Chapter 141: Cover Up Your Parabola

This was a city where day and night were indistinguishable.

The brilliant luminescent stones of Sloca were embedded into the massive dome, bathing every tier of this subterranean kingdom in a bright and warm glow.

"Ha-ha, Your Supreme Majesty! I never expected we would meet again so soon."

The Dwarven King was hosting Linley and his companions to a lavish banquet within the royal palace. The two monarchs had parted ways at Saint Valentin just a few days ago, yet here they were, reunited once more.

"And I certainly didn't expect you to come bearing gifts of gold!"

The Dwarven King laughed heartily, acting as though those twenty thousand gold coins were already safely resting in his own pockets.

"Is Your Majesty so certain?"

Linley was enjoying a slice of pumpkin pie, which happened to be exceptionally delicious here. "If those werewolves somehow break through, you'll owe me tenfold."

"Impossible, quite impossible!"

The Dwarven King waved a dismissive hand. "Their excavation machines are utterly destroyed; there is no way they can get in."

The king looked rather smug. As long as those tunneling machines were out of commission, he had not a single worry regarding the werewolves. Even if the lycanthropes managed to construct or transport new excavators to the site, they could never breach Sloca within seven days. Those twenty thousand gold coins of Linley's were as good as his!

"My friend, you really shouldn't have placed that wager."

After the banquet, Beric escorted everyone to their quarters.

"My royal brother doesn't have many hobbies, but gambling is his absolute favorite." Beric shook his head with a helpless expression. "I know him. He never takes a losing bet. Unlike ordinary gamblers whose money dwindles, his only grows. Those twenty thousand gold coins of yours are destined to be swallowed up by him."

Linley remained silent, but the mages couldn't help muttering among themselves. No matter how well Beric knew his brother, they knew Linley far better. This young prince was craftiness personified. Forget twenty thousand coins; he wouldn't carelessly throw away even a thousand. He must have had some concrete basis for judging that the werewolves would invade.

"Young Highness, how on earth did you know those werewolves could get in?" the royal mages clustered around Linley to ask.

"I didn't." Linley replied.

The mages' expressions froze. "Don't joke around, Your Highness. If you didn't know, why would you stake tens of thousands of gold coins?"

"I genuinely didn't know," Linley said smoothly. "The odds were simply too lucrative not to take a chance. If I lose, I lose; but if I win, the payout is astronomical!"

The mages stared blankly, then gasped in unison. Could it be true? Had Linley really just done this on a whim?

"Young Highness, you jest... I threw every last coin in my purse into that bet..."

"Indeed! Exactly!"

The mages wailed with long faces. That had been no small sum of money!

"That sounds like a personal problem."

Linley shot them a sideways glance, though inwardly he suspected the werewolves must have a backup plan. Surely they wouldn't rely solely on a few digging machines!

"As long as I can get the vocal crystal back, that's all that matters."

Linley noted that his primary goal in throwing away those twenty thousand gold coins wasn't actually gambling; it was to put the Dwarven King in high spirits—after all, he was currently asking for a favor.

During the dinner earlier, Linley had exercised his silver tongue to perfection. Riding the wave of good cheer brought by those twenty thousand gold coins, he had successfully extracted the information about the vocal crystal.

Unfortunately, the crystal was not in the Dwarven King's possession; he had gifted it to a countess.

"That crystal is useless to me."

The king had put it this way: he had inherited the vocal crystal from his predecessor, but after inheriting it, the crystal failed to exhibit any power whatsoever. Instead, it frequently ridiculed his grating voice. In a fit of rage, the king had given the crystal away to a countess. He had made an agreement with her that as long as she drew breath, he would never demand the crystal back.

Why the king would gift such a precious artifact to a countess was of no interest to Linley. What baffled him was the crystal's attitude.

Beric had arranged a comfortable chamber for Linley, and the moment he stepped inside, Linley shooed everyone else out.

"Has the vocal crystal's power been sealed?" he asked his earring.

"No, it is the only artifact whose power has never been sealed." The earring flashed faintly. The vocal crystal had originally been an artifact belonging to the ancient Elven Queen, possessing unfathomable might. Once, when a maid accidentally shattered the queen's favorite vase, the furious queen had cursed all the maids into merfolk using the power of the vocal crystal.

Following the queen's death, the vocal crystal fell into the hands of the last Elven King, yet the crystal flatly refused to submit to anyone other than its original queen.

"It has a fierce and unyielding temperament; no one can force it to unleash its power," the earring chuckled. "Your great-grandfather gave it to his dwarven friend in the hope that time would soften it."

Linley found this rather strange. "Why would dwarves be able to soften it?"

"The vocal crystal, much like your Blue Sky's Song, adores listening to music. But it isn't just about listening; it is extraordinarily picky about any and all sound," the earring explained. These words prompted the Blue Sky's Song within Linley to fly out, darting back and forth against the earring in vehement protest.

"Alright, settle down." Linley snatched the Blue Sky's Song out of the air just as it nearly poked his ear. "Are dwarves exceptionally good at singing?"

"No, quite the opposite."

The earring replied that dwarves were among the least musically inclined creatures in the world. Their booming, rough voices were absolute nightmares to a crystal accustomed to the elegant tones of the elves.

The final Elven King had gifted the crystal to the dwarves, hoping that over several centuries, it would grow accustomed to them, ensuring that whenever the forest elves came to reclaim it once more, it would finally submit.

"Dwarves love mining and forging; those noises are a cataclysm to it as well... Spending five hundred years in dwarven society should give it memories to last an eternity."

The earring laughed uproariously. Back in the day, that crystal had been exceedingly impolite to it, and it genuinely longed to witness the crystal's current miserable state.

"...I've had this feeling for a while now," Linley mused after a long pause. "Was my great-grandfather a terrible person?"

The earring let out a muffled chuckle.

"The current Primal Elven Queen has a rather deep history with your great-grandfather. Do you know why she betrayed him?"

"Why?"

"Because your great-grandfather gave her a banana."

"What kind of banana?" Linley was about to press for details when he suddenly felt a chilling breeze sweep across the top of his head. He snapped to his feet.

"Who's there?"

With a flick of his sword, a slender silhouette came tumbling down with a crash. Linley raised his gaze to see a tiny creature instantly vanish through a crack in the shattered roof.

"A black dragon?"

Brief though the glimpse was, Linley had clearly made out the shadow's form: it was a miniature black dragon, no larger than a fist.

Eve picked herself up from the floor, looking thoroughly annoyed. "Little Prince, I was almost about to catch it for you."

Linley continued to stare upward. "Eve, cover your parabola first."

Eve blinked in confusion, then looked down.

A jolt went through her, and she hurriedly grabbed something to shield her chest. Linley glanced over. "I'm not talking about your big steamed buns, I'm talking about the parabola in the back!"

"Bang!"

Eve hurled a stool straight at Linley's head.