Chapter 265: Deep Schemes

Chapter 265: Deep Schemes

The so-called fish were naturally the unlucky fools who couldn’t resist their own desires. Zheng Yichen felt more pity than anything for these people. They had unwittingly fallen into the witches’ traps, still feeling proud of themselves even after being tricked. Zheng Yichen was quite grateful that after crossing into this world, he had been able to directly access the top circles of martial power. Otherwise…

He couldn’t help but rub his chin. Otherwise, he might have ended up locked away in some remote corner, right?

He noticed that the person at the stall Oss had set up was wearing a tightly wrapped cloak, completely concealing their features. They clearly didn’t want their true face seen. As for the transaction process, it went surprisingly smoothly. Zheng Yichen didn’t see much argument at all. It was simply a case of paying and buying!

The person who bought the item hurriedly left the stall. Whether by coincidence or not, they passed right by Zheng Yichen. As they passed, Dan Marina let out a silent, light chuckle.

Zheng Yichen couldn’t help but shake his head. This poor fool thought he had gotten a bargain, only to be tricked by Dan Marina right after. Sure enough, in the next moment, Dan Marina lightly tossed the magic artifact in her hand. “Got it.”

“You’re practically bullying people like this.”

“It’s fine. He wasn’t a good person anyway. Taking it from him is no big deal.”

“More than that, I’m curious how they managed to shift the blame.”

“Even if it’s just an avatar, you shouldn’t underestimate it. Take a look at the Magic Weapon Summoning Book.”

Zheng Yichen opened the Magic Weapon Summoning Book and glanced at it. The previously popular post now had a new reply. The latest picture posted was of the transaction at Oss’s stall. The cloaked person in the picture showed their full, undisguised face, making Zheng Yichen immediately think of something like photo editing.

“Dammit!!” After returning to his hideout, the cloaked man didn’t even have time to feel relieved. He took out his Magic Weapon Summoning Book, saw the content on that post, and his face instantly fell. He touched the Expansion Pouch at his waist, immediately dismissed the Magic Weapon Summoning Book, and quickly fled his hideout. Shortly after he left, his hideout was violently broken into.

“Hmph! He can’t have gone far. After him!!”

A storm quietly began to unfold within the Black Market.

“Whew… Finally safe.” Partner Number One looked at the information on the forum and let out a long sigh of relief. Treasures were good, but one needed to be alive to enjoy them. Even though shifting the blame was frustrating, escaping the danger was the biggest gain.

“Safe? It’s still too early for that.” Partner Number Three disagreed, shaking his head. “We’ve only gotten a preliminary reprieve. Expecting this to completely clear our suspicions is still too difficult.”

After all, since they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, some people wouldn’t believe it. These people, hoping to test their luck, would still come looking. If they were weak, it wouldn’t be a problem—dealing with them would be easy. Strong ones would be troublesome.

“It’s enough to temporarily divert some attention. Do you really expect to be completely worry-free? If you get something good, you have to bear the consequences, right?” Lena smiled lightly with her arms crossed. When Partner Number One saw what was in her hand, his eyes went wide.

“Whoa! How do you still have something like this?”

“Counterfeit.”

“You know how to do that?” Partner Number Three asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Yeah, it’s sort of a talent. I can mimic finished magic artifacts to a certain degree.” Lena shrugged. She didn’t say the one in her hand was also fake, but that magic artifact was quite special and hard to crack for ordinary people. Once in her hands, however, she could easily decipher it. Not by seeing through it, but by cheating through tracing. What she needed to do was use her Tracing Ability to ‘see’ the entire creation process of this magic artifact, then replicate it herself.

“…” Oss rubbed his forehead. He thought they had passed the trouble on, but now it seemed the most troublesome part was still in their hands?

“Hey, hey! What’s with those expressions? This was trouble we couldn’t get rid of anyway. Don’t tell me you plan to stop halfway and are just daydreaming?”

