Chapter 66: The Down-and-Out Rune Master

After many days of travel and trade, Tom finally brought his dust-covered shell and rolled onto Sykes’s territory.

The scene he saw this time was completely different from the last.
The little merfolk that could be seen on the streets at any given moment were now nowhere to be found, making the entire territory seem excessively deserted.

“Eh? Where are your domain citizens?” Tom curiously poked his head out of his shell, only to be met with a disinfectant baptism from his good friend.

“Uwaah!! Sykes, you damn mysophobe!” The big snail shivered from being sprayed and complained with extreme dissatisfaction.

“Did you run into a siren? You stink of feathers,” Sykes said with a straight face, blocking the necessary path to the entrance, holding a spray bottle and spraying his friend.

Tom’s eyes widened.
“Good heavens! I knew it was your damn nose again! I just made a deal with a passing siren ten days ago, and you can smell it?”

The merman didn’t continue this topic that was unpleasant to a fish, but instead asked, “Where is the person you brought?”

Tom muttered as he changed into his human form.
After crawling out, he grabbed his shell and shook it up and down, as if trying to shake something out.

He had only shaken it a few times when a human-shaped object fell out with a ‘plop’.

The person who was shaken out was lying on the ground.
He moved his fingers slightly.
Although his fallen posture was a bit disheveled, he quickly brushed the wrinkles on his clothes in a very decent manner and slowly stood up from the ground.

This runemaster, brought here remotely by Tom, had long, pure black hair and extremely pale skin.
His facial features were exquisite and elegant.
Even wrapped in a set of worn-out, threadbare, and patched-up clothes, he didn’t look like a down-and-out, ordinary person, but more like some kind of reclusive existence that didn’t show himself to others.

But when he looked at others with his pair of pitch-black eyes, which had not a hint of white, it would make people feel a chill down their spine, as if they had been targeted by some ferocious beast, and could not escape even if they fled to the ends of the earth.

And now, this person was sizing up Sykes with his pair of lifeless eyes and gave him a slight nod.

Sykes didn’t show much expression on the surface, but he was somewhat surprised in his heart—this person’s appearance was completely inconsistent with the impression he had formed from Tom’s description.
Such an aura, such a posture…

“Is it Bei? Welcome to my domain. Has Tom told you about the content of your work?”
Sykes had a bottom line in his heart and spoke first.

“It’s Mr. Bei,” the runemaster named Bei stared at Sykes and corrected him seriously.
Then he answered his question, “This snail has told me everything. Teaching a group of troublesome cubs the basics of runic knowledge, right?”

There was nothing wrong with that.
Sykes nodded.
They were indeed very troublesome cubs.
Not only troublesome, but they also had many fantastic ideas.
But this point would have to wait for him to discover slowly after he took office.

After answering the question just now, Bei did not avert his eyes, but continued to size up Sykes for a long time, as if he were sizing up something.
After a full two minutes, he finally spoke again slowly, “Regarding the treatment…”

His voice was cold and firm, as if he were fighting for the most ideal benefits for himself.
But this was also human nature.
Sykes planned to hear what kind of treatment such an extraordinary runemaster wanted.

“I want a big enough bed,” this sentence was said with a clang and force, allowing no doubt.

?

Sykes looked at the other in surprise, his previous assessment in his heart once again overturned.

Bei didn’t look like he was joking at all.
His empty, dark pupils had become a few shades brighter.
From the corners of his mouth to his eyes to his curled black hair, every tiny arc was telling of its owner’s anticipation for this small request.

Sykes even felt as if he had seen a black cat blinking its eyes.
Although its body was still demurely standing in its original spot, its tail was already up in a curved arc in anticipation.

“No problem,” the merman said with some hesitation.
“This is the most basic need. Every cub mentor will have their own house, and you can arrange it however you like. After you take office, you will also receive a generous salary and can choose what you want.”

Just like Xavier’s wall full of bottles and jars, Sykes couldn’t help but think of that octopus’s strange little hobby.

With every treatment the merman stated, the runemaster’s eyes on the other side would light up a little.
By the time the merman had finished talking about the generous salary, he could already feel the scorching, almost-fish-igniting, eager gaze from the other side.

“Very good,” …as his spirit and flesh became visibly happy, his temperament also underwent a huge change.

It was as if a pillar had been removed, and he suddenly collapsed.
Even his eyelids drooped a bit, sweeping away the arrogant and cold aura from the beginning by seventy or eighty percent.

