Chapter 320: Chapter 319: Falling into a Trap Chapter 320: Chapter 319: Falling into a Trap “The squeak” of the door announced its opening, and Richard stepped through, entering the interior of Frank Tavern.
The thick stench of blood, almost tangible, hung heavily in the air. At a glance, corpses littered the ground.
The walls were sared with patches of bloodstains, resembling the haphazard graffiti of children. Yet in this environnt, they seed more like demonic murals from so cult, creating an air chilling and uncanny. Corpses lay strewn about haphazardly, faces frozen in varied expressions—terror, anger, bewildernt, contempt, and of course, panic. The atmosphere was grueso and chaotic.
Richard’s gaze grew somber as he walked through the tavern, surveying the massacre, pondering what could have happened here. Montarily, his eye caught sothing.
Richard quickly moved over to where Baki lay on the ground, covered in blood, and found that he was still breathing faintly.
With a flip of his hand, Richard swiftly produced a red “Life Potion” from the Space Iron Ring and poured it into Baki’s mouth.
“Life Potion” was no “Holy dicine” of “bringing back the dead and nding bones.” It could only heal injuries to a certain extent. Richard couldn’t be sure how effective it would be in this situation, but it was a case of trying to save a dying horse.
After pouring the “Life Potion” into Baki’s mouth and waiting a while, Baki began to cough lightly, his body trembling as his eyes slowly opened. It took so ti before his gaze started to regain focus.
With difficulty, Baki turned his head to look at Richard and uttered word by word, “Soone… ca here… we…”
“Who ca? Who did this to you?” Richard asked earnestly, watching Baki. The “Life Potion” seed to have had so effect, but Richard could tell that Baki’s injuries were too severe; the potion could at best prolong his life for a brief mont. He needed to extract as much information as possible while he could to assess the situation.
Baki responded: “Two people… a man and a woman. The man looked… very ordinary, but the woman was odd, speaking in a man’s voice…”
Richard’s eyes flickered, images of Suo n and Mu Konni, mbers of the Mysterious Organization, quickly crossing his mind. Could it be them?
“What did they want? Why did they attack you?” Richard pressed.
“It was… the book,” Baki managed to say. “As soon as they arrived, they demanded the book—the one you… you had entrusted us to find…”
“So it is…” Richard’s eyebrows knit together; this was almost what he had expected. After all, it was the book that had led to an assault on the young man at the auction house and on Angel’s teacher Eva; and now, the Steel Brotherhood Gang had been targeted.
“But…” Baki continued with a mix of scorn and pride, “they didn’t succeed.”
“Oh?” Richard’s eyebrows twitched.
“Iron… Iron doesn’t bend. The Steel Brotherhood cannot be defeated. The mbers of the Steel Brotherhood will never submit—never. So even though they killed us all, they couldn’t extract from us the location of the book. The book is still… still in our possession.”
“This!” Richard looked at Baki, genuinely surprised by this turn of events.
Baki struggled to turn over, reaching behind him and digging sowhere into his body as though plugging into a hidden compartnt, rummaging around before pulling sothing out.
In front of him, Richard saw… a twenty-centiter-long iron rod.
This…
“Ah, no… not this one, picked… the wrong one…” Baki said, discarding the iron rod and once again reaching behind, inserting his hand into the hidden compartnt, and withdrawing a second item.
In front of him, Richard saw… a fist-sized bead of so undefined purpose.
“Nor… not this one either…” Baki said with so irritation, shaking his arm, and for a third ti reaching behind, delving into the hidden part of his body and extracting a third item.
Held up, Richard saw it was unequivocally a book, presumably the one he had commissioned the Steel Brotherhood to locate.
Richard didn’t rush to grab the book. At this mont, he was sowhat perplexed, curious about how Baki had hidden these items in that place on his back, undetected by Suo n and Mu Konni of the Mysterious Organization.
Could it be…
But if that were true, then the previous iron rod and bead… were they all stored in that sa place?
This…
Baki seed to sense what Richard was thinking and spoke up, “Don’t… overthink it. These items were actually kept in my muscle pocket.”
Saying that, Baki arduously turned to show Richard his back.
Richard saw a narrow slit on Baki’s back that resembled a pocket’s zipper. It was through using this wound that Baki had ford a pocket in his flesh for storing items.
This was a kind of Transformational Construction Magic; Baki too was a Wizard Apprentice, naturally capable of learning it.
Richard was sowhat familiar with this kind of magic. Although useful for storage and incredibly secure—neither losable nor stealable—it caused the body’s flesh incredible suffering from the friction of the items inside. Only those with imnse willpower or those who took pleasure in self-inflicted pain could endure it.
In other words, to gain certain utilities from this magic, the cost was substantial; hardly anyone used it, barring special circumstances like those of Baki, who had needed to safeguard the critical items of the Steel Brotherhood. After all, not everyone could possess space-related storage items.
While contemplating these thoughts, Richard took the book from Baki’s hands, checked that it was the correct one, and stored it in the Space Iron Ring. When he looked back to Baki, he found him lying on the ground, motionless, his eyes still open.
“Sigh—”
Richard breathed deeply, gently closed Baki’s eyelids with a sweep of his hand, stood up, turned around, and stepped toward the tavern’s exit.
Once reaching the street outside, Richard discovered that the area, at so unknown ti, had beco as silent as a graveyard, without a sound to be heard.
The light from a few nearby shop lanterns spilled out onto the street, casting light across Richard’s face, his eyes shimring. He slightly turned his head to glance at his arm and saw his hairs standing on end under so stimulation. Richard could feel a suffocating pressure in the atmosphere—a potent danger was slowly closing in.
He had walked into a trap.
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