Chapter 164: Testing
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Lucien never thought that Sturk had been in such a chaos for the past two months. Obviously, there was another unexpected obstacle sitting right in front of him, preventing him from moving forward and heading for his dream world. However, Lucien had never been one to give up easily. Now, he was only a strait away from the congress, and nothing could stop him.
“How did you know that he was the one who betrayed you people?” asked Lucien calmly, “What’s his name?”
If he had no choice but to be used as a tool by the liaison, he needed to get everything clear first.
“Harrison Brown. That’s his name,” said the Ferryman very seriously. “He has already awakened his Blessing as I said, and he’s a knight. Two weeks ago, he was rewarded with a Knight Cross for the reason that ‘he defended the glory of God in darkness by cleansing close to fifty lambs astray’… That was how the newspaper commented. You can find the report on Sturk News if you don’t trust me.”
Then, the Ferryman paused a bit, as if what he was going to say was very hard for him, “In his speech on the ceremony, he felt no guilt. Those apprentices who died because of him… they were still kids… Most of them were just twelve or thirteen, and they were just exposed to the wonderful world of arcana. They died together with their hope and faith in magic.”
Seeing Ferryman’s facial expression, Lucien nodded, “Surely I’ll check whether you just said is true, but I still have one more question.”
“Go ahead.” Ferryman stared at Lucien’s slightly stiff face.
“According to my experience, in order to protect the traitors, the Church would only reward them secretly, or directly let them join Night Watch. I never heard that a traitor would be rewarded on an open ceremony by the city council… Maybe… this is a trap?” guessed Lucien.
“Very good.” Ferryman slightly clapped, “But did I ever tell you this was not a trap?”
“…” Lucien was speechless.
“We need to kill him, and we have to kill him.” Ferryman’s tone became bitter, “For deterrence. If you weren’t here, we’d still try to kill him anyway,” continued Ferryman. “It is better to have someone who’s not from our organization to get this job done.”
“So, if i failed, you guys would not be affected.” Lucien pointed it out directly.
“That’s true, or however you want to take it.” Ferryman shrugged, “You can turn down the task, for sure. If that’s the case, you leave me a way to contact you, and when anyone who can prove that you’re clean comes to Sturk, you just tell me. But if you want to go to Allyn as soon as possible, I’d say that accepting the task is your best choice.”
“What support can I get from you?” asked Lucien, “You know how dangerous the task is.”
“When it’s necessary, we have our own way to distract the night watchers to let you focus on killing Harrison Brown,” responded Ferryman, and then he added, “As long as you can kill him, we’ll welcome you, our new friend, to join us with our greatest enthusiasm.”
“What is Harrison’s Blessing? Does he have any extraordinary weapon or magic item? What’s his daily routine?” asked Lucien, “I’m sure you have a lot of information on him already.”
Commonly speaking, a sorcerer should be able to kill a knight who was of the same level without much difficulty, so Lucien was pretty confident that he could handle the task. In this case, an enemy’s equipment such as weapon and any extra item would be the biggest uncontrollable factor in a fight.
“Very good,” commented Ferryman, as he liked talking to a smart sorcerer. “Regeneration, that’s the power of Brown’s Blessing, originating from power existing in the blood of trolls. Strong, fast… and as long as he is not beheaded, his body can keep regenerating until his body energy is exhausted. Weakness should be acid and fire. They can prevent his organs from growing back.”
Lucien nodded as he was listening very carefully.
“In terms of his weapon, yes, he has a level one short spear of extraordinary quality called Wither, with collateral poison damage, given by the city council. Then he was rewarded by the Church with a level two, extraordinary quality shield called Demon Hunter, which improves his power of defence to match that of a level two knight. The shield can also absorb a certain amount of element damage. As for other magic or divine item, we have no idea. And his daily routine is…” elaborated Ferryman.
From his words, Lucien analyzed all the information he got and tried to identify his possible chances of killing this guy: Brown rarely let anyone visit him unless the visitor was from the Church or was an important noble; he rarely went out; he liked arts like painting and wax statue; he was going to move to Lance, the Holy City, five months later…
When Ferryman told him all the information, Lucien asked, “So let me confirm here… Brown is going to attend the opening ceremony of Saugus Wax Museum the day after tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, in the morning. He’s going because his own statue will be displayed there as well.” Ferryman nodded, “If you need us to distract the night watchers when you take action, please inform us in advance.”
