Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 2702: Lil’ Baem’s Cries

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Southern Region, Blossom District, Sky Blossom City, TSR Guild Headquarters

”Baem, sweetie, you heard him. Please, stop and come over so I get your scales cleaned,” Corey cried aloud, pleading for Lil’ Baem to listen and stop her madness.

”This is getting out of hand. Shouldn’t we do something about it?” Petra asked Cortney, whom she was shielding from a miniature indoor blood cyclone with her body.

”No, let them handle it. I’m sure Wyatt knows what he’s doing. At worst, it’s just a building full of people...” Cortney’s composure wavered as she spoke, the weight of what she had just said settling in. She realized how catastrophic it would be if Lil’ Baem failed to slow down soon.

Unable to help herself, she turned to look at Bloodette. The girl was no longer hugging the column. Instead, she lay on her stomach, her face buried in the blood pool, her wails muffled as the blood swallowed the sound.

Petra remained patient, believing that if the situation truly turned dangerous, Dredre would step in. In Petra’s mind, Dredre was the true boss of the entire outfit. The proof was undeniable: she used the head of Anti-Petruth as her walking throne. Anti-Petruth claimed to be her superior, but Petra had never believed him. What she had seen told a very different story.

”Lil’ Baem, come here this instant, or I will not talk to you for a week!” Corey shouted, having finally had enough of gentle parenting.

The result was astonishingly effective. Lil’ Baem immediately began to slow down, then drifted over to her mother, breaking all the blood plague chains binding Corey through her intent sense. It seemed the sinister snake had serious mommy issues. Then again, that much was obvious, considering she had guarded and followed around Corey Park’s corpse for several centuries.

Once free, Corey immediately pulled Lil’ Baem into her embrace and began consoling her. ”Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll get your scales cleaned right away.”

She then looked at me, clearly expecting me to remove the blood plague from Baem’s scales. I met her gaze, held it for a moment, and shrugged, asking, ”What?”

Corey shook her head, as if lamenting how childish I was being. Easy for her to judge. It wasn’t her groin on the line. What would she know?

She then looked down at Lil’ Baem, who was snuggled tightly in her embrace, rubbing against her as if to say, ’Mommy, look at what that bad man did to my scales.’ With a soft but firm voice, Corey instructed, ”Sweetie, promise Uncle Wyatt that you won’t hurt or attack him if he cleans your scales.”

The moment she said that, the snake shot me a murderous glare and shook her head in open refusal. Even without sharing a link with her, I could tell exactly what she meant. It couldn’t have been more obvious.

I sneered. ”Great. Then get used to red scales for the rest of your life.”

Hearing me, Lil’ Baem hissed viciously and suddenly burst free from Corey’s embrace. Seeing that, I instinctively took a few cautious steps back.

She climbed into the air and spat out a handful of malevolent gray fog, a substance potent enough to contend with even Dredre’s Breath of Erosion, then bathed herself in it. She seemed to have completely forgotten she could use it to cleanse herself earlier, panic having driven the thought from her mind.

”Bad idea, buddy,” I warned.

It was already too late. A fraction of a second later, she let out a piercing, painful wail and immediately dispersed the gray mist.

”Baem!” Corey cried as she shot up to the ceiling and caught her pet snake. Seeing the scarred red state of her scales, she whirled on me and shouted, ”Wyatt, what the fuck? Her beautiful scales are all scarred and still red. What the hell did you do to my darling, you maniac?”

”Hey, don’t blame me. That was her own doing,” I replied. ”This would’ve been over if she’d just made the promise, but instead she decided to nurse a grudge against me.”

I thought I held the moral high ground. Judging by the three pairs of disappointed eyes fixed on me, however, no one else seemed to agree with me. But Dredre did. After all, only she truly understood what it meant to be stalked by those pair of slit-eyes. I thought Petra understood as well, but she was among the three pairs of disappointed gazes fixed on me.

”Fuck you, Wyatt. We were just trying to playfully drench you in blood and mess around, but you went and permanently changed the color of my baby’s scales. Who does that, you maniac?” Corey snapped, her rage unmistakable as she looked over the state of Lil’ Baem.

Honestly, it wasn’t entirely my fault. It wasn’t blood that stained her scales. It was blood plague. The plague had taken root in the surface cells of Lil’ Baem’s scales, covering their natural pigmentation and turning them red. Her attempt to purge it with her malevolent mist was essentially the same as trying to burn away the outer layer of her own scales. It was no surprise she had wailed in pain while trying to wash the color off with that gray fog.

Still, Corey wasn’t wrong about one thing. I had taken it too far.

”Just get her to promise not to hurt or attack me, and I’ll revert the color of her scales,” I said, not bothering to argue with Corey or offer an apology for taking things too far. I didn’t think it was necessary to turn this into a consoling session.

Corey, however, was clearly displeased with both my words and my attitude. She shot back, ”Only if you apologize to her for changing the color of her scales. I wouldn’t have cared if you’d just painted them red, but permanently changing their color over a small, playful retaliation? What kind of sick psycho does that?”

She wasn’t finished. ”And don’t forget, you were the one who pranked us first by keeping the information about the gutter drain to yourself.”