The Sorcerer's Handbook

Working at Nabistin was indeed a peculiar experience.

At 9 a.m., Harvey, Iger, and Annan arrived at Ark Square in front of the city elevator. True to its name, the city elevator was a massive lift system connecting the lower levels, middle levels, and the surface. Other elevators existed elsewhere, yet the ones at Ark Square were by far the most numerous. Within half an hour, they could complete the transfer of thousands of people.

Ark Square was the largest talent market in the underground city. It was made fascinating by the complete absence of staff members. In their place stood only countless doors.

Beside each door, the requirements and wages were clearly displayed. For example, one of the doors belonged to Belldet Amusement World, showing the following information.

[Requirements: Work 7 hours. Height: 170 cm. Appearance rating: above 67. Physical fitness rating: above 70...]

[Wages: 30 copper coins per hour, 210 copper coins in total. Accumulate 70 working hours to receive an additional 1 Gospel Point.]

Once a worker who met the criteria stepped through the threshold, they automatically became a Gospel employee and began their shift at Belldet Amusement World. Seven hours later, they would return to Ark Square with an additional 210 copper credited to their account.

Consequently, when Harvey and the others arrived at Ark Square, they saw endless lines of people waiting to pass through the doors. Not a single trace of the anxiety normally associated with the pre-work rush showed on their faces. They calmly stepped through the portals, their expressions turning peaceful. They then walked toward the elevators in perfect synchronization, moving with the same steady rhythm, like instruments in a grand symphony.

Simultaneously, countless people who had finished their day’s work returned from the elevators. They consciously bypassed the incoming crowds and sat down on the benches surrounding the square. Then, as if suddenly awakening from a dream, they would stand up, open their Book of Gospel to check their balance, and leave with satisfied expressions.

People came and went endlessly. Since the underground city lacked any distinction between day and night, people were constantly starting and finishing work at any given moment. Within this ocean of flowing crowds, Ark Square drifted and moved ceaselessly, carrying the three cities toward a future woven by the Gospel.

They were humans with free will, yet they were also highly efficient tools. They embraced the Gospel’s mercy, yet they were also stained by its cruelty.

In Harvey’s eyes, Ark Square was almost identical to the Blood Moon Tribunal. Its artistic quality was so overwhelming that it felt baked into the very bones of the square. Every individual functioned like a precise gear, cleverly driving the operation of a massive social machine. The entire system possessed a cold, ruthless beauty that extracted every last drop from its subjects.

The Blood Moon’s cruelty existed on a raw, physical level, while this place represented the complete replacement of free will. The Gospel Kingdom was far more civilized and advanced, yet Harvey believed the two held no true distinction of superiority. Both were masterpieces of art created by different Divine Lords, each adapting their creations to their own circumstances.

Every time Harvey visited Ark Square, countless higher-level inspirations burst forth in his mind. He had once been able to infer the traces of the Blood Moon Lord’s philosophy from the Blood Moon Tribunal; now, looking upon Ark Square, Harvey felt he could vaguely glimpse the supreme realm of the Omniscient Weaver.

At 3 p.m., while sitting on a bench in Ark Square, Iger endured overwhelming dizziness and nausea. He discovered that Harvey was still observing the flow of people in the square with great interest. Unable to hold back his curiosity, he asked, ”I have wanted to ask this since yesterday, Harvey... why do you seem completely unaffected? After recovering your memories, don’t you feel like your soul is suffocating?”

The entire working process lasted only an instant. Aside from their bodies feeling slightly exhausted, Iger and the others had experienced almost no other sensations during the shift. They did not even feel as though they had lost their memories.

The faster their memories returned, the better. Furthermore, Annan did not want Pankey to see the painful expression she would make while recovering her memories. Therefore, Iger immediately used his spirit to awaken the work-related memories sealed away by the contract.

This was already the second time he had recovered his work-related memories, yet Iger was still crushed by the suffocating feeling that came rushing back with them.

It was cramped, confined, and oppressive.

