Secret News

"A corpse wagon?"

Lucia froze at the words. Just then, the carriage at the very front had already stopped near the mouth of the well. The burly driver pulled a strip of white cloth from an inner pocket and tied it behind his head to cover his nose and mouth, then jumped down from the wagon and yanked away the ragged tarp over the compartment.

Inside were more than a dozen corpses of varying sizes and shapes—Demi-humans, leonine Misbegotten, winged Misbegotten, and some whose features were impossible to make out beneath mutilation and bloodstains, though most were clearly not human.

They were piled together tightly. To save space, many of the bodies had even been bent and twisted into shapes they could never have held in life, as though they were not the remains of living beings, but a heap of garbage waiting to be disposed of.

The instant the corpses were exposed to the air, the stench from before grew even more acrid. Lucia immediately felt a powerful discomfort that struck him both physically and mentally.

By contrast, the driver standing behind the corpse wagon showed no sign of anything unusual. Above the nose and mouth hidden by the white cloth were eyes as calm as stagnant water. Apart from a numbness sunk deep into his bones, not the slightest trace of any other emotion could be seen.

The driver reached out and grabbed the hemp ropes binding the bodies. His waist and legs suddenly exerted force, hoisting a bundle of Demi-human corpses onto his shoulder. Then he strode to the edge of the well and, with a grunt, threw it in.

The splash of muddy water echoed inside the ground well. He did not linger, merely flicked the blood and flesh from his hands with an impassive expression, then walked back to the wagon and repeated the same motion.

Soon, the carriage Lucia was riding in gradually left that area. In the moment before the buildings on both sides of the street blocked his view, the last image lingering in his eyes was the driver clumsily turning his wagon around and leaving, while the next corpse wagon followed close behind and took his place.

Like an endless cycle.

"Where were those corpses brought from?" Lucia could not help asking.

"Slave markets, construction sites, military camps, and the arenas... but mainly the arenas," Lansseax answered truthfully.

"There are no fewer than fifty arenas like Serant in the lower city, and if you count the smaller ones, there's no way to number them all," she said. "After the day's gladiatorial matches end, a death match with other races as the targets of slaughter is a customary standing program."

"The ones who take part are usually low-ranked fighters whose recent records have been miserable and who are on the verge of losing their jobs. If they can bring the audience sufficiently thrilling, savage, violent slaughter in the death match and fully display the 'valor' admired by the Golden People, it's enough to save their careers and earn them a great deal of popularity and renown."

"The Demi-humans and Misbegotten opposite them are mostly refugees captured in batches from South Gelmir or the Weeping Peninsula. Occasionally there are also 'premium goods' like Trolls from the Far North Ice Fields or Serpent-men from North Gelmir. After long periods of jolting transport and abuse, they're already weak beyond measure. When they step onto the arena stage, they face fully armed fighters bare-handed. In ninety percent of cases, the result goes without saying."

"Ninety percent?" Lucia was slightly startled. "Then the remaining ten percent..."

"If a fighter is so useless that he can't win even against that kind of opponent, the guards at the edge of the arena will save him just before he's about to lose. After that, he'll completely fall into the ranks of bottom-tier personnel with no matches to fight, while his opponent will be locked up again and kept for the next death match."

"Conversely, if a fighter wins the match but refuses to kill his opponent out of mercy, his fate will be even worse than being shelved," Lansseax let out a cold laugh. "Leyndellians can accept frailty, but they will never tolerate weakness. They'll kick him out of the fighter ranks, attack him with nutshells, eggs, and spit, curse him with the filthiest words... until he consciously rolls out of this land he 'doesn't deserve.'"

"Of course, that's only what happens in the open. Those great nobles also privately organize underground matches that only landowners and nobles are allowed to attend. The fighters who participate are stronger, the scenes are bloodier, and the stakes rise from the small wagers of lower-city residents to slaves, land, manors, and even the ownership of official posts. I simply have no interest in their disgusting games, so I don't know them too deeply."

After listening, Lucia remained silent for a long time. Not long ago, when he had looked down from above the royal capital at this glorious and magnificent city, he had once thought that Leyndell in the Golden Age was a symbol of progress, a beacon of civilization—at least on the whole.

Yet at this moment, he realized that the city's radiance and darkness, civilization and savagery, had never been separate from the beginning. The sacred and majestic Golden Sanctuary and upper city were fused together with the bloody, filthy arenas of the lower city in an utterly natural way, just like how, several decades or a century later, the other side of golden glazed tiles and marble pillars would be the reeking, monster-filled sewers beneath the royal capital.

At this thought, he suddenly realized something and asked, "Sister Lans, beneath the ground well where those corpse wagons dumped the bodies just now... that's Leyndell's sewer, right?"

"Right," Lansseax nodded. "What about it?"

"If they just throw corpses down there without treating them, won't it cause a plague or some other kind of safety accident?" he asked, while faintly hoping for more answers in his heart.

As the successor of the Ancient Dragon Dynasty, and with a top-tier archive like the Sky City Grand Library in his hands, it was not strange for Lucia to know some information about Omens. But the way Omens were handled within the royal capital should still have been an absolute secret to him at this stage.

Ever since Radagon succeeded as Elden Lord and Fundamentalism of the Golden Order rose to prominence, the Crucible Knots that had originally appeared on infants as a localized, atavistic inheritance and had held sacred meaning in ancient times gradually came to be seen as symbols of defilement and curses. Infants who displayed such features were also called "Omens."

If they were in remote regions outside Leyndell, the only fate awaiting these infants was to be abandoned or strangled after birth. Within Leyndell itself, people would secretly and cruelly cut off all the hard horns on an Omen's body, then abandon them underground. Omens born into the royal family could be spared the punishment of having their hard horns cut away, but their fate of being abandoned and imprisoned would not change in the slightest.

As early as when he first arrived in the royal capital, during that banquet, Lucia had not heard Queen Marika mention the names Morgott and Mohg even once, and he had already formed a rough guess in his heart. He had simply never had the chance to confirm it.

On Miquella's side, their acquaintance was still shallow in the end, and the two of them stood on different sides, so it was not suitable to discuss this matter in depth. As for Sister Lans, she knew everything he had experienced since birth; abruptly bringing up a secret he should not have known in the first place was truly inappropriate.

Fortunately, this matter was not much of a secret to residents who had lived in Leyndell year-round. Originally, Lucia had planned to wait some time, then ask Sister Lans about it under the pretext of hearsay. He had not expected that, by sheer coincidence today, the opportunity would land right in his lap.

"No. Leyndell's sewer isn't just a large drainage system. In reality, it's an unfathomably deep underground world." As expected, Lansseax answered.

First, she told Lucia the inside story of the Omens without holding anything back. Then she went on to reveal a secret he had never heard before.