Chapter 39: The Fall of the Dragon, the Rise of the Dragonet
“So you got fired from the Thieves Guild?” Asker looked at her with a smirk.
“Well, it wasn’t intentional!” Mia sat on the railing of the stairs leading to the second floor, swinging her legs idly.
“I thought, since golden striped leeches can be sold for money, why not sell them sooner rather than later? So I caught all the leeches in the reservoir, mashed them into a paste, and put it all in a jar. I was going to sell it… ahem, hand it over to Maestro to sell.”
“But as soon as I got back to the guild, I saw him standing at the entrance with a livid face, asking me what was in the jar. I honestly told him it was golden striped leech paste. He snatched it, took a look, and beat me up! He said I had committed a major property damage crime and that the Thieves Guild had expelled me.”
The more she spoke, the angrier she became. She clenched her fists and punched the railing, “How could this be! I didn’t even sell it privately! Didn’t he take all the paste back? What major property damage! This is simply, simply a trumped-up charge!”
This NPC can even use idioms… Asker thought to himself. Of course, considering the original “Iron and Fire” game world wasn’t purely Western fantasy, it wasn’t surprising for an NPC to spout idioms. In the province of Shirish, there was even a Chinese NPC from the Dragon Kingdom who could recite the “Tao Te Ching” and the “Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon.”
“Do you know why golden striped leeches are valuable?” Asker asked her.
“Because noble young masters like you would buy them,” Mia said flatteringly.
“Stop flattering me!” Asker’s face darkened. He flicked her forehead, making Mia yelp and cover her head with her hands, tears welling up in her eyes. “Golden striped leeches are spiritual materials used for making potions, understand?”
“You mean the potions that superhumans take, right?” Mia said with a “Of course, I know” expression. “Then, then just sell them to superhumans.”
“Golden striped leeches are one of the main ingredients for the Life Stealing sequence potion. However, not all superhumans need to take the Life Stealing sequence potion,” Asker explained to her.
“If you can’t find a superhuman buyer who needs that specific path, your paste won’t sell at all. And once a golden striped leech is killed, its spirituality slowly dissipates from the material.”
Mia slowly opened her mouth wide, and after a long while, she said with difficulty, “So, my whole jar of paste… can’t be sold?”
“It’ll be difficult,” Asker said.
“And the spirituality will dissipate, becoming useless if I can’t sell it quickly?” Mia asked.
“Yes,” Asker said.
“Please take me in!” Mia suddenly pounced at Asker’s feet like a wild cat, hugging his legs and bursting into tears.
“That jar of paste… probably had sixty or seventy golden striped leeches… That’s a loss of six or seven thousand pounds! Even if you sell me, I can’t repay that much! Maestro will definitely kill me! Please let me join your mercenary group. If Maestro comes looking for me, you have to protect me from him!”
Asker looked at her with a speechless expression. If he really wanted to kill you for that, you wouldn’t even be able to leave the Sunken Palace, okay? And my team just happens to need a thief. Maestro practically delivered you to my doorstep. Why does this feel like a carefully orchestrated scheme?
Could it be that he’s targeting our team’s wealth? The over seven thousand pounds we earned from selling to the Life Cult? A honey trap?
As he was thinking this, Asker’s phone vibrated. He received an email. He opened it and saw that it was from Maestro:
Respected Master Achilles,
Perhaps you have already learned the news of His Majesty’s defeat at Manzikert. Our Thieves Guild has judged that the future fate of Constantinople is unpredictable, and we may face the danger of the entire city being overturned. Therefore, last night, we all boarded a passenger ship on the Black Sea, intending to go north to Kiev to seek a new life.
Mia, like other children, grew up in the Thieves Guild since childhood, but her identity is different from other orphans – we found her on the reefs off the coast of Gallipoli.
At that time, she was being held by the body of a drowned noblewoman, and she still had the strength to cry loudly after drifting at sea for several days. On the delicate silk swaddling clothes around her, the name “Mia Cinquemani” was embroidered with needle and thread.
We believe that she is most likely of noble birth.
A noble dolphin should not mingle with leeches in the sewers all day long, as this will only tarnish her noble bloodline. Therefore, I used some clever means to drive her out of the guild and guide her to you.
You are also a noble person with an upright heart, and you should be able to give her the care that a noble deserves.
If possible in the future, please take her to Palermo, Sicily. According to our many years of research and investigation, “Cinquemani” seems to be an ancient Sicilian noble surname.
After the Normans established the court of Palermo, this family was once massacred, but recently it seems to have been revived in the local political arena.
Yours sincerely,
Maestro.
Asker looked at his phone, speechless. This plot development… a standard hidden quest routine, and it didn’t look like an ordinary side quest, it might even be a quest chain.
He handed the phone to Mia.
Mia muttered and looked at the phone, gradually unable to look away.
Then an expression of horror appeared on her face, as if the world had collapsed.
“I, I, I…” She stammered, stood up with a lost look, “I have to go back and see!”
