A laboratory?
This was not the first time Amelia had heard this word.
During his days of scavenging for relief food, he would occasionally hear those companions use this term to make jokes.
In their mouths, a laboratory was an extremely terrifying place. Once someone entered, they would either die or be disabled, and even if they managed to return intact, most would end up as cripples.
It looked extremely similar to the wizard towers of the wizards in his hometown.
Every single wizard was a madman obsessed with studying magic, and apart from preying on ordinary magical creatures, they also dared to prey on the demon race.
When Amelia was young and ignorant, he was almost caught by a wizard and locked in a wizard tower, and although he successfully escaped in the end, it left behind quite a bit of trauma.
“Have you ever entered a laboratory?”
Amelia suppressed the fear brought on by the memory and looked at A-Mian.
“N-, no.” Afraid that Amelia would not believe him, A-Mian hurriedly added, “The fact that we are going to enter the laboratory is true. Last time, last time those adults said so.”
Seeing Amelia remain silent, he felt somewhat uneasy and poured out all the situation he had previously overheard in one breath: “I was supposed to leave last time, but the adults said there were too many people, so in the end, a few others and I stayed right here, all the way until now.”
Left behind because there were too many people?
Amelia was thoughtful, asking A-Mian where the people who stayed behind with him were, and A-Mian pointed toward their locations. Amelia grabbed them one by one, ignoring their resistance, interrogated them one by one in the corners, and finally believed that what A-Mian said was true.
At the same time, he also confirmed from these children that the laboratory was indeed a place similar to a wizard tower.
Clearly a place conducting sex work, why on earth did it have to be tied to a laboratory… Amelia felt somewhat depressed.
Given this, this place definitely could not be stayed in any longer.
However, leaving directly without doing anything after being caught was not the style of the demon race.
Demons were accustomed to seizing an opponent’s weakness. At present, the weaknesses available to be seized… He glanced at the young children behind him, recalling the tattooed man’s words at the entrance.
Minors prohibited from entry whether for protection or restriction, if this group of children escaped, he might be able to see quite a comical expression on “mother’s” face.
He stood up, his fingertips tapping lightly against the iron bars, making a thudding sound.
After attracting the attention of most of the children, he smiled and spoke up,
“Do you want to leave this place and regain your freedom?”
The white-haired succubus spoke bewitching words to humans in the darkness: “I can help you, at the cost of just a little… small price.”
“Children are missing?”
In the fourth-floor VIP reception room, the owner of this flashy succubus shop and “mother” Hua Mei, looked in surprise at one of the district chief’s right-hand men who had just arrived, “Mr. Xu Kan, are you serious? Under the district chief’s orders, someone would actually still dare to make a move against those children. This really is…”
Xu Kan pinched a cup of wine, sniffed it, but did not drink it.
He tossed the wine aside, spread both hands, rested them on the sofa, and smiled rather than smiled: “Yeah, I don’t know if it’s human trafficking or murder. I also want to know who has such bold courage to dare violate this ironclad rule. So isn’t that why I came here to you, the well-informed ‘Mother Hua,’ to inquire about it?”
“But I…”
Just as Hua Mei was about to decline, Xu Kan interrupted him: “Mother Hua receives so many guests every day, if someone really disappeared in the red-light district, could it be that you truly know nothing at all?”
Xu Kan’s gaze was pressuring and compelling.
Hua Mei avoided making eye contact with him and hesitated, saying: “If you’re talking about news, I’ve only heard some groundless little matters, I don’t know…”
“Mother, please speak. As for whether it’s useful or not, distinguishing these is naturally my responsibility.” Xu Kan smiled heartily.
“Then…” As if sighing in relief, Hua Mei picked up his teacup, wearing an expression of utter sincerity, “Then I must respectfully obey.”
Seeming to feel at ease, he rubbed the raised patterns on the teacup.
At the same time, the red light flashed on the wrist of a guard at the entrance. He lowered his head to turn it off, switched shifts with another person as if nothing was happening, and until he walked out of the visual range of the others, his footsteps turned, heading straight downstairs from a concealed passageway.
