The Alluring Aroma from the Morgue

While Tylen was out collecting the dead...

The underground world of Cain Wizard Tower was a dark maze, a stark contrast to the gleaming surface above.

There was no sunlight, no flowers—only crisscrossing massive pipes and the ceaseless sound of flowing water.

The wide sewers channeled fresh water from the Heaven Luck River, flushing away the filth generated by the entire tower, then discharging the magically purified wastewater back into the river downstream.

The air was thick with a nauseating blend of odors: fermented food scraps, the sour stench of alchemical waste, the rankness of excrement, and the mustiness of years without sunlight.

Yet, in this place everyone avoided, a group of fortune hunters thrived.

A dozen apprentices in greasy leather aprons, their faces wrapped in thick linen cloth, carried long-handled iron hooks and giant tongs as they moved in pairs along the stone paths flanking the channels.

This was a long-term quest issued by the wizard tower: Sewer Patrol.

Despite the harsh environment, it was one of the most coveted cushy jobs among the low-tier apprentices.

The reason was simple—this was the drainage outlet connecting to the upper world.

Those noble young masters and ladies living at the tower's peak often accidentally flushed valuable trinkets down the drains.

Magic rings inlaid with amethysts, discarded magic crystals brimming with power, even fragments of damaged artifacts...

These were all real hauls from predecessors.

To those big shots, these items were just accidentally dropped trash, not worth the effort to retrieve.

Even if they held considerable value, out of noble dignity and instinctive disgust, they wouldn't want them back.

But for these impoverished apprentices who couldn't even scrape together tuition, this was a treasure trove that could change their short-term quality of life—or even their entire fate.

If luck struck and they found one, selling it at the black market in Lion City's West Outer Ring could give them a chance to climb higher.

"Ugh!"

A violent retch broke the sewer's oppressive silence.

Dutch doubled over, his pitchfork planted on the ground to support himself, tears and snot streaming down his face.

He had just used the fork to pull a tangled clump of hair and unknown fibrous material from a clogged drain.

The bizarre stench, fermented by alchemical waste, nearly blew the top of his skull off.

"Damn it... what the hell is that smell? It's worse than a rotting Ghoul!"

Dutch complained, wiping his tears with his sleeve. His bearded, square face was flushed bright red.

Standing beside him was a tall young man with chestnut hair named Morgan.

He held a giant pair of iron shears, expertly snipping through the clog, then casually tossing it into a nearby trash bin.

Watching his companion's pathetic state, Morgan shook his head helplessly:

"I said, Dutch, you've been in the tower for three years. Why are you still acting like a fresh rookie? Can't handle a little smell?"

Dutch pinched his nose, his voice muffled and whiny:

"Don't you know me? I've had a sensitive nose since I was a kid! This is pure torture for me!"

"If I hadn't heard you could find good stuff here, I'd never set foot in this hellhole!"

"These past six months, I've been doing fine as an assistant in the alchemy lab! Back then, I only smelled of sulfur, not this crap!"

"And my Alchemy skill is already level 0.2! I can brew basic potions now!"

Hearing his hometown classmate's fifth boast of the day, Morgan snorted and mercilessly shot him down:

"What the hell is level 0.2 good for? Alchemy is a bottomless pit—it's all fed by materials."

"You don't have money for materials, so even if you have talent, it's useless."

"Just stick to shoveling shit with me, old pal. Maybe we'll find a ring today."

Dutch sighed, a flicker of unwillingness in his eyes.

He was an ambitious man. He didn't want to rot in the mud forever.

Suddenly, his dark eyes darted around as if he'd hit on a brilliant idea. He straightened up abruptly and raised a finger:

"Morgan! I have a plan!"

"I..."

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Morgan cut him off, face full of impatience:

"None of your ideas have ever been reliable!"

"Last time, you said you wanted to catch that black cat and use its fur for alchemy, and you almost got scratched blind."

