Chapter 54 – Byron the Bookkeeper

Chapter 54 – Byron the Bookkeeper
Jenna froze, her fidgeting hand hastily retracting back to her chest.

The names of two people circled her mind.

“It’s Kori, she said, she told me to meet you at three.” She blurted out one of them.

“Who mentioned me before Kori?”

“Duh, Duke said it too.” Jenna’s voice trailed off.

Duke?

Saul raised his eyebrows, he hadn’t expected Duke to get involved.

As for the extent of his involvement, it would depend on the subsequent development.

“Didn’t you say that a second level apprentice reminded you?” Saul impatiently prodded.

This time Jenna was truly hesitant.

Senior Sid had helped her, but also cautioned her to never mention him to outsiders, or else she would cause him a lot of trouble.

Jenna was very grateful to Mr. Sid, who had saved her life, and she didn’t want to cause any trouble.

“Begging for someone to save your life and playing mysterious?” Sol sneered and decided to hang Jenna out to dry again.

He took a step back, mostly closing the door.

“Wait, I’ll talk!” Jenna saw this and immediately became anxious, she changed her sitting to crawling and moved two steps forward, “It’s ……”

“Snap!”

A crisp ringing sound like a giant stick hitting a watermelon rang out.

Jenna’s head exploded in front of Sol.

Something splashed over.

Saul couldn’t react in time, so he could only raise his arm with his eyes closed and tilt his body back.

A moment later, Saul lowered his left arm, his sleeve speckled with blood.

He looked at the red-skirted girl who had fallen to the ground, and in his heart, he actually didn’t feel too surprised.

“Dozer, Rocky, and so many others have participated in the Mutual Aid Society, yet only you were alerted to the discovery of the parasite. It’s a pity that there are very few good people in this Sorcerer’s Tower, and the one you met is clearly not.”

The large man curled up at the entrance of the corridor didn’t react to what was happening over here and didn’t move like a corpse.

The second door next door opened softly and Hayden’s face swung behind it, closing the door immediately upon seeing Jenna’s body.

And the next moment, someone emerged from the depths of the dimly lit hallway.

Byron casually glanced at Jenna on the floor and turned his head to Saul, “Hmm?”

The body on the floor was left unattended, and the living person standing properly in the hallway was examined thoroughly with a spell.

“Hmm.” Byron took a step back and shook his head, telling Saul there was nothing wrong with him.

Saul took off his jacket and wiped off the blood and flesh that had splattered on his cheeks and arms.

When he looked up, Byron was pulling a small notebook out of his mouth and taking out a pen to draw on it.

That book contained the credits Byron owed Saul, and whenever he did something for Saul, he consciously deducted the credits he owed.

This was something that Saul greatly appreciated about Byron.

It was already very rare for a person to be able to make a clear distinction between grudges and equal exchange.

Saul stared at the red dress on the ground, which was even more colorful due to the blood, and furrowed his brows.

“Hmm?”

Saul shook his head gently, “I don’t feel guilty.”

Saul had always thought that he was the only one who was unlucky, always teetering on the brink of death after entering the Sorcerer’s Tower.

Now it seemed that there were many people who were unluckier than him, and other people did not live in a carefree world.

Saul at least had a death precognition, while Jenna was afraid that she didn’t even know what was happening to her until the moment she died.

She thought she had seen the light of day, but instead she just fell headlong into the abyss.

Byron was indifferent, he had seen too much death.

The girl’s corpse gave him more of a feeling: what unknowing person had started to provoke the Tower Master’s rules again?
“Hmm?”

As Byron swept over Jenna’s body, he suddenly realized something and walked over to bend down to examine it.

A moment later, he suddenly took a step back and threw out a black mist in his hand, which completely engulfed Jenna like a giant python.

The corpse bulged high in the black mist, and then made a piercing zipping and pulling sound.

There were some thin strips that attacked the black mist from the inside.

The black fog was constantly being toppled up and down, with the feeling that it would be stabbed through at any moment.

But in the end, the black mist won.

Its form stopped changing and it continued to tightly wrap around the girl inside.

With a wave of Byron’s hand, the black mist dispersed as if it had evaporated in place.

Jenna’s body reappeared in front of the two, revealing parts that made even Saul take a step back and quickly throw away the jacket in his hand.