Throwing the phone back to Asker, she ran out of the door like the wind.
“Don’t need to chase after her?” Sidlipha asked, arms crossed.
“No need.” Asker said, “She’ll be back.”
As they were talking, the sound of funeral bells suddenly rang outside.
To be precise, the funeral bells of the entire Constantinople rang, resonating into a vast sea of sound over the imperial capital. Sidlipha was so frightened that she reached for her weapon, but she missed and was grabbed by the arm by Asker.
“Don’t be afraid, it’s the news of the Emperor’s death.” Asker said.
Soon, the news of the defeat at Manzikert spread throughout the capital. Citizens were discussing this sad news in public:
“His Majesty Constantine was shot three times on the battlefield of Manzikert and returned to the Lord’s kingdom of heaven on the spot. The army suffered heavy casualties to retrieve his body. Now his body has been placed in the Monastery of the Theotokos in Nicaea, and the two Purple Princesses have already flown there by private jet.”
Outside the monastery in Nicaea, Princess Theodora hurriedly jumped out of the helicopter, lifting her skirt and rushing into the monastery. Then came Lady Varomina, the Emperor’s official scribe. She bowed slightly and gracefully extended her arm.
Princess Zoe took her arm, stepped out of the helicopter with dignity and solemnity, and said lightly:
“Lead the way.”
“Yes.” The official scribe, Varomina, bowed again, thinking to herself that Princess Zoe and Princess Theodora had completely different personalities.
Princess Theodora was quiet and elegant on the surface, but in reality, she was like a lively fawn, doing things with vigor and vitality.
Princess Zoe, on the other hand, seemed to be good at conversation, but in reality, she didn’t talk much, her thoughts were deep, just like the late Emperor Basil.
Perhaps this also had something to do with the age of the two princesses. Princess Theodora was only 17 years old this year, a full 7 years younger than Princess Zoe… Varomina quickly realized that her thoughts were a little presumptuous, so she lowered her head deeply in fear.
“Father…” In the main hall of the monastery, Theodora hugged her father’s coffin, almost sobbing uncontrollably.
Emperor Constantine VIII lay peacefully in the coffin, his smoke-blackened face skillfully repaired by the embalmer, now appearing excessively pale. Princess Zoe stood behind, not crying like Princess Theodora, but just wiping the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief.
The monks present were well aware of the different attitudes shown by the two princesses.
During his lifetime, Emperor Constantine, fearing that his future sons-in-law would interfere too much in state affairs, had delayed the marriage of the two Purple Princesses.
Theodora was still young, but Princess Zoe was already 24 years old, an age when she longed for marriage, family, and the love of a husband, but she was “imprisoned” in the deep palace and not allowed to see any man. How could she not resent the Emperor?
Then, the Emperor’s coffin was transported to Constantinople, passing through the Golden Gate all the way. All the citizens spontaneously gathered on both sides of the funeral procession, holding signs, scattering flowers, lighting candles, and weeping sadly.
Of course, this was not necessarily because the citizens were sad about the Emperor’s death, but because people always liked to pretend to mourn in the face of misfortunes that had nothing to do with them, using such rituals to obtain a sense of self-moral satisfaction.
Just like in Asker’s previous life, whenever something bad happened abroad, there would be a lot of “lighting candles,” “crying for them,” and “tonight we are all X countrymen” on Weibo in China, making it seem as if the whole country was mourning together – in fact, most of these bloggers, after posting mourning words and crying emojis, would put on their makeup and go out happily to eat hot pot and spicy skewers.
The Emperor’s funeral would be held solemnly for three days and would undoubtedly dominate the hot topics of discussion in the imperial capital for a long time.
Another matter that could no longer be delayed was the coronation of the new emperor.
As soon as they learned of the defeat at Manzikert, the imperial bureaucracy, the nobility, and the church quickly reached a tacit consensus to support the two Purple Princesses to ascend the throne and become the co-ruling emperors of the Eastern Solomon Empire.
Under the military threat of the Seljuk Empire, this was the quickest way to stabilize the situation in the imperial capital.
The coronation ceremony was then held at the Hagia Sophia. In front of the iconostasis, Alexius, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Solomon Orthodox Church, took the imperial crown from the box held by the bishop beside him and placed it on Princess Zoe’s head.
He then took out a smaller crown, which also symbolized imperial power, and placed it on Theodora’s head.
Then a pair of boys and girls in white came forward and applied the holy ointment to the faces of the two Majesties.
Finally, the golden orb and cross, symbolizing power, were solemnly taken out of the box held by the bishop beside him by the Ecumenical Patriarch Alexius.
Staring at the golden scepter, Empress Zoe’s breathing subtly quickened. She wanted to reach out and grasp the golden orb and cross directly, but Theodora’s call stopped her:
“Sister!”
She came back to her senses and looked at Theodora, whose tears had not yet dried.
Alexius smiled and handed over the golden orb and cross. The two sisters looked at each other and then grasped the imperial scepter together.
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