Who is More Like the Demon King?

Orange Paradise was a vine-like plant usually found only deep within rainforests where the shade of trees nearly completely blocked out the sunlight, such as the Great Tree Sea.

The plant's pollen could plunge any creature that inhaled it into a sweet illusion, which was how Orange Paradise got its name.

The pollen was merely a means for Orange Paradise to claim a little more nourishment in the fiercely competitive rainforest environment, a product of natural evolution. But once it was exploited by someone with ill intent...

Processed with alchemical techniques to reduce its lethal toxicity, just one small bottle—a thumb-sized vial—was enough to destroy a family.

After hearing her explanation, the bottle of Orange Paradise Eve had handed Pei Renli earlier felt especially prickly in his hands. He had heard a sound at the time and casually stuffed it into his pocket. Now it felt like a ticking bomb that could explode at any moment.

He had wanted to take it out and throw it away, but after thinking it over, it seemed safer to scatter it into a sewer once they got outside.

Thinking of that, Pei Renli asked again:

"By the way, what is Orange Elixir?"

"Orange Elixir? Where did you hear that name?"

He pulled open his cloak and let Eve see the booklet tucked into an inner pocket.

"It says so in here."

But Eve did not seem particularly concerned with where Pei Renli had learned the name. She continued explaining in the same calm tone:

"Orange Elixir is a magical potion that can enhance physical abilities for a short period of time. It requires Orange Paradise as its primary ingredient. However, its drawback is that after taking it, the user must continue taking it at regular intervals while gradually reducing the dosage. Otherwise, the side effects will cause organ failure. It is also extremely difficult to make. Having the formula alone is not enough. The quality of the tools used in production, the alchemist's skill, the quality of the raw materials—any slight difference in any of these will severely affect the quality of the finished product. An even more serious problem is that once Orange Elixir is completed, successful batches and failed batches are very difficult to distinguish. Their smell, color, and properties are almost identical. Even magic cannot determine it accurately. Therefore, whenever Orange Elixir is made, a batch is produced and then sampled for someone to test. That is the only way to confirm whether it succeeded. Its production, possession, and use are expressly forbidden in every nation."

After listening to her, Pei Renli replied somewhat strangely, "You can actually say that much in one breath. Are you normally so stingy with words because you're not interested?"

Eve: "..."

Pei Renli's focus seemed a little off...

Putting that aside, given Orange Elixir's characteristic of requiring human test subjects to determine whether it had succeeded, they could be certain this was not merely a human trafficking case. The victims had all been used to test the drug.

No wonder most of the missing people were young women. Youth meant healthy bodies, and women were much easier to capture than men. It was no surprise that something like this occurring in the lower district had been mistaken for human trafficking.

Moreover, judging by the clues they had gathered so far, the waters here seemed far deeper than they appeared on the surface...

Wait.

Pei Renli suddenly realized something.

If the kidnapped victims had been used for drug testing, where were they?

This place had been completely evacuated. The equipment had been smashed, every person had vanished, and a layer of lamp oil had been spread across the floor. All that remained was to light it and erase every trace.

Clearly, their evacuation had been carried out methodically according to a plan, not decided on suddenly. The victims used for drug testing should not have been taken with them.

After all, more people meant more attention, and managing them would be troublesome.

Did that mean all the victims were dead? But no corpses had been found.

While they had not yet evacuated and were still producing Orange Elixir, the corpses would certainly have been disposed of, leaving as little evidence as possible.

Because the sewer gates often rerouted the flow, and maintenance workers occasionally entered the sewers, if they had carelessly discarded the bodies, they might have been washed against the grates and discovered long ago.

But now that they had evacuated, there was no need to thoroughly dispose of the bodies. Yet Pei Renli and the others had not seen any corpses anywhere along the sewers.

Then where were the victims?

"This door won't open. Something seems to be wedged behind it."

"I'll help you. Pull outward together."

Not far away, Kaya and Koura were trying to open the door on the left, which had likely once been used to hold the victims.

At that moment, it was as though an electric current ran through Pei Renli's mind. He suddenly remembered a line from the journal they had found earlier.

"Today, they notified me that my work here was complete and told me to destroy all evidence and evacuate quickly. As for the test subjects, just pile them up however you like. I heard someone will be responsible for cleaning up afterward."

Just pile up the test subjects?

He spun around and shouted at Kaya and Koura, "Don't! Don't open it!"

But Pei Renli was still one step too late.

With a sharp crack, the crude door hinge that had jammed it was torn apart by Kaya and Koura, and the door was ripped off by force.

Koura, who had pulled too hard, landed on the ground with a thump. Just as she was about to speak, an indescribable stench bored into her nostrils.

Behind the door, heavy sounds rang out several times in scattered succession, as if something had collapsed.