Countless bloody holes appeared on Jenna’s body, and the whole person turned into a hornet’s nest, there was actually no piece of good skin. The blood seemed to have been swallowed by something, and there wasn’t much on the ground, and the originally colorful red dress had become tattered and torn.

“What was that?”

“Brush-“

Byron didn’t answer right away, and the sound of brushing writing came from over there.

Saul twisted his head to see that the other party had actually taken out another pen and paper to start crediting the credits owed.

Byron finished writing before stabbing himself somewhat reluctantly.

“Runaway parasite, something the Mutual Aid Society uses to control newcomers. It wouldn’t attack the host under normal circumstances, and the fact that it turned into this is probably because someone did something else to it.”

Byron stepped forward and picked up the corner of the red dress, dragging the body towards the corpse room and placing it directly into the large box underneath the console.

“There’s something else on it, like a curse or a form of marking voodoo, you don’t want to touch it.”

He added with a glance at Saul’s left hand hidden in his sleeve.

“Left hand yes, right hand no.”

But Saul had no intention of studying the parasite; the Mutual Aid Society’s stuff he didn’t want to touch.

And most of the people who had their hands on Jenna were Cid, who had a secret murderous agenda, so naturally he wouldn’t put himself in danger out of curiosity.

What else was on Jenna but a parasite?
“Senpai,” Saul spread his hands, “If I had been the one to check the body just now, would I have been attacked by the parasites?”

“It would, those parasites are cranky.”

Parasite attacks could be dangerous.

Though even if Byron didn’t show up, Saul had a diary prompt and wouldn’t really be in a crisis.

Is that all the use of Jenna …… that Cid went around and around to send over?

“Then I’d like to trouble the Hokage to take a closer look for me and see if there are any other marks on me that resemble a curse, or don’t seem to hurt my body.” Saul tilted his head and smiled at Byron, “Credits all you want.”

Byron’s whole body shook at his words.

He narrowed his eyes and slowly rolled up both sleeves.

……

Jenna had been missing for three days.

Rocky had searched every place they had ever been and hadn’t seen a trace.

These days, Saul still didn’t show up for class, and Rocky didn’t even get a chance to question Saul when he wanted to.

Duke had only told Jenna alone where Saul was that day, and Rocky had tried to listen, but had been kicked out.

It was clearly his dorm room!

Having no choice, the anxious Rocky could only drag Dozer, who was on better terms with Duke, to find Duke.

“Duke, Jenna has been missing for three days!”

“Oh.” Duke looked indifferent.

Rocky was a little angry, “Why aren’t you worried at all.”

Duke laughed and spread his hands at Rocky, “Jenna obviously ran into some kind of trouble when she went to find Saul in the first place. The trouble is probably being solved in the past three days, what are you anxious about?”

“Solving what kind of trouble that requires so many days of no-shows?”

Duke was transcribing his notes.

The books borrowed from the library were all too expensive, and every apprentice scrambled to transcribe the books after borrowing them, day and night, just so that they could return the books less early and spend less magic crystals.

As he was transcribing, he said, “I don’t know! I asked, but she didn’t want to tell me. Did Jenna tell you?”

Of course not.

Otherwise Rocky wouldn’t have been searching around like a headless fly.

“Then can you tell me where Saul is? I’ll go look for him.”

“Where Saul is ……,” Duke finally stopped his pen, the corners of his mouth turned downward, “That’s not a good place to go, if nothing else it’s better not to go there.”

Seemingly thinking that being disturbed by Rocky like this, it was impossible to properly copy the book, Duke simply put down his pen and looked up to persuade his friend.

“Although Saul is a bit ferocious, you don’t have to worry so much about Jenna. After all, this is the Sorcerer’s Tower, and we have the Tower Master and mentors over our heads. Rules-wise, apprentices are not allowed to kill each other.”

These words sounded like persuasion at first, but on second thought they were horrifying.

Dozer, who didn’t want to mind his own business in the first place, changed his face and tugged at Rocky’s sleeve.

Rocky, however, shook off Dozer and asked forcefully, “What will it take for you to tell me where Saul is?”

Duke sighed and held up two fingers.

“Two magic crystals.”

Thank you for your support, my fellow readers.

The author is a part-time writer and writes at a touching pace, so I’ll do my best to add an extra chapter today as a token of appreciation!

(End of chapter)