Spider-Elf and Drum Kit

Drogo poked the unlucky fellow on the ground with a claw.

He had already bloated from soaking in water. Pressing his face even made water spill out of his mouth.

These mermen were far too earnest. He had told them to capture the man and bring him back, but they had not even stripped off his armor. They had carried all two hundred and fifty-odd pounds of him across the sea.

And they thought they had failed their mission. They were now kneeling in a neat row, all talking over one another as they confessed their mistakes.

"Lord Envoy, he was alive when we caught him. We don't know how he died."

"Yeah, we don't know."

"Maybe he couldn't swim and drowned."

"Impossible. I held his head up."

"We even gave him that."

"Which one?"

"That thing, where you blow air mouth to mouth."

"Right, blew air into him."

"But he still died, so we don't know how he died."

"Right, we just don't know."

"Lord Envoy, could you please not tell Sea Mother? We'll definitely complete the mission next time."

"Please, don't tell Lady Sea Mother."

Drogo's head throbbed. None of his subordinates seemed capable of speaking normally.

The undead and drow could not squeeze out a sentence in half a day. Goblins and orcs started spouting nonsense the moment they opened their mouths. Now he had a group of mermen, each one chattier than the last.

He pried open the man's mouth and pressed hard against his chest. A stream of black blood surged out.

That made things easier to understand. The man was a suicide agent, most likely carrying poison on him and killing himself the moment he was captured.

After comforting the mermen, Drogo sent them back to the sea through the tunnels.

Drogo’s Toy Store had long ceased to be the original three-story building. Goblins and drow were experts at tunneling, and the underground beneath the entire district had been transformed into a complex network of passages.

Aside from the toy store, the tunnels also connected to the slums and the direction of the vertical shops.

The doctor and patients were hidden in the tunnels as well. The little boats heading out to sea were merely a smokescreen.

Dragon Island had been safe because dragons protected it. Now that the dragon was in the tunnels, the dragon tunnels were naturally safe.

As for this church warrior before him, if he thought suicide could protect his secrets, then he was underestimating a dragon.

Drogo did not have any proper mages under him, but he had no shortage of people who studied necromancy.

He summoned an orc priest and had him cast Speak with the Dead on the warrior.

Of course, if the dead regarded the caster as an enemy, the spell would fail. Fortunately, the warrior probably did not know who had sent those mermen.

The priest waved his staff and chanted an incantation. The corpse on the ground seemed about to rise, only to be suddenly pressed back down by an unseen force.

The priest looked somewhat surprised. He tried casting the spell again, but it still failed.

"It seems the body has been altered. Vitality cannot be infused into it."

"I understand. Go back for now."

There was a reason the church had grown so powerful. Its information security was stricter than that of any assassin organization.

But Drogo was not out of options. Professional matters called for professionals, and he happened to know someone familiar with the church. No, not someone—an elf.

Drogo was infamous among the "good" factions, but among the "evil" factions, he was universally praised.

"Xin 104, is the drum kit finished?"

"It has been completed."

"Good. Bring it out. It's time to socialize."

Half an hour later, in Flynn's residence.

At Drogo's repeated request, Flynn reluctantly expended an enormous amount of magic to teleport him, the drum kit, and the corpse into the Underdark.

Their destination was a theater.

It was a very unusual theater. It was comparable in scale to the largest theater in Sutton Kingdom, yet it did not have a single seat. Its entire interior structure existed solely to serve its acoustics.

It was only called a theater because its owner had named it Avengers Theater.

On the empty stage, before a massive pipe organ, the spider-elf Luo Lin was performing with complete immersion.

The music was bizarre, cold, and filled with despair, making listeners unable to stop themselves from imagining all manner of horrors.

Drogo was no exception.

His parents finding the "study materials" on his cloud drive;

Handing in his college entrance exam only to realize he had not filled in the answer sheet for the multiple-choice questions;

His fiancée demanding three hundred and eighty thousand the moment they began discussing marriage;

Getting laid off by his company at forty while his mortgage remained unpaid;

His daughter bringing home a blond-haired boyfriend, insisting it had to be him because she was pregnant...

