Warlock Apprentice

Again, Angor looked at the girl herself and noticed that she wasn’t surprised to see intruders coming at all.

“Sunny, is it? Who locked you up, and when did it happen?” Angor looked her in the eyes.

Sunny sneered but didn’t say anything.

Angor looked at the boy beside him, who was anxious to help Sunny but couldn’t get inside the area of the blood markings.

“You said that Sunny hadn’t left here for several months. Which means…”

“Yeah.” The boy nodded. “She was fine half a year ago.”

“You didn’t see how this occurred?”

“No. Sunny won’t allow me to get close to this place…” The boy lowered his head.

“I see.” Angor turned back to address Sunny. “You’re both kids. Why do you look a lot more murderous? Such strong killing intent, and so close to blood… and you endured for half a year without turning into an undead spirit. How come? Is something perhaps… preventing you from going down that way?”

Same as before, the girl only gave Angor a hateful glare.

“She’s not like this when she’s asleep. Sunny is so kind and gentle…” The boy spoke up anxiously. “But each time she wakes up, she’s like really pissed off.”

“Alda, you fool! Shut up!” Sunny screamed.

Alda the boy flinched and took some steps back.

Tulu, who had been chattering his teeth in the cold but was otherwise quiet till now, suddenly poked Angor’s in the side.

“Mi-Mister Padt… Look-look, why are there so many—”

Tulu was looking at a water tank placed on one side of the room.

In the weak light, they saw the frozen corpse of a child inside the tank.

Still trembling, Tulu moved his Luminous Stone closer and realized that the face of the corpse looked very similar to the timid boy who had been talking to Sunny. The only problem was that the corpse in the tank had many nasty scars on his body, and he had a leg missing.

Next, Tulu looked lower and saw a tag attached to the tank.

“Alda, age: 8. Date of death: Gold Revelation 3389…” Tulu read the tag aloud.

“Gold Revelation” was the current era name used by the Central Empire. From this, they could tell that Alda died 32 years ago. Combining his age, Alda had been existing in this world for about 40 years, which made him “older” than both Tulu and Angor.

“This… is you?” Tulu looked at Alda.

“Yes-yes…” Alda looked a bit hesitant but still admitted.

“What happened to you?” Tulu asked while checking more water tanks in the room. Similarly, each one had a small corpse stored inside.

“Because Director Dison killed them and placed their bodies here as souvenirs,” Angor answered this one in Alda’s place.

He wasn’t surprised to see such a sight because Freud already told him about it, but this didn’t mean he could remain completely calm when looking at so many innocent dead children.

“Director Dison was the one who ran this place, right? Why would he do such a thing?” Tulu was slowly getting enraged as well.

“Because the loser was too big a coward to use his twisted motive against adults,” Angor replied as he remembered what he heard from Freud before.

Freud, or Freud Dison, was born in this orphanage, and “Director Dison” was Freud’s father.

Old Dison used to be an orphan who was tortured by others a lot during his childhood, which ultimately left him with a permanent disability in his left leg. In his most miserable time, a couple took him in and raised him up. After many years, Dison established a successful career and opened up this Welfare Orphanage in order to “provide warm shelter to homeless children”, as he announced to the public.

However, what he truly did to the kids in the orphanage was torture and heartless massacre.

To get back what he lost during his early years, he repeated his suffering onto the helpless orphans. In his case, hardship and misfortune did not give birth to a strong man. On the contrary, they created a mortal demon who sought to pass his wretched karma onto other people.

Thankfully, the vicious deed soon ended as Freud did not inherit the ideal of his father. At least Angor didn’t notice Freud to be anyone like Old Dison during their interactions. And it was not like he cared—Freud was dead, he couldn’t stay behind and collect helpless children anyway.

When faced with peril, someone chose to endure and forget, some chose to revenge, while those too weak to do either would become the criminal, spread their menace upon others, and see innocent people suffer to ease their own pain.

Humanity was unpredictable. It always was.

Even though Angor didn’t tell Tulu the story, Tulu managed to guess a thing or two from what he already saw, and he was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the sad fate of Alda and Sunny.

Again, Sunny simply spat at Tulu’s sympathy.

Tulu moved away from the water tanks and joined Angor. “What should we do now, Mister Padt? Aren’t you looking for something here?”

Angor walked around Sunny’s prison and saw a large workbench behind her. According to Freud, the Dream Whelk was stored inside there.

But since someone else had been here, he was well-prepared to return empty-handed.

Following Freud’s instruction, he triggered something on the workbench and split it into two.

Seeing his movement, Sunny seemed to recall something and scowled furiously.

“Yup. It’s been taken.” Angor sighed in great disappointment. Then he saw Sunny’s strange expression and looked at her again. “You saw who took it, right? Tell me.”

“In your dreams!”

Angor quietly observed Sunny’s hateful attitude as if he could see through her mind.

“Tell me and I’ll get you out of this blood thing.”

Sunny looked away in disdain. It seemed she wasn’t going to cooperate easily.

“After being killed by Dison, you returned as a soul and would get revenge on other humans. That’s why you killed the inspectors. Being so bloodthirsty meant you’ll easily attract negative energy until you become a mindless undead. But you didn’t. I wonder why?” Angor kept speaking without minding Sunny’s reactions. “There’s a reason. An object, or a will, that kept your sanity strong. For this, you do not wish to be fallen.

“Alda mentioned that you’re a sweet little girl when you’re ‘asleep’, but you turn into a merciless killer after waking up. Let me guess, your dream is what kept you clear-minded. You know you can always return to your dream and find peace. Am I right?”

“SHUT UP! I tell you to SHUT YOUR DAMNED—” Sunny shrieked at the top of her voice as she used her soul energy to tackle the blood prison.

“Keep using your soul like that and you’re going to lose it for real.” Angor spared a stream of gentle soul energy to forcefully soothe Sunny’s rage. “The item in the workbench has a particular effect of pulling you into sweet dreams. But someone came and took it from you half a year ago. Ever since then, you have been struggling in this prison. You can’t get out, and you can’t have those dreams again. Any ordinary soul so desperate would have given in to the dark energy around them and end up as an undead already. Yet you haven’t… because something has been keeping you fine. Something that gives you hope.” Angor smiled.

“You know that item isn’t going to come back, so you can’t possibly depend on more nice dreams. There’s something else, or someone. There was a man who made these dreams for you, is it not?”

Sunny remained silent this time, for she just remembered a figure—a young man who constantly had a pair of dark circles around his eyes, who was the only one beside Alda that gave her care and love during her shortened life.

“Still not willing to talk?” Angor continued. “You think I’m with the guy who took your treasure and locked you up?”

No response.

Angor just used a small word trick to find out whether it was the same person who built the blood prison AND retrieved the Dream Whelk. It seemed he just got an answer.

“Will you believe me if I tell you that I’m not on their team?”

Again, no reply.

“Fine. You’re not going to listen to me anyway. How about letting the man always on your mind talk to you instead?”

Sunny was briefly surprised by this before she scoffed in disbelief.

Angor freed Freud from his Church of the Deceased. By now, he was almost sure that Sunny knew Freud.

By some coincidence, Freud appeared right behind Tulu. When Angor, Sunny, and Alda all looked at the extra man in the room, Tulu was still wondering why everybody was giving him strange looks.

Tulu suddenly felt something freezing touching his back before he heard an unemotional voice that chilled him to the bones.

“Move it, mortal. You’re in my way.”