Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?-Chapter 496 - 8 Evening
"So, did the lady of the house commit suicide because she was cursed at too many times, due to public pressure?" Miel speculated.
"Your reasoning is far-fetched," Mia responded. "She could even fire her own husband; her psyche couldn’t possibly be that fragile. Moreover, how would you explain her husband’s cause of death?"
"By the way, what was the name of the company they worked for?"
"Tangjin Lusena Financial Affairs Office," Mia remembered well.
"It’s this one." Miel fished out a newspaper that had fallen to the floor from beneath the bed, and the third page read, "Financial Behemoth Retracts Its Claws, Tangjin Lusena Financial Affairs Office Lays Off Entire Staff."
"It looks like the company they worked for was a subsidiary of some financial giant, which closed down due to recent business adjustments, and all the employees were laid off. It happened... last week."
"So..." Both girls came to a realisation.
According to the newspaper, the layoffs weren’t sudden but had been going on for half a year.
Initially, they started by shutting down departments with higher labor costs, such as the software system maintenance department where the male protagonist, Mike, worked. All technical aspects were outsourced.
Mike was laid off (his wife personally handled the resignation procedures), which suddenly strained their finances. Mike initially continued to look for work but was ultimately unsuccessful in getting re-employed, and three months later, the family couldn’t even pay rent on time.
At this critical juncture, the company’s shutdown caused the female protagonist to lose her job too, completely cutting off the family’s income. Being unable to pay rent meant having to move, and without extra savings to find a cheaper house, coupled with the city’s policy of expelling homeless individuals to the outskirts...
The dire situation this middle-class couple faced was vividly displayed before the eyes of the two young girls.
"So... ah," Mia didn’t know what else to say.
Just like her own past experience, when she found out she had been abandoned by the Thief Guild, the sudden deterioration in future prospects brought about an unexpected sense of loss, instability, and fear, which she still remembers vividly.
Fortunately, on the day she was fired, she was taken in again by Aske’s mercenary group. However, this couple had been enduring this employment pressure and financial deterioration since Mike was laid off last year, being tormented for a whole six months.
The female protagonist’s loss of employment and the resulting complete cessation of family income was just the final straw that broke their psychological defenses.
"Miel..." Mia felt distressed.
"Yes, I know," Miel took her hand.
"It seems you have found the answer?" said the voice of the man in the black robe.
"Yes," Miel explained their reasoning.
"Hmm, the first level isn’t that hard, right?" the man in the black robe laughed softly, "So, what do you feel about passing this level?"
"Is that part of the challenge too?" Miel queried.
"No, not really, so you don’t have to say it," replied the man in the black robe.
"I think they were very pitiful," Miel said after a long silence. "Human resources are finite, and sometimes you encounter crises that can’t be resolved on your own. As you know, I was lucky to meet someone who saved me, but they didn’t, and that’s why they are pitiful."
"Good answer," the man in the black robe also paused briefly before speaking softly, "So, let us move on to the next level."
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Aske woke up again and looked outside.
The time was around 7 PM, and it was already dark, yet the sky above Solomon City was still brightly illuminated. Countless neon lights, colored lights, and holographic lights emitted dazzling images from the facades and tops of buildings.
It seems that the people of this world had no concept of light or sound pollution, even at two or three in the morning, these lights shone as if they didn’t cost electricity, accompanied by the sounds of advertising promotions—these sounds came from advertising airships in the sky above Solomon City, flying over each district every three hours, broadcasting designated advertisements back and forth in audio form.
In some ways, it was akin to brainwashing.
In this highly developed capitalist city, almost all resources are commercially utilized, even the information you see and hear on the streets is meticulously designed for traffic.
If you don’t want to receive this information, what do you do? Buy filtering glasses, noise-cancelling earplugs, and live in upscale houses that block these disturbances.
However, the quality of these advertising images is very high, mostly presented in the form of "short videos" or "micro-stories". The carefully designed plots complete their set-up, development, and climax in just a few seconds, strong enough to capture the attention of any casual passerby and get them hooked.
