Chapter 159#
The Hunt 10#
The Gatling gun was an unreasonable sort of weapon, but one had to admit its firepower could make a mockery of any other offensive tool.
The City of Mist didn’t produce this kind of item — which meant it had been brought in from the very beginning. Though admittedly, it wasn’t particularly well-suited for use in the City of Mist.
It was too heavy to move, too large for any storage item to hold. Choosing it meant confining yourself to a small, open patch of ground and making yourself a conspicuous target.
Anyone who chose it was living in the City of Mist with one philosophy: I won’t bother defending — but I’ll send you to the afterlife before you can kill me.
— A ruthless sort of person.
Murphy sighed as he looked up at the red-haired witch on the high ground, her robes billowing around her as she manned the Gatling.
This was really beneath the dignity of Paradise.
Everyone could tell that Murphy’s hesitant, stop-and-start attitude was strange.
Yu Feichen retracted his defensive item.
“You know her?” he said.
Murphy nodded. “But she doesn’t seem to have recognized us.”
That much was beyond doubt — because right now, the barrel of the Gatling was slowly swinging in their direction. Looking down it, the inside of the barrel was a void of pure black, as if it connected to some other world free of all troubles.
Since they knew each other, they should say hello. Yu Feichen glanced at Murphy with a calm, expectant look.
Murphy: “She’s too far away. If we call out to her here, half the block will hear.”
Yu Feichen, evenly: “Then paint her a picture.”
Murphy: “……”
The person Murphy knew was undoubtedly one of Paradise’s deities. Any of the three goddesses — Wisdom, Power, or Fate — was possible.
He was certain that no one in all of Paradise could look at the God of Time’s work and fail to recognize the artist.
Beside them, Windsor let out another suspicious little “heh heh” laugh.
In the end, Murphy suppressed his urge to grind his teeth, and pulled a blank sheet of paper from his storage item.
Painting was his specialty. Over the years, both the Main God and other artists had praised his skill warmly. So why was it that, after Yu Feichen said that, he felt a strange and inexplicable humiliation?
As if he were some terrible painter.
He loaded his brush with paint and wrote a concise, straightforward self-introduction on the paper: I am the Painter.
The moment the words were set down, the lower half of the red-haired witch’s face — the only part visible — broke into a silent, wide-mouthed grin.
She laughed and laughed, and even had to brace a hand against her waist.
Then she made a gesture in their direction.
Murphy frowned. “She wants us to come over immediately. Something urgent.”
As they drew closer, lively music and bizarre shrieks drifted out from within the circus. A performance was underway on the open-air stage. At the entrance, a red-nosed clown addressed them in an exaggerated tone: “The carnival show has already begun! Welcome to join us!”
With that, the clown swept off his hat in a bow. White and red paint dripped from his face in steady drops, but he seemed entirely unaware, watching the guests enter with bright, eager eyes.
At the centre of the open-air stage was a large circular platform, where ten monkeys in tuxedos were leaping and bounding about, jumping through rings of fire in time with the music.
The audience seats were packed — NPCs dutifully cheering and applauding for the monkeys.
The red-haired witch was stationed at the VIP viewing platform at the very top of the stands. They climbed the stairs to the side, and the NPC audience remained fully absorbed in the performance, not a single head turning.
Anfi looked at the red-haired witch. Her expression was as distant as ever — no sign of recognition or familiarity.
Yu Feichen: “Who is she?”
Murphy: “You can call her Sheena.”
Even Bai Song’s mouth twitched at that.
Paradise’s three goddesses of Wisdom, Fate, and Power — of these, the Goddess of Fate had never had her name made public, the Goddess of Power’s true name was Atega, and the Goddess of Wisdom’s full name was Shivana.
So the red-haired witch who had just calmly manned a heavy Gatling and sent five people on their way without so much as a change of expression — was not the Goddess of Power at all, but the Goddess of Wisdom…?
Bai Song had not yet recovered from the bewildering contrast when they reached Sheena’s side.
Murphy’s first words: “What are you doing?”
The red-haired witch leaned against the Gatling, an eyebrow raised. “You mean this?”
“Yes.”
Sheena patted the Gatling, her tone somewhere between a sigh and pride. “Well — I can’t fight with a bow, can’t use a blade, and I can’t aim a gun to save my life. This is all I’ve got. Works beautifully, really.”
She tilted her hat brim slightly upward. Beneath the low-pulled witch’s hat, a pair of olive-green eyes was revealed. She swept her gaze over the group, pausing on Yu Feichen with a faintly appraising look. “This must be Little Yu, and…”
At that moment, the two people trailing behind Bai Song and Windsor were murmuring quietly to each other.
“She’s another one of your subjects,” Yu Feichen said. “She governs Wisdom.”
Anfi: “But she doesn’t look like she has very much wisdom.”
One stood still facing forward; the other leaned their head slightly toward him as they spoke — the posture somehow appeared oddly intimate, their voices low enough that no third person could hear. But from reading their lips, the Goddess of Wisdom gleaned something.
Her look shifted from suspicion to certainty. Sheena said, slowly and mournfully: “I am wounded.”
“So then, Little Yu — would you care to explain?”
Yu Feichen was mildly puzzled. “Why do you know who I am too?”
Knowing the name was one thing, but the weary tone she used to say Little Yu was something else entirely.
“Have you forgotten?” Sheena sighed. “I don’t only govern Wisdom. I also govern your account balance.”
Yu. Fei. Chen.
The wicked, propertied class!