Sorcerer’s Handbook

Chapter 338: It Turns Out They Were Right

“I really can’t heal the living.” Harvey hurriedly stopped Ashe, while Lise quickly hid behind Harvey. “Alright, assuming, assuming what you’re saying is true, that you suddenly have a way with women… what do you want to research?”

“I want to know why I have a way with women.”

“And then?”

“And then?” Ashe was taken aback. “Just… keep it up, and hopefully, find a stepmother for Lise soon?”

“That’s it.” Harvey shrugged. “You don’t need to know why; you just need to enjoy this hard-earned happiness. Anyway, by the time we leave Vamora, you should be detoxified…”

“Harvey, your Alice isn’t around. I suggest you think twice before you speak.”

After a brief commotion, the three sat down again. Harvey said, “Let’s move on to the next topic—Ashe, you said Annan has been hitting you a lot lately?”

Although the word ‘hitting’ felt strange, Ashe nodded. “Yes.”

Harvey: “I think this might be implying something.”

“Implying dissatisfaction. What have you been doing these days?”

“I haven’t done anything.” Ashe scratched his head. “All I do every day is play games and eat, constantly improving my command skills. Occasionally, I practice Gunmanship with Lise and Banjeet. I haven’t done anything else.”

Lise nodded in agreement. Practicing Gunmanship with the butler was her idea. Ashe had promised her before but then forgot, although Lise certainly hadn’t.

“That’s exactly it,” Harvey said. “It’s because you haven’t done anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even though Annan says she doesn’t expect any performance from you, deep down she hopes you’ll take the initiative to start a relationship and aim for the second ranking list. It’s like how I don’t ask much from corpses, but I still hope they can become necromantic creatures on their own.”

“I get it. The young lady says she’s giving me a break, but she secretly expects me to work overtime for free!”

The Corporate Slave and the necromancer, using different metaphors, reached a consensus—Annan is a tsundere streetlamp.

“And now it’s your turn.” Ashe looked at Lise. “Tell me, what did you do with my Substitute?”

Lise’s eyes darted around. “Oh, nothing much, just had him help out as a model… By the way, I have a question too. Can falling in love really change a person’s personality? I’ve recently met a few older sisters—some are serious, some are black-hearted, some are cold, and some are even dumber than me. But after they fell in love, they all became gentle, often daydreaming and smiling foolishly. Is love really that powerful?”

“That’s a great question, but I can’t answer it,” Ashe replied with a blank expression.

“It can,” Harvey said while chewing on his cake tobacco. “For example, I’ve recently decided to quit smoking because of someone.”

Ashe: (°ー°〃).

Lise: Σ(っ°Д°;)っ.

Seeing everyone’s shocked expressions, Harvey was a bit puzzled. “Is it really that surprising?”

“Harvey, because in my mind, you’re the type who, on your deathbed, would want to light a cigarette but couldn’t, and then die with that regret,” Ashe said, and Lise nodded in agreement.

Harvey: “Writing death scripts is the job of a necromancer. Ashe, you seem to have a knack for necromancy. Why not join me and become one of Haagen-Dazs’ lackeys?”

Ashe waved his hand. “No thanks. So, where did you meet this person, in a cemetery?”

Harvey shook his head. “Not a cemetery. I just followed Annan’s instructions and looked for someone in the Dream. I wasn’t really expecting much since it’s hard to find someone who matches my aesthetic in reality. But…”

He turned to look out the window, avoiding the father-daughter’s gaze. “I met a girl who looked a lot like Nalber.”

Ashe’s memory wasn’t great, but he vaguely remembered the name. Given the context and the current mood, this must be the necromancer’s unrequited love.

However, more startling than the mention of his unrequited love was Harvey’s calm reaction to the joke about finding a partner in a cemetery. He didn’t even bother to refute it, deepening Ashe’s fear of him.

Necromancers are like a nesting doll of fetishes—each layer you uncover only reveals a new, lower level of depravity.

“I’m not really into the girl in the Dream. In fact, I wouldn’t say I liked Nalber either. We were just colleagues.”

