Chapter 2976 - 20: Absolution

Chapter 2976: Chapter 20: Absolution

After dinner, Zhang Ji Xin pulled on his cloak and headed to the Pedestrian Street.

Today was a Big Snow day.

Since early morning, the snowflakes had been coming down like they were free, blanketing the entire academy. The student council people said that the thin layer of snow during the last Light Snow spell had been pretty well received on campus; back then the weather monitor was handled by wizards from Jiuyou Academy. These last few days, the job had switched to wizards from Alpha Academy, and wanting to leave a deeper impression, they went and dropped more than a dozen snow-weather balls in one go.

What a damned obsession with winning.

The red-faced warlock trudged down the Pedestrian Street, grumbling in his heart.

He reached his destination very quickly.

No. 98 Pedestrian Street used to be a talisman shop run by an Elder Wizard called "Mu Mingzi." A few months ago it was transferred to the Yuzui Knight Order, and now it was the Hunting team’s official base—just like Xiangqi Club’s No. 49 Gamma Street, or Blood Comrades’ 18 Gamma Street. Any student society that was even slightly up-and-coming would have some halfway decent office space.

On the left of No. 98 was D&K. It was already evening, and the shop was bustling; at a glance, most of the robe colors were Alpha Academy’s. It wasn’t clear whether they’d heard something from their elders.

On the right of No. 98 was San You Bookstore. The doors and windows had been shut for a long time, but there wasn’t the slightest speck of dust on them. Rumor had it that Beta Town and the First University both had dedicated staff assigned to sweep and dust three times a day, rain or shine.

Utterly damned magic-worship.

Zhang Ji Xin shook his head and pushed open the somewhat low-key wooden door tucked between the two.

Jingle-jingle!

The brass bell on the door chimed with a crisp, pleasant sound.

A wave of heat rolled out and hit him, warming him up in an instant.

"Everyone’s a bit late today."

In a wide armchair, Xin Fat Man was cradling a copy of "Beta Town Post." He lifted his eyelids and glanced at the freshly arrived red-faced warlock, grumbling a line.

His voice, combined with the kettle bubbling on the small stove in the center of the room, made one feel drowsy.

"No one else here yet?" Zhang Ji Xin looked around, took off his cloak, and handed it to the two Sprites hovering nearby. The Sprites shouted slogans with Hehe-like enthusiasm and laboriously lugged his heavy cloak off to the back room.

"Dylan said Blue Bird has a last-minute arena match today and will probably end up in the campus hospital... he has to keep an eye on him for a bit. Lin Guo got dragged off by the Giant God Soldier Laboratory; apparently Doctor Du Zemu has something for him to do. As for Li Meng, heh-heh... the Monitor went back to Zhongshan for this stretch, so she’s on vacation, running around with that Little Fox from Greenhill Mansion every day. She’s probably already forgotten she’s supposed to be a Hunter..."

Jingle-jingle!

The doorbell rang again.

Immediately, a slightly annoyed voice sounded behind the two warlocks: "—I step through the door and I already hear you badmouthing me! Dou Dou, you need to keep your nephew in line!"

Zhang Ji Xin whipped around in a rush.

Just in time to see three witches come in one after another.

The one speaking was naturally Li Meng. On her left was the Fox Girl called Su Ya, and on her right was someone who made his scalp prickle—a little great-aunt, Zhang Yudou—his paternal cousin-aunt, currently a second-year student at Alpha Academy.

He very wisely did not ask what she was doing here.

This little ancestor went wherever she wanted; how was he supposed to control her?

"—Ahem, any news?" The red-faced warlock decisively sent out a distress signal to the Fat Wizard.

Xin Fat Man curled his lip.

"Mm, nothing much that’s new... just that those Big Crows are stirring things up again." He shook the newspaper in his hand, producing a rustling sound.

The words "Big Crows" neatly diverted everyone’s attention in the room.

The so-called "Big Crows" no longer referred solely to the highest-ranking leaders in the Crow Organization, but to that bunch of Wanderers who had stolen five Edge-One units from the school and were now fleeing all over the Wizard World.

"—What have they done now?" Zhang Yudou blinked, face full of curiosity.

"A few days ago the school and two Trident Sword Hunting teams went after one ’Big Crow’—uh, the paper didn’t say exactly who it was. Anyway, while they were hunting one Big Crow, they got wrapped up like dumplings instead: five Big Crows showed up at once... Of the eleven Hunters, one was killed on the spot, four were seriously injured, and the rest barely escaped with their lives."

The Fat Wizard shook his head with genuine sympathy, whether sighing over those Hunters’ bad luck or marveling at the Big Crows’ ruthlessness.

"—Those Crows still aren’t all dead?" Su Ya finally figured out what they were talking about. Her fuzzy little ears popped out from her hair with a snap, her expression thoroughly shocked: "There are so many Legends and Big Wizards in the Alliance—how can they not catch a few mangy strays?"

As a little maid at Greenhill Mansion, her main job was cleaning and tending the garden. She didn’t need to deal with anything complicated, so her understanding of the Wizard World was especially simple.

Li Meng patted her companion’s shoulder in a world-weary, elder-like way.

"It’s not that simple!"

Her tone was oh-so-wise, and her analysis was actually pretty decent: "If Montelio rated them highly enough to become the first batch of Primordial Guard Squad wizards, they’re not going to be easily caught. And don’t forget, they’re no longer ordinary Registered wizards now—each one of them can burst out Big Wizard-level combat power..."

"Didn’t they get put on a wanted list?" Su Ya bit her finger. In her mind, once a Black Wizard made the wanted list, they were basically done for.

Xin Fat Man chuckled: "—If wanted lists worked, the heads of those four Big sea monsters would’ve been sitting in the school’s hunting museum exhibit hall ages ago. How much stronger are they than those few Big Crows, really?"

Zhang Ji Xin enthusiastically chimed in with his own analysis: "Five desperadoes who can hit Big Wizard-level power... trying to hunt them down isn’t exactly easy. The key thing is, they’re very familiar with how the school and the Alliance run hunts. That makes things even harder."

Jingle-jingle!

The doorbell rang for the third time.

"—I heard you talking about it out on the street."

A small brown mare clip-clopped into the room, happily twitching her long ears: "Since it’s so hard for ordinary Hunting teams to take them down, why don’t all those Alliance Legends step in?"

"It still comes down to priorities."

With Xiao Xiao absent, Xin Fat Man naturally took on part of the "doctor" role, saying very seriously, "There are only so many Legends in the World, but there are plenty of Black Wizards worse than the Big Crows... why not prioritize hunting the truly worse ones? Besides, this whole situation might actually be the tacit consensus among most Legends. Like shadows—not a good thing in themselves, but the shadows along the road are there because people carefully maintain them and deliberately leave them be."

"Even so... they dared to go that hard on the school’s people. That’s over the top."

"Five Big Crows surround and attack eleven Registered wizards, and only one dies? Heh, that record is embarrassing enough to make the Big Wizards lose face. I’d bet good money the one Hunter who died was from Trident Sword... and from some branch of Trident Sword with no backing."