Chapter 191: Your Ancestor Came (Patreon)

"That's right. If I may ask, how should I address you, sir?"

The man in front of him was obviously from Great Yan, and Saito's own manner of speaking took on a certain flavor.

"You flatter me. I'm only here at someone's request. Just call me Lee."

The man who called himself Lee took off his hat and bowed to them with a smile, almost humbly.

"And how should I address the two of you?"

"I'm Saito."

"My name is Chen Qianyu."

Lee kept his beaming smile at the sound of Saito's name, but the moment the three syllables of Chen Qianyu left her lips, he burst into a violent coughing fit.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just swallowed wrong."

Little Chen asked with real concern. Lee waved his hand again and again to say it was nothing, though while he thumped his chest, he was sizing up the Lung girl in front of him.

A Lung. Surname Chen.

There were no coincidences like this under heaven. Lee wiped the fog from his sunglasses and took a hard look. The two swords at the girl's waist were looking more familiar by the second.

Incidentally, on this trip back to Wuling, Little Chen had received more than the sword manual her mother had sent. There was also a design blueprint from the Armory and two sword blanks. The blueprint showed a longsword about eighty percent similar to the weapon her mother had once wielded, and over these past few days she had asked the Bureau of Swordmancers to cast the blanks to suit her habits.

After all, according to the manual, the Chi Xiao swordsmanship only unleashed its full power in the hands of a Chi Xiao sword. Back when Chen Qianyu worked out her sword techniques entirely on her own, it hadn't mattered. Now she naturally needed a pair of suitable weapons.

Chi Xiao itself couldn't be passed on to her for now, but the two blanks she'd been given came from the hands of the Feranmut Proxy, and their power was, if anything, greater than that of a true Chi Xiao.

As for how the weapons looked... Since Chen Qianyu was long used to the form of Chi Xiao, she had made a point of asking the Armory to forge the blanks into something close to it.

Well, the Bureau of Swordmancers heard that and, naturally, followed the user's wishes to the letter, forging the two divine blades into exactly the shape Little Chen had in mind.

So right now, the pair at Little Chen's waist weren't identical to the Chi Xiao sword, but they were a hundred percent similar.

In short, only Lee knew what kind of hurricane was raging inside him, and all those countless thoughts boiled down to a single one.

Get these two honored ancestors to Lungmen, then bolt. Whatever happens, don't get dragged into this.

In Lungmen, anything involving the Chen family meant trouble—he didn't need a brain to know how much. And he still had to earn Waai Fu's tuition. He couldn't get involved in something this "dangerous."

Saito watched Lee with some puzzlement, but out of trust in Ivan, he didn't press the matter.

"So, Mr. Lee, when can we set out?"

"If you two are in a hurry, we can leave tonight."

Lee gave a sheepish laugh, looking like he'd go along with whatever they decided. Saito and Chen Qianyu were a little baffled, but they nodded.

"Then we'll trouble you to arrange it as soon as you can."

"You got it~"

As it turned out, though Lee had come across as lazy and unreliable when he walked in, he was frighteningly efficient once he got to work. He'd only just said they could leave tonight, yet by the time the vehicle pulled up at the building's entrance, it wasn't even mealtime.

Lee sat in the driver's seat and pointed to the seats behind him.

"After you, you two."

*

Lungmen sits in the northwest corner of Great Yan, bordering Chernobog, and is one of Great Yan's major centers of commerce and culture.

Compared with the rougher, more industrial Chernobog, this mobile city was far more modern. At first glance, apart from the base section unique to mobile cities, it didn't look much different from the city where he'd lived before he crossed over.

"The checkpoint's just ahead. When we get there, I'll have to trouble you two to come with me to register."

From the driver's seat, Lee ran through the procedures they would face. They weren't complicated, but missing a single step would be a real headache. Luckily, with a local fixer leading the way, nothing should go wrong.

As the road ahead cleared, their vehicle merged into the line of traffic and headed for Lungmen's city gate.

"Come to think of it, this might be the first time we've entered a mobile city through proper channels."

The last time they'd entered a mobile city, Ivan had taken Little Chen through the staff entrance, and he hadn't gone through any entry procedure at all. This time felt strangely novel.

Lungmen was every bit the famous international metropolis. Back in Chernobog you almost never saw such long lines. Most of the traffic in and out of Chernobog was transport convoys, and outsiders, especially travelers, were pitifully few.

But here in Lungmen, the moment Saito stepped out of the vehicle he saw plenty of races that were extremely rare in Ursus, and his curiosity about the city grew. He kept looking until Lee, having finished the entry formalities, spoke up and interrupted his observations.

"Mr. Saito, Miss Chen, time to go. You two still have to do your paperwork."

"Mm, okay."

Saito snapped back to himself and nodded. Just as he turned to follow, something bumped him from the side. It wasn't hard, hardly more than a graze. When he looked back, all he saw was a blue-haired figure receding into the crowd, a long bag on her back and a phone wedged against one ear. He could still faintly hear her impatient voice.

"I already told you, whether I go back or not has nothing to do with you. I've asked the academy for leave, and in a while I'll go back to Londinium. My business is none of yours."

The blue-haired girl spoke in thick, authentic Lungmen dialect, close to a dialect from a certain city in his old world, and Saito caught only half of it. The gist seemed to be that she was telling whoever was on the line that her affairs were none of his concern, that she'd taken leave from school and would go back to study in Londinium after a while?

If he remembered right, Londinium was the capital of Victoria, wasn't it? That girl was obviously from Great Yan, and she was going all the way to Victoria to study?

Saito wasn't curious out of any gossipy impulse. It was just that the girl's face and the horns on her head looked far too familiar, so familiar that it felt like he'd seen her somewhere just a moment ago.

"Brother Saito, what are you looking at?"

When Saito didn't follow right away, Chen Qianyu doubled back.

"Ah, nothing. I just saw a figure that looked familiar."

"You know someone in Lungmen?"

"No, not exactly..."

I may have just run into one of your ancestors.

Saito looked at the girl in front of him, and his expression grew complicated.