Sorcerer’s Handbook

Chapter 49

Shattered Lake Prison, Cafeteria

Ashe looked at the crab roe tofu, lemon berry cheesecake, and golden pineapple juice before him. His nose was filled with the aroma of these delicacies, but he had no appetite.

These dishes were no ordinary fare, available only on the cafeteria's secret menu which prisoners couldn't access even with high contribution points.

Supposedly these dishes were considered premium luxury cuisine on the outside, with ingredients worth a third of an average person's monthly salary.

And the taste lived up to the price - Ashe suspected the chef had used magecraft, as he, a city boy worn down by MSG, almost swallowed his tongue after the first bite due to the sheer deliciousness. It was so good it made one feel content to die after eating it.

But thinking of his impending death sapped his appetite entirely.

The other condemned shared similar feelings. Some took a bite but ate no more, some wept as they ate, and others held their cutlery backwards, the unsharpened edges the only thing keeping them from triggering their neck chips' anti-suicide warnings.

Only two ate with gusto - the blue-skinned cannibal and the elf Valcas.

They seemed unbothered by the impending Blood Moon Tribunal. The cannibal shoveled the food in with his hands, ordering plate after plate, while Valcas demonstrated ten ways to properly hold cutlery with elegance as if dining in a revolving restaurant atop a skyscraper.

"Having trouble eating? Need any help?"

The kindly voice of the guard Nago was like a whip soaked in salt water, making all the condemned shudder and quickly bend their heads to eat faster.

Even Ashe was no exception.

The reason the condemned were so cowed by Nago was due to the "monitoring" they had endured all afternoon, which had completely worn down their defiance. Facing a guard who could control their neck chips, even the most stubborn obeyed - if you didn't obey, your head would be guided into obedience.

To be fair, Nago hadn't done anything too extreme to them.

He hadn't even touched a hair on them.

There was no physical harm at all.

He just made the condemned follow his schedule.

For example, at mealtimes - if someone didn't eat, Nago would activate the chip control system and make them eat through voice commands:

"Open your mouth, put the food in your mouth, chew once, twice, three times, swallow..."

Or when watching videos - if someone didn't watch or fidgeted, Nago would turn them into a model viewer:

"Sit properly, hands on your knees, watch the screen, blink once every five seconds."

Or when breathing fresh air on the observation deck, Nago said their superiors wanted group photos to remember the occasion, with the following requirements: tidy attire, smiling faces, good mental attitude, harmonious group atmosphere...

Undoubtedly the condemned alone couldn't satisfy these demands, so Nago provided a little "help".

Ashe got off easy, just lying on the ground smiling up at the camera, but Valcas went above and beyond - sitting on the cannibal's shoulders with his hands atop his head in fake cat ears, his gaunt, gloomy face beaming a sweet smile at the camera.

And one shot wasn't enough, they had to take multiples, posing from suave to chumming it up. All kinds of mental attitudes were covered.

After being contorted into various poses by Nago, the condemned were completely numb, just wanting to satisfy his demands quickly and be done with it. Some even thought it'd be better to just skip to the Blood Moon Tribunal.

Destroy us quickly, we're tired.

Thus at Nago's words, they immediately abandoned their morose thoughts and hurriedly ate their meal.

At this moment, Nago's pressure exceeded even that of the impending Tribunal.

After all, "death" was still uncertain.

But "a fate worse than death" was right before their eyes.

Ashe glanced around the empty cafeteria and quietly asked the man beside him, "How come no one else is here eating dinner? I can understand skipping lunch, but don't the others still need to eat?"

The man next to him was named Archibald Harvey. His dark skin and curly hair made him look like a laborer, but he was actually a night shift worker - a janitor who handled corpses.

Some may wonder how disposing of corpses could warrant the death penalty. This had to do with the standards of death - in the Blood Moon Kingdom, only bodies declared dead by a licensed medic were considered corpses.

Without a medic's pronouncement, even if your head was off, legally you were still alive.

Medics could truly resurrect people who had lost their heads, and many "dead" bodies could still be saved.

Thus backroom workers like Harvey who helped underground organizations dispose of bodies didn't get sympathetic labels like "accomplice", but were seen as "extremely heinous serial killers" - he had handled hundreds of bodies, and if each body was treated as a living person, hardly any prisoner's crimes could compare to Harvey's.

But this didn't mean Harvey was some wrongly accused good man.

Though he didn't reveal much of his dark side in the idle afternoon chat, the facts that he was a death mage and had said "what's good about warm women" were enough to judge his fetishes as ahead of his time for current human standards.

However, whether someone was a bad person or not had little to do with whether they were a kind internet user. In this afternoon of shared misfortune, Ashe quickly became friendly with him.

Harvey replied, "They all came early before 5 pm to eat dinner."

"Huh? Why?"

