No Hero

No Hero Volume 6: Heaven or h.e.l.l

Original Novel written by: 御我 (Yu Wo)

Heaven or h.e.l.l, Tenth Level: Sunset City, The Curtain Falls for Tonight and the Next Morning Shall Arrive—translated by Trespa.s.serby (proofread by Lala Su; C/E edited by lucathia)

What kind of chaotic situation is this? What are those criminals doing running all around the business district? Don"t tell me it"s to steal the computers in the offices? Has the economy gotten that bad?

First Wind let out a groan. "Solitary b.u.t.terfly, the police just reported that the Sun Emperor was seized."

The Sun Emperor was seized? Then we don"t have to head over, right?

"Why? Do you hate the Sun Emperor?"

It"s not that! The Sun Emperor should have a lot of bodyguards and personnel who"ll come save him. He"s the Sun Emperor! Do we really have to go?

"That makes sense! We…"

Duck! You idiot, pay attention to your surroundings. If you lost your head, then you wouldn"t even have to think about whether or not to head over to take a look.

Dragon Peace growled, "First Wind, Solitary b.u.t.terfly, the criminals have all run into the building where the Sun Emperor is being held!"

d.a.m.n it! What are they all meeting up there for? An incident isn"t about to happen where the Sun Emperor is, right? Let"s go look!

"Yeah!"

I understand now. They wanted to lure us all here and shut us in with the Sun Emperor and An Xiang Ye so they could do whatever they wanted!

I want to change my vote to Father Alex, d.a.m.n it!

Seeing the doors open, First Wind, Solitary b.u.t.terfly, and Dragon Peace froze. After I called out Curtis"s name, they shot each other several glances and then rushed out.

As that happened, the young master shot DSII a meaningful look, and DSII immediately left with the other heroes.

"Curtis, why are you here?" I asked in astonishment.

Curtis simply explained, "I found out the Sun Emperor had been taken by the criminals, and you could not be contacted by phone. The informants I had dispatched to Sunset City could not find you either, so I rushed over in a private jet, as I contacted the Sun Emperor"s secretary. Knowing that you all had been trapped in the safe room, I immediately sent our family"s best hacker to help open the door."

After he said this, he looked in the direction of the Sun Emperor. He lightly smiled and said, "I really could not believe that the Sun Alliance was unable to open their own safe room."

Hearing that, the corners of the master"s mouth pulled up in a smile. But there was no trace of amus.e.m.e.nt as he laughed and said, "It"s been a long time since I"ve seen you. The last time I saw you, you were even a prisoner!"

Curtis spread his hands and said, "The tables have turned. This time you were the one who became the captive."

"You actually still see this vampire as your family head? You"re not planning on becoming family head yourself?" The master laughed and said, "Surrogate family head and family head. Just a one word difference, yet worlds apart."

Before Curtis could even speak, the young master had already interjected angrily, "Gē! You"re not allowed to pit Curtis and Charles against each other! I already told you!"

"… Bad habit." The master replied embarra.s.sedly. Then he changed the topic, saying, "And why did you end up like this again? You promised me that you"d take good care of yourself. So I removed the bodyguards and even let you have a vampire for a butler. But in the end, you still ended up like this!"

When he heard that, the young master lowered his head and guiltily said, "I-I just wasn"t careful for a moment…"

"Weren"t careful?" The master said with heartache, "How many times have you not been careful? You end up like this every time, so I didn"t want to let you leave home…"

I smiled. The master truly did cherish the young master.

"Family Head."

I turned my head. Curtis was looking at me. With an exceptionally brilliant smile, he said, "Family Head, did I not tell you before that I had deployed twenty people to Sunset City? Why did you not call to request help at all and instead acted on your own?"

I honestly explained, "It was because my cell phone had broken and I could not access my contacts list. And in the heat of the moment, I had temporarily forgotten your phone number."

Curtis"s demeanor was respectful as he said, "0911-299x.x.x. I must trouble you to remember this string of numbers, Family Head. If you "temporarily forget" again, then please return to the family and practice learning these numbers by heart for several years. By the time you will have learned them to the point you would be unable to forget, it should not be too late for you to leave the family again."

"… I understand. I will call next time." Should I be glad that, at the very least, Curtis"s demeanor is more respectful than Sadina"s? But the way the two of them behave is becoming more and more similar. They truly are related.

"Ah, Family Head. You really are…" Curtis sighed.

"Ah, Ah Ye. You really are…" The Sun Emperor sighed.

The two of them were halfway through their laments when they realized that they had each said almost exactly the same thing. They glanced at each other… Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they glared at each other, and then nagged at each of their targets again, which were the young master and me.

