Lizardman

Allen held the subway map, repeatedly comparing it against the Lizardman's movement trajectory, and had to accept the fact that the Lizardman he was looking for might be a subway train!

If my guess is correct, I only need to wait here to encounter the Lizardman, Allen thought.

For the time that followed, Allen sat on the waiting bench, appearing to be resting with his eyes closed, but in reality, he was tracking the icon representing the Lizardman on the map. Subways came and went, and the rushing crowds moved up and down.

"It's here," Allen's eyes snapped open. With an air of inevitable victory, he walked forward. "Let me see what exactly is going on."

Allen boarded the subway with the crowd. The warning bell rang, and the subway doors slowly closed. At that very moment, the scene before Allen's eyes changed entirely, a transformation that left him horrified!

Everyone seemed to have been frozen in time: a middle-aged man's hand, mid-gesture during an animated conversation, remained suspended in the air; the curve of a beautiful girl's smile did not shift by even a fraction; a young man wearing headphones looked indifferent, his body completely motionless...

Even the handrails and seats had changed. The handrails at the top of the subway were replaced by individual cyan, fibrous objects. The seats were even stranger; the backrests were dark green, shaped remarkably like the giant scales of a fish. On each scale-seat sat a green, avatar-like creature, except their lower bodies had morphed into the seat cushions. These little green men had their arms stretched out straight, serving as the armrests. Most terrifying of all was that behind each little green man's head, a needle-like straw connected to the giant scale on its back. People who had seats were sitting on these little green men, and gases of various colors drifted out from the tops of people's heads, to be sucked into the little green men's mouths and then funneled through the needles behind their heads into the scales.

"System, System, what is happening? Why am I seeing such a horrific scene?" A terrified Allen desperately called out to the system in his mind. Heaven help him, he had never seen such a bizarre scene in either of his two lifetimes.

"Host, please do not panic. The Fools magic orb you carry can dispel all negative states, which naturally includes illusions." The familiar voice of the system successfully calmed Allen down.

A crisp sound of clapping broke the silence in the subway. In an instant, all the little green men snapped their eyes open, their glowing yellow eyeballs staring in unison at Allen. Allen felt his scalp tingle, and the hair on his back stood on end.

Steadying his nerves, Allen asked, "Hello, can you understand what I'm saying?"

The little green men continued to stare at him in unison.

"Could it be they don't understand English?" Allen suddenly remembered the Fools magic orb he had worked so hard to obtain and hurriedly summoned it from the system's storage space. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but Allen felt the brightness in the eyes of the little green men staring at him was somewhat scorching.

"Respected Mr. Mage, greetings. We do not blink, so we do not get tired. Please forgive our rudeness just now!" An aged voice echoed through the carriage behind Allen.

Allen hurriedly turned around to look. A white-bearded little green man wearing a gold crown inlaid with red gems, holding a tiny little green man, appeared in the carriage behind him. Unlike the little green men on the seats, they had a long needle tube on their backs connecting to the carriage, but it was long enough for them to scurry about freely and hide themselves.

"Hello, my name is Allen. May I ask who you are?" Allen hurriedly bowed and introduced himself.

"Greetings. We are the spirits of the Goddess of Luck, Fools—the Lucky Elf. My name is Fornis, and this is my grandson, as well as my heir, Fortel." Fornis pointed to the little green man beside him.

"Mr. Fornis, as the king of the Lucky Elf race, may I ask if you know any news about the Lizardman?" Allen inquired of Fornis.

"Lizardman? Is that what the outside world calls us now? Who still remembers the help and joy the Lucky Elf brought to people?" Fornis's voice was heavy with sorrow and indignation.

"So, the Lucky Elf is the Lizardman?" The suspicion in Allen's heart was confirmed.

"Yes, the Lucky Elf is what you call the Lizardman. Long ago, the Goddess of Luck, Fools, and the Goddess of Misfortune, Eris, made a wager. The Goddess of Luck believed human nature was inherently good, while the Goddess of Misfortune believed it was inherently evil. They chose a virtuous family favored by the Goddess of Luck as the subject of their bet. In the end, the Goddess of Misfortune won. Thus, as the spirits of the Goddess of Luck, we were cursed for all eternity, while the evil pets of the Goddess of Misfortune could walk the world with impunity. However, the Goddess of Luck left an oracle: when someone appears holding her magic orb, it will be the time our race is liberated." Speaking of this, Fornis became agitated. "We have waited for so many years, and finally, we have waited for you." Having said this, Fornis looked eagerly at the magic orb in Allen's hand.

"May I ask what I should do?" Allen also hoped to help these victims of a wager.

"As long as you hold a sincere heart to save us, you only need to recite this incantation to activate the magic orb." Fornis slid over to Allen in an instant and handed over a roll of parchment.

Allen accepted the parchment and looked at it. While asking the system in his mind to help verify it, he said, "Mr. Fornis, please forgive me for asking a presumptuous question, but may I ask why you are called the Lucky Elf?"

"That is nothing, Mr. Mage. Besides being the spirits of the Goddess of Luck, we feed on the seven emotions and six desires emitted by humans, while simultaneously feeding happiness and joy back to them," Fornis said proudly. "However, now the happiness and joy we produce are all sucked away by these straws."

"Alright, I am ready," said Allen, having received the system's approval.