Chương 91: Back-Breaking Work I

Lengue's nameless capital was a marvellously built city of smooth curvature. The city had a modernistic yet fantastical aesthetic of bright limestone buildings, with not a single sharp corner in sight; the roads curved and coiled whimsically instead of monotonously turning at 90-degree angles at intersections.

The streets bustled with people despite the darkening sky, while warm lamplights slowly began to glow faintly so as not to take away from the spectacle of large, beautiful water screens that were dotted around the square and playing major events within the Colosseum games on repeat and urging people to purchase tickets to watch it live within the immense Colosseum that the city sprawled around.

Mortimer stood in a noir pinstriped ducktail coat, tapping a lacquered wood cane on the sanded road while travelling to his destination. Today was the 9th day of the event, and things were heating up both within and outside of the colosseum.

Mortimer was starting to get sick of how often he would walk by people talking about the games; it seemed like the entire world revolved around it, not to mention people were getting riled up, predicting the games this time around would finally have a sudden death after 30 years. Even ancient-looking people who lived sedentary lives had come out of the woodwork to even potentially witness it before leaving the world of life.

The night was young, and the bright screens of water overpowered the lamplight illuminating the city. But despite the jovial mood and the growing excitement for the coming days of the Colosseum games, Mortimer was not on a simple stroll without reason. Before elegantly cramming June into a pod, Mortimer's young apprentice managed to tear out a page of a pamphlet he was holding onto and wrote down an address and instructions.

Mortimer unfurled the crumpled note and attempted to read what was etched into the plastic paper.

'I should have provided the boy a pen…' The address was clear, but the instructions were hastily etched with a fingernail.

'I should have provided him time to write the note too…' Mortimer sighed; he deciphered it beforehand, but today, he had taken a leave with the queen's permission. The old man had known something was up since June acted strangely after waking up from his coma, but he came to learn from June after the resident doctor, who was supposed to be taking care of him, was, in fact, an assassin who planned to kill him and Lilia.

2 other people also died during the journey to Lengue, specifically when June wasn't in his presence, so Mortimer had guessed that June was hunting the residual assassins and didn't tell him, since Lilia would be safer in the old man's presence. Mortimer had thrown June into the Colosseum games, mainly because he was busy at the moment, attending to his duties, and wouldn't be able to spare June the time to train him.

The games were the quickest shortcut to getting back into fighting shape and were a perfect segue into his currently unplanned lessons, but unbeknownst to Mortimer, June had found a common address linked through all three assassins and was planning to make a courtesy visit alone. The old man felt a little dejected that his apprentice didn't want to invite him along, but he also understood how unrealistically loyal June was to the Harth family.

Even knowing how June's birth family treated him, Mortimer couldn't reasonably question the validity of his loyalty. Mortimer felt a tension migraine coming on; just thinking about it greatly upset him. June was raised like a flea in a jar; his attempts to jump higher than his family's imposed lid led to him being swatted down. He wasn't beaten by his family, but the way his family kept a leash on him was horrible. His dog, on the other hand, was both his saving grace and his leash, ironically enough.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. His faithful friend was an IV drip that kept him sane, but also, given the state of the current mundane world, he was incapable of taking care of himself, let alone his sickly dog, on his own. Mortimer couldn't figure out if the boy was an unmatched stoic, a generational actor, or simply insane enough to be considered normal, as backwards as it may seem.

It was a common belief that one's mental state had an important effect on whether one was capable of becoming a dreamer or not. The most common state that preceding to ascension is insanity. Mortimer had heard some of the details of his Dreamer transformation from June himself, and at first, he thought June was simply joking or even lying. A mundane killing an imp-class nightmare is one thing, an impossible feat, but someone going from mundane to Dreamer in a single leap was unheard of.

No legends, no stories, no faiths, nothing. Either an impossible being had toyed with natural law in the unnatural night realm, or June had gone through the Aspirant process for mere moments before becoming a Dreamer, which was still unheard of. Then there's the part where he became a flesh-shaper. Being a flesh-shaper wasn't something someone could learn through education; it was an innate detachment and possessiveness over oneself that often led a person to become one.

Even when Mortimer himself became a flesh-shaper, it took him years of mental training and travelling to become comfortable in his own skin that had become like a foreign entity. It was a power that rewarded both pain and power, and it was never meant for the faint of mind. But June, on the other hand, would be considered a generational genius as a flesh-shaper, which was a heart-wrenching thing to fathom.

He happily tore himself apart for his goals and would offer his heart on a platter if it meant he could save someone he even slightly cared for. It was a self-sacrificing power given to a person who knew nothing but pain.

Mortimer turned into a dark alley. The pristine alleys of bright limestone had turned a bleak grey. Blood splatters marred the walls and ingrained a part of their owners into the floors. Mortimer flashed a hand over his face, turning his visage into a mosaic mask, and he wandered into the dead zone of the Lengue capital.

Lengue was a neutral continent, and the official dead zone of Lengue was a front for illegal activities and goods like slaves, stolen items, and plenty of other unmentionables that were often procured and sold here.

The government and the representative that operated the continent of Lengue turned a blind eye to the activities that occurred within the dead zone; in fact, one of the reasons why many of the royals of the coalition met here every 3 years wasn't simply for the novelty and highly anticipated Colosseum games. Eccentric goods and services were often available to royals, and some of these businesses had exclusive clientele among them, to the extent that the government of Lengue offered anonymous stipends.

Mortimer walked past caged slaves and unmentionable goods, trying to keep his teeth grinding to a minimum so as not to wear his dentures down. Killing in the dead zone was common, but if one were to kill in excess, the authorities would step in, so for now, Mortimer walked past the child and adult slaves alike. Even if he purchased all of them, there was nothing he could do afterwards; simply releasing them would just let them be captured and resold.

Even then, there was no guarantee that they would survive on their own. The distance from Harth to Lengue was several thousand kilometres; there was no guarantee for them to survive the trek there, even if they purchased an escort, but even then, it would take years for them to arrive in Harth. Mortimer walked faster past slaves who reached out to him in hopes of food. There was no hope in saving them.

Mortimer unfurled June's crumpled note and walked down a few steps into a basement tavern underneath a brothel. He walked over to the barstools, waved the bartender over, and tapped the table several times.

"What do you want, old man?" The bartender had a dirty apron that was caked in blood. He was a bald, olive-skinned man with a cut on his brow; a single eye was faded, and his jaw was squared. The scent of chopped meats permeated the room, as further down the L-shaped table was a bleeding lamb… and a human hand with a cleaver stuck in it. The lamb bleated weakly as blood dripped off the table and onto barstools next to it. Mortimer pulled out a pocket square and covered his nose with it.

"There's no winter in hell… oh, and a whisky on the rocks… if you can." The bartender snorted and grabbed a half-empty bottle of whisky before carelessly pouring it into a small shot glass while making murder eyes at Mortimer, letting his glass overflow. The lamb continued the weak whine in the background as the few other occupants of the bar stopped to look at the old man. The bartender slid the drink over to in front of Mortimer, dripping on a splinter on the table and getting on the old man's pruned suit.

A silence permeated the bar as Mortimer slowly stood up, whipped out a towel from inside his coat, and dabbed the alcohol off his suit. And after a moment, Mortimer wrung out the towel onto the wooden floor while making dead-eye contact with the bartender.

"You know… the dry cleaning fees in Lengue are exorbitant."