Curtis scolded, "Family Head. You are a butler. Butlers are not in charge of fighting! Even if the employer is in danger, that is still a matter for the bodyguards. You absolutely do not have to…"

Off to the side, the master immediately turned his head toward us to growl, "What did you say? If my Ah Ye is in danger, then I expect even the old lady sweeping the toilets to go to battle!"

Curtis immediately roared back, "Butlers are not in charge of fighting! The contract is as clear as day, let alone the fact that he is the Elysees family head!"

The young master quickly grabbed the master and shouted, "Gē! Charles really isn"t responsible for fighting!"

I also quickly grabbed Curtis and shouted, "Curtis! Please, do not make things awkward for the young master…"

I was partway through speaking when the world in front of my eyes suddenly spun. It felt like all of the strength in my body had left me. There was no spot on my body that was free of pain, and I was unable to even stand. I fell against Curtis. After giving him a huge shock, he hurried to support me.

I last heard the young master shouting, "Charles," closely followed by darkness…

When I next opened my eyes, I was not quite able to figure out my current situation. There was not even a single ray of light in my surroundings. As I struggled to sit up, every action was accompanied by the sound of water… No. Is this blood?

I smelled what was on me. My entire body reeked of blood.

I sat up. This place seemed to be a bath. The place where I was lying was at a slant, and there was even a protrusion where my neck was, seemingly to prevent my entire body from sliding into the bath… Vampires could still drown.

Having just awoken, my mind was still not completely clear. I could not quite understand how I had ended up in a bath of blood…

Next to me, a door suddenly opened. The light outside was not strong. It was a soft, yellow light, but it was enough for me to see that the person who came in was Curtis.

"Good morning, Family Head." Curtis sounded fairly happy as he spoke. At the same time, he handed over a snow white towel, saying, "After climbing out of the bath, you will be in the bathing room. Outside of the bathing room is the changing room. Your clothes have already been prepared for you."

I was slightly dazed as I extended my hand to take the towel. Curtis asked, "Do you need a.s.sistance in getting dressed?"

"… No!"

"Is that so?" Curtis said with some disappointment.

Seeing that, I said with confusion, "You do not have to be so polite toward me. In reality, you are the head of the Elysees family."

Before, when Sadina was still here, Curtis had not been so zealously servile. After Sadina had pa.s.sed, I thought that he would stop heeding me sooner or later. But why does it seem like the opposite has happened?

Curtis said with regret, "My grandmother taught me everything a butler needs to know. I have the qualifications of an official Elysees butler. I have not been negligent in my training at all! Only when I was able to serve you before were my abilities put into use for a short period of time. Spending so much time learning something only to have no place to use it is truly a tragedy."

So that is how it is. I somewhat understood now. I had learned to be a butler for so long, but before I met the young master, there was no way I could truly say that I was a butler. As a result, I was dispirited for quite a long time.

"Regardless, please take a bath first. I will prepare sustenance for you."

"All right."

After I had finished bathing, I walked out. This place had been furnished like a study, but it had something that a study would not have—a metal cabin.

Curtis already had a tall wine gla.s.s set out. He stood beside the dining table, holding a bottle of blood in his hands. He looked just like a dutiful butler.

This time, I did not ask him to be less polite. Instead, I directly strode over, took a seat, and allowed him to pour me a gla.s.s of blood.

Before I drank the blood, I said to him, "I will have to trouble you to report to me what happened after I fainted."

Curtis glanced at me with a trace of surprise in his expression. Then he began to dutifully report, "When you suddenly fainted, the Young Master Ri a.s.sessed that you had consumed a large amount of your blood ability earlier, but did not realize you had already used up more than you should have due to the painkillers. As a result, once the effects of the drug began to wear off, you fainted. Therefore, we used the same method we used last time and soaked you in blood."

Hearing this, I immediately asked anxiously, "I surely have not slept through another year?"

Curtis laughed and said, "I was originally worried about that as well. I had even found a hospital to provide long term transfers of blood. But please do not worry. You have only been asleep for two weeks."

Put at ease, I asked, "Then, what of the young master?"

Curtis brought over a newspaper. He did not even have to open it at all. Written on the outside was the huge headline: "The Sun Emperor"s Younger Brother—Ri Xiang Ye." Next to it was a picture of the young master. I had no idea why, but they had chosen to use the poster from the young master"s lipstick advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"That your young master is the Sun Emperor"s own younger brother has been the headline news for the past two weeks. According to speculation, it will still be the headlines for another week. He is also correctly known as Ri Xiang Ye now.