His whole persona had been swapped.
In an instant, he switched from the state of a high-and-mighty master…

“Hello, boss,” Bei’s voice was drawn out long, and he raised a hand, waving at Sykes politely.

What’s going on?

Tom, who had been watching the excitement on the side for half a day and rarely saw his old friend’s dazed look, finally couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
He laughed so hard, holding his stomach, that he was bent over backwards.
In the end, he had to use one hand to support himself on the bookshelf next to him, so that he didn’t fall to the ground from laughing.

“Hahahahahaha! I say, Sykes, you weren’t really fooled by this guy, were you?”

Tom wiped away the tears he had laughed out and teased his friend, “He’s always been like this. That aura just now was probably just something he put on to fool people, right?”

As he spoke, the big snail even forcefully patted Sykes’s shoulder.
“When I met him back then, I was almost fooled too. But how could a truly capable person be so down-and-out, and even willing to teach a group of little cubs? You’re thinking too much!”

Sykes silently glanced at Tom.
Although he didn’t speak, Tom, with his understanding of him, still noticed the hesitation in the other’s eyes.
So he simply pointed in Bei’s direction—

“If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself. Isn’t that the reason?”

Bei seemed to not feel anything wrong with being evaluated as a “down-and-out runemaster.”
Instead, he echoed Tom’s words and nodded slowly, “When I was in North City, a little goldfish lived next door. She was very good at interviews and told me that for an interview, I needed to show the most complex performance like just now to fight for the best remuneration.”

So the best remuneration in your mouth is just a big bed?

Alright then.

Sykes had never met such a peculiar person.
But even if the other’s current performance was completely the kind of unmotivated employee that human bosses hated the most, Sykes didn’t mind at all—as long as he could truly teach the players the basic knowledge of runology, any kind of personality was fine.

To a certain extent, this merman in front of him belonged to the most tolerant type of boss.
As long as you could complete the tasks he assigned with due diligence, any kind of treatment was negotiable.
So after seeing Bei’s true appearance, not only did he not change his mind, but he also intended to fulfill his promise from just now.

“Ella, take him to the warehouse to pick a large bed,” Sykes waved his hand and called for his considerate little butler.

[Yes, Master.]
Ella flew out from some corner and stopped in front of the black-haired runemaster.
It didn’t even get the other’s name wrong.
[Please follow me, Mr. Bei.]

“A very magical structure,” Bei’s gaze had been firmly stuck on Ella from the moment she appeared.
He praised her from the bottom of his heart.

[Thank you for the compliment,] Ella continued to lead the way without any fluctuation.

“Actually, this guy still has his merits. On the way, he helped me fix a few flame pedestals, and also the cooking pots that were broken by the children,” Tom rambled on and on to Sykes, complaining about his experiences on the road.
As he spoke, he couldn’t help but get off track.
“Heaven knows why those kids suddenly became interested in eating. They ate a full two-thirds of the stock I brought in the beginning!”

“Oh, where was I just now?
Right, the flame pedestals!
He fixed those little things quite well.
He’s definitely more than enough to teach those little cubs.
Besides being unmotivated, there’s only one other flaw…”

“What flaw?” Sykes raised an eyebrow.

And at this moment, the runemaster Bei from another land had also started to walk, following the footsteps of the little red sprite.
His walking posture was also lazy.
It was really hard on him to have held that intimidating posture for so long just now.

Just as Sykes was thinking this, he suddenly saw Bei’s figure sway.
It was as if he had been tripped by something invisible under his feet.
He slapped onto the floor with a ‘smack’, his whole person face down on the ground, presenting an incomparably standard “大” shape.

“That’s right, just like that,” Tom’s voice followed and sounded in Sykes’s ear.
“I told you before, this person is also a little… a little unlucky?”

Sykes watched with his own eyes as Bei, who could fall even on flat ground, struggled to get up from the ground.
But his hand, for some reason, grabbed the tablecloth next to him.
With a pull, not only did he fail to support his own body, but he also pulled down a pile of ink and quill pens with a ‘clatter’, which smashed onto his body with a ‘pitter-patter’.

Sykes: “…”
He took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, as if to calm the violent fluctuations in his heart.

Tom silently closed his mouth, pretending he didn’t exist.
The next second, he was slapped by a fishtail coming from the side and almost landed on top of the unlucky runemaster.

“Clean it up, then take him out with you,” the merman turned and entered the laboratory, trying hard to empty his mind and not calculate how many bottles of precious magic ink were among the ink just now.

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