“I will,” said Lucien with his stiff facial expression.
After agreeing on how they would secretly get into contact with each other, Lucien got on a boat and used both the methods of sorcerer and knight to get rid of any possible tracers.
…
On the second day, at midnight, Lucien, who showed up beside a stone arched bridge wearing a long black robe. That bridge was one of the two bridges that needed to be crossed to go from Brown’s place to the Saugus Wax Museum. Comparatively speaking, that one was way better than the other one, because the path that used the other one was way longer.
In addition, according to Lucien’s information, the wax museum opening tomorrow was very popular in Sturk, so lots of nobles and wealthy businessmen were attending the ceremony as well. At that time, all the nearby waters would be occupied by their boats. Therefore, even if Brown also decided to come there by boat, he needed to get off the boat close to the bridge and cross it to get to the museum.
The sky was starry. The glistening light reflecting on the waves looked like a dream.
Lucien pressed his hands against the bridge, then opened his mouth and screamed silently.
Waves were produced from Lucien’s hands toward the stone bridge, and then the waves came back to him. According to the vibration frequency, Lucien adjusted the pace of the waves bit by bit, and soon, the stone bridge started to shake fiercely.
The Professor’s Oscillation Hand.
When the bridge was almost about to crash, Lucien suddenly stopped. After the bridge gradually calmed down, it looked exactly the same as what it looked like before.
In fact, the inner structure of this stone bridge was already severely damaged. Although it was not going to crash right now, when there was a certain amount of weight on it, Lucien expected that something different would definitely happen.
…
Harrison Brown’s black pointy-headed boat slowed down and was tied to the stake on the street along the canal, and then, Harrison Brown stepped out of the boat while being protected by his bodyguards. Taking a peek at another luxury boat docked on the other side of the street, he could not help feeling jealous. He wished that he could have the same social status as the owner of that boat.
Then, he started to head for the stone bridge around a hundred meters away from him.
Everything was normal as usual.
However, Brown was still extremely alert. Although he knew that there were a few night watchers secretly protecting him in this area, he was still very sensitive and cautious.
He hated the fact that the Church required him to show up in public from time to time, but he had no other choice but to obey. He only wished that he could make it for the following several months, and then he would be moving to Lance and enjoying his life there.
As Brown was thinking, he and his guards stepped onto the bridge.
Near the bridge, Lucien, dressing in a black suit, nodded to the man sitting on a coach, “Please send these irons to the trading house, and this is your pay.”
The young coachman’s smile was simple and honest, “No problem, sir.”
As the coach slowly moved, Lucien quickly entered a boat beside him.
When the coachman drove the heavy, iron-loaded coach through the stone bridge, Brow was still halfway from the other end of the bridge.
Harrison was thinking about his trip to Lance five months later. He was worrying that the people from the congress might try to kill him at that time.
Suddenly, the stone below them started to shake fiercely.
“Ambush!” That was Brown’s first thought.
White light burst out of his body as Brown instantly covered himself with many white feathers.
Angel Feather, a level three divine spell.
At the same time, a green short spear appeared in his right hand, and in his left hand there was a solid shield.
All of this was done within a couple of seconds. Obviously, Harrison Brown was very experienced with fighting.
However, the quake of the stone bridge gradually disappeared, and nothing happened.
“Is the bridge too old?” Brown thought to himself.
As he looked around, the stone bridge still looked normal as usual, as if the shake never occurred. Under the bridge, there were several boats rowing past through the archway.
Among these boats, there was a good-looking young man standing on one of them who was looking at him.
Harrison was a bit embarrassed. Only he knew that how much he actually suffered from the fear and worry since he betrayed the Congress of Magic. Right now, he felt that he must look like an idiot in the young guy’s eyes.
…
Lucien’s boat rowed through the bridge.
Staring at the water, Lucien thought to himself with his calm and cool mind, “When the bridge started to shake, there were close to ten people who reacted totally different from ordinary people. Excluding some of the knights who were protecting their lords, there should be… five night watchers around to protect Brown: The adventurer walking beside him on the bridge, the businessman on the street, the couple, and the boatman who was right behind me.”
Lucien never planned to completely destroy the bridge. He needed more information about Brown and the night watchers secretly protecting him before seriously taking action.
“Brow has the short spear, the shield… and a level three divine item.” Lucien slightly rubbed his chin.
All of that was just a test.
