Lament of the Slave

Chapter 12: Dummy

I woke up drenched in a cold sweat, with my panties not wet as I feared and luckily still surrounded by a barrier protecting me from the orange mist waiting for me behind it. Now that the poison has spread throughout the room, it was no longer as thick as when I had released it. But I was under no illusions that the air behind the barrier was safe to breathe.

The speed with which the poison worked, how quickly it destroyed my nervous system, startled me and frightened me to death. Of course, not literally, but the fact was that I died.

To my delight, I was right, and [Never-Dying] brought me back to life. However, it was an enigma to me that the barrier remained active even though I lost consciousness and subsequently died. Of course, I hoped that would be the case, but it was an uncertain bet bordering on gambling with life. Reason told me I have to provide it with mana continuously for the barrier to remain active. How could I do that when I was dead?

Undoubtedly, thanks to the active barrier, I was alive without having to wait until someone came to find out what actually happened to me. Explaining why I did not attend the scheduled training would be difficult, not to mention how embarrassing. Just as it would be hard to explain the second alternative, and that was if I ran out of the room and died in the hallway. It will sound weird because it's weird, but I knew I was going to die. It would be even harder to explain later why I was alive when I died of poisoning.

Even though I was glad that the barrier remained active after my death, it confused me. I thought [Tail of Poison Empress] wasn't active when I was dead. That was why [Never-Dying] could revive me. Which I now realized [Never-Dying] was also active after my death. Was it because it was a passive skill?

On the other hand, [Master's Shield] was an active skill, but it also remained active. But how could one skill be active and the other not? The problem was that these were just my assumptions. I couldn't be sure what my body was doing when I died. I was dead, for fuck's sake!

With the barrier still surrounding me, I left the room full of poisonous gas, making further training impossible.

"Ha..." I took a breath of fresh air as I lifted the barrier surrounding me.

I turned my head toward the end of the hallway, where the creaking of a chair caught my eye.

"Are you done?" The fat clerk asked me.

I straightened up. "Yes."

He frowned. "Any damage?"

"The air is contaminated with deadly poison," I said.

The man suddenly woke up from his lethargy, got up from his chair, and rushed toward me.

"Did you say there's poison gas left behind?" He asked.

I didn't like how close he was, but I nodded. "That's right. Deadly poison."

"All poisons are deadly. It depends on what they can kill. Removing it will cost you ten silvers," said the fat clerk, reaching out for money.

It shocked me because I asked the receptionist about this very situation. She told me I wouldn't have to pay anything for it.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "I was told City Hall didn't require payment for this!"

"I don't know who told you, but it's ten silvers in my book," he insisted.

"I was told by the receptionist at the main hall," I explained.

It upset the man. "I don't care who told you. The poison will have to be removed. It's not free."

The fat man was so close that I could feel his rotten breath. Suddenly I missed the smell of apples, which made me consider sniffing my tail just to overpower the smell. Of course, I didn't do it. Instead, I forced myself to stay calm.