Chapter 690: A Perverted Author [Bonus - ]

Chapter 690: A Perverted Author [Bonus Chapter]

Twenty minutes later, the yellow cab smoothly banked down an off-ramp, crossing beneath a towering archway forged from blackened iron and polished bronze.

The vehicle entered the sprawling industrial courtyard of the Iron Spire Trade Pavilion, coming to a gentle silent halt in the designated carriage reserve.

Outside, the air was warm, smelling of molten copper and high-grade runic charcoal.

Towering warehouse silos stretched toward the sky, surrounded by rows of heavy cargo wagons, dwarven artificers hauling crates of glowing ingots, and automated lifter-golems shifting massive blocks of granite with rhythmic clanks.

Morwenna kicked the front door open the microsecond the cab stopped moving, practically tumbling out onto the pavement and inhaling three massive lungfuls of soot-filled air as if she had just escaped a gas chamber.

Aeliana and the white-haired woman slid out of the rear compartment, their posture relaxed, looking for all the world like two lifelong scholars who had just concluded an invigorating debate.

Morwenna marched up to the driver’s window, tapping the obsidian ID card against the scanner to settle the massive fare.

"Keep the engine running," she grunted at the dwarf. "Wait right here until we’re done hauling the crates."

The dwarf nodded with a toothy grin, pocketing his generous tip and keeping his ear-buds firmly in place.

Aeliana turned toward the white-haired stranger, smoothing the folds of her pale green cloak with a bright adoring smile.

"I must ask, sister Cid," Aeliana said warmly, using the casual name the woman had provided during their heated literary exchange, "what brings you to the industrial quarter today? Are you procuring armaments for your household?"

"Cid" smiled, slipping her slender hands into the deep pockets of her charcoal traveling coat.

"Nothing so dramatic, little one," the woman replied smoothly, her voice carrying that effortless weight. "Just exploring the grounds. It is my very first time visiting this particular sector of the Sovereign Realm, and I find the movement of raw materials rather... grounding."

Aeliana nodded in deep shared understanding.

"It is our first time traversing this great metropolis as well! We are currently fulfilling an important logistical commission for our Lord... procuring construction stone, refined mythril, and forge foundations for our newly established territory."

The woman’s dark eyes softened, studying Aeliana’s earnest radiant expression with a rare genuine warmth that crinkled the crimson paint at the corner of her eye.

"A loyal heart is a rare jewel in the Sovereign Realm," Cid murmured softly. "You are truly a remarkable young woman, Aeliana. I only wish there were some small way to cherish the memory of this delightful encounter."

Aeliana gasped, her eyes lighting up like stars.

"Oh! But there is!"

She reached into the inner folds of her robes, withdrawing the ornate lacquered camera Lady Eluned had pressed on Silas before they left.

Aeliana turned toward Morwenna, thrusting the heavy brass device directly into the pirate queen’s chest.

"Morwenna! Be useful! Take two photographs of us! One shall remain in our private album for Lady Eluned, and the second shall be presented to Lady Cid as a token of our sisterhood!"

Morwenna caught the brass camera against her ribs, letting out a loud aggrieved grumble that could have curdled milk.

"I am a high-seas pirate, not a royal portrait painter..."

"Smile, Morwenna! Adjust the lens to the light-crystal!"

With a miserable put-upon groan, Morwenna stepped back five paces onto the cobblestones.

She lifted the heavy brass apparatus to her eye, squinting through the crystalline viewfinder.

In the frame, Aeliana and the white-haired woman stood side by side beneath the towering bronze arches of the Iron Spire.

Aeliana was beaming with radiant, girlish delight, flashing a two-fingered peace sign toward the lens while the older woman offered a subtle elegant smirk with her long white hair catching the golden afternoon light.

"Alright, hold still," Morwenna muttered. "Three... two... one... don’t blink."

CLICK-WHIRRR! CLICK-WHIRRR!

Two bright flashes of azure light flared from the camera’s crystalline lens.

Deep within the mechanical casing, the enchanted parchment rolled through development with a soft whirring hum as two perfectly crisp glossy portraits slid smoothly out of the top slot with the images captured in stunning lifelike full color, preserving every detail down to the intricate crimson marking on the stranger’s cheek.

