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An inhuman scream echoed through the room, but Gaegukja Yeol ignored it. Although it was her first time administrating, she had been through multiple stages where administrators were required. She knew how they were supposed to act, but despite her being as strong or stronger than the administrators she had seen before, she couldn’t do as she wished because two of the applicants, the sleeping husband and his aunt, were unreasonably strong. As such, Gaegukja Yeol allowed them to do as they pleased: the husband slept, and the aunt purchased people’s souls.

“Is that the last one?” Lindyss asked and exhaled, retrieving her hand. The black wisps of mana floating around her arm retreated back into her body, sinking through her skin. As the final wisps of darkness faded away, the screaming stopped as the man kneeling before Lindyss fell forward and landed on his elbows.

Erin glanced around from her spot at her counter. There were still plenty of people who hadn’t come up to sell their souls for three hundred geums, but then again, after hearing the howls of pain ripping out of the throats of those who did, a lot of people decided to take their chances with the basement. Seeing as no one else was approaching or even willing to make eye contact with Erin, the fairy queen nodded at Lindyss. “Yep. He was the last one. I’m still surprised there was even a first one.”

“You’d be surprised at how many people are willing to trade away their souls just because they can’t feel them,” Lindyss said and went to the countertop. She pocketed her signs and kicked at the earthen counter, causing it to sink back into the ground with Erin still on top of it. The fairy queen barely managed to leap off before the structure was swallowed by the earth. “Since we’re done, someone”—Lindyss coughed twice—“Tafel, should wake Vur up, so we can get moving.”

Tafel raised her head. In her lap, there was a rubbing of a stone tablet. She had made a rubbing for each of the tablets Minerva had carved while translating the Trickster’s Book, because they were easier to transport. Tafel glanced at Vur. He was sitting on an earthen seat with his head resting on the counter Stella was on, a line of drool dripping down to the ground from the puddle formed around his lips. By Vur’s feet, where his drool was forming a second puddle, there was a red glow. Tafel leaned over to get a better look, and a dark expression appeared on her face. The ant pupa was practically drowning.

Tafel opened a portal in front of herself, and a second portal appeared by Vur’s feet. Tafel crouched down and grabbed at the ant pupa by Vur’s feet, but when she pulled on the pupa with her arm, her body jerked forward instead. A furrow appeared on Tafel’s brow, and she tugged on the pupa, harder this time. It was stuck. Tafel crawled through the portal, sweeping her hair back from her face, and frowned. Earthen fingers were holding the pupa in place, and beside it, there were two large pebbles, one brown and one blue, with sticklike arms and legs. The blue pebble was waving its arms, and drool was flowing off the ground and into the ant pupa’s mouth. The brown pebble was stomping its legs, and earthen walls rose up to block and divert the flow of human-dragon drool.

“What are the two of you doing?” Tafel asked.

The two pebbles squeaked and fell over with their limbs completely stiff. A tiny pair of sapphires appeared on the blue pebble, and a tiny pair of diamonds appeared on the brown pebble. A deep sigh came out of the brown pebble. “This is Stella playing around with our powers.”

“It’s not playing,” Stella said, her voice coming from the earthen countertop above Tafel’s head. “It’s researching, and it’s serious business.”

“Right,” Diamant said and nodded Tafel, the pebble’s body moving up and down. “As you can see, Stella’s conducting serious research into using our powers, and for some reason, this is what she chose to do.” Diamant’s arms dropped down, and he tilted his body back to look up at Stella. “What exactly were you doing?”

“I was feeding the pupa,” Stella said. “If you’re not going to eat it, what’re you going to do, slowly let it starve to death?”

“Right, right,” Tafel said. “Good catch. I thought of it too much like a treasure that I forgot it needed to eat, but I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you feeding it drool?”

“Dragon drool is good for growth,” Stella said and shrugged. “Unless you have something better?”

“You know?” Tafel said, gesturing towards the bottle of ant honey Stella was hugging to her chest. “The thing it’s normally raised on?”

Stella snorted. “That’s how you get a normal princess ant. If we’re not going to eat it, then it better be good enough to keep around, and normal won’t cut it.” The fairy queen nodded and dipped her finger into the bottle of ant honey before scooping a drop of amber liquid into her mouth. She flew over to Vur’s head and scooped out a handful of honey from her jar. Vur’s nose twitched as Stella placed her hand in front of his unoccupied nostril, the other having a snot bubble growing out of it. “It’s time to get up, Vur. We’re finished with our business here.”

The snot bubble popped, and Vur’s eyes creaked open. His lips puckered together, and the honey in Stella’s hand flew into Vur’s mouth as he made a sipping sound. Vur licked his lips as he sat up and looked around. His gaze landed on a person trudging over to the countertop with a paper in his hand.

“Ant honey, please,” the man said while gasping. He placed the paper down on the counter and slid it towards Vur.

Vur looked around before picking up a jar of ant honey. He passed it to the man and watched as the panting man picked up the jar and put it into the edge of a cube which was sticking out of a circular shadow nearby. Vur turned his head to look at Stella. “Was he dead?”

“No?” Stella said, phrasing her answer as a question.

“Hmm.” Vur grunted. “Weird.” He leaned over and picked up the fallen pupa before swatting at it to dust it off. When he was done, he tucked it underneath his armpit and looked around. “So, where are we going?”

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