding area, except for a dilapidated road sign hidden by ivy, indicating that there was no wrong turn ahead.

"We have entered Hamletshire."

"Why are there no signs of logging in these forests?"

"Because Hamlet's territory is vast enough, it may just happen to be the undeveloped part."

As you venture deeper, the towering plants gradually decrease, and the view opens up, but the road conditions under your feet become increasingly dire.

The uneven pebbles were irritating the horseshoes, and even the strong horse could not walk fast. The only sound in the quiet forest was the voices of the three people. The green shadows in the distance were like hanging iron curtains, and a sense of oppression was felt in the hearts of the three.

Kevin pulled on the rope.

"what happened?"

"My intuition tells me not to go any further."

William and Lyle now completely followed Kevin's intuition, and the three of them remained where they were, anxiously looking at the bushes around them, which were almost identical to each other.

Nia sensed something, and it flowed out from Lyle's clothes. Tentacles, like small snakes, crawled towards the bushes at Lyle's feet, lifting layers of green leaves to reveal what was hidden underneath.

"It has bones."

It was a human skull with a grotesque gash, its empty eyes staring straight at the three of them.

So why are there human skeletons here? Why is this area so desolate, without even a bird?

In the silence, the sound of the winding mechanism being pulled out could be heard.