When the plot-skips players into the game world-Chapter 1282 - 10: Is This Your Excuse for Trespassing Here_2

"...Sounds a bit radical."

Aiwass commented, "I don’t quite like this trend."

Arsene smiled helplessly, "Who would like it? But there’s no choice, I don’t know when it started, it just can’t be stopped. It’s like a train already set in motion, and there’s no way you can stand in front of it. All you can do is either step aside and watch it leave you, or take the risk of jumping on the train; if you fail, you’ll be smashed to pieces, but if you succeed, you’ll face even greater risks and opportunities—at least you have a chance to escape your current predicament.

"—This is our Iris Flower. Neither a place of evil nor good, a land of chaos and order."

This admired phantom thief now spoke words of sorrow and dejection.

He looked at the streetlights and said, "You know, these streetlights actually only exist in big cities. In the countryside, they would use cheap butter lamps. It’s a kind of simple alchemical candle made with cow fat, very low in price—but the key thing is, precisely because it’s so cheap, you can’t be sure it’s really cow fat.

"That acrid smell, greasy smoke, always lingers in the city. The surrounding walls are stained with grease, the ground flows with excrement and urine—ironically, quite a few Avalonians think that the Iris Flower flows with milk and honey.

"But even these cheap cow fat candles are necessities. Because Irispeople are fond of harming others, the influence of the Church here is not that big. People even write scandals about His Holiness the Pope, daring to portray him as a theatrical character without authorization... And as a matter of course, many cities actually don’t have bishops.

"—And the number of ’disappeared persons’ in the Iris Flower is the highest in the Herasel Countries, with no competition. It’s disjointedly higher than in Star Antimony... You must know what that means, right?"

"It means," Aiwass spoke after a moment of silence, "the poorer the place, the more likely it is to be haunted."

"Exactly."

Arthur snapped his fingers, "People believe that light can ward off the undead. So even in the poorest places, they light streetlights at night to dispel ghosts."

"That’s useless."

Aiwass shook his head, "The part that’s actually useful is the ’bishop’—they light up the lamps, in fact, to create an invisible barrier with the light, or use the purifying light to disperse the undead. But the light itself does not have the power to dispel the undead."

"They probably know this too."

The phantom thief said sarcastically, "But rather than ’letting the Church deeper into their lives’, people would rather delude themselves. After all, not many people die from undead attacks, leaving things be doesn’t cause much trouble—at least the number killed by undead is far less than the number the Iris people kill each other every year.

"Why are there so many people on the streets and in bars at noon? Very simple, because people are too afraid to stay outside overnight. Even in big cities, priests can’t banish all the undead... Purifying the undead requires mana, and most of the clergy, who have very little to start with, use their mana to heal others.

"When night falls, the mist comes. At that time, unless necessary, people don’t go out often.

"—Here, the night belongs to the transcendent. It’s a natural division. Only those who can ignore weak undead have the right to enjoy the moonlight—and indulge in affairs."

Saying this, the phantom thief’s expression turned somewhat subtle.

It seemed to carry a certain painful unease, yet as if mocking something.

"So," Aiwass asked, "you steal at night?"

"Because it’s relatively less likely to affect the innocent."

Arsene’s words were both compassionate and ruthless: "We consider it a ’contract.’ An unwritten rule, unspoken. Like how, during gang fights, no one drags the officers out of the police station... In the ’competency’ sessions at night, if someone dies, it’s what should happen."

"—Because when you choose to haunt such dangerous places, you are already mentally prepared to be killed."

"I understand."

Aiwass nodded slightly.

Simply put, the night in the Iris Flower is a "non-protected zone." Only here, can the transcendent "go on a red killing spree." Different from the situation in Avalon.

In the past Avalon, let alone people being murdered at night... Even just a warehouse explosion with no casualties or property loss, even the mere suspicion of extraordinary powers being involved would prompt five or six inspectors to convene and discuss repeatedly.

Cases like Aiwass’s parents being curse-killed would be considered ’illegal path crimes,’ ’using illegal transcendent skills,’ ’murder,’ ’cursing others,’ ’harboring dangerous creatures,’ etc., which starts fundamentally at a death penalty in Avalon. frёewebηovel.cѳm

But in the Iris Flower, if such a thing happened at night, it might not even make it to the newspapers. People would just ignore the body indifferently. Unless they were indeed in the way, taking up space, they might call the sanitation department to dispose of the unclaimed bodies.

Even if it made it to the papers, it would only appear in news like ’Eleven bodies appeared in a certain district last night’, becoming just part of a cold, dead statistic.

...It’s almost like a small Gotham.

Aiwass sighed.

As they chatted, they already arrived at their destination.

This chapter is updat𝙚d by f(r)eew𝒆bn(o)vel.com