Terrifying. Truly terrifying.

Fortunately, he was no longer human.

It had to be said that Luo Lin's technique was exceptional. She simply liked attaching strange magic to her music.

Perhaps going too long without sunlight in the Underdark made being deranged the natural state of its creatures.

"A Red Dragon shrinking himself down. Quite creative," Luo Lin said as the music ended and she turned around. "So what brings the renowned Drogo to the Underdark?"

Spider-elves were drow who had failed the Spider Queen's test and been transformed, possessing an elf's upper body and a spider's lower body.

Aside from a few individuals with unusual tastes, most creatures regarded spider-elves as threats.

The drow were even more hostile toward spider-elves, believing they had failed the Spider Queen.

Yet Luo Lin had still become the leader of a drow city-state, entirely because her strength was too outstanding.

"I brought you a gift," Drogo replied.

Luo Lin glanced at it. "A fanatical church warrior. I have killed enough of those already. If you brought me the dead pope, that could perhaps count as a gift from Drogo."

"No, no, this is the gift." Drogo pointed at the drum kit. "As for the warrior, I hope you can make him talk."

Luo Lin herself did not particularly enjoy percussion, believing it had too few opportunities to shine within an orchestra.

But the drum kit's appearance was still highly appealing. She stepped forward to inspect it closely. The design was remarkably thoughtful: eight pedals in total, each connected to different drums and cymbals, perfectly suited for all eight of her spider legs.

She immediately understood its purpose. Like the pipe organ, it allowed her alone to achieve effects that had originally required several musicians.

She could even compose movements centered around drums.

"A very fine invention." Luo Lin's talent for instruments was indeed exceptional. As she tried playing the drum kit, she did not become flustered in the slightest, even with so many feet.

"Perhaps you should provide music for my Magic Shadow."

"Magic Shadow? What is that?"

"A medium that lets everyone appreciate your music." The magic in her performances would not infect the audience through magic crystals, after all.

"Then it's settled." Luo Lin did not hesitate at all. She desperately needed listeners—normal listeners, at least not the kind who would commit suicide after listening for a few minutes because of the magic.

"So what is the price?" Naturally, she did not believe Drogo had come purely to deliver a gift.

"I want to use Speak with the Dead on that warrior."

"No problem." If someone counted which creature on the continent had killed the most church members, it would certainly be Luo Lin. And her total would exceed those of the next several combined.

She did not understand what the church's purpose was, but she certainly knew about the secrets hidden in its members' bodies.

She quickly removed the restriction preventing vitality from being infused into the corpse.

Speak with the Dead was different from resurrection. The latter was a forbidden art beyond the ninth circle, belonging only to gods. The former merely allowed a few questions, and those questions could not be complex.

Drogo adjusted his wording.

"Steam Curse was spread by the church, correct?"

"Yes."

"The owner of the equipment that produces the curse cooperated with the church, correct?"

"Yes."

"Does the church want to destroy steam engines?"

"No."

"Does the church want to restrict steam engines?"

"No."

"Does the church want to monopolize steam engines?"

"Yes." After answering the final question, the warrior fell backward. He did not pass on very peacefully.

Drogo understood now. The church had gone to such lengths to make people suspicious of steam engines, most likely intending to seize the technology afterward and release a "blessed improved version," thereby monopolizing it.

And those who had sacrificed their own factories were likely offering proof of loyalty in exchange for future benefits.

A bold thought suddenly came to Drogo.

Could it be that magic did not actually come from the gods, but from an ancient "monopolizing steam engines" incident?

But he did not share his speculation with anyone. Instead, he put on a broad, playful grin.

"Could you teleport me back to Twin Towers City? If I fly back, I probably won't make it in time for the yo-yo competition and the trailer we're preparing to show then."