Wang Yue felt a jolt of alarm. Making such a statement in public meant there was no longer any room for compromise.
“This leader’s methods are far too heavy-handed,” she whispered to Lilith.
“Heavy-handed?” Lilith giggled. “If it were me, I’d just issue a decree stating that anyone found prospecting for gold would have their hands chopped off. Then they’d have to use their toes to sift through the dirt.”
“Are you a tyrant? You’ll end up on the guillotine at that rate…”
This time, Wang Yue skipped the usual flick to the forehead. Instead, she gently stroked the girl’s bangs, causing Lilith to narrow her eyes in comfort.
“Besides, it would just lead to illegal mining. Even if the punishment were losing both hands, it wouldn’t stop them.”
Wang Yue sighed inwardly. Having seen the massive gold nuggets back at the workshop, she was certain that if gold mining were banned, these people would lose their minds.
“Why ban gold mining?! we haven’t broken any laws! This is persecution!”
Fukuzawa protested loudly, pacing back and forth in front of the Town Hall. He raised his hands in a rhythmic motion, fanning the crowd’s emotions and inciting a massive roar of dissent.
The shouts and stomps of hundreds of people formed a terrifying wave of pressure that surged toward the young girl.
Olivia’s face paled slightly, and her body swayed. Her instinct told her to retreat, but she bravely threw her chest out, took a deep breath, and screamed at the top of her lungs:
“Listen to me—!”
Her voice was instantly swallowed by the roar of the crowd.
Fukuzawa’s eyes flickered.
While his team members were descending into a frenzy, he remained incredibly calm. He had brought these people here to negotiate, not to storm the Town Hall. Using force would strip them of any moral high ground.
The Night-Watchers were mostly clerical staff and couldn’t stop them, but the Light-Seekers and Candle-Bearers were powerful humans who specialized in slaying monsters. Any one of them could be sent to suppress the crowd with supernatural shocks and stun effects, taking control of the scene in an instant.
He waved his hand, signaling his team to be quiet, prepared to hear the young leader’s reasoning.
Seeing the noise subside, Olivia breathed a sigh of relief. As long as things didn’t turn violent, she could manage. She folded her arms over her chest and spoke with stirring emotion:
“The only purpose of excavating gold is to exploit your fellow citizens! Ask yourselves—does the value you create truly equal your earnings? How can you have the audacity to squander money you simply picked up off the ground? You are nothing but parasites, sucking the blood out of everyone else! Do you feel no shame?!”
The verbal lashing left everyone speechless.
Wang Yue nodded slightly in approval. The girl had grasped the key issue: the Gold Prospectors’ gold was too easy to obtain, and the resulting hyperinflation was pillaging the normal economy of the town.
Furthermore, in the Evernight Realm, the keys to survival weren’t gold, but water, food, and fuel. Having hundreds of able-bodied people refuse to farm created a food shortage that could not be ignored.
However, her tone was too aggressive. It sounded less like a speech and more like a declaration of war.
“Whether it’s exploitation or not, the people of this town have become wealthy! Every tip we give exceeds a waiter’s daily wage. The alcohol and food we consume have allowed the townspeople to make money. Are you not the leader of this town?” Fukuzawa countered.
“It’s true that Oak Town has become rich because of you. But other towns have become poor because of you! If everyone acts with such deceit and mutual harm, humanity will head toward extinction!” Olivia shouted excitedly.
Wang Yue frowned. That was something that shouldn’t be said out loud. By saying that, Olivia was effectively alienating herself from the town.
The rest of the townspeople, including the Explorers, were silent beneficiaries even if they didn’t prospect for gold themselves. The hundreds of men in the prospecting team represented hundreds of families. Taken together, they accounted for more than two-thirds of the population.
Fukuzawa spoke with a sneer:
“My, my, what noble sentiments… Should the people of Oak Town be forced to eat bitter acorn flour forever? Do the towns that grow starfruit, potatoes, and wheat not exploit us as well?”
These words reignited the crowd’s sense of common grievance, and their shouts shook the heavens.
The argument ended in a stalemate, and the prospectors eventually dispersed.
Back at the workshop, several hybrid high-rankers gathered in a small room to discuss their strategy behind closed doors. The other prospectors were busy packing and repairing their tools in preparation for work, their mouths full of curses and filth.
Wang Yue adjusted an old bamboo hat, spinning it once before placing it on her head. She turned to Lilith.