"Incidentally, in the Cities Representative Election, Young Master Ri was originally at a stalemate with Daystar City"s Father Alex. Their votes would constantly rise and fall, with Young Master Ri sometimes in the lead and the priest leading sometimes. But after Young Master Ri was exposed as the Sun Emperor"s younger brother, his votes never took the lead again. The end results were that he lost to the opponent by over one hundred twenty thousand votes. He even almost lost to the person who was originally at a distant third place… The Sun Emperor"s reputation is truly not very good!"

Hearing that, I bitterly smiled and said, "You really do not like the Sun Emperor much, do you?"

"Yes." Curtis nodded, but then he also said, "There is probably no one in the business world who likes him. But at the very least, the Sun Emperor and I have common ground now."

"Oh?" I truly was very curious.

Curtis coldly said, "The Sun Emperor and I already have a tacit agreement to suppress the Church together. Within ten years, we will topple their finances so much that they will be unable to climb back up!"

I was stunned for a moment. Then, I quickly asked, "Why?"

"It does not matter what that Lieder person is planning on doing. He knows about so many things that he must have a source somewhere."

"You think that his source is the Church?" I was stunned. "Lieder does not seem religious."

"He does not have to be religious. It is enough if he and the Church mutually benefit." Curtis"s expression of a dutiful butler changed into that of a proud Elysees family head. He icily said, "At the moment, I still do not know how they mutually benefit, but they have attacked you on multiple occasions. I will not tolerate any more of that! We must let them know that the Elysees family is not to be trifled with!"

"Wait a moment!" I hurriedly said, "You do not have to clash with the Church because of me…"

Curtis used a respectful tone to say something not respectful at all, "Family Head, the Sun Emperor has said that he wants to completely destroy the Church. If not for Young Master Ri stopping him, he probably would have immediately pressed the b.u.t.ton to launch missiles at the Church"s headquarters and started an all-out war with them. I am not quite so barbarous. I only want them to be unable to do anything, even obtaining the approval of the village head to set up a tiny chapel in a village."

One person wanted to bomb the Church. The other person wanted to make it so that the Church would be incapable of doing anything. These two people sound equally dangerous… At that moment, the phone rang. As soon as Curtis accepted the call, he pa.s.sed it to me, saying, "Family Head, this call is for you."

A call for me? Is it the young master? I hastily accepted the phone and asked, "Is this the young master?"

"No, no! You"ve guessed wrong! Would you like to try again?"

"… Lieder?" I was shocked. I would have never expected him to call me.

Beside me, Curtis"s expression also changed. He pressed a different b.u.t.ton, and on a paper, wrote several words for me to read: Extend this call as much as possible so I can track his location.

"Charles, are you still there?"

"Yes." I kept calm and said, "Lieder, you have lost. The Sun Emperor is still alive and well."

The sound of laughter came from the other end of the phone. "I"ve lost? Really now?"

The tone of Lieder"s voice gave me a feeling of foreboding.

"Have I ever said that I wanted to kill Ri Xiang Yan?"

I froze and tried carefully to remember. Indeed, Lieder had never said that he wanted to kill the master. He had only said that he wanted to give the entire world a lesson on anthropology. Then, he had just said that the Sun Emperor was no different from everyone else. He could be hurt and he could die.

Lieder explained further, "If Ri Xiang Yan died, the world"s economy would crash. Everyone would just hate on the culprit instead of questioning if Ri Xiang Yan had turned into the existence of a G.o.d. So how could I possibly kill him? I just smacked his majesty on the head lightly and then slipped out of his grasp without a single scratch on me, shattering the illusion that he is untouchable."

Planning such a huge incident just to smack the master on the head once… But to even smack the master on the head once was a very difficult thing. For a regular person, even drawing close should be very difficult.

"That"s right. I"d nearly forgotten the reason I"d called you in the first place. I have to thank you for your inverted cross bible. There was something very interesting in it. And seeing as how you"ve given me this bible, I"ll give you a word of advice."

Perhaps Lieder is saying the contents of the book are very interesting, but the way "There was something very interesting in it," was said does not sound like he means the contents of the book are what is interesting?

As I was puzzling over it, Lieder lightly said, "Leave Ri Xiang Ye! These coming days will be a terrible time to be a hero."

After he finished speaking, the call ended.

I handed the phone to Curtis. He took it, pressed a few b.u.t.tons, and asked, "Did you find his position?"

He listened for a moment, then hung up. He looked apologetic as he said, "There was interference. We were unable to find his location. May I ask if he has said anything?"

