Chapter 30: The Great Escape

For a moment, Miss Lead Bottle thought she had misheard.

Before receiving Gima, she had been thoroughly briefed on Gima’s performance at the bank downstairs. Miss Lead Bottle had believed that Gima, or the ridiculously wealthy master behind her, was in urgent need of money. She had been confident that she could take advantage of Gima’s desperation, but she had never expected her to simply give up and walk away.

Gima got up from the plush sofa and walked straight towards the door.

Miss Lead Bottle finally snapped out of her shock, her professional smile instantly reappearing. “If you are worried about security, our bank can immediately assign a team of our finest security personnel to you. This is a special privilege reserved for our highest-level clients.”

“No,” Gima said flatly.

Miss Lead Bottle moved to block her way. “But why are you suddenly giving up? Your master might be unhappy.”

“Actually,” Gima said, patting her non-existent pockets with a theatrical sigh, “I seem to have forgotten to bring the piece of paper with the password on it. Sigh, it’s better to go back early, so I don’t get a spanking.”

With that, Gima walked right past the stunned Miss Lead Bottle.

Miss Lead Bottle hurried after her, her face plastered with a sycophantic, desperate smile. “Then do you perhaps need a carriage?”

Trying to find out where I’m hiding, you old fox?

“Goodbye,” Gima smiled sweetly. She completely ignored Miss Lead Bottle, pushed open the door, and walked out.

“Please wait!”

“Goodbye.”

What a joke. If I don’t slip away now, when will I? Do they think I’m an idiot?

Gima didn’t stop, walking straight down the grand staircase.

Miss Lead Bottle’s constant inquiries about the “master” behind her, and the palpable greed directed at Gima herself, made her feel that withdrawing the money was a damn trap.

That ungrateful, backstabbing Great Good Master is desperately trying to find my treasure vault. It’s only normal that he would be eyeing my bank account. He must have colluded with the bank long ago, just waiting for me to obediently come and open the vault for him… That Lead Bottle woman’s probing just now must have been on behalf of the person behind her, wanting to know if I—the great Demon Lord Kima—am still alive, so they don’t accidentally offend someone they can’t afford to… Hehe, just you wait until I kill you all.

Gima sneered inwardly, secretly vowing to butcher the Great Good Master’s entire family, chop them up into tiny pieces, and feed them to the stray cats.

“Please wait, miss!”

Miss Lead Bottle, disregarding all etiquette, followed closely beside Gima, trying her best to get her to stay. But Gima completely ignored her, treating her as if she were thin air, and continued to walk at a leisurely, unbothered pace.

Because Gima had figured it out. As long as the Fellen Brothers Bank was unsure of the identity of the master behind her, they wouldn’t dare to make a direct move on her. Based on what Miss Lead Bottle had said, it was very likely they thought the one coming to withdraw the money was the Demon Lord Kima himself. Even if it wasn’t, it was most likely someone even more powerful. Either way, the bank couldn’t afford to offend them.

If she acted too panicked, it might actually embolden them.

They slowly walked down from the second floor. Just as they reached the main hall, they saw an unfortunate scene. The muscle-bound glasses man was being unceremoniously “escorted” out by two large guards, one on each arm.

“It’s really not safe for you to be alone. Please, do consider our bank’s private carriage service.”

“I appreciate your… enthusiastic way of seeing guests off,” Gima said as she stepped over the threshold. “And you can tell your superior that a bank that is so ‘enthusiastic’ usually doesn’t stay open for very long.”

With that, she left the embarrassed and speechless Miss Lead Bottle behind and swaggered away into the crowded street.

After successfully leaving the bank, Gima ducked into the crowd. With the distinct advantage of her short stature, she disappeared in an instant, terrified that fifty burly men would suddenly rush out of the bank, drag her back, and torture her severely for information. Fortunately, everything was calm. There were no burly men, and no unfortunate accidents.

Everything on the street was just as it had been when she arrived.

But Gima didn’t relax. Although it was possible she was just being paranoid, it was always better to be careful. Even if they didn’t make a move directly out of caution, they would definitely send someone to follow her, to figure out her “master’s” identity, and to assess whether she was a soft or a hard target.

The soft are bullied, the hard are feared. And right now, Gima was very, very soft. The softest she had ever been in her entire, long life.

Gima pulled her hood down, hiding her face. Deep within the hood, a pair of golden eyes glowed faintly. She kept her “Eyes of Desire” active, carefully sensing any and all desire directed specifically at her. But after walking in the opposite direction for fifteen minutes, she felt nothing.

Am I just being paranoid? Maybe Miss Lead Bottle is just a lolicon and really just wanted to greedily pinch my cheeks?

Gima had a headache. She realized her understanding of her own abilities was still far too shallow.

Fine. I’ll have to use traditional methods to find a tail.

Gima pretended to casually look back, her sharp eyes scanning the crowd behind her with practiced ease.

As far as she could see, every single person was a suspect. The beggar who was being driven away by a yellow-helmeted guard had just glanced at her. The guards too, while driving away the beggar, were looking at her. It’s not like she had a white flower pinned to her face. And that long, brown-eared donkey, its dark, shiny eyes gleaming with a disturbing amount of intelligence, had been staring at her the whole time. It might actually be some perverted druid in disguise.

After a thorough, and increasingly frantic, observation, Gima came to a stunning conclusion: everyone on the street was an experienced, master-level tracker, and they were all following her.

Gima took a deep breath.

No, it’s just that I’m a complete and utter amateur at this.

After making a few turns, the number of pedestrians on the road decreased. A bell rang in the distance, signaling the arrival of noon. Gima frowned. According to her