“What do you plan to do?” Oss felt his head swelling. This move was Lena’s idea, and he had to admit it was really useful, instantly relieving a lot of pressure.

“What else can we do? Of course, follow the map on this thing to find the secret treasure. After all, we’re victims too!”

We’re victims too? What kind of move was that? Oss and the others were completely confused. When it came to schemes, they obviously couldn’t compare to Dan Marina. Since Dan Marina said so, they had a hard time figuring it out immediately. But since Dan Marina had already shown her ‘wisdom’, they felt the best course now was to listen to her plan…

“How silly. Who said there was only one of these? We just happened to get one first. Surely others will get similar things later. If there are enough of these things, who would still bother coming after us?”

Oss and the others stared blankly at Dan Marina. No wonder when selling this thing earlier, Dan Marina specifically emphasized hiding their identities well before doing it. It was all preparation for this later move.

“Just how many of these did you make?”

“If I hadn’t run out of materials, I could have made more. This is all for now.” Dan Marina shook a small pouch-like bag hanging from her waist, and out tumbled roughly twenty identical magic artifacts… completely stunning Oss and the others.

“You actually have this kind of skill?” Oss rubbed his forehead, not knowing what to say.

“This talent has brought me a lot of trouble.” Lena shrugged. Oss and the others wisely didn’t press further. Just the fact that she could replicate magic artifacts made by a witch, if others found out, could bring utter disaster to Lena’s ‘family’. Keeping it secret was normal. Moreover, she had voluntarily revealed this ability for their sake, which moved them deeply.

“Truly someone from a family… so adept at scheming and intrigue. Impressive!” Partner Number One said sincerely, but earned a collective eye roll from his teammates. He coughed awkwardly twice. “Um, that’s a compliment, a compliment. What should we do next?”

“Hide our identities and spread these things out. We have the home-field advantage now.” The magic artifact first appeared in Kaja City. Later, if more of the same type appeared there, it would seem normal. Of course, the prerequisite was that those magic artifacts were convincing enough. If they were too fake, they’d be the ones in trouble.

But then, this magic artifact wasn’t some high-end item to begin with. Replicating it was easy. It was a scheme left by a witch for ordinary people, not specifically designed to deal with witches.

“Alright, let’s split up to do this. But the number of these things seems a bit insufficient, doesn’t it?” Partner Number Three thought about it. Over twenty identical magic artifacts looked ‘impressive’, but once dispersed, the quantity would seem lacking.

“The problem is I’m out of materials. Carrying too many of these is heavy.”

“Leave the materials to us.” Oss immediately said. Losing money was insignificant compared to losing their lives. “Lena, how many can you make?”

“If materials are enough, about thirty a day. My mana isn’t that plentiful either.”

“Thank you for your hard work.” Oss said somewhat guiltily. In the end, they were relying on a woman to solve their troubles. His feelings were complicated, but time was too tight. He could only bury the guilt. Fortunately, this was the Black Market. After Dan Marina listed what she needed, they could buy it right away.

“Sigh~ Thinking about it makes me feel complicated.” Partner Number Two scratched his semi-long hair after leaving the hiding spot and pulled up his hood. “Enough about that. Let’s hurry and buy the things. I remember some very powerful magic potions appeared on the market recently? They seem suitable for people with insufficient mana. Let’s try to find those first.”

“So, I’m basically the pack mule now?” Zheng Yichen, carrying several bags, followed behind Dan Marina and said somewhat annoyedly. The greatest joy of shopping was watching the items you carried gradually increase, not using a Personal Space. And when experiencing this joy, having extra ‘labor’ around made it feel even better!

Right now, Dan Marina was doing exactly that. Somehow, she managed to buy things like crazy in the Black Market without drawing extra attention. Without such a method, Zheng Yichen estimated he’d look like a walking treasury to many in the Black Market.