I hesitated for a moment, but still truthfully said, "He warned that something is going to happen."

Hearing that, Curtis sighed and said, "Am I right in saying that you definitely will not agree to staying with the family?"

"Of course. I am the young master"s butler. I must remain at the young master"s side. That reminds me. Where is the young master now?"

"Why not give him a call?" Curtis told me, "Young Master Ri specifically instructed me to have you give him a call once you had awakened."

I nodded. Curtis handed over the phone.

"Charles, you"re awake! This is great!" The young master shouted as soon as the call connected and he heard my voice. "I thought you would sleep for another year again. I didn"t think it would just be two weeks. That"s fantastic! Is your body O.K.?"

"Yes. There are no large hindrances!"

"Hurray! We don"t have to eat fried rice anymore!"

Aren"s furious roar came over the phone, "Hey! Next time, I won"t even cook for you! You can go out to eat!"

"Come back soon, Charles!"

"Understood."

When I arrived back at the apartment, the young master opened the door for me himself. But he was not as happy as he had been on the phone. His face had bitterness all over it.

As I was wondering, he opened his mouth to say, "Charles, I just found out that all of P29"s criminals were released."

What? I was so shocked I was unable to react. Just having Josh escape resulted in such a huge incident. If they have all been set free, then what kind of situation are we in?

"How did this happen? Did Lieder break them out?"

"No. It must have taken an untold amount of effort for him just to break Josh out. And after Josh"s escape, P29"s security would have become even stricter. He couldn"t have freed another person… Normally speaking, anyway!"

Not understanding, I asked, "What exactly happened?"

The young master sighed and said, "My brother gave the command himself. Yesterday night, he directly told the staff at P29 to let all the criminals go. No one dares to disobey an order from Gēge, other than Kyle-gē and another one of his personal secretaries. But Gēge didn"t tell the two of them. After he gave the order, he went to bed. It wasn"t until this morning when he woke up that he suddenly realized what he had done, and he had no idea why he"d done it."

I immediately blurted out, "Could it have been Josh?"

The young master nodded and said, "We were all tricked. Lieder"s true goal wasn"t to kill my brother. He wanted to release all of the dangerous criminals with special abilities in P29!"

"Lieder needed time to let Josh command my brother… You still remember when Josh was starting to give me commands before, he needed to unsettle me, and said I was a robot?"

I nodded. That incident had left a deep impression, since the young master had nearly killed Solitary b.u.t.terfly after that.

"For people with willpowers that are too strong, Josh has to shake their will before he can give a command. And I"m the best thing to use to shake Gēge"s will. Lieder probably s.n.a.t.c.hed us to be hostages so that he could film me tied up or injured by an explosion and show it to my brother… Although Gēge also doesn"t remember seeing a sight like that."

So it was like that.

Lieder has just been joined by a large number of dangerous criminals with special abilities? I felt extremely uneasy and muttered, "Will there be a war?"

"I don"t know." The young master frowned and said, "But if Gēge wasn"t wrong in saying that Lieder"s information comes from the Church, then you"d best warn X."

"Warn X?" I did not quite understand. What does X have to do with this?

"Yes!" The young master nodded and said, "The Church must be getting some sort of benefit for them to leak this information to Lieder. Although Lieder robbed a lot of money the other night, that definitely cannot be the Church"s goal. The Church doesn"t need to do that sort of thing for money. It must be for something else.

"What Lieder has done so far is robbing money, hitting my brother on the head, exposing my ident.i.ty, and releasing all the criminals in P29. The first three things can"t be the Church"s goal, so only the last one could be! I think that among the criminals are some people that the Church wants. And the Church has been closely following X before. The criminals with special abilities that they want perhaps have to do with seeking and killing X!"

Hearing this much, I truly began to worry. Just Josh alone has thrown everything into chaos. What kind of special abilities do the other criminals have? They will not really capture X, will they? Once a person falls into the Church"s grasp, they would meet such a horrible fate that it is beyond my imagination!

The young master said consolingly, "Charles, don"t worry. I also have to catch all those criminals anyway!"

Having said this, the young master brought over a stack of doc.u.ments from the desk. There was an eye-catching red warning symbol on the envelope of the doc.u.ments.

"I had Kyle-gē keep this from Gēge and secretly send the information of the most dangerous criminals. These people have to be captured at once!"

I said doubtfully, "But Lieder caused such a huge incident here. They probably would not dare to come to Sunset City, would they?"

The young master nodded. He said, "So pack your suitcase. We"re going on a global hunt!"