Morwenna stepped forward, waving the damp parchment in the air to set the alchemical ink, and handed one to Aeliana and one to the white-haired woman.

"There," Morwenna grumbled. "Your commemorative evidence of degenerate solidarity..."

Cid took the glossy photograph, looking down at the frozen image of herself and the smiling Elf.

A quiet, soft breath slipped past her lips, her dark eyes glowing with an emotion that looked remarkably like nostalgia.

"I shall cherish it," Cid said softly, slipping the portrait into her inner breast pocket right over her heart.

She turned her gaze back to Aeliana, her tone shifting into one that was remarkably solemn.

"Keep pursuing your goals, little princess," the woman said, her voice dropping into an unhurried murmur that made the hairs on Morwenna’s arms stand on end. "Do not let the timid constraints of lesser minds bind your ambition. I can see the spark within your spirit... before your journey concludes, you shall become far more successful than I ever was."

Aeliana and Morwenna blinked in unison.

’More successful than her...?’

The phrasing was bizarre. Who was this woman? A retired arch-mage? A disgraced matriarch from an extinct noble house?

Cid stepped past them, her charcoal coat billowing in the sulfur-scented breeze as she began walking toward the main avenue leading away from the foundries.

She lifted a slender pale hand, waving lazily over her shoulder without looking back.

"Cheerio, little ones~!" her smoky voice drifted back through the steam. "And by the way... I lied about my name! Check the first page of your book! I generally detest meeting my readers in the flesh... but for you, little elf, I made an exception!"

Aeliana froze.

Her breath stalled in her throat.

’Check... the book...?’

She snapped her head around with her silver-green eyes darting toward the avenue...

Empty.

The wide, crowded flagstones where the white-haired woman had been walking a fraction of a second ago were completely vacant.

There was no spatial distortion, there was no crackle of lightning mana, no chime of a teleportation gate and no displaced wind either.

The woman, and the glossy photograph in her pocket, had simply ceased to exist within the physical space of the district, as if she were a phantom that had dissolved into thin air.

Aeliana’s spatial perception flared outward in an instant, expanding across three city blocks, searching the air for a signature, a trace, a fading thread of mana...

Nothing.

"What...?" Aeliana whispered, her jaw dropping in sheer, unadulterated bewilderment. "Where did she go?!"

Beside her, Morwenna’s hand snapped to Tidebringer’s hilt as her stormy gray eyes scanned the crowd with razor-sharp focus.

"I... don’t know."

Even while holding Tidebringer, Morwenna hadn’t been able to track her... what level was she on?

Tidebringer hummed against her palm and Morwenna swallowed... Whoever that woman was, even the sea had flinched.

’At least she’s not an enemy.’

With trembling fingers, Aeliana looked down at the crimson-leather book clutched against her chest.

She flipped open the heavy front cover.

On the clean parchment flyleaf directly preceding Chapter One, where the paper had been completely blank when she pulled it from her robes twenty minutes ago, an elegant flowing inscription was penned in dark crimson ink that was still faintly wet to the touch.

"To my dearest, most shamelessly devoted disciple, Lady Aeliana.

...May your Lord’s core never run dry, and may your Chapter Fourteen be glorious.

— C.X.I.D."

Aeliana stared at the signature.

Her pupils dilated to the size of pinpricks.

The air rushed out of her lungs in a long, shuddering gasp, her knees trembling so violently beneath her skirts that she nearly dropped the sacred text onto the dirty cobblestones.

’C... X... I... D...’

The letters burned into her retinas like divine fire.

’That was Master C.X.I.D.?!’ Aeliana’s soul screamed in pure, unadulterated delirium. ’The legendary recluse author who sold forty million copies across dimensions in the Sovereign Realm?! The master who opened my eyes to the boundless heavens of passion?! That was her?! She was sitting in the back of a taxi with me?!’

There was no reason to doubt it. The signature carried the exact, identical runic flourish found on the official first-edition publisher prints.

"I... I met my role model..." Aeliana whispered, clutching the book against her face, tears of ecstasy welling at the corners of her silver-green eyes. "She touched my book... she praised my ambition! She said I would become more successful than her!"

