“I can't give you the notebook.”
Elias lowered his elemental revolver slightly, but he did not holster it.
“That belongs to my client.”
“My commission was to retrieve it, not to help you redistribute lost property.”
“I have to earn my commission fee, after all.”
Severin merely stared at him. “I don't need to take the notebook.”
“Oh?”
“I only need that rubbed page,” she said.
“To be precise, the indentations left in the paper from the rubbing.”
“The lines on the Old Night Gate aren't recorded entirely in ink. Some details are only preserved through the pressure applied to the paper.”
“So you're saying the page Moreau has is incomplete, and the truly complete markings are still in the notebook?”
“Exactly.”
Severin raised a finger.
The blood seeping from her fingertip did not drip. Instead, it spread into a layer so thin it was nearly transparent.
“My blood can penetrate the paper's fibers and transfer the indentations onto another sheet.”
“It won't smudge the ink, nor will it damage the original page.”
“You can supervise.”
Elias did not agree immediately.
【Gauging Expressions】 detected no obvious deception on her face, but the spell could only determine if she believed she was telling the truth in that moment; it couldn't guarantee the safety of the notebook.
“The method sounds decent.” He nodded.
“Now let's talk about the price.”
Severin seemed prepared for this.
“How much do you want?”
“Don't be in such a rush.”
Elias raised his gun barrel, gesturing first toward the Gluttonous Stomach, then pointing it down at Livia on the floor.
“Information is one thing, but ransom is another.”
“Using the indentations in the notebook is one transaction. Her trying to kill me just now, and currently wanting to stand back up, is a separate matter.”
Finally, his barrel pointed to the silver wire, silver nails, and depleted charm fragments scattered across the basement floor.
“And then there's the blood-stopping powder, silver supplies, and repulsion charm I used tonight. Those have to be calculated separately as well.”
Livia finally lost her composure, gritting her teeth on the floor.
“You still want money?!”
“Otherwise?”
Elias looked down at her.
“Did you think I came here in the middle of the night to promote cross-species friendship?”
“You didn't say anything about making a deal when you barged in!”
“I barged in because you were stealing someone else's property.”
“Understand?”
Livia's chest heaved in frustration, but she couldn't move. She could only lie on the floor in impotent fury.
Severin didn't haggle, nor did she let herself be led by the sequence of his demands.
Her gaze drifted past the gun barrel and landed on the grip of the elemental revolver.
“We can negotiate the money,” she said.
“But before that, I need to confirm something.”
Elias followed her line of sight.
The owl head on the grip stared back, one eye bright and the other dim, as the faint shimmer of residual elemental energy slowly circulated within them.
“Do you actually know what this is?”
Severin asked.
“An owl.”
“Stop playing dumb.”
Severin stared at him.
“My family's Old Night Gate bears the exact same design.”
“It doesn't belong to the Welzen family. We only know it as the 'Midnight Owl'.”
The Midnight Owl.
The ruins in the East Territory of Arnova, the Welzen family's Old Night Gate, and this elemental revolver that had accompanied him for so long—they had finally been clearly linked by a single design.
But where this connection led, no one yet knew.
“Then why are you asking me?”
His face betrayed no emotion.
“Where did you get this gun?”
“Are you vampires always this lacking in personal boundaries?”
Elias replied righteously.
“That's my personal privacy.”
“Let me examine it.”
“You can look, but no touching.”
Elias turned the gun sideways but remained inside the perimeter of the silver wire, refusing to take a single step forward.
Severin didn't cross the line either, carefully observing it from a few paces away.
The owl head was embedded at the bottom of the grip, its two crimson eyes connected to different elemental circuits.
The fine feather patterns around the outer edge initially looked like mere decoration, but as spiritual light flowed through them, a few lines briefly formed an incomplete Circle.
Severin's expression gradually turned solemn.
She looked first at the owl's eyes, then at the edges of the feather patterns, as if repeatedly comparing them to a faded memory.
Livia also struggled to turn her head on the floor.
“Miss, is it really...”
“Shut up.”
Severin's voice wasn't loud, but Livia instantly swallowed the rest of her sentence.
Elias raised an eyebrow.
“It seems you know more than you let on.”
“Only a little more.”
Severin fell silent for a moment.
“The Welzen family once kept something safe on behalf of the Midnight Owl.”
“What was it?”
“I don't know.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“I don't know that either.”
Elias stared at her.
...
“That was before the Welzen family migrated to the west,” Severin said coldly.
“Those who knew the truth are long gone.”
“We only inherited a prohibition and the mark on the Old Night Gate.”
“As for what we were keeping safe, it was lost along with the Old Night Gate.”
Elias observed her expression.
When she mentioned "lost," her voice visibly tensed.
That gate was clearly more than just a vault containing their genealogy and progenitor's blood; it was also tied to the last shred of dignity this declining family possessed.
“So you want to use the notebook to find that gate?”
“Yes.”
“That information can be factored into the price,” Elias said.