“We don’t have anything else to do right now, and shopping feels pretty good, doesn’t it? Hmm, what do you think of this one?” Dan Marina spun a jet-black stone ring on her finger a few times and tossed it into one of the bags Zheng Yichen was carrying. She clapped her hands. “Alright, nothing good left here.”

“Really not fair.”

Seeing her ready to stop, Zheng Yichen simply threw all the bags he was carrying into his Personal Space. He opened the Magic Weapon Summoning Book to look. The new content made him raise an eyebrow.

In the past three hours, there were many new replies. A small portion included pictures, all of which were about transactions involving those magic artifacts. Thinking back to Dan Marina’s recent actions of ‘playing along’, he felt like his intelligence had been trampled. Watching the woman walking towards him with a cheerful smile, Zheng Yichen snapped the Magic Weapon Summoning Book shut. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“Huh? Say what?” She blinked, looking very confused.

“Stop playing dumb. You witches’ schemes are really deep.”

“Hehe, well, doing just that one thing would be too boring, wouldn’t it? I’m not someone who likes to leave things half-done.”

Yes, yes, you don’t like leaving things half-done, but this move probably dragged a lot of people into the pit. “Aren’t you worried that witch will come after you?”

“It’s fine. Doing this won’t affect the final outcome. On the contrary, she’s probably secretly pleased right now.” Dan Marina slightly pursed her lips. “If I didn’t have some extra plans this time, I wouldn’t be ‘helping’ her like this!”

“Just who is doing this?”

Deya looked at the content in the hot post on the Magic Weapon Forum and felt a headache coming on. It was certain that there was originally only one of those magic artifacts. The Sanctuary Church had already confirmed that through investigation. But what was with these twenty-plus appearing now? If they were fakes, it would be simpler. They could just go find Oss’s group to get the real one or learn about its whereabouts from them.

But if they were all ‘real’, it would truly be troublesome. The Sanctuary Church knew quite well about some of the witches’ schemes, especially concerning this witch’s secret treasure. After investigation, they had identified which witch was behind it. This witch wasn’t like the Undying Witch, who was evil and chaotic, but she was still a witch capable of causing major trouble. The Undying Witch could create things like Corpse Puppets, potentially causing an ‘Undead Scourge’.

This witch couldn’t create Necromantic Creatures, but she could cause an even more troublesome ‘Bio-crisis’… Well, this world didn’t have the term ‘Bio-crisis’. An Undead Scourge counted as one, but here they could be classified separately. Fortunately, this witch was somewhat ‘orderly’, similar to Dan Marina. Though her abilities were troublesome, she wouldn’t easily cause large-scale disasters.

Therefore, regarding the ‘secret treasures’ she spread, the Sanctuary Church tried to eliminate them whenever possible. Use these things to track that witch? If she was spreading them, she would definitely have made preparations.

But now… with so many similar artifacts appearing, not knowing the exact number made elimination troublesome. People were selfish. Even if it was a witch’s item, as long as there were benefits, many would choose to take the risk.

“Never mind. Let’s get one first and see.” Deya stood up, planning to go to the Black Market. The transaction pictures posted in the Magic Weapon Forum thread all originated from there. Finding one trader would be enough. As for whether they agreed… well~ extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures. Taking it would also save that ‘lucky one’ from falling into a scheme.

Come to think of it, ever since That Dragon appeared, witches’ traces seemed to become more frequent. Not long ago, the Sanctuary Church discovered traces of another witch. The traces were faint, but if not for that witch’s mana deeply affecting the environment and the Sanctuary Church noticing in time, they wouldn’t have even caught that faint trace.

“Excuse me, may I see your face?” Just as she arrived at the Black Market entrance, Deya saw two cloaked figures and immediately spoke up. This attire was common in the Black Market.

“…” Zheng Yichen couldn’t help but glare at Dan Marina. This is what you get for wandering around here for no reason. Now we’ve run into someone we shouldn’t have!