She pulled the book back, staring at the empty avenue with a sudden aggrieved pout.

"Wait! If she was the master herself... why didn’t she give me more practical tips on the dragon-knot expansion?! She had twenty full minutes to explain the pelvic angling!"

Morwenna stared at the pouting Elf princess with an expression of such irredeemable disgust that she looked as though she had just swallowed a live sea urchin.

’She’s completely insane,’ Morwenna thought, dragging a hand down her own face with a soul-weary groan. ’The entire world has gone mad... I am surrounded by lunatics.’

She looked up at the towering foundries, taking a deep breath of soot to clear her mind.

’I wonder what Silas is doing right now...’ Morwenna mused, a sudden pang of concern touching her chest. ’Hopefully Rika isn’t stressing him out too badly or at least... I hope he’s having an easier time than I am.’

...

Meanwhile, in the high administrative tier of Central City.

Standing before the towering, awe-inspiring monolith of the World Council Central Directorate was Kara White.

The building was a mountain of white marble and polished celestial glass, rising hundreds of stories into the azure sky, ringed by spiraling terraces of golden statues, administrative banners, and heavily armed magistrate-corps honor guards in crimson-and-gold plate.

It was the nerve center of sovereign law... the highest bureaucratic seat in the known realms.

Heads turned all along the marble stairs as a one-armed woman in a midnight-blue suit, a girl in a green cloak, and a golden bird the size of a fist were not an easy group to lose in a crowd.

’Is that... Lord Vespera?’ someone whispered. ’The Hero of Humanity?’

Kara gave them a polite little wave with her only hand and kept walking.

Kara stood with her hand casually resting in the pocket of her midnight-blue three-piece suit with her black bangs swaying gently in the cool mountain breeze and her pinned left sleeve stirring beside her.

Beside her, holding her right hand with tight fingers, was Rika.

The Beast Goddess was dressed in a pristine travel cloak of dark forest green, her wild midnight-black hair brushing against her shoulders.

Perched proudly upon her right shoulder, nestled right beside the curve of her neck, was the fledgling Primordial Phoenix.

The tiny, golden-feathered bird chirped softly, its starlit eyes scanning the massive marble stairs with lively curious intelligence.

Kara looked down at the petite girl, a warm indulgent smile playing on her lips.

"Alright, Rika," Kara said smoothly, her melodious, feminine voice carrying an easy relaxed tone. "We’re about to head into the high exchange registers. Before we submit our formal requisitions... tell me. What kind of beast do you actually want next? What’s your dream contract?"

Rika paused.

She stood frozen on the wide marble steps, her vivid emerald eyes widening with intense serious concentration.

She puffed her small cheeks out, staring up at the grand golden arches of the building then her face lit up like a festival lantern.

She let out a fierce determined breath, releasing Kara’s hand and dramatically pumping both of her clenched fists straight into the air!

"A DRAGON!" Rika declared at the top of her lungs, her green eyes blazing with pure ambition. "A big, terrifying, invincible dragon that can breathe lightning and crush castles with its tail!"

CHIIIIIRP!

On her shoulder, the tiny fledgling phoenix threw its golden wings out, letting out an ear-piercing enthusiastic trill of solidarity.

Both the goddess and the tiny bird stood on the marble steps, completely revved up, practically vibrating with heroic fire-breathing momentum and Kara stared down at the two of them.

She blinked once then, Kara reached up, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a soft dry chuckle that instantly burst their triumphant bubble.

"Rika..." Kara sighed, an amused, apologetic grimace touching her face. "I hate to break it to you... but I seriously doubt the World Council’s trade registries have any live dragons sitting in their inventory vaults."

The momentum died instantly.

Rika’s arms slowly drooped to her sides.

Her puffed-out cheeks deflated like a punctured balloon, her shoulders slumping into a tragic pitiful slouch as she looked up at Kara with wide crestfallen puppy-dog eyes.

Even the tiny phoenix let out a low, mournful peep, tucking its golden head beneath its wing in shared disappointment.

Kara couldn’t help but laugh, reaching down and gently ruffling Rika’s dark, silky hair with a reassuring pat.

’When she’s excited, she’s almost like a kid.’