There was a reason why those work-related memories had been blocked off in the first place.

When Iger restored them, he felt as though his soul had been locked inside a flesh-and-blood prison. The cage was so cramped that his consciousness had no room to move, lacking even the space to draw a deep breath. All he could do was remain trapped inside this constricted shell while the Gospel’s high-frequency commands, directives so rapid they blurred into pure noise, battered his ears. He could only watch helplessly as his own body, driven like a machine by the Gospel, continued to work.

It was efficient, relentless, and seemingly endless.

Their workplace had been the beautiful surface of Nabistin, yet Iger still felt so suffocated that he could barely breathe. The fact that he could use vomiting to divert the mental pressure physically was a testament to his high level of mastery in the Mind Class. Annan, sitting beside him, suffered even worse. She had bitten her index finger until it bled, using the sharp physical pain to forcibly anchor her attention away from the overwhelming psychological dread.

Compared to the two of them, Harvey looked entirely at ease. He had casually lit a Catnip cigarette, and Iger got the distinct impression that the necromancer did not even need it to relieve the suffocation. He simply had nothing else to do with his mouth and wanted something to smoke.

Harvey exhaled a neat ring of smoke. ”Hmm? What suffocation?”

Iger wheezed. ”Did you not restore your work-related memories?”

”I did.”

”And you don’t feel anything unusual? No suffocation, oppression, or despair?”

Harvey glanced at the two of them thoughtfully. ”No. I was wondering why you looked so pained. I thought you were just deeply appreciating the artistic qualities of Ark Square, like I was.”

Iger no longer had the energy to complain about his twisted perspective. ”How are you immune to the fallout of recovering those memories? Don’t you feel that the version of yourself inside those shifts is... utterly inhuman?”

Harvey finally understood what he was getting at. ”Oh. You mean that feeling of being unable to control yourself? Like a puppet, as if your entire body is crawling with maggots?”

”Urgh!”

The necromancer’s description was too vivid. The fraudster could not stop himself from dry-heaving again. He looked up at Harvey weakly. ”Yes... exactly. How did you deal with that feeling?”

”I didn’t deal with it. I’m just used to it.”

”Used to it?”

Harvey nodded. ”Yeah. Do you remember when I fused with Alice during the battle at the Belldet Estate? When my soul merged with hers, the sensation I experienced through her was exactly what I felt from my work-related memories. Or rather, undead corpses exist in that state constantly. I only enter them and experience it firsthand on occasion.”

He took another drag of his cigarette. ”Compared to what dwells inside a true undead body, the negative effects from these memories are nothing more than flies swarming around rotting flesh. It hasn’t even reached the level of white maggots writhing through your veins.”

Iger swallowed hard, trying to steady his stomach. ”What about the Gospel’s noise? Don’t you feel disgusted or irritated by the constant feed?”

Harvey shrugged. ”That’s still a living person’s way of thinking. Only the living try to parse whether there is useful information hidden within noise. That is why you feel annoyed and disgusted. The undead do not possess such advanced information-processing abilities. To a corpse, noise and silence are identical. As long as you think of yourself as an undead, you will eventually become accustomed to both the labor memories and the Gospel.”

How am I supposed to think of myself as an undead when I am a perfectly living human being?! Do you think everyone is as abnormal as you, someone who genuinely enjoys sleeping in a coffin with corpses?!

Iger and Annan both turned away in sheer disappointment, left with no choice but to silently endure the grueling aftereffects of their restored memories.

After resting for a long while, they finally stood up, preparing to leave. When they turned around, however, they saw Harvey staring at Ark Square in absolute silence, his expression blank as he sank into a profound abstraction.

Iger called out, ”We’re heading back, Harvey. Or do you want to stay here and look around a little longer?”

”Undead... Gospel... Heh... so that’s how it is,” Harvey muttered softly to himself. He snapped out of his trance, a sharp smile breaking across his face. ”No. I understand everything now. Let’s go back.”