"The time before that, you said you'd write a love letter to a female apprentice to latch onto a rich girl, and her suitors beat you until you begged for mercy."

"I'd rather pray to dig a magic ring out of this sludge right now than trust one of your crappy plans!"

With that, Morgan turned away from Dutch and went back to searching for the next promising deposit.

Dutch stared at his companion's back, contempt filling his heart.

"Tch. Mortals."

"Relying on blind luck like that—how could anyone get ahead? A man needs a plan! He needs to take the initiative! He needs to make luck come to him!"

As he thought this, he pulled off the soaking-wet mask from his face, ready to catch his breath.

But the moment he inhaled deeply—

Dutch froze.

His nose twitched twice, and an expression of utter disbelief crept into his eyes.

"Huh? This smell... something's wrong!"

In the foul, stench-ridden air of the sewer, there was a faint yet overwhelmingly domineering aroma mixed in.

It was a scent he had never encountered before.

Like the sweet fragrance of onions caramelized by high heat, blended with the burnt aroma of oil crackling, and an indescribable, soul-striking meatiness.

"Gurgle..."

Dutch's stomach betrayed him with a loud growl.

Just one whiff, and he felt ravenous, his mouth flooding with saliva.

"This smells way too good?!"

Dutch's eyes went wide, and he silently swore that this was the best smell he had ever encountered in his life—a hundred times more fragrant than the roast suckling pig he'd caught a whiff of outside the city's finest tavern!

"In this world, the rich really know how to live..."

Dutch couldn't help but sigh:

"What kind of incredible food could travel all the way down those long pipes, drift into this stinking sewer, and still keep such a rich aroma?"

Curiosity instantly overpowered his fear of the stench.

Like a bloodhound on a scent, Dutch's nose twitched as he followed the faint, elusive fragrance forward.

Weaving through several crisscrossing drainage outlets, he finally stopped in front of a vent high up on the wall.

That tantalizing aroma was drifting out from behind the dark iron grate.

Dutch looked up at the vent, his brow furrowing slightly, a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

"That's not right..."

"This place... it doesn't seem like it's connected to the pipes in the noble dormitory area."

Though he didn't frequent the sewers, as an apprentice who'd spent three years in the tower, he had a rough grasp of the Wizard Tower's layout.

The noble district was on the east side, and this... was the west side.

"Morgan! Morgan! Get over here!"

Dutch turned and shouted, his voice echoing through the empty pipes.

In the distance, Morgan was using tongs to pick up a shiny piece of glass. After seeing it was just a bottle, he looked disappointed and trudged over impatiently:

"What now? You cooking up another bad idea?"

But as he drew closer, his nose twitched, and his expression shifted instantly.

"Father above... what is that smell? How is it so good?!"

Morgan swallowed hard, feeling his cravings stirred up.

Dutch pointed at the vent, his face serious:

"Morgan, you know this area. Where does this vent lead?"

Morgan looked up, carefully studying the vent's position, then glanced at the layout of the surrounding pipes.

He closed his eyes, quickly constructing a three-dimensional map of the Wizard Tower in his mind, comparing the details.

A moment later, he opened his eyes and said with certainty:

"On the west side, this kind of ventilation duct... if I remember right, it leads to the morgue."

"The morgue?!"

At those words, Dutch, who had been lost in a fantasy of delicious food, felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head.

His pupils dilated sharply, and a chill ran down his spine.

Morgan's face also turned grim, as if he'd swallowed a dead fly.

"How could such a rich meaty smell be coming from the morgue?"

The two stared at each other, both seeing deep fear and disgust in the other's eyes.

Normally, the smells from the morgue were nothing but rotting corpses and preservatives—the most nauseating gases in the entire sewer.

But now...

Dutch swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly, carrying a hint of a horrifying guess:

"Could it be... someone's in there..."

He didn't dare say the rest out loud, but the implication was clear enough.

