Chapter 81 - 29: [Eve of Departure]

Chapter 81: Chapter 29: [Eve of Departure]

Luojie City’s small tavern was always a raucous place, packed with all sorts of people. The air was thick with the scent of food, stories, alcohol, and the sheer essence of life.

"Make way! Please make way!" A waiter squeezed through, carrying stacks of food and large wooden mugs, even balancing a massive mug on his head. With practiced agility, he distributed the mountain of meals and drinks from his arms and head onto seventeen or eighteen surrounding tables with pinpoint accuracy and zero confusion, showcasing an astonishing professional memory.

"In the Age of Gods, there was a hero who loved dragons, yet the deities ordered him to slay an ancient wyrm!" A Minstrel sat on a greasy old chair by the bar, plucking away at a lute. His nimble fingers clawed at the strings like a leopard cat scratching a post. He hummed a melancholic tune, singing a ballad mixed with a chaotic jumble of heroic tales. "He wouldn’t hurt his true love, nor would he defy the divine. With nowhere to turn, he pledged his soul to an Evil God..."

People sought out music, listeners, and storytellers here, all for a temporary escape from the pressures of life. Perhaps that was the very meaning of stories—to take the weary on a journey through a different life.

Being an adventurer was a high-stress job, fraught with exhaustion, anxiety, danger, and pain. Many ended up losing more than they gained, trapped in a rut with no future in sight. After a grueling day of running around, having half a cup of booze at the tavern, shooting the breeze, and grabbing strangers to spout nonsense and boast was an indispensable necessity of life.

After all, the living pressures and harsh climate of the Barren Land were a constant source of despair, intertwined with cold calculations and the cruel law of the jungle. It wasn’t uncommon for adventurers to take their own lives after having their souls crushed by reality or their minds overwhelmed by emotional breakdowns.

No one could maintain a positive mindset all the time, especially in such a high-pressure environment full of constant danger and bleak prospects. Nonsensical jokes, fabricated stories, outrageous boasts, card and marble games, piping hot, delicious food, and those goofy teammates who loved to get in your face and act like fools—these were the spiderwebs keeping you from plummeting into the lightless abyss—

Oh, and recently, a new best-selling dessert had appeared. Although it was just made of crushed ice, sour jam, and a few sweet berries, the cold, sweet-and-sour taste supposedly made people happy, helping them temporarily forget their troubles. No one knew who started the trend.

"Buying advanced materials at high prices! Buying advanced materials from the Valak Dungeon at high prices!" A peddler squeezed into the tavern and shouted at the top of his lungs amidst the chaotic crowd, but no one paid him any mind. Rebuffed, he didn’t get angry; he just hurried off to hawk his wares elsewhere.

"Ahmak—idiot." A light-brown-skinned dancer muttered in a dialect of the Supar Empire. She was clad in Gold-trimmed leather armor covered in gray scales, exposing her honey-colored lower belly and supple waist. Draped in a cloak and wearing a thin veil, she had a sharp blade hanging from her waist, and Gold rings adorned her wrists and ankles. She scooped up a spoonful of jam shaved ice and slipped it into her mouth beneath her veil.

"The ones who besieged the Valak Dungeon struck it rich. They brought back over a dozen carts of advanced materials... I kind of regret not going." A turban-clad, brown-skinned man with a heavy beard scooped a large spoonful of jam slush from his plate into his mouth, a few drops of jam clinging to the tips of his beard.

A heavy scimitar hung at his waist, its hilt adorned with a small, Gold pendant shaped like an oil lamp—a symbol of a fairy tale from the Eastern Supar Empire about a Divine Lamp and a young wisher.

"We aren’t here for the money. We’re here to lay low. In the Eastern Supar Empire, we wouldn’t even bother picking up mountains of Gold and jewels tossed on the ground." The dancer savored the jam slush and scoffed. "The Grand Vizier, Ibushin Pasha, successfully pulled off the coup. The Sultan is now a puppet, and this is the era of the Prime Minister Dynasty. The Sultan’s confidants will be purged. We’ll lay low out here, and once the fallout from the Burning Sand Coup passes, we can return to the desert to retrieve the treasures buried by the Sultan."

"I’m not like you. Since childhood, you were raised as a falcon perched on an arm. I come from a nomad background; when I was a kid, my family only had three sheep. I grew up terrified of poverty. I followed the Sultan and grew into a tall man built like a camel, but in my bones, I’m still a skinny, foolish little sheep. When I see good prey, I can’t help but get jealous." The turbaned, bearded man chuckled. "These past few days, the loot merchants have gone as crazy as flies spotting meat scraps whenever they see those Advanced Adventurers walking into the market with their bags. They swarm them, scrambling to fork over their cash."

"Ahmak—idiots! Only a donkey would sell all their high-end loot to the tukkads (merchants)." The cloaked dancer spat out a string of Common peppered with the Supar Empire dialect, her purple-painted lips wrapping around the spoon of her jam slush. "The tukkads resell things layer by layer. They buy materials at rock-bottom prices here in Luojie City, eventually transporting them to the Habitable Zone to sell for two or three times as much. Low-grade materials have low profit margins, so those rat scraps might as well go to the tukkads. But the high-priced materials from the third ring of the Underground City are prime camel meat. Anyone with a clear head would haul it to the Habitable Zone to sell it themselves."

"Transporting goods over long distances is a grueling, miserable chore. It’s too much of a hassle. Besides, not all adventurers have their own camels—I mean, caravans." The bearded man took a swig of booze, wiped the foam and jam from his beard with the back of his hand, and lowered his voice. "Do you think the Desert Tyrant, Sittika, has anything to do with the Grand Vizier’s coup?"

"Absolutely." The dancer toyed with her spoon. "Without Demon King Sitti Ka’s assistance, Ibushin Pasha could never have acquired so many Demon Race Exile slaves to serve as Warriors—not to mention the Gold collars used to control them. Those are Witchcraft creations forged from the Demonized metal, Witch Gold."