“Someone is coming.”
Amelia was instructing a few children willing to cooperate on some details when he suddenly heard approaching footsteps.
“Quiet.”
The children immediately did not dare to speak again, shrinking back into the corners.
Amelia counted the footsteps in his heart, weighed his magic power, and the moment the newcomer opened the door to the secret room, he hypnotized him.
The newcomer instantly froze in place like a puppet.
Before he gave an order, the hypnotized person would maintain this state.
Amelia casually pulled open the iron bars, walked out from the cell, and glanced at who this person was.
It was indeed an acquaintance, one of the people who had followed behind “mother” earlier and also one of those who had locked him up.
He seemed to possess a bit of combat capability, though probably not strong. Without defense, falling so easily into hypnosis meant he was mostly not an exceptionally formidable person.
Thinking this, Amelia pulled the secret room door open a bit wider.
In his perception, this door could not be opened purely by brute force after being closed, and he did not want to waste too much magic power, originally planning to wait for the next time the door opened to act according to circumstances. He simply had not expected the opportunity to appear so quickly.
Though it was much earlier than anticipated, if it was just one or two people, he could still handle it.
“Why aren’t you leaving yet?”
Amelia reached the doorway only to discover that not a single person had followed him over. He reined in his patience, turned back to urge them: “This person won’t attack you right now. Just like I said before, he will listen to our instructions.”
“Oh… oh!”
The children who had been locked in the cell for days finally snapped out of the shock of seeing someone pull apart two-finger-thick iron bars as if kneading dough, walking out of the cell one after another. Even the children who had previously not agreed to the plan shrank their necks and eagerly followed behind.
“Big brother, you, you are so amazing.”
A-Mian sidled up to Amelia, his adoration almost overflowing from his shining eyes, “You, are you the district chief’s subordinate?”
The other children also carried a faint sense of expectation, gazing at him all at once.
“No, just an ordinary demon not good at fighting.”
Amelia put it concisely, completely disregarding whether he had shattered the children’s illusions, and pointed at the person standing at the entrance: “This, well, is puppet number one, puppet one for short. Now we will proceed according to the original plan…”
Before he finished speaking, he suddenly stepped back.
“Boom—”
A massive tremor came from above, the ceiling along with the chandelier swaying, rubble mixed with dust tumbling down, and various ornaments crashing to the ground, clattering and rumbling heavily. Screams and panicked running spread from downstairs, blending into a noisy movement chapter.
“Wh-, what’s wrong?”
The other children were terrified and hid back into the still relatively sturdy secret room. Only A-Mian followed tremblingly behind Amelia, covering his head, closing his eyes, and shaking his legs.
“They’re fighting.” Amelia stated concisely.
There were the movements of two people upstairs, one of whose voice seemed to be “mother,” while the other he did not recognize.
There were sounds of firearms and explosions, and he had no idea how they started fighting, faintly hearing the keywords “children” and “missing.”
Perhaps they came for this group of children, or perhaps he had overthought it.
But an enemy’s enemy was a friend, and vitality was born amidst chaos.
Amelia prepared to let puppet one clear the path and lead them out.
However, footsteps at the door appeared even faster. In the next second, a group of people wearing clothing similar to puppet one barged in.
The surrounding noise was too loud, and Amelia failed to discern the movement.
Now it was finished… He could practically imagine what would happen.
“Catch them!”
Sure enough, the leader shouted, and everyone rushed over aggressively, like hungry tigers pouncing on their prey.
Amelia was quick-eyed and nimble, dodging two people attacking simultaneously, grabbed A-Mian with one hand, and whispered in his ear: “According to the contract, run away.”
With that, he shoved the bewildered boy aside and charged straight toward the window.
Puppet one acted as if completely normal, walked over to A-Mian, dragged him out of the room, and no one obstructed them.
These people split up, some entering the secret room to handcuff and shackle the children, while the majority surrounded and pursued Amelia, seemingly determined not to miss a single one.
