Super Righteous Player
Chapter 374 - 371 Swan Safety Insurance Company_1

Chapter 374: Chapter 371 Swan Safety Insurance Company_1

Jiu’er let out a deep sigh.

She wiped the blood-stained axe in her hand on the bisected corpse and murmured somewhat lonesomely,

"Why doesn’t Annan come to find me after arriving in the Royal Capital...

"Could it be that the plot hasn’t progressed to that point yet? Do I really have to wait until the coffee-shop lady gets to the Royal Capital?"

"...Miss Jiu’er?"

Behind her, two neatly dressed, sturdy men asked cautiously with a bow, "What were you just saying?"

"No, nothing."

Jiu’er replied lazily, "Ask again and I’ll chop you to death."

Hearing this, the two men who were clearly more than a head taller than Jiu’er suddenly fell silent like a cicada in winter, daring not to speak.

By now, she had already become well-acquainted within the Royal Capital.

These past two days, she had found herself a decent job—

At first, Jiu’er, imitating an RPG game, went to a tavern, ordered a glass of milk, and hoped she might glean some information.

But instead of gathering any information, she attracted trouble.

A group of people saw Jiu’er sitting alone in the tavern and wanted to ask if she was interested in working in some underground trades....

But as they approached her, before they could say much, they saw Jiu’er, impatiently standing up holding a fine steel axe taller than herself with one hand... and they instantly chickened out.

Luckily, their leader was very astute.

In the Royal Capital, the existence of Transcendents wasn’t as clandestine as in smaller places.

At least those involved in and related to the gray industries definitely needed to have some understanding.

This place was still the capital of the Noah Kingdom... a large city with a permanent population of over four million. The Royal Palace alone covered an area of over 100,000 square meters, and just one district was larger than the entire territory of Roth Fort.

The number of Gold rank Transcendents residing here was already close to double digits. Silver and Bronze rank Transcendents were countless, and even Silver Barons sometimes walked the streets leisurely.

If you didn’t understand your own status, encountering an opposing Transcendent could mean dying without knowing how—after all, the Curse Bindings and individual abilities of Transcendents were varied and strange, and soul rank didn’t dictate direct combat strength. Add to that the complications of rituals, and it wouldn’t be strange for a Bronze rank to be stronger than a Silver rank in battle.

Furthermore, ordinary people could not fully understand the mechanisms of "nightmares" and "curses"; they could only keep their distance from these powers beyond their comprehension.

After all, becoming a Transcendent wasn’t particularly easy.

It still depended on talent.

Just becoming proficient in one’s own path and completely understanding and mastering one’s basic profession (Level 10) wasn’t easy. Even getting training for ordinary professions wasn’t something just anyone could achieve.

Whether it involved physically training, rigorously practicing swordsmanship; or undergoing the cruel training of a rogue, developing an awareness of poisons and traps; or finding one’s own beast companion, living closely and long-term with it to cultivate a spiritual resonance... all these required talent, resources, and persistent effort.

And by the time they reached the end of their path, they had to ensure they weren’t too old. They needed to retain enough mental sharpness as well as have sufficient spirit, intelligence, and luck to maintain a clear mind in dreams, successfully completing the decryption and purifying the nightmare.

This was in fact quite difficult.

For anyone possessing Transcendental power, nightmares were merely a somewhat challenging decryption game.

But ordinary people couldn’t maintain clarity in nightmares. For them, it was a real, nonsensical nightmare. Without a Transcendent setting up a ritual to forcibly maintain wakefulness in the dream, success depended on personal talent... and luck.

If, after reaching the end of a profession, even solving just one nightmare by luck was enough to set foot on the Transcendent path.

Talent, resources, ability, connections, luck—none could be lacked.

To effectively control the number of Transcendents and thereby alleviate the pollution of the surrounding living environment by nightmares that arise after their deaths... it is very difficult for ordinary people to come into contact with the path of Transcendence through official channels.

As Wizards have said—they must first examine personal talents, at least ensuring they cannot be easily killed by ordinary people; then they must consider temperament and morality, to ascertain they will not go down the wrong path nor use their Transcendent powers to "overly" seek personal gains.

Objectively speaking, this is surely a good thing.

It is a necessary measure whether for the safety of ordinary people or for controlling the density of nightmares in large urban populations.

But on the other hand, such a strategy has also made the world of Transcendents increasingly distant from ordinary people—almost completely cutting off their access to understanding the Transcendent world.

With a shallow understanding of Transcendents, ordinary people cannot pinpoint the exact origins of curses and nightmares.

For them, "killing a Transcendent" or even "approaching a Transcendent or their corpse" could lead to being cursed and plagued by nightmares.

Many ordinary people cannot even distinguish between Transcendents and Ritualists—they even suspect that if they angered a Transcendent, they might be cursed to death by the Transcendent in secret.

Therefore, under the deterrent force created by this monopoly of knowledge, the criminal syndicates that realized Jiu’er was of Transcendent origin didn’t even test her strength. They immediately offered her an extremely high salary to hire her as an enforcer.

Of course... although an enforcer, Jiu’er held a very high status.

Now, Jiu’er wore a grey, high-collared trench coat and black boots. She also had her professional nameplate pinned on her chest, which read "Swan Safety Insurance Company Special Technical Consultant Jiu’er", with the company address "117 Qian-Street, St. Bernie District, Noah" written below.

"Swan" was responsible for all the underground boxing rings, gambling houses, and nightclubs in St. Bernie District. These industries were all beneath the Silver Baron, the deity of protection as a byproduct of extortion, occasionally referred to as the god of "protection fees" by the people.

In other words, in the Royal Capital Noah—whether you’re a madam or a drug dealer, an assassin or a thief, you must pay your taxes honestly.

Yes, even the income from a thief’s stealing and the earnings from an assassin’s jobs must be recorded and taxed. Otherwise, the knights of the Silver Baron’s church will come knocking on your door.

And in Noah, "tax evasion" could be punished with the death penalty at its highest.

And it wasn’t enforced by the kingdom, but by the Church of the Silver Baron.

But conversely, as long as the taxes are fully paid, or even donations are made proactively for welfare projects, even grey industries can become regular companies.

Of course, whether the company’s business is legal and how many criminals it contains is not the church’s concern... but the responsibility of the police and the Ministry of Justice.

Special consultants like Jiu’er were basically not used for any hard labor. Essentially, this wasn’t to recruit them, but to keep them from opposing the company.

To recruit a Transcendent was a cost they couldn’t afford.

And the cost-effectiveness was too low.

After all, they were legitimate companies. If a Transcendent caused trouble, they could just report it directly to the Church of the Silver Baron for handling.

What Jiu’er was responsible for was just "dealing with troublemakers."

No Transcendent enemies, not even any who were in groups.

The toughest enemy she had faced was a drunkard with a handgun.

She didn’t even need to use an axe—charging forward with a punch to the waist and a slap to the face, the fight was over just like that.

The enemy she had just killed was a senior infiltrator from a rival gang. This man had blown up three of Swan’s people with a trap, including a small leader. So they sent out Jiu’er for a "brutal retribution."

Scapegoats would also be provided by the company.

What Jiu’er had to do was just "sufficiently deterrent killing."

And she was more than pleased with it.

Though not many, it was after all experience... wasn’t it?

Getting paid, given people to kill, and even picking up experience for free—could there be anything better?