In the silver pine forest, Alan and Dennis were teleported under that big tree, and neither of them spoke.
Looking at the flickering firelight in the forest, someone was searching for them!
"We can only gamble!" Alan's rarely difficult expression appeared, when Erika last teleported herself away, the determined figure lingered in his mind, "What a foolish woman!"
"Alan, they're coming after us!" Dennis emerged from the bushes, but didn't notice the change in Alan's eyes. Alan gave Dennis a gentle pat on the shoulder and said, "Dig! Since the location is already determined, there's nothing above us, so it must be underground!"
Dennis exerted all his strength and got himself covered in soil. He actually dug up a piece of rock.
The rock was white and shaped like the curved side of a large sphere. Alan said, "This isn't a rock, it's a roof, the dome of a church."
With a "bang," Dennis shattered the roof, revealing a high hollow space below, about ten meters high. Dennis covered the hole with vegetation, then jumped down, holding Alan.
After landing, there was complete silence. In the darkness, a flickering candle flame was already there. Dennis walked forward and said, "Alan, this church looks dilapidated. Where should we go?"
While Dennis was moving forward, Alan had silently distanced himself and said, "Dennis, I can endure the indifference and ridicule of the nobles towards me. But you are the one who hurt me the most!"
"Alan, what are you talking about?" Dennis turned around and looked at Alan, only to find that Alan had retreated into the darkness, more than ten meters away from himself.
"When I left Castle Enchim, my father went hunting and got injured. On my way back, I was assassinated accurately. Since then, I felt someone was monitoring me. I always persuaded myself that it was just a magician with extremely advanced stealth techniques, until I discovered three things!"
Alan gazed at Erika and said, "First, when I was at the auction, the second bidder disappeared, and you appeared in my auction room, clinging to me like a cute little cat. Since then, the second bidder has never been seen again. Second, only you in this world know that I secretly rescued some innocent slaves and made them cultivate tobacco for me in the Black Helmet Valley. But just now, Hayward found out! Third, even if it's all the doing of that exceptionally skilled tracking magician, how do we explain being surrounded and our tracks being leaked? Erika is my slave. Besides me, the only free person who can provide information is you! Dennis, you betrayed me!"
"You bastard!" Dennis turned around, his face no longer filled with adorable expressions of admiration, but with ruthless disgust, like looking at a disgusting bug.
The sword in Dennis' hand was already raised, pointing at Alan. "Look at what you've done? You are clearly a slave owner, but you always think about modifying the slave system and destroying the slave system we rely on for survival. You know, if you succeed, my father's slave trade guild will lose much wealth!"
Dennis gritted his teeth. "There's another thing, I've actually never liked you since I was young. It was all pretending because you had money and could buy me the things I wanted. I thought about marrying you and making you my cash cow. However, Hayward offered me a better choice. I told him everything about your past, your whereabouts, and your ugly deeds of helping slaves. That way, I don't have to be with a trash like you who only knows how to use mini fireball spells!"
Alan sighed, the preceding part was within his range of speculation and acceptance, but the latter part truly hurt his heart. So childhood friends and such were all just things he had seen too much in manga, and he hallucinated it himself?
"Dennis, I'm angry!" Alan self-mockingly said, though his expression on his face didn't change much. "I will make you pay for the death of my dear father! I will never yield to this world. The slave system must change, and I mean it. Let's start with your face, the face of a deceitful/pond scum!"