Harvey continued, “I was a Controller who created corpses, and she was the delivery person who transported them. We didn’t talk much. The last conversation we had was about which pattern of livor mortis looked the prettiest.”

No wonder Harvey had no hope for his romantic prospects. There’s probably no living being in this world, male or female, who could follow your line of thinking…

“She said she liked blue roses, and I agreed,” Harvey said. “Because the human body can’t naturally produce the beautiful purple-blue pigment, I cast a Toxic spell Miracle on her. It would trigger upon her death, reacting with hemoglobin to create a vibrant purple-blue hue.”

Ashe bowed deeply to the biodiversity of this world and simultaneously felt a spark of hope for true love. If even Harvey could find love, there couldn’t be a more convincing example.

“Unfortunately, I never got to see her body,” Harvey suddenly laughed. “The efficiency of those Blood Saints at the Institute is truly remarkable. The day after she died, her body was sent to some research facility, and I couldn’t find it even if I wanted to.”

In the necromancer’s laughter, there was a twisted amalgamation of negative emotions: anger, resentment, hatred, and fear. They intertwined and wove into a dark desire for destruction, half aimed at the world’s throat, and half at his own heart.

Lise could almost feel a wave of malevolence emanating from him. She didn’t care about the possibility of getting spanked by Ashe and quietly moved to his side, trembling.

Ashe wasn’t particularly surprised by Harvey’s mental state.

Harvey’s coffin was never meant for Alice.

Writing death scripts is the work of a necromancer, and Harvey had always been crafting his own script.

“Oh.”

Harvey glanced at him. “I said all that, and all you have to say is ‘oh’?”

“Oh~~ oh oh~~~ oh oh oh oh~~”

Ashe started, and Lise followed, the two of them “oh”-ing in a 1-2-4 rhythm for a good ten seconds. Even Harvey, whose face was almost as stiff as a corpse, couldn’t help but twitch his mouth. He had originally hoped that Ashe might come to him to discuss the patterns of livor mortis, but now it seemed unlikely.

“Stop ‘oh’-ing. I was purposely accumulating some negative emotions for a spell I’m about to cast, and now you’ve ‘oh’-ed them all away. You two have no idea how hard it is to accumulate negative emotions in Vamora.”

“Then why don’t you tell us about the girl you met in the Dream?” Ashe suggested. “Did you fall in love with her?”

“How could I…” Harvey stopped mid-sentence, staring intently at Ashe.

Ashe blinked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just realized she looks a bit like you.”

“Harvey, don’t say that. You’re scaring me,” Ashe said, hugging Lise as they both trembled.

Harvey just said it casually and didn’t think much of it. “Of course, I didn’t fall in love with her. A necromancer’s love is ‘etched in bone and engraved in heart’—literally carving bones and engraving hearts. But…”

“But what?”

“Just consider it a dream,” Harvey said, finishing the last bit of his cake tobacco. “In the dream, she would persuade me to quit smoking, so I’ll give it a try.”

The atmosphere grew heavy, and Ashe quickly tried to steer the conversation back. “So, the last topic—why is there a cake in my room every day?”

“Dad, aren’t you happy about it?” Lise retorted. “I’d love to wake up to a cake every morning!”

“But none of you have cakes, only I do. It’s definitely weird!” Ashe said, stroking his chin in thought. “It feels like the prelude to some dangerous event. Could it be a murder prediction?”

Harvey said, “Once the second ranking list is out, we’ll be leaving soon anyway, so why worry about it?”

Ashe thought that made sense. “Then you all have to come over every morning to help me eat the cake.”

“Why?”

“I can’t finish it by myself.”

“Why don’t you just leave it if you can’t finish it?”

“No way,” Ashe shook his head. “I have a strong premonition that if I don’t finish the cake, something terrible might happen.”

“Why do you have so many premonitions…”

After finishing the cake, everyone went their separate ways. Lise led a Substitute away, Harvey went back to his room to dress up Alice, and Ashe put on a black robe and headed back to the gaming floor to continue his imprisonment. He couldn’t clear the dungeon, kept getting beaten up, and had to stay there all day to improve his skills. It was no different from being in prison, and the treatment at Shattered Lake Prison was probably better.

