Chapter 204: A Difficult-to-Complete Ritual

Chapter 204: A Difficult-to-Complete Ritual

After thinking for a while and finding no answer, Klein, having received no danger premonition, put away the slender blood crystal. Then he bent down and examined the demonized Gilchies, who had lost half his head.

“I wonder whether I can still collect the bounty like this, and how much I can get… I don’t know who the military liaison is on this side either. Telegraphing Uss Kent? With the time needed for the messages to go back and forth, plus his remote handling, there’s no way this would be done without three or four days. I have to leave tomorrow… And I’d have to pay benefits to the middleman too,” he muttered. Then he walked to one side, picked up his half top hat with obvious scorch marks, and put it back on his head.

After that, he dragged the heavy, enormous demon corpse step by step to the door and reached out to pull it open.

A whistling wind blew in, and the silence inside the room vanished at once.

Klein pinched his finger to deactivate his Spirit Body Threads vision. Then he continued dragging the hideous, terrifying demon corpse through the corridor and down the stairs to the first floor.

By then, almost no one was left inside the bar. Tables had been overturned, chairs knocked down, shards scattered across the floor. The place was a complete wreck.

Klein entered the hall through the badly damaged stairway entrance and swept his gaze around, quickly finding the bar owner, who was crouched behind the counter with a miserable expression. The bodyguards he had hired were few in number now, scattered around the place.

Tap. Tap. Tap… Klein walked toward him one step at a time, the demon corpse behind him knocking aside many tables and chairs.

“Wh-what do you want?” The owner took a step back and shouted at the top of his lungs.

His bodyguards gathered fearfully, eyes drifting, bodies angled in different directions, as though they would immediately sprint away the moment anything unexpected happened.

Klein stopped and tossed Gilchies’s corpse forward.

Then he spoke in a low, hoarse voice:

“Can you collect a bounty on my behalf?”

The owner froze for one second. His gaze instinctively moved downward, allowing him to clearly see the gigantic demon corpse still wrapped in traces of pale-blue flame.

He and his bodyguards simultaneously inhaled sharply, experiencing the illusion that they were no longer in the real world.

This was actually a real demon!

Aside from no longer having curved goat horns, it looked exactly like the demons described in Church texts and legends!

For ordinary people living in a pirate paradise, witnessing supernatural powers was not an especially rare thing. In that regard, their experience clearly surpassed the common people of colonies west of Olavi and of the mainland kingdom. Even so, as the owner of a large bar and his guards, none of them had ever seen a true demon before. They had even suspected that demons were Church slander against unofficial Beyonders.

The owner struggled to withdraw his gaze and looked toward the adventurer whose clothing was torn but whose expression remained cold.

“Yes. They should have ways to confirm that this is Gilchies.

“It is Gilchies, right?”

Klein secretly exhaled and silently nodded.

The owner considered for two seconds, then squeezed out a smile filled with fear.

“But I can’t obtain the full amount. You know, this process requires certain expenses. About thirty percent in fees. Otherwise, you would have to wait a very long time. 9,500 pounds is not a small sum for Toscarter Harbor. It would take at least a week. And this is only because pirates appear frequently here, adventurers often collect bounties, and there are usually considerable funds reserved. On Olavi Island, or in other places, it might take two weeks, perhaps even a month.”

9,500 pounds really was not a small sum. Klein clearly remembered that back in Tingen, the Nighthawks’ entire monthly budget had only been around 1,000…