"To avoid us of course. Aside from us eight, all the other prisoners will try to stay in their rooms today. Those with surplus contribution points order delivery, those without avoid our meal times as much as possible."

"I know, but why are they avoiding us?"

"Traditional virtues."

Ashe blinked.

It wasn't that he didn't understand the term, just that it felt odd to describe the condemned here with it.

Harvey explained, "First, the eight chosen ones are summoned to the cafeteria at noon, so no one comes out in the morning. Though selections are based on the trial order, who knows if you might run into a guard in the hall and they add you to the trial list because they don't like how you walk?"

"Guards can do that?"

"Don't know, but do you wanna risk it?"

"I don't."

"There you go." Harvey shrugged. "After noon when the eight are picked, people still don't dare wander around. First reason is the guards of course - what if they swap you out with a lucky person because they don't like your face? Wouldn't you regret it enough to pop a blood vessel?"

Ashe nodded.

Indeed. More infuriating than your own bad luck was seeing someone benefit from it. Just thinking about it made his anger burn through his belly.

"Second reason's a bit superstitious. The prisoners believe that anyone seen by us ill-fated ones has a high probability of being selected for the next Blood Moon Tribunal."

Understandable. No one wanted to catch bad luck. If you saw an unlucky person in the afternoon and couldn't shit that night, it definitely wasn't your body's fault but the jinx's gravity anomaly.

"And the third reason is they don't know how to face us."

"Hm?"

"Greet us? Encourage us? Comfort us?" Harvey wiped his mouth with a napkin. "If you were them... oh wait, Ashe you are one of the condemned. Right now, if you saw prisoners who escaped this fate, wouldn't you feel every punctuation mark they said was laced with contempt?"

Ashe opened and closed his mouth. On second thought that was exactly right.

Since they knew I was slated to die and they didn't have to, I'd definitely feel their entire beings oozed disgusting rot.

Not just their words.

Just seeing them breathe would make me feel mocked.

Encouragement? Mockery!

Comfort? Ridicule!

Pity? Scorn!

No matter how nice they talked, to Ashe and the others it was profanity.

Fear of death created a pathetic thick wall between the eight and the rest.

"So on the day of the Tribunal, all prisoners voluntarily stay in their rooms. It protects themselves as well as the condemned."

Harvey looked at Ashe. "If you survive, you must also uphold this tradition on the next Blood Moon. It's the only kindness we can and must insist on. However..."

"However what?"

"I read the news reports on you." Harvey shrugged. "Frankly, you're the most likely to die tonight."

"It's not randomly killing one person?"

Ashe was nervous. When he learned the Tribunal randomly chose one out of eight to execute, he guessed it must be a random ritual - no need to pick eight and draw one if it wasn't random.

"It's random, but not that random. Sometimes more than one person dies... You really haven't seen the Tribunal before?"

"I really haven't! I don't know the rules at all!"

Harvey laughed. "Then you'll find out later... I was deeply moved when I first saw the Tribunal as a child. I never imagined there was such a wonderful form of entertainment in this world. I won't tell you the truth. The most despicable act for a death mage is prophecy - exploring the unknown is a mage's greatest joy, and death the greatest mystery."

Ashe clicked his tongue in frustration, but also felt doubtful. "If you're certain it's me, why are you guys nervous?"

Harvey shrugged. "Because the Tribunal isn't fixed, sometimes there are changes that make the prisoners really anxious, accidentally killing themselves... You're right, once I get there I'll just close my eyes and lie down to sleep. As long as I'm sure I won't be the one-in-eight, I definitely won't die if I don't do anything."

After Harvey's words, even eating the crab roe tofu made Ashe nervous.

Can it be? Am I really done for?

Is there really no chance left?

Virtual world exploration was going so smoothly, I drew the Virtual World Telescope just this morning. Maybe I could gather the spirits for the Myriad Slashes miracle tonight...

My swordswoman and I were also getting stronger. The mysteries of the mage world were unveiling before me...

I had just defeated Valcas and foiled Sylin's schemes...

I'm still developing! Can't you give me more time!

Ashe felt like a DPS gambling on gear drops only to suddenly be dragged into a raid.

Victory was on the horizon, but he was being strung along for a pittance in the present.

He suddenly recalled his boss's old social media post - life isn't cooking, waiting until you have all ingredients before starting. When you see yourself get sprinkled with cumin, you should realize you've become an ingredient - who could've guessed the boss announced switch from 4-day to 996 work weeks the day after posting that?

"Dinner time is up. Wipe your mouths, go to the bathroom for personal hygiene. Gather in the central hall in 30 minutes."

Note Nago wasn't "commanding" but "inputting instructions" - everyone simultaneously wiped their mouths with napkins before standing to go to the bathroom en masse.

Before Ashe entered the bathroom, he heard Nago's last instruction:

"7:45 pm, arrive at the Blood Moon venue on time to await the show's start."

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