Mage Manual

Chapter 142: Chapter 130 Why So Serious

Kaimon City, Crime Hunting Hall, Deputy Commander Emi walked through the brightly lit, ornate corridor and burst through the large doors.

“Hall Chief, give me the inspection order. I’m going to take control of the broadcast station right now!”

Behind the long table carved from ebony wood, stood two floor-to-ceiling transparent glass windows, allowing the glory of the Blood Moon to spill without any hindrance onto the curly-haired woman seated in the red leather soft chair. Her uniform looked sloppy with several buttons undone. What should have been beautiful silver hair was a mess, resembling a bird’s nest, and her delicate features were ruined by heavy bags and clown-like dark circles under her eyes.

Upon hearing the door open, she turned off the Light Screen, “Is it time to clock out yet?”

“What time to clock out? The prison escapees haven’t even been caught yet!” Emi slapped the table as she approached, “I notified the broadcast station to interrupt the live broadcast of the adjudication, but they refused. Hall Chief, hurry up and sign the inspection order for me. I will lead the team and wipe them out!”

“That kind of talk is fine here, but don’t tarnish the reputation of the Crime Hunting Hall outside,” the Hall Chief spoke indifferently, “One Gerard who sends a hundred complaint letters every month is enough for me to deal with.”

“Hall Chief, the inspection order!”

“Inspection of the broadcast station requires cooperation from the Government Affairs Hall. Have you contacted Deputy Mayor Gurro?”

At the mention of this, Emi grew even angrier, “I initiated a call to the Government Affairs Hall, but only the Mayor’s secretary answered. He said that the Deputy Mayor is in an emergency meeting with other departments and can’t respond for the time being!”

“That’s quite normal. With something like a prison break happening, it is necessary to mobilize different departments to make preparations—”

“He’s doing it on purpose! He just wants to delay until Fernand is dead in the adjudication. Then, as Deputy Mayor, he can take one step further and drop that ‘Deputy’ title!”

“Don’t think so badly of people. Under the glory of the Blood Moon, the bad guys are all in prison,” the Hall Chief said solemnly, “The Crime Hunting Hall is constrained by the Government Affairs Hall. Without orders from them, we cannot just inspect a broadcast station of the same level.”

“So we just stand by and watch the adjudication continue!?”

“Why not?”

The Hall Chief scratched her head, “It’s not just the Government Affairs Hall, the Institute, and the Church didn’t say anything either. They’re not in a hurry, so why are you?”

“But—”

“Don’t forget, the ones who truly preside over the adjudication are not inside the prison, but in the City, outside, here,” the Hall Chief spread her hands, “Why so serious?”

With the Hall Chief bringing out such ‘correct speech’, Emi was at a loss for words, and her large wolf tail drooped. Pouting, she discontentedly thumped the table, “Tch, why would the Priests be so indifferent about this…”

“You know how strong you are at night. My table can’t withstand your hits,” complained the Hall Chief, “As for why, because it’s not a big deal.”

“This isn’t considered a big deal?”

“Emi, how old are you?”

“I’m in my twenties.”

“Oh, so you’re just over forty, no wonder you’re making such a fuss.”

“So what if I’m young?”

“When you’re older, you will understand that those things you think are serious, when viewed on the scale of a hundred or a thousand years, are just trivial interludes,” the Hall Chief raised her dark circles, “By comparison, adhering to the Laws is what’s more important.”

“Born under the Moon Shadow, the Blood Saints abide until death. This is our Law. Besides that, we cannot interfere in anything else, let the mundane world manage itself.”

The head of the department made too much sense, and all Emi could do was clench her fists in frustration, her bushy tail standing on end, “…Yes!”

“Go back to work, and remember to close the door. And could you possibly tuck in your tail? It’s a pain to clean up the hairs from the carpet.”

Emi shook her head repeatedly, “No way, having a part of the Moon Shadow traits permanently fixed is a symbol of my strength! Besides, everyone loves it!”

The head of the department covered his face and sighed, “The Church and the research institutions really just keep sending troublemakers over… Do they think this is an adult day-care center…”

When Emi closed the door to the office, she suddenly heard laughter inside.

“Ha, this Ash is pretty interesting; I should tell Gerard to spare his life.”

Damn it!

The head was clearly just interested in watching this farce unfold; that’s why he refused to sign the inspection order. She was almost fooled by him!

Emi instinctively wanted to rush in and reason with him, but then she remembered a Blood Saint joke the old Priest had told her.

“When the Blood Saint Clan takes an interest, the only way to stop them is to nail them into a coffin—increased blood flow due to bat blood leads to reduced intelligence.”

So Emi gave up, holding back her anger as she returned to her department and sat down to open the Light Screen—she was going to see what kind of spectacle Ash could create!

…

“Cough, cough!”

On the crimson stone pillars of Shattered Lake, Fernand coughed violently twice, spitting out two mouthfuls of foul-smelling black blood. His belly felt sour and itchy, and it was uncomfortable having his clothes sticky and clinging to his body, coupled with the dizziness from just waking up, he thought he had returned to his teenage years.

Born in the ‘Knucklebone’ orphanage, he had to squeeze out time to study between fights. It was an orphanage in the lower city area of Kaimon City, and most of the children cared for were Beastmen and ogres—the narrow-faced head of the orphanage didn’t favor these two blue-green species; it was simply because these two species had high subsidies for their care.

Places like the ‘Jade Garden’ high-end orphanage wouldn’t receive funds from the Government Affairs Hall, and the orphanage even had to spend a lot of money to select babies from hospitals.

This was because any adult coming out of an orphanage had to deduct 10% of their earnings for the first fifteen years of work as a ‘feedback’ to the orphanage. And the Jade Garden orphanage clearly took the most enlightened and grand path: striving to foster outstanding talent, then using the ‘feedback’ from these talents to grow the orphanage, continuing to select high-quality babies, and carrying on with cultivating outstanding talent for society.

It could be said that first-class orphanages like Jade Garden were all following this virtuous cycle, and they were also models for orphanages nationwide. But not all orphanages had these conditions, after all, there were only so many outstanding babies, thus there was another model—scamming subsidies.

The Knucklebone orphanage took the Beastmen and ogre babies that other orphanages didn’t want, but were necessary to care for to ‘maintain species diversity,’ so the Church would allocate a lot of funding as subsidies.

The head of the orphanage pocketed all the subsidies, adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards the babies. After all, Beastmen and ogres were easy to rear; as soon as they were of age, he would kick them out, ignoring their ‘feedback’ from future work.

Among babies, Beastmen and ogres were considered the lowest quality, not only hard to discipline, with low average IQ, disobedient to authority, but also ugly in appearance (compared to standard species), and with sloppy living habits.

Hence, the Knucklebone orphanage was no different from the wild; everyone defecated wherever they pleased, lived carelessly, and when mealtimes came, someone would push a few tubs of food in, then everyone would scramble and fight over it, leading to racial brawls, then lie flat and sleep covered in bruises, and the day would pass by.

The outside world wouldn’t criticize this; the orphanage would beautify it as ‘natural upbringing,’ even receiving praise from all walks of society.

Many scholars believed this was releasing the nature of Beastmen and ogres, a sign of respect for blue and green skins, and a quality education tailored to the individual—then they would turn around and accuse orphanages like Jade Garden of caring too much about academic performance, stifling children’s nature, robbing them of their childhood, and so forth…

Born in a civilized nation, Fernand grew up in this ‘natural’ environment.