“It’s been a long day. We’re going to have to do some dirty work soon.”
“I don’t mind,” Lilith said proudly. “I used to live in the wild all the time. I’m not afraid of dirt. I can drink raw water, eat raw meat, and lick salt off rocks. Even if I get sick, I recover quickly.”
Well then…
Wang Yue was reminded once again that Lilith possessed a physical body at the peak of human potential.
A crow flew in from the distance, landing on the roof. It nudged a tile aside and tilted its head, eavesdropping on the conversation between the hybrids.
Wang Yue couldn’t understand the language of the Deep Ones, so she relayed the sounds to White Fish, who looked them up in the library’s dictionary to translate.
Now that the hybrids were alone together, they no longer bothered to hide their identities. They removed the gloves they never took off, revealing monstrous hands covered in thick, dark-green veins. Their fingers were short, thick, and curled toward their palms like the tendrils of a climbing vine.
They rubbed their necks, pulling back folds of skin to reveal gill slits, breathing deeply and freely. Their wide mouths flicked out long, slimy tongues.
They lit an Arabic hookah. The magnificent golden glass body of the water pipe was shaped like the twisting torso of a beautiful woman, with long hoses winding like snakes and thick white smoke rising in a dreamlike haze.
Smoke billowed from their mouths only to be sucked back in through their gill slits, making it look as though they had grown hallucinogenic white beards.
They called each other “brother,” inhaling deeply from the hookah as their restless tongues lashed at the air.
Erik exhaled a cloud of smoke from his stiff, thick neck along with a string of curses. “Did you see how stubborn she was? She’s just a spoiled little brat, unilaterally deciding the fate of hundreds of people. By what right?”
“Aside from us, four other towns are within the range of the ban. Our brothers in the Esoteric Order over there won’t be able to collect gold either,” Fukuzawa said.
After a moment of silence, he added, “We have to take her out.”
“Excellent! I want to lick her skull until it’s soft, tear a hole in it, and slide my tongue inside. I’ll stir it slowly and let her enjoy the ultimate ‘Cerebral Ecstasy’!” a tall hybrid said, his tongue flicking with bio-electricity as saliva rich with strange hormones dripped down.
“I want to punch her in the stomach until the indentations of my knuckles stay there, heeheehee…” An exceptionally muscular hybrid flexed the knots of muscle on his arms. “I’ll make the urine run down her stockings!”
“We’ll make everyone participate. Once they’ve taken part, they’ll be our accomplices forever. We’ll get rid of Olivia and bind the group together in one stroke,” Fukuzawa said, blowing a long stream of smoke directly at the floor, his eyes cold.
“Everyone? Including those outside? She won’t last that long, will she?” someone questioned.
“Use your saliva to remodel her entire body. Make her soft so she doesn’t break easily. Turn her bones to rubber so they can be folded over and over without injury. That will do it,” Fukuzawa replied.
“What about the women and children in the group?”
“They’ll be responsible for the dismemberment.”
…
Wang Yue was packing dried rations into a canvas bag. The rations were crunchy blocks made of acorns, somewhat like coconut chunks, though the taste was worlds apart.
She fastened the bag to her tactical belt.
As she listened to the translation provided by White Fish, her expression grew grim. They were planning a “blood pledge”—a collective crime to ensure everyone would keep the secret through mutual complicity.
Wang Yue rubbed her temples. A conflict was coming, and soon.
In terms of combat power, the Deep Ones possessed supernatural control over water. They were like small fry on land, but they were incredibly difficult to deal with in the water.
And then there was Dagon.
On Earth, Dagon was the counterpart to the cat goddess Bastet. The Philistines who lived on the southern coast of Canaan were ancient seafaring people who worshipped the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and most of them were Deep One hybrids.
In the 13th century BC, the Philistines formed a massive group of seafarers, invading the Nile region of Egypt, the Hittite regions along the Mediterranean, Cyprus, and Canaan.
During that period, the Egyptian region was protected by the Elder God Bastet, before she became an avatar of Nyarlathotep, the “Black Pharaoh.”
On Earth, Dagon was the leader of Cthulhu’s servant race. Though perhaps a bit weaker than others, he was a genuine Great Old One.
However, “Dagon” was not just a name; it was a title for the leader of the Deep Ones, held by the eldest among them.
Therefore, not every “Dagon” was necessarily a Great Old One.