“But it's not enough.”
Severin seemed to have expected this answer.
She reached into the inner pocket of her worn, wine-red coat and pulled out a small purse, placing it on the still-intact table nearby.
When the purse landed, the sound it made lacked confidence.
“Three hundred and twenty gold crowns,” she said.
“This is everything I can offer right now.”
Elias wasn't moved by the concept of "a progenitor's entire fortune."
He glanced at her with 【Gauging Expressions】, and his expression grew strange.
She wasn't lying.
A genuine Kindred progenitor of at least Scale Four could only scrape together three hundred and twenty gold crowns.
No wonder her wine-red coat was washed out to a pale shade, yet her cufflinks were polished to a brilliant shine. They might have been completely broke, but they had to maintain the appearance of nobility at all costs.
“That repulsion charm from earlier wasn't cheap.”
“You chose to use that yourself.”
“I could hardly applaud you while you were lunging at me, could I?”
Severin fell silent.
Livia seemed to want to speak up on her behalf, but she glanced at the purse on the table, then at her pinned hands, and wisely shut her mouth.
The basement fell silent for a few breaths, with only the wind blowing wood chips through the shattered doorway.
Ultimately, Severin reached into the lining of her coat once more.
This time, her movements were significantly slower as she pulled a neatly folded pawn ticket from the deepest part of the lining.
The edges of the paper were somewhat worn, but the creases were pressed flat.
She held the pawn ticket, hesitating to hand it over immediately.
“Grey Bridge Pawnshop,” she said.
“A reflection pearl of the mirror-shadow gray clam.”
“The redemption price is fourteen hundred gold crowns. It will be forfeited in four days.”
Elias had still been calculating how many of his consumed supplies three hundred and twenty gold crowns could cover, but upon hearing the name of the material, his attention immediately snapped to the pawn ticket.
A reflection pearl of the mirror-shadow gray clam.
In the Scale Three spirit vision potion recipe left behind by Dr. Mester, this was the very first ingredient on the list.
For the longest time, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of any of the primary ingredients.
Who would have thought the first one would be offered as ransom by a vampire too poor to buy blood bags.
“As an ascetic, you should know what this can be used for, right?”
Severin asked.
“Of course...”
He had no idea.
Elias had only read a few lines about it in the Velen Supernatural Encyclopedia.
Mirror-shadow gray clams lived in the deep sea where moonlight could never reach. The reflection pearls they nurtured did not reflect the present, but rather left a delayed reflection half a beat behind reality.
As for how it was used in rituals other than potions, the book didn't contain a single word.
Naturally, he wouldn't let his ignorance show. Instead, he asked,
“Is it yours?”
“It was a trade good stored by the Welzen family in the past, not a family heirloom.”
Severin deliberately emphasized the latter half.
“After we arrived in Hastings Port, we pawned it to buy blood bags and lodging.”
Elias glanced at her and then at Livia on the floor.
A progenitor and a spawn, forced to pawn ancestral trade goods just to establish themselves in Hastings Port, and needing to wait for backup just to steal a notebook in the middle of the night.
The Welzen family's current situation was indeed a far cry from the castle-dwelling, goblet-holding vampire nobility of his imagination.
“Its market value is no less than twenty-two hundred gold crowns,” Severin continued.
“The redemption price is fourteen hundred, and it will be forfeited in four days.”
Elias took the edge of the pawn ticket she held out and inspected it closely.
“Who makes a deal using something they've already pawned off?”
“I only have this much,” Severin said. “It depends on whether you have the money to redeem it.”
Those words stung a little.
Elias thought of his yet-unpaid commission reward of eighteen hundred gold crowns.
Before the money had even entered his pocket, his first Scale Three material had already found a destination for it.
“Can the pawn ticket be transferred?”
He asked.
“If I add a blood imprint to it, the pawnshop will recognize you as the new holder.”
Severin pricked her fingertip and pressed a drop of blood onto the spiritual seal on the back of the pawn ticket.
The blood spread along the patterns of the Grey Bridge Pawnshop seal and quickly seeped into the paper.
The dark-red aura that had originally pointed to the Welzen family disconnected, transforming into a blank mark waiting to be accepted by a new holder.
Elias activated 【Moon Vision】 to inspect it for a moment.
The pawnshop's seal was unbroken, the collateral mark for the reflection pearl was still intact, and the redemption price and deadline remained unchanged.
At least the ticket was genuine.
Three hundred and twenty gold crowns.
Plus a reflection pearl that would require him to spend fourteen hundred gold crowns to redeem—though its market value was said to be no less than twenty-two hundred—in exchange for Livia's release and a single transfer that wouldn't damage the notebook.
This transaction wasn't entirely risk-free, but a reflection pearl of the mirror-shadow gray clam was certainly worth taking a gamble on.
“Fine then.”
Elias accepted the items.
“Why is it that every noble I encounter lately is poorer than the last?”
Rate on N.U.