Avoid the Extreme Cutting Carp Overlord Lord; it brings misfortune.

However, while riding the guest elevator up to the gaming floor, Ashe encountered the person he least wanted to see-Qenna!

She was still in her Red Hat uniform, with her tall figure standing out in the crowd, her expression cold and her gaze stern. Even in the crowded elevator, she managed to command the remaining attention. Seeing this, Ashe couldn’t help but once again marvel at Vamora’s family system, which truly disregarded rank and status. As someone who wouldn’t dare to ride the same elevator as his boss at work, he couldn’t imagine why ordinary clansmen would dare to ride with the patriarch.

In Senhaeser District, Qenna was practically a dictator. She not only controlled the Red Hat but also had direct authority over any department and could appoint or dismiss any position. In fact, that’s exactly how she governed, but she didn’t do it on a whim; she followed the Gospel Book’s recommendations to manage the city.

Although she didn’t have the power of life and death, Qenna could still control everything in Senhaeser with a single hand.

But from his interactions over the past few days, Ashe noticed that the Senhaeser clansmen didn’t seem to fear their patriarch, nor did they respect her much. If anything, they saw Qenna as just another ordinary clansman.

Annan dared to stand her ground in front of Qenna, not just because she relied on her daughter’s status, but perhaps also due to the sense of equality ingrained in her childhood. Living in this family, with material desires significantly diminished, the reality of social hierarchy lost its meaning. Thus, people didn’t revere the powerful patriarch nor disdain the ordinary maid. The patriarch and the maid were merely clansmen performing their respective duties.

So don’t be afraid, Ashe; you’re just an ordinary clansman now. Just pretend Qenna doesn’t exist!

Ashe then hid in the corner of the elevator, his eyes fixed on the floor buttons.

You can’t see me, you can’t see me…

However, it seemed as if Qenna could hear his thoughts. She squeezed through the crowd and stood right behind him, her tall shadow covering his back. Ashe focused intently, not daring to breathe too loudly, afraid to disturb the beast behind him.

The elevator door opened, and a few more clansmen entered, taking up the remaining space. Qenna seemed to be nudged slightly, causing her to press against Ashe. He shivered and turned his head to look back, meeting Qenna’s cold, noble, golden eyes.

Ashe wished he could shrink himself, desperately trying to escape the gaze of this Sanctuary sorcerer. However, it was rush hour, and the elevator was packed. No matter how much Ashe tried to flatten himself into a two-dimensional space, he couldn’t avoid the patriarch’s body brushing against his clothes. He could even feel Qenna’s breath on his hood.

The agonizing elevator ride finally ended, and they arrived at the canteen floor. Others filed out, and it seemed Qenna was also there for breakfast. Just as Ashe breathed a sigh of relief, Qenna suddenly tapped his shoulder and said expressionlessly, “Your mouth.”

Ashe was startled and touched the right corner of his mouth, but Qenna shook her head. She reached out and wiped a bit of cream from the left corner of his mouth with her finger.

“Th-thank you?”

Qenna gave him a slight nod and quickly left the elevator, leaving a bewildered Ashe behind.

Their interaction didn’t draw any attention. The people in this city had all their desires satisfied by the Beauty Mist, including their curiosity—they had no interest in others’ gossip.

Unless it was a sensational piece of gossip that could surpass the pleasures of the Beauty Mist.

Hiding in the crowd, Lucy had been watching the patriarch and Ashe closely. She recalled the secrets Ashe had shared with her. Seeing their interaction now, her curiosity, dormant for over a decade, began to stir.

She also got off at this floor, following Qenna out. Soon, she noticed a shocking sight—Qenna actually put her cream-stained fingertip into her mouth!

After a few days of cooling down, Lucy had begun to suspect that Ashe and Igor might have been deceiving her, even considering reporting them. But at this moment, all her doubts vanished.

So they were telling the truth after all!