Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

When "Miss Momo" first stepped outside, she seemed completely bewildered, as if she had no idea what was going on. But when she saw Leslaufer and the Soul-Eating Spiders beside him, she immediately started screaming incoherently, completely at a loss.

"Oh no, no no no! We've been getting along really well these past few days, haven't we? What are you trying to do?! What are you trying to do?! You can't just hand me over to other people like this! I don't want to leave—"

"These are slave traders, aren't they? I saw the caravan behind them! You can't do this! Please, tell me how much I'm worth! Do you think I'm worth less? None of my family members know anything about this!!"

She spoke Dark Elf language, and Raslaufer guessed that she must possess some kind of magic that could affect her and allow her to understand the language.

“Alright, Daisy, don’t get so worked up,” it was clear that the two priests from different families beside her looked helpless as the bard started rambling. “You’ve said everything you need to say, and the rest you mentioned is… quite interesting. We won’t do anything to you.”

"This man comes from Menzoberranzan, the one who hunts down the traitor of his family, Zaknavan. He needs your help to hunt down prey that may have escaped to the surface—seize this opportunity, and you might be able to return to the surface."

The bard's eyes, which had been wandering around, suddenly fixed on Leslaufer, who was wrapped up tightly.

"...Menzoberranzan, huh? Zarknavan?"

You wouldn't happen to have the surname Duerden, would you?!

Daisy wisely refrained from speaking her mind to avoid causing trouble. She calmed down slightly and slowly walked towards Leslaufer, looking him up and down: "You... can you really take me back to the surface?"

"If you can give me any useful clues, have you seen any particularly suspicious dark elf males?" Raslaufer pursed his lips under his scarf. It would be strange if even the person telling him the story couldn't recognize him.

The most suspicious person is probably yourself...

“Hmm… let me think. When I was a guest of the Evans family before, I saw a male dark elf with pale purple eyes, carrying two scimitars,” the poet pretended to exchange a secret code with Leslaufer, using the story she had told before, “The Evans family is the dark elf family that settled on the surface. The women in their family all have purplish-red eyes, but the men still have red eyes—pale purple eyes seem quite suspicious to me.”

"But he left quickly, in a hurry. His equipment was all whitened by the sun and probably wouldn't last long."

The two priests exchanged a slightly surprised glance—Daisy hadn't told them this information before, but judging from the description, it didn't seem necessary—the person had already left, and the Evans family hadn't taken him in, which wasn't surprising.

“Excellent!” Leslaufer became visibly excited, reaching out to press Daisy’s shoulder. “And then? Where did he go!”

“This…” His companion rolled his eyes and looked toward Dobul’s side. There was a dark elf whose situation was unknown and who did not have red eyes, as well as a group of underground dwarves, but her eyes were not purple-red either. Sylvia Evans was nowhere to be seen.

“Then I don’t know,” she shrugged slyly. “Perhaps the Evans family themselves should know?”

Chapter 510 Larembas

It takes quite some time to travel from the west to the east of Qiuli City, and for the Larnbas family, who received the news from the Mara family faster, the stench of blood in their family temple is becoming increasingly strong.

"Snap!" A whip flashed through the air, tearing the skin of the dark elf with crimson eyes. Maris grinned maliciously, grabbing Sylvia's chin. The intense pain in her bones jolted her back from unconsciousness.

“The Duerden family, huh? Menzoberranzan, huh? Sylvia, do you really think you can fool everyone?” Marise Larembass turned to look at her mother, and after receiving her approval, she raised her whip again.

Tell me your entire plan! Otherwise, you'll die here!

"Cough, cough cough..." The priestess of the Evans family seemed to have vanished without a trace. She was disheveled, covered in wounds, and half-dead. Only in the depths of her eyes could one still see traces of her former self. She spat out a mouthful of blood, coughed, and laughed hoarsely, "Menzoberranzan? Heh, where did you hear that joke? I really thank you... ah."

The snake-headed whip fell again, slicing open two wounds: "Still being stubborn? Your allies have already come looking for you! What traitor, what guide? It's all lies! You just want to coordinate an attack from within and without. Tell me! Tell me your numbers, the time, and the location!"

"For the sake of our past friendship, I can beg the mistress to spare your life!"

"Spare my life, spare my life?" Sylvia opened her blood-stained mouth and laughed wildly. "I never knew that women from the Larembass family were best suited to be clowns! When did you become so good at joking, Marise?"

"You think I don't know what that means? To become your mother's daughter! To join your family! To be trampled under your feet from now on! Let me tell you, dream on!"