They were corpses.

Ten? Twenty? It was difficult to count them at a glance. Like cruel stacks of compressed fried pastry, the bodies had been casually piled and crushed together. Large and small orange blotches could occasionally be seen on their deathly pale skin, like horrific pustules.

Orange powder and pus seeped from the wounds, making faint sounds that nevertheless plucked at the nerves, whispering softly into one's ear.

At the sight of it, Pei Renli's eyes seemed bewitched, utterly unable to turn away. He stared without even being able to blink.

At the same time, a voice in his heart seemed to whisper softly:

Who, exactly, looked more like the Demon King...?

Pei Renli was still a novice in the adventuring trade. Forget suddenly seeing so many corpses—even personally killing a monster with a short sword was enough to make him sick for quite a while.

The scene before him was enough to give him nightmares for days on end, branding itself deep into his heart like a searing mark.

In fact, he was not the only one. The other three were having a hard time as well.

Those three girls could decide to kill someone in an instant, but such a mental blow was clearly not easy for them to bear either.

Koura scrambled away as far as she could, bracing herself against the wall and dry-heaving nonstop. But she had already thrown up all her dinner and could not bring anything else up.

Kaya was no better off. She gripped the hilt of her longsword so tightly that it seemed she could only find a trace of safety by holding onto something. The veins stood out on the back of her hand, and her face was so dark it looked ready to drip water.

Only Eve seemed much the same as usual. It was hard to spot any emotional fluctuation on her nearly expressionless face, but a closer look would reveal that her hands were trembling slightly.

It took quite a while before they recovered. They used the dark blue curtain that had covered the greenhouse to conceal the corpses. It was hardly a proper way to deal with them, but at least it gave those people one last shred of dignity.

After they finished, everyone stood where they were without saying a word. A deathly silence shrouded them as they stared blankly, not knowing what they were thinking.

At that moment, Koura's ears twitched. She was the first to break the silence.

"I heard something."

Half a beat slower than usual, Pei Renli asked, "What sound?"

Only then did he realize that his lips had somehow become terribly dry, as if they were about to crack.

Koura raised her drooping rabbit ears and closed her eyes to listen carefully.

"It sounds like crying."

Kaya, still holding up the curtain, said, "Could it be an undead creature?"

Undead creatures generally appeared in places where many lives had perished, or underground.

Negative energy was more likely to accumulate in such places, and negative energy was the very foundation that drove undead creatures into motion.

Graveyards, battlefields, deep underground ruins, and the like were all places where undead creatures ran rampant.

The sewer environment fit the bill as well. Perhaps the souls of the victims had been corroded by negative energy and turned into ghosts, and the crying was coming from them.

"No, the sound is too quiet, like it's being deliberately suppressed. An undead creature shouldn't sound like that."

Koura listened more carefully and confirmed the direction.

"Follow me. It's this way."

There were two doors on each side of this man-made circular hollow, seemingly used to imprison victims. They had found the corpses on the left, while the sound Koura heard seemed to be coming from the right.

The animal traits possessed by beastfolk indicated their particular strengths. Koura's rabbit ears gave her exceptionally sharp hearing, letting no rustle of wind or grass escape her notice.

The other three were ordinary humans, but as they drew closer, Pei Renli could hear the faint sobbing too. In such a silent environment, it was genuinely rather terrifying.

They soon reached the doors on the right and took a moment to identify the exact location.

Although they had just experienced something that could leave a psychological scar, it was still safer to have Kaya and Koura, who could fight in close quarters, open the door rather than the fragile spellcaster in their party.

The two stood to the right of the door and reached out, pulling hard at the same time.

This time, it seemed not to be locked. The door had merely been shut.

As the door opened, the dim blue light of the Undying Bright Flame shone inside. From behind them, Pei Renli saw something move in the darkness beyond the doorway.

"Don't! Don't hit me! I wasn't making noise! Don't hit me!"

Someone was curled up in the darkness. The instant the door opened, she let out a sharp, hysterical scream. Then, as if realizing her voice was too loud, she hurriedly covered her face with dirt-caked hands and let out broken, suppressed whimpers like sharp breaths being sucked in.

Judging by the voice, she should be a woman—possibly a victim, and alive at that.

At least she was not a corpse. That was already good news for them.

The four exchanged glances. Pei Renli stepped closer, crouched down as amiably as he could, and said, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

She did not dare answer at all. She seemed to be trying to curl herself into a ball with her clothes and arms, seeking some sense of safety. She had clearly been frightened badly.

Koura crouched down as well. She gently patted the woman's arm and said as softly as she could, "We're adventurers. You're safe now."

Those words made the woman's body tremble. She cautiously swept her gaze over them, as though confirming their identities, and then began to cry even louder...