Otherwise, poor-quality ads would have the opposite effect due to bombardment fatigue, which would be counterproductive.
After watching about ten minutes of advertising movies, Aske felt a bit bored and said,
"Vesta?"
"I’m here," a female voice responded from the room.
"Block it out," Aske said.
"Executing external block." As the female voice finished speaking, the large floor-to-ceiling glass windows also changed color, transforming into a tranquil forest scene under the night sky. The noisy advertisements from outside were completely filtered out.
Aske lay back down in the rocking chair and began planning the team’s future developments.
At present, there are three people in the team who have condensed laws, namely Peggy, Eleanor, and himself.
Among them, Peggy is the strongest. On the night she condensed laws, she directly jumped 5 levels and hit the Magic Tide’s maximum Lv.15. This kind of occurrence is as rare as making a 147 break in snooker or a goalkeeper scoring from a kickoff in soccer—it’s generally described with a certain term: "Show-off."
Next is Aske himself, who ranked second at Lv.12 by utilizing skills like "Conceptual Weapon" and "Ambush." His next skill was naturally also determined.
"Plunder," through attack actions, siphons off the opponent’s basic attributes. Whether stealing a Transcendent’s bloodline ability or law skills, or the explosive power of firearms and cannons, it’s also an essential skill under the War Law.
Although the stolen ability is slightly inferior when compared to its original user, it significantly increases the possibilities in tactics.
After all, for professional players, versatility often trumps strength, because the power of law skills rarely exceeds tactical nuclear bombs.
(If there is, the Church Court still has super-large strategic nuclear bombs)
And there are quite a few skills that can negate a tactical nuclear bomb, such as the Black Hole (which can transport it away before it explodes).
The skill "Plunder" that Aske was about to learn temporarily could not steal the explosive effect of a nuclear bomb because its contained energy is too immense. However, it could steal the detonation capability, turning an armed nuclear bomb into a useless lump of metal, which is also a solution.
The third is Eleanor, whose major is Will Law plus Holy Sword. The combination of law and extraordinary swordsmanship make her the epitome of power-focused players. Although there is a time limit, it’s robust enough; on Earth, she would be the ace MT highly sought after by all professional teams, and in Aske’s hands, she could really be put to diverse uses.
These three are the level leaders in the team, while, inversely, the least advanced are Nora and Mia. The former is because she lacks the auxiliary materials and formula for Life IV, while the latter lacks those for Shadow IV, thus both are stuck at Lv.9.
The materials and formula for Level IV Magic Potions, for the average Transcendent in this world, could normally take more than a decade to find—otherwise, why would there be so few above the Law Level?
However, Aske absolutely cannot tolerate this. Being stuck at law condensation is an inevitable setback since it’s better to have nothing than to make do with something inferior. But being stuck due to lack of magic potion resources, how can that be acceptable?
After turning over the information he still remembered in his mind several times, Aske decided to go find Kapaxilin... no, first, he would ask that old steward named Maximus. Isn’t your Lixini Family touted as super wealthy? Don’t you even have the resources and formula for a mere Level IV Magic Potion? Hand it over for your young lady!
Besides upgrading magic potions, another worthy quest is for the Ripple Sword.
As the most mysterious space-type extraordinary swordsmanship, initially, only Storm, the captain of the Purple Lightning team, had mastered it.
This guy, known as "Big Rain Bro", was extremely quiet, reserved (actually, just introverted). When it came to how he learned the Ripple Swordsmanship, despite everyone teasing and probing him for answers, he would keep mum.
Once, annoyed beyond tolerance, he casually bluffed that he learned it by "playing an escape room game in Solomon City." Although everyone knew he was spouting nonsense, all the major clubs still searched Solomon City in the game three or four times over.
So, if mastering the Holy Sword was a challenge in learning, the problem with Ripple Swordsmanship was that there were no clues at all, leaving Aske at a complete loss where to even start.
Just thinking about it was frustrating—especially since these two girls had absolutely no self-awareness, one shopping and the other engrossed in games, driving Aske absolutely up the wall.
Nora, Mia, you’re both mature Transcendents now, can’t you learn to search for resources on your own?