"Menzoberranzan? That's right! Our true allies come from that very place you mentioned! We have a million divine soldiers who will soon climb out of the deepest abyss of magic and strung your entire family's heads together like wind chimes! How does that sound? Are you scared? Are you terrified?!"

With each word Sylvia Lan spoke, she would be lashed with a whip, but she would no longer let out a scream; instead, her roars would grow even more frantic.

“Enough, Maries,” the matriarch of the Larembass family frowned, stopping the pointless torture. “Even if you kill her, she won’t divulge a single useful piece of information.”

“Your sister will never come back—if she dies too, where will our family grow stronger?”

Lillindra, that bitch, is one, but that's all. We have to include her daughter too, so that the family can benefit from this conflict.

The matriarch of the Larembass family thought somberly. She hadn't expected that a mere advance party on the ground could cost her one of her daughters. Although this matriarch, who was over four hundred years old, had as many as five daughters, her age also meant one thing: she might not be able to have children in the future, and if she were to give birth again, the birth of a new life would likely be accompanied by her death.

Falling underground has further exacerbated the fertility of dark elves, making them even less fertile than they were originally. If they don't choose the right husband, they may only give birth once every hundred years, and there's no guarantee that it will be a girl.

If it is a boy, the third child must be sacrificed to Rose.

The matriarch of the Larembass family was prolific, having given birth to as many as eight children in her lifetime. Except for her sixth child, the third, who was sacrificed immediately after birth, all the others survived. This was the cornerstone of their family's prosperity, and would continue to be so. But now, this cornerstone has unexpectedly been missing a piece.

She has to find a way to make up for it.

“But we can’t just let this go, Madam!” Marise stopped helplessly and turned to face her mother. “The man chosen by the Queen will be here soon, and we probably won’t be able to avoid handing over Sylvia! We must—”

“This isn’t your place to call the shots in this house, Marise,” the matriarch snorted, interrupting her daughter’s argument, while pondering, “but you’re right… there’s no way around it…”

When the prisoners were being distributed, everyone knew that Sylvia was the one who knew the most, and the family that could extract information from her would naturally get a bigger slice of the pie. The Larambas family took her away without hesitation, but the result was that they didn't know any more than the other four families.

Sylvia's mouth was like a deep, tangled web, impossible to pry open even slightly.

However, if this situation is allowed to continue, and the entire plan fails, the Larembass family will face the most criticism, their leading position will be shaken, and they may even... collapse.

They are the leaders, they are the planners, but they don't contribute enough, which is undoubtedly a big mistake.

“But what if,” the matriarch changed the subject, as if she had an idea, “what if we dragged another family into this as well?”

The first family might struggle against the combined attack of the second and three other smaller families, but if the first and second families joined forces against the remaining three, the outcome would be no surprise.

"Put her down first, Marise," the mistress waved her hand. "How long will it take for that man to arrive?"

"About ten minutes (about forty minutes on the ground)."

“Enough. I’m going to talk to that shrew, Blair,” the mistress nodded, a cold smile creeping onto her lips. “If possible, maybe we can ‘one drop of poison, two corpses.’”

“In this way, we will still be the family that Rose favors most here, not Evans or... whatever that nonsense Duarten is.”

When Raslaufer and his men arrived at the Larembass family's residence, hundreds of people had already followed behind him and the dwarf caravan.

Among them were not only dark elves, but also some goblins and the like. They were similar to Grip Blacklewin, merchants who came to Chauley to trade. They were also attracted here and blocked the surrounding streets.

Various shouts and curses rose and fell from behind, as if a vendor's stall had been overturned by a dark elf, and that vendor was now under the protection of another family, and a group of people were making a fuss.

But Leslaufer paid no attention to the commotion behind him; he only stared at the wide-open courtyard gate in front of him, where Sylvia lay on a stretcher, covered in wounds, her life hanging in the balance.

“She was in a much worse situation than me…” Daisy clicked her tongue in lingering fear. Fortunately, after she was taken away, the stories she told successfully attracted the attention of several matriarchs and priests of small families. They felt that the experience and hints in her stories could guide the future development of their families, which is why she escaped a disaster. Otherwise, she would probably have ended up like this.

“They’re up to no good,” Dubler muttered, his eyes cautiously scanning the members of the Larembass family from under his hood. He deliberately saved the most troublesome case for last, so that the compromises of the other four families would translate into pressure on the leading family.

But the fact that they brought out Sylvia so readily without any resistance clearly relieved the pressure.

Daisy sighed and muttered in Inasas, "You're the one who's here, old Ray."

Chapter 511 The Dark Elf Ritual

“I have heard about your mission.” The matriarch of the Larembass family clasped her hands over her stomach and walked down with her daughters to stand before Raslaufer.

