Tax Is All

Tax Is All

A kind-hearted lich had always been something that existed only in stories. More likely, there were simply too many evil liches, and storytellers had made it up to catch people's attention.

A lich's racial nature already doomed it to never be accepted by human society. Seventy percent of humans openly discriminated against liches, while to liches, it was more like—being discriminated against by dogs.

No matter how much humanity remained, an undead body would gradually influence a lich's senses and thoughts. In time, it would completely lose its standpoint as a human and become another species altogether.

To liches, who were immortal and wielded powerful magic, mortals truly were like dogs—lower lifeforms.

Don't misunderstand. Most liches discriminated equally against every living race, even other lesser undead. Skeleton servants were merely tools to liches, no better than dogs.

Only powerful beings whose intelligence or strength matched their own could earn a lich's respect.

And because they lacked worldly desires, liches' thoughts tended toward absolute rationality. Only certain exceptionally intense emotions from their lives could remain. Those emotions were like the unattainable white moonlight of one's life, the cinnabar mole in one's dreams, or the only chocolate they could still taste.

Whenever they recalled them, the flavor was usually bitter.

That was why many liches were rational ninety percent of the time, only to go completely mad at critical moments.

Amber Xiu had not been a lich for long, so more of his humanity remained. And his strongest emotion was his hatred of poverty.

It was not that he loved money. He hated the state of being poor.

Amber Xiu had been forced to become a lich because of poverty. He hated that feeling of knowing there was a way to extend his lifespan, yet not having enough money.

What he pursued was the ability to buy whatever he wanted, not hoarding piles of money and waiting for adventurers to burst him open for Gold Coins.

That was why, no matter how outrageous Withering Rose's request was, Amber Xiu agreed without hesitation as long as she truly paid.

More money, no shortage of money, advance deposit... these were like spells with a special effect against Amber Xiu. Any one of them could shake his soul.

Isabelle knew none of this. She could only try to think positively and hope that the stories in fairy tales were not all lies.

Amber Xiu could sense Isabelle's emotional shifts, but he paid them no mind. He had fully entered work mode. First, he studied the materials Withering Rose had sent over, and one look was enough to make him realize something was wrong.

It was not that the information was too sparse. On the contrary, it was far too detailed—too detailed to have been gathered by asking outsiders. It was more like someone had planted a spy inside the Lyne Empire, and that spy held an extremely high position.

The documents recorded nearly three hundred types of defensive magic. They not only marked their locations and areas of coverage, but even listed the personnel responsible for maintaining the magic arrays.

If everything recorded here was true, simply reporting this information to the Lyne Empire would probably earn him a million Gold Coins.

"Truly generous," Amber Xiu remarked.

Though the intelligence was valuable, he had no intention of selling out Withering Rose.

Because the likely consequence would be that he got silenced first. The Lyne Empire would never believe Amber Xiu had not made copies.

And he really would make a copy.

Perhaps he could sell it to the High Mountain Dwarves of Thunder Fortress someday. They absolutely hated their neighboring country, the Lyne Empire.

Amber Xiu carefully read through the information on the magic arrays. The more he read, the more he felt this deal was an enormous profit. Quite a few magical structures left him amazed. So defensive arrays could be used like this. Once he saved up some money, the Magic Traps in the Ancient Castle could be fully upgraded.

Absorbed in the documents, Amber Xiu temporarily forgot the passage of time, until a carriage arrived before the Ancient Castle gates near dawn.

Amber Xiu told the dozing Isabelle, "Your brother has returned."

Isabelle jolted awake. After drinking the Tranquility Potion last night, her emotions had eased. She had waited in boredom until the latter half of the night, then unknowingly fallen asleep on the table.

She was amazed at her own courage for falling asleep in front of a lich.

Now that she had heard news of her brother, Isabelle anxiously asked, "Lord Lich, can I see Raul?"

"That is exactly why I woke you. Otherwise, why would I have called you... Wait, what is going on?"

With a flick of his finger, Amber Xiu produced layers of shimmering light that formed an image of the scene outside the Ancient Castle.

Raul looked exhausted, yet he still forced himself to open the carriage compartment and carry out a blood-soaked corpse.

Isabelle could not help letting out a scream, then clamped a hand tightly over her mouth.

She had never seen such a horrifying sight. The carriage was crammed full of corpses. Some had been disemboweled, while others had had their throats slit or heads severed. They had died horribly.

Raul carried them one by one with a numb expression, as if he had gone completely numb.

"Raul..."

Isabelle could not believe it. Her brother had done this? How could he have killed so many people?

Amber Xiu was even more shocked than Isabelle. With a teleportation spell, he brought them both to the gates of the Ancient Castle.

Raul was still moving the corpses. When he suddenly saw Amber Xiu and Isabelle appear, he froze for a moment before saying excitedly, "I brought the bodies back. There are twelve in total, more than you asked for! Please keep your promise and release my Sister."

Isabelle broke down in tears. Only then did she understand that Raul had killed people for her, trading twelve lives for her slim chance of survival.

She knew she should not blame Raul, but looking at those corpses, Isabelle could not bring herself to say even a single word of thanks.

Raul gripped the Gem Controller tightly. If Amber Xiu broke his promise, he would command the Mutated Skeleton to attack. Even if the hope was slim, he had to fight with everything he had to survive.

Yet to the siblings' surprise, Amber Xiu said strangely, "I told you to bring back living people. What did you bring me an entire carriage of corpses for? Raul, I told you to bring the fleeing Freemen to live in my territory, not to collect materials for me."

"What did you say?!"

The controller slipped from Raul's hand and fell to the ground.

Amber Xiu shook his head and said, "What exactly did you imagine? Wasn't I clear enough? I told you to bring back the fleeing Freemen. I even had your Sister prepare Tranquility Potions, so they would not be too agitated to listen to me properly."

Raul said excitedly, "But... but... you gave me a tool for killing!"

Amber Xiu replied as if it were obvious, "What else was I supposed to do? Without my skeleton protecting you, wouldn't the Lord have captured you long ago? If you wanted to rescue other Freemen from the Lord, were you going to rely on your mouth instead of a tool for killing?"

This time, Raul could only open his mouth, but he could not say a single word.

Amber Xiu continued, "You barged into my territory, yet I put aside past grievances to heal you and gave you the power to save your people. But in your eyes, I was already a monster slaughtering humans. You did not even bother to ask properly, because you believed this could not possibly be a misunderstanding. Humans, racial discrimination is your original sin."

Raul recalled everything that had happened. It truly was as Amber Xiu said. From beginning to end, he had never done anything to harm humans, nor had he ever told Raul to kill anyone... Why did it sound like everything had been his own fault?

Could it really be that his racial discrimination had caused this outcome?

Raul looked to his Sister beside him as if asking for help and asked tremblingly, "Is that true?"

Isabelle vaguely felt that something was off, but she could only nod and say, "Lord Lich really did ask me to prepare many Tranquility Potions. Th-this was meant for living people."

Undead creatures had no use for Tranquility Potions, so Amber Xiu was not wrong at all.

"Lord Lich, are you truly willing to accept people like us who are fleeing disaster? Can we live within your territory?" Raul asked.

Amber Xiu nodded. "Of course. As long as you pay taxes."