In this Wizard Tower, rife with taboos and mad experiments, anything depraved was possible.

Morgan's long face instantly looked as if he'd seen a ghost, shaking his head repeatedly: "That can't be, right? The corpses in the morgue are all handled by dedicated apprentices, and the audit department checks the accounts every month. Who would dare be so reckless? Tired of living?"

But Dutch's dark eyes began to shift again. Fear gradually faded, replaced by an excitement and fervor like discovering a new continent. "Anything's possible here, my dear Morgan." Dutch lowered his voice, a conspiratorial edge creeping in: "If someone really is secretly doing something disgusting, blasphemous, or even forbidden... then this is our chance!"

Hearing this, Morgan rolled his eyes and waved his hand impatiently: "Give it a rest! Always 'chance this, chance that'—how many chances do you think are out there waiting for you? Even if someone really is roasting... that stuff in there, what's it got to do with us? You gonna report it? Careful you don't get silenced!" With that, he turned to leave, clearly unwilling to get involved in something that sounded so dangerous.

"Don't go!" Dutch grabbed his old friend and fellow townsman by the sleeve, eyes burning as he stared at him, his tone dead serious: "Think about it, Morgan. A mysterious cannibal hiding in the Wizard Tower, secretly performing blasphemous rituals in the morgue, maybe even stealing the tower's assets... If we can investigate this, even just figure out the source of that smell... this would be huge news! If we expose this, we'll make a name for ourselves! In this place, reputation is a resource! With fame, we can catch a mentor's attention, prove our abilities go beyond just cleaning out sewers!"

At these words, Morgan stopped in his tracks. He fell silent. Though he always shot Dutch down, deep down, didn't he also want to climb up? Who wanted to spend their whole life in this sunless sewer, fishing for garbage in hopes of some fleeting miracle? If this really could work... it was indeed an opportunity. By now, the scent from the vent had faded, as if it had only been a flash in the pan. Morgan turned, looking at Dutch's scheming face, and asked tentatively: "You... have a plan?"

Seeing this, a smug smile curled at the corner of Dutch's mouth. He raised a finger, tapping it in the air a few times like a wise man commanding the scene: "First, we need to figure out the pattern of when this smell appears. Is it every day? Only at certain times? How long does it last? Then, we need to pinpoint which morgue it's coming from, and who's in charge!" Dutch's eyes grew brighter, his speech faster: "Next, we can spin this as a 'mysterious legend' and spread it among the apprentice circles. The selling point: a hidden cannibal in the sewers, capable of cooking aromas more enticing than the imperial palace's feasts, luring poor apprentices. A story that bizarre and terrifying will spread faster than the plague! Once it blows up and catches the attention of the higher-ups or the enforcement squad... we step forward as the first discoverers and clue providers, presenting our findings! Then, we'll not only earn merit but also get our faces known across the entire tower!"

After hearing this plan, Morgan was stunned for a long moment. Finally, he couldn't help but give a thumbs-up, sighing with genuine admiration: "Dutch, your ideas... finally made sense for once. This time, it actually sounds feasible." Dutch lifted his chin smugly: "Of course! I'm a future alchemy grandmaster!"

He patted Morgan on the shoulder and quickly assigned the tasks:

"You're in charge of figuring out which morgue this vent leads to. Don't rush too much, but be fast!"

"I'll handle crafting the story and spreading it through the entire junior apprentice circle in the shortest time possible!"

"This time, we brothers are about to make our big break!"

Hearing this, Morgan was already filled with anticipation, daydreaming of being surrounded by countless apprentices flattering him and gaining his mentor's favor.

"Let's do this!"

Meanwhile, on the other side...

Achoo!

A sneeze nearly sent Tylen sprawling face-first, and then he kept running for his life.

Because behind him, a pack of wild dogs was hot on his heels.

Tylen wanted to cry but had no tears: "Damn, the mantis stalks the cicada, but the mantis gets chased by the cicada!"