“The goddess’s wish will be fulfilled, and I will hand over our family’s captive to you,” she said with a playful smile. “However, the members of the Evans family are all heretics, and taking her away might affect your progress.”

"But if I don't take her with me, my mission will be impossible to complete." His brows furrowed slightly beneath the hood. What exactly was this woman up to?

Marise, who was beside her mother, suddenly felt a tremor in her heart without warning. Her eyes widened as she could not ignore a throbbing sensation from the depths of her blood—it was... the feeling of hatred.

It came from a deceased relative of hers.

But how could this be? Marise stared in horror, her eyes widening. She unconsciously scrutinized the man before her, trying to reconcile him with the human who had killed her sisters in the wild, but this effort... seemed futile.

She had only met the two of them once, and the mercenary was wearing heavy armor. Compared to Raslaufer at that time, Zachnavan now appeared slightly thinner.

He was still extremely tall and strong, of course—but that doesn't prove they were the same person.

Moreover, even Maris couldn't convince herself that if the other party was human, how could he possibly receive Lolth's favor? If the other party was a dark elf... Lolth's will couldn't be false! He carried the mission bestowed upon him by the Queen of Gods!

She tried to communicate with the other family members through eye contact, but only received more confusion in return, while her mother, who was stronger than them... seemed to be completely unaffected!

If they all have similar feelings, it's impossible for the mistress not to!

The matriarch of the Larembass family seemed completely oblivious to her daughters' hints and probing. She stared at the red eyes beneath Raslaufer's hood and spoke slowly and forcefully: "I think that's because you don't understand the true power of a priest. Of course, that's not your fault, after all, you're just a man."

“I have a ritual here. By sacrificing a person to the goddess, you can directly interrogate her soul and get the desired result,” she gestured to Sylvia, who was standing between them. “It’s similar to a spell for communicating with the dead, but without as many restrictions. This way, you won’t need to bring her along.”

Why didn't you use it before?

“Alas,” the mistress sighed, seemingly with some regret, “the reason is not hard to understand. Although we have brought up the conflict with the Evans family to the messenger, we have not yet reached a conclusion on ‘which side should win,’ so we cannot obtain such favor.”

“But you are different. Your mission must be completed. In that case, our conflict should naturally be put on hold.”

Leslaufer remained motionless: "You're planning to use someone else to do your dirty work."

“It’s just to fulfill the goddess’s vision,” the matriarch said, raising her chin slightly. “If it were just about killing her, we would have done it long ago.”

The key point is that this ritual "doesn't have as many restrictions as talking to the dead." She presides over the ritual, and the "Zaknavan" does the talking, so only she can ask questions, and therefore, she can certainly "incidentally" ask whatever she wants.

However, the Evans family is also a family blessed by Lolth. It is a great taboo for a man to kill a woman among the dark elves. Lolth may be furious about this and take away his favor. At the same time, the blood debt of the Evans family women who died will be borne by the other party.

Just like the flutter in her heart at this moment.

The Larnbas family is an ancient one, and even the shortest lifespan of a dark elf is around five hundred years. It is entirely possible that the other party killed a member of the family—or perhaps it wasn't this man who did it, but his father or mother.

The matriarch, who had outlived her daughters, naturally had far more experience, so much so that she had no time to compare the man before her with the human who had recently killed her daughters—there were many more suspects out there.

Once she conquers the Evans family, she will take that lowly and frivolous Lilindra into the family and send her to hunt down her daughter's enemy. Just thinking about that scene made the matriarch of the Larembass family blush.

In short, many problems can be solved if the man takes action. Conversely, if the other party doesn't take action, the problems are even easier to solve.

This is Chou Li City, where the Larenbas family is the largest, oldest, and strongest family. Even if he had a mouth and hands all over his body, he wouldn't be able to escape alive!

A man favored by a goddess? How ridiculous.

They killed him for neglecting the goddess's mission, and after conquering the Evans family, they took over the mission of hunting down the traitor. The goddess wouldn't blame them—spiders only care about the result, whether it's webs, venom, or fangs.

Who cares?

Either way, it's a dead end no matter which way the other person chooses, unless he is the chosen one of God. The goddess's endless wisdom might be able to give him a clear path, but would a man be Rose's chosen one?

Are you kidding me?

Raslaufer heard a commotion of discussion rising from the crowd behind him. Those with shallow knowledge thought it was a brilliant idea and flattered Madam Larembass's wisdom, while the rest... would only flatter her even more enthusiastically.

As is foreseeable, the Larembass family, who will soon act on behalf of the goddess's will, will undoubtedly rise to a higher status in the city of Qiuli.