Amelia felt things weren’t looking good.
Before he even touched the window, he collided with an invisible barrier, as if an air wall stood before him, completely impassable.
Probably a so-called special ability?
He smashed against it forcefully twice, but it didn’t break… Fine, whatever.
For a succubus, facing combat personnel was inherently uneven.
Amelia sighed inwardly, shoved his hands into his pockets, turned around, and looked at the glaring ability users, speaking calmly and candidly.
“Let me go.”
The white-haired youth stood with his back to the light, his ruby-like eyes exceptionally bright, filled with the meager remaining magic power.
The silent surrounding participants paused for a split second, and actually stepped aside together to clear a path.
Amelia slowly walked toward the door, then suddenly turned back to look toward the secret room,
“Right, release them. Once you wake up, you will forget all of this, and my existence.”
No one answered.
Nor did anyone need to answer.
If someone answered, it would mean the hypnosis infused with most of his magic power had failed.
Mmh… it failed.
The escape plan failed.
Amelia squatted inside the wardrobe, quietly waiting for the searching people outside to leave.
He had anticipated that apart from the people who barged into the secret room, there might be others scattered throughout this building, which was why he had specifically chosen to walk through concealed corners and alleys.
However, who could have expected that this group of people, clearly “mother’s” subordinates, would also act so stealthily, bypassing the main roads and taking only side paths.
He had run straight into them by coincidence, causing him to turn tail and run.
The faction fighting with “mother” earlier had also joined the search, claiming they wanted to rescue the children.
Amelia did not think this faction was necessarily beneficial to him. Although they took in the escaping children, he did not want to be captured nor did he want to live under human control.
That group of clueless human children wouldn’t dare ask too much about what he had done, but others wouldn’t necessarily be the same.
Exposing minor magic didn’t matter, but things like hypnosis weren’t meant for humans to know.
Between one thing and another, there were quite a few people he needed to avoid.
His magic power was bottoming out, he wasn’t familiar with the roads, and before long his whereabouts were discovered, forcing him to find an empty, unoccupied room to hide in.
Amelia deeply felt it was humiliating… where was there ever a succubus who ended up like this?
Was there something in this world restraining succubi? Why couldn’t a single thing go smoothly?
“Bang ” The door swung open violently.
Amelia’s heart tightened, staring at the gap beneath the wardrobe, standing ready.
Who is it?
Did they find him?
Not enough magic power, how to handle this?
The rapid footsteps pacing back and forth and the sound of rummaging through boxes and cabinets proved that whoever came in most likely hadn’t found him or come specifically to catch him.
It might be the owner of the room or someone skimming items on the side.
But he couldn’t let his guard down, because whether it was the room’s owner or an opportunistic thief, they certainly wouldn’t ignore this wardrobe.
Just as he thought, soon the footsteps approached and then stopped.
The wooden panel slowly lifted, light seeping through from the middle.
The very first moment his vision became clear, Amelia charmed the opponent.
The three major innate abilities of a succubus: charm, hypnosis, illusion.
What he excelled at most was charm, which could be used almost under zero-magic conditions.
However, unlike hypnosis, which directly forced the targeted subject to obey, charm was a magic that unilaterally increased favorability.
Depending on the target, it could also manifest in different forms. In the past, there had been extreme cases where Amelia hoped the other party would help, but the other party intended to kill him instead.
Using charm under such circumstances was truly a last resort when he didn’t have much magic power left.
“It’s you…”
As soon as the person struck by charm spoke, Amelia realized that this female who had changed into light clothes and wore no makeup was Freesia.
The emotions on her body fluctuated slightly, though without particularly large changes… He pondered and made his request, “I want to leave here, can you help me?”
Freesia knitted her brows, yanked him out, and tossed a cloak over: “Put it on, time is short.”
Though her tone was cold, there probably wasn’t any problem anymore.
Amelia felt relieved.
The benefit of charm was that all actions appeared entirely natural and reasonable to the person involved.
They would want to help him from the bottom of their hearts.
He put on the cloak and followed Freesia into a secret passage inside her room, directly bypassing everyone else.
The small secret passage grew wider the further they walked, seemingly connecting to the underground tunnels that originally existed in the city. There was a damp, rotting smell, dim lights on both sides, and the sound of flowing water could faintly be heard in the distance.
“Where does this lead?”
Amelia did not wish to go to a desolate place. No people meant no food, and he didn’t want to starve to death.
Freesia walked steadily ahead, turning corners without hesitation, seeming very familiar with the place: “The C District garbage dump.”
Garbage dumps always had scavengers wandering about, so the number of people wasn’t small.
Yet his current situation wasn’t exactly great.
Amelia calculated the gains and losses… he hadn’t found any edible emotions, his magic power had bottomed out, and he had only signed contracts with those children… Right, the contract!
He extended his left hand, drew out a thin thread from his five fingers, and inspected it closely.
A shallow feeling of reassurance was transmitted over, converting into imperceptible magic power.
If they were face-to-face, the emotions obtainable definitely wouldn’t be limited to just this bit. Unfortunately, succubi were generally unsuited for contracts, and he was no exception, only able to obtain those children’s positive emotions within three days.
To this extent, supporting him so he wouldn’t starve to death was the most it could do; recovering his original magic power was out of the question.
This trip was truly a huge loss.
“You came to this kind of place voluntarily, didn’t you?” Freesia suddenly spoke up, startling him.
Amelia: “Eh?”
She turned back, her gaze revealing a hint of probing: “I told you, this place is not somewhere you should come.”
Was it because the favorability increased, treating him as a close person, that she was reprimanding him?
Amelia attempted to explain: “I just wanted to find happy people.” But the ingredients were quite barren.
“Happy? What kind of happiness have you seen?” Her tone was flat: “This place is merely a fake hell, the emotions are fake, the exterior is fake, and the self is fake as well. The only thing that is real is pain.”
Amelia nodded: “Mm, I know.”
“What?” Freesia froze, as if she didn’t understand his meaning: “You know?”
“I knew it after seeing it for myself.” Amelia’s gaze was calm.
In his field of vision, the female reflected back was wrapped in deep, chaotic colors. It had been like this since their very first meeting.
“You are in pain.” He stated the meaning it represented: “You are in pain to the point of wanting to destroy everything.”
Freesia remained silent, taking quite a while before speaking: “If you knew, why did you still come with me. Among everything I want to destroy, do you think you aren’t included?”
Amelia naturally knew he wouldn’t be, his charm ability couldn’t possibly go wrong.
“You won’t, you like me.” He stated confidently: “You will take me away from here.”
Freesia didn’t speak, staring straight at him.
In the spacious tunnel, the two stood facing each other, silent and wordless.
Until water droplets dripped, shattering the silence across the ground.
Freesia’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, she slowly lowered her gaze, and turned around: “Let’s go.”
Amelia followed behind her once more, the two walking silently for a distance before seeing the source of the sound of water an underground dark river.
The babbling flowing water was much quieter than above ground, and slightly turbid.
“I’ve seen this kind of river before.” Freesia seemed to have regained the desire to converse: “When I came to the red-light district, I also saw a river like this.”
“Did you come here voluntarily?” Amelia casually tossed the question back.
“Yes.”
“Eh?” He was genuinely a bit surprised: “Why?”
“I needed a better life, nothing more.” She didn’t look back.
“You don’t need it now?”
“I simply made a choice.” She stood still, suddenly bending down to touch the river, seemingly groping for something in the water.
“What choice?” Amelia edged closer slowly, watching what she was doing.
Murderous intent surged abruptly from behind.
Amelia instinctively dodged to the side, and the moment his footing became unstable, a hand rested gently on his back, giving a light push.
He looked back in astonishment, and his last glance caught only Freesia’s cold and indifferent eyes.
“You guessed wrong about one thing, I don’t like you, I hate you.”
Charm… was lifted.
“Plop,” he sank into the water.