"Oh, sweetheart, you don’t need to worry about that task anymore, I’ll handle it myself."


    Eve lazily embraced Tao Yu from behind, her body only wrapped in a bathrobe.


    "Why? Is it dangerous?"


    Tao Yu planned to get his hands on the Magic Potion first before anything else.


    "There is some risk involved. Mr. A is a divine envoy of the Aurora Society, unpredictable in temperament. My last supervisor was killed by him and then enslaved."


    Eve spoke with evident wariness.


    Tao Yu’s mind stirred immediately, thinking of Zilinges’s ’Writhing Hunger’ in ’The Hurricane Admiral’!@@@@


    It seemed to also involve enslaving souls.


    Mr. A knows how to do this too?


    Path of the Prayer Secret People?


    "The assassin and I are quite a match, so I have no regrets," he mused.


    Tao Yu thought for a moment, then asked,


    "You still attend his gatherings after he’s killed an important member of your group?"


    "Murder is murder, gatherings are gatherings. There’s no conflict. We both can’t expose ourselves under the Church of the True God, and the Aurora Society likes to make a show of things, so we can put a lot of that on them."


    Eve rested her smooth chin on Tao Yu’s shoulder, her slightly husky, languid voice tickling his ear.


    Upon hearing this, Tao Yu understood that this so-called ’Aurora Society’ was a brainless brute organization, suitable for taking the blame.


    So, it seemed that Eve’s organization behind her was planning something big?


    And they needed to use the Aurora Society to get close? But getting close was also dangerous?


    He wondered if directly instigating the Aurora Society against Eve’s organization could help him digest the Magic Potion completely...


    As Tao Yu pondered, he said,


    "If I don’t complete the task, can I purchase the sequence seven Magic Potion with Gold Coins?"


    At Tao Yu’s words, Eve paused,


    "You still have Gold Coins? Even with an internal price for you, the recipe alone is eight hundred Gold Pounds, and you’ll need to buy the main ingredients yourself, which usually cost at least five hundred Gold Pounds per portion. Adding everything together for two portions, you’re looking at nearly two thousand."


    Tao Yu mentioned having savings, which made sense; the total for sequence eight recipe and ingredients usually came to around one thousand Gold Pounds. If he was indeed an assassin as he claimed, it was understandable that he could have saved up that amount.


    But a regular person saving up three thousand Gold Pounds from purely being an assassin seemed a bit unbelievable.


    "I’m not just an assassin, I do have some savings. Two thousand Gold Pounds is acceptable to me. Can you sell it to me?"


    Tao Yu spoke vaguely, already considering that he might need to find some revenue streams. Right now, his transactions were only with shady organizations whose activities couldn’t withstand scrutiny. In the future, if he needed to make large transactions with legitimate institutions, having an unclear source of substantial wealth might attract unwanted attention.


    For now, Tao Yu was quite satisfied with his situation. Whether it was Mr. Fool’s Tarot Club or his current beautiful connection, both operated in the shadows and wouldn’t care where his Gold Pounds came from.


    However, hearing Tao Yu’s proposal, Eve seemed hesitant, tracing circles on his chest with her finger while sighing,


    "You haven’t finished digesting the Instigator Magic Potion. Don’t be in such a rush. Also, being of a higher sequence isn’t necessarily a good thing. Sometimes, staying at a lower sequence... isn’t too bad..."


    Tao Yu could sense her ambivalence but didn’t mind it much.


    Perhaps for organizations like hers, the preference was to use Magic Potions to bind members to undertake tasks, and his way of simply spending money might be uncommon.


    "He mentioned finding a person similar to our target at an inn, but he said he’d only tell us if we give him something good in return, and he would arrange for his men to take us there," Hugh explained straightforwardly.


    Meanwhile, Fors, sounding listless, said,


    "Oh my, I haven’t even had lunch."


    Tao Yu looked at the sky, which was indeed nearing evening. This guy, it’s a wonder how he has survived until now.


    "After this is all over, I’ll treat you to a grand Intis meal."


    Hugh, most invested in the matter, patted her chest and said, giving Tao Yu a slightly odd look.


    Stop patting, really...


    "Speaking of an Intis meal, I know a place that’s very authentic, though it’s a dance hall with not-so-great surroundings, but the flavor is still quite good."


    Tao Yu added, referring to the ’Gentle Breeze’ dance hall which indeed had its own flavor out of the few places he had tried.


    Tao Yu, not short of Gold Pounds, wasn’t about to treat himself poorly.


    "Oh, then I must thank the Divine Spirit for his blessings."


    Fors made a sign as she was a casual believer in the God of Steam and Machinery.


    And so, in the carriage they had rented, they came to the most chaotic East Borough of Becland and then to Dackholm’s residence.


    It was a row house that looked somewhat disorderly from the outside, a fact that reflected the overall state of the East Borough when even a gang leader lived in such a place.


    But no matter how bad the environment, as long as it was cheap enough, there was no shortage of people willing to live there.


    Bedbugs, fleas, and the like were a common occurrence...


    Tao Yu followed Hugh and Fors to the front of a door, nonchalantly, but soon his expression stiffened, and he frowned,


    "He lives here?"


    Hugh, about to knock, did so while responding,


    "Yes..."


    But before she could finish, the unlocked door swung open by itself.


    Tao Yu grabbed her by the collar and pulled her back,


    "Be careful, there’s a smell of blood inside."


    Tao Yu looked deeply into the black doorway.


    Even though his Spirit Perception was being suppressed, it was alerting him to danger!


    It was a danger that could be fatal!


    "The suppression by world rules is kind of annoying."


    Tao Yu sighed inwardly and then looked over at a building across the street some dozens of meters away, where someone was silently observing this scene from behind a window.


    The face was identical to the one on the previous sketches!


    ’Hurricane Lieutenant’ Zilinges!


    Tao Yu’s attention was immediately drawn to the glove on the man’s left hand, which had a surface that seemed to be covered in metallic scales, making it impossible for Tao Yu to ignore.


    The sense of crisis that this glove brought was even stronger than Zilinges himself!


    Writhing Hunger...