However, all eyes were on Leslaufer, eager to know what choice this suddenly appearing outsider would make.

The Soul-Eating Spider emitted a ghostly howl beside Leslaufer's legs, its entire body glowing brighter, as if urging Leslaufer to make a decision. However, this arthropod monster did not understand the specifics; it simply smelled the impending blood.

Unlike the dark elves who waited with a mixture of tension and excitement, the three prisoners beside Raslaufer, who had just regained their freedom, didn't seem to care much. The reason was quite simple: the miner and the mercenary couldn't understand dark elf language at all.

Daisy, however, knew perfectly well that the person beside her was not a dark elf at all!

For them, the real challenge lay in how to get Sylvanas out alive without angering the dark elves. As for any favor bestowed upon her, that was entirely unnecessary—the Spider Queen had indeed given Leslaufer a task, but this task was far more important than hunting down a traitor.

“Very good,” Raslaufer finally nodded, raising his head to look directly at the Dark Elf Matriarch opposite him. “How should this ritual be conducted? If it does not go against the will of the goddess, I would be happy to hear the specific details.”

Chapter 512 Where are the excellent offerings?

The ceremony was held beneath the giant mushroom in the center of Chou Li City, where most large-scale sacrifices in Rose's name were held, and this time was no exception.

More than a dozen dazzling fungi and other materials are processed and prepared according to certain rules. Some simply need to be dried and chopped, while others will be boiled and brewed in crucibles into things that look delicious and juicy or disgusting. Blood-red candles are arranged around the ritual site and burn along with several kinds of incense. The smoke mixes and rises, taking on different strange shapes in mid-air.

The matriarchs of five families, including the matriarch of the Larembass family and the matriarch of the Mara family, ascended the altar together. The matriarch of the Larembass family naturally took the lead, while the other three matriarchs, apart from the matriarch of the Mara family, were not even qualified to be her assistants. They stood there only because they had to.

The other two matriarchs believed they had to do it this way.

Nine sacrificial platforms were raised from under the stone bricks on the ground. Eight of them were of equal size and arranged like spider legs on both sides of the large central platform. These smaller platforms did not appear to be cleaned as often as the central one. The platforms themselves, the carvings on them, and the two blood-draining grooves were all covered with thick, dark red grime.

They must have been used quite a bit.

“I’m not sure if the ceremonies in your hometown are of this scale,” Matriarch Larembas smiled demurely, looking at Raslaufer below the altar. “Here, we use just these kinds of things.”

“They were built by my grandmother and several other matriarchs of the family, but most of the time only a few small ones were used. The central one was only used for the city-building ceremony once every ten years. I am sure that this ensures that our actions are devout and sacred.”

“And you,” she beckoned, gesturing for two goblin slaves to bring over a tray with an obsidian dagger on it, “you will temporarily take over the priest’s duties and send the souls of these sacrifices to the deep pit of the demonic net.”

“Go, we will conduct the ceremony here, and you will receive hints on when to act. The order of the sacrifices is like the order in which a spider moves its legs, and the Soul-Eating Spiders beside you are your best clues. Remember, Rose doesn't like indecisiveness; you must act quickly and precisely!”

"Any other questions?"

Matriarch Larembas was waiting for the other party to ask why it had to be him who performed the ritual. She already wanted the answer: other matriarchs were required to preside over the ceremony here, and their daughters were not qualified to perform the ritual in such a large-scale ceremony.

However, Raslaufer did not ask the questions the mistress wanted to hear. He picked up the dagger, tested the blade with the pad of his thumb to see if it was sharp, and then, without bothering to correct the unreasonable scale of the ceremony or question the errors in the use of incense and candles, he turned his gaze to the torso and eight legs of the spider platform.

Bound in the center was undoubtedly the still unconscious Sylvia, while on the surrounding altars were a goblin, a bear goblin, a humanoid creature that looked like a fungus aggregate, a dark-skinned spotted cat-man, an underground dwarf, and a dark dwarf slave.

In addition, there was a dark elf whose lower body had turned into a giant spider monster, and another male dark elf.

Her status gradually rose from low to high, eventually reaching that of Sylvia Evans, the daughter of a dark elf family.

"What, do we need to teach you how to use a knife?" Madam Brar couldn't stand the sight of Leslaufer and couldn't help but sneer, "Hurry up, you're disrespecting Rose!"

“This is not a slight,” Raslaufer said, removing his hood and scarf, and taking off his entire shirt as well, walking bare-chested to the platform in front of him. When he was only five meters away from Sylvia, he turned around and looked at the matriarchs. “Instead, I would like to ask you matriarchs, is this what you usually use for sacrifices?”