Chapter 44
Chapter 44
“Last night, the beloved dance partner of our kingdom’s Prince Northeast Bro Yu vanished without explanation, leaving His Highness heartbroken and inconsolable!”
A slit opened across the sole of the enormous foot, revealing teeth within.
Was that its mouth?
“The prince decrees that whoever finds the missing beauty will be granted a noble title and richly rewarded!”
After delivering the announcement, the enormous foot hopped back into the carriage, leaving Qin Lan and Luo Yue staring at each other.
“That was… a foot, wasn’t it? I didn’t imagine it?”
Luo Yue seemed to question reality itself.
She tried to process what she had seen, but her mind contained nothing except the enormous foot that had suddenly appeared.
The talking foot seemed to have stepped directly onto her brain and flattened every wrinkle from it.
“A palace in a place this small was already ridiculous, but it even has a prince…” Qin Lan said miserably. “And what is Northeast Bro Yu supposed to be? The foot motif only made the designer think of some swaggering northeastern guy?”
“They could have created an elegant jade foot, but they insisted on Bro Yu…”
The thought of whatever battle awaited them at the town palace made Qin Lan’s vision darken.
What would Northeast Bro Yu’s attack animation look like?
Would a pair of steaming, sweaty size-43 feet ram themselves directly into Qin Lan’s face?
Absolutely not.
“Thank you for helping me earlier…”
A timid voice made Qin Lan and Luo Yue pause simultaneously.
It sounded familiar.
Wasn’t this the little girl from the snow?
They turned and saw her.
The girl still wore the ragged, heavily patched windbreaker. Her bright eyes studied Qin Lan curiously. She wanted to approach but remained too timid to step closer.
“Are you looking for the prince’s dance partner? I might know where she is…”
The little girl blinked, gathered her courage, and spoke.
Qin Lan was surprised. He had assumed the girl’s story ended when he killed Matchstick Bro. He had not expected her to appear as a guide in the next tale.
“Follow me.”
The girl offered no further explanation and turned away.
The blizzard remained fierce. A thick blanket of snow covered the street, deep enough to reach nearly to the knee with each step, yet it did not seem to slow the girl at all.
Even stranger, when Qin Lan sped up, so did she.
When he slowed, she slowed as well.
No matter how he adjusted his pace, she remained a short distance ahead of them.
Like a ghost.
Understanding dawned on Qin Lan. His previous guess had been correct. The girl was no longer human, but an existence sustained by thought.
Put simply, she was a ghost.
They traveled through the snow for a long time. The town’s lights fell far behind until they were almost invisible.
At last, Qin Lan found the prince’s “dance partner.”
“The prince is a talking foot, so his dance partner is a talking glass slipper…”
“Perfectly reasonable.”
Qin Lan lacked even the strength to complain.
In the snow-covered forest, a gigantic Glass Slipper taller than a person hopped around and released piercing shrieks.
“Where is it?! Where?!”
“The shoe! Where did my shoe go?!”
It screamed furiously and rammed nearby trees to vent its anger.
Crack!
With a forceful impact from the crystal high heel, a thick tree beside it snapped in two.
The sight startled Qin Lan, who immediately assessed its strength.
“Three-Star! And a strength-type Three-Star anomaly at that!”
“In terms of raw stats alone, this Glass Slipper is even stronger than I am!”
“But…” Qin Lan narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t it already a shoe? What other shoe could it possibly be looking for?”
“Does it have some kind of identity disorder? Does it think it’s actually a Walmart shopping bag?”
The thought lasted all of one second before Qin Lan dismissed it.
Because another possibility had occurred to him.
He glanced at the little girl beside him. She, too, was staring at the Glass Slipper, fear and… hatred filling her eyes.
“That is the prince’s dance partner… As long as you help it find its shoe, it will return to the palace with you.”
The little girl forced down her emotions and spoke softly with her head lowered. “After that, the prince will issue you a pass, and you will be able to leave this place safely.”
Qin Lan nodded slightly, then asked in an even voice, “What if we slaughter it instead?”
“What if we slaughter that prince along with it? Would that save the ‘shoe’?”
Luo Yue was still confused, but the little girl beside her trembled all over. Her head snapped up, and light returned to her eyes as she stared at Qin Lan.
“You want to kill them?”
“But… why? That would not benefit outsiders like you at all. It would only expose you to terrible danger…”
The little girl was excited, yet she still could not understand.
Qin Lan smiled. He looked at the shrieking Glass Slipper in the distance, a chill gathering in his eyes.
“I think I can make a pretty good guess… The ‘shoe’ it’s talking about is actually a real person, just like you, isn’t it?”
“Something is wrong with this world. People are turned into merchandise and sold with matches, while the owner of a glass slipper is hunted down as if they were the shoe…”
“Who knows how many other things have been turned upside down?”
Qin Lan’s voice sank.
“I still don’t know who did all this, but I am very, very pissed off.”
“I’m going to kill every twisted thing in this place. Then I’m going to find whoever set it all up and ram this Hot-Tempered Stick straight up their ass.”
His gaze turned icy as he tightened his grip on the stick.
Luo Yue was no fool. After hearing what he had said, she understood what he meant.
“You aren’t planning to clear this instance by following its rules, are you?”
“Earning the residents’ approval is one way to clear it… Killing every resident is another.”
Luo Yue considered his words as she took out another cursed artifact.
“I’m not much of a fighter, but since you’ve made your decision, I’ll do everything I can to help.”
That was exactly what Qin Lan had been waiting to hear.
“No rush. Let me test it out first!”
Qin Lan grinned confidently, stepped forward, and leaped high into the air, throwing himself straight at the Glass Slipper.
[You became a crudely made insole. Killer: (Glass Slipper)]
[Strength permanently increased by 2.]
…
[You were brutally crushed beneath a high heel. Too bad you’re not into that… Killer: (Glass Slipper)]
[Speed permanently increased by 1.]
…
“No rush. Let me… Uh, never mind. Let’s attack together.”
After grinding his attributes all the way to the diminishing-returns limit, Qin Lan had been ready to put on a dazzling show.
Then he remembered just how much force had crushed him to death. After a moment’s hesitation, he chose the safer approach.
Luo Yue murmured her agreement and swiftly activated the cursed artifact in her hand.
In an instant, two burly figures sprang out from among the trees.
Qin Lan followed right behind them, swinging the Hot-Tempered Stick overhead and bringing it down with crushing force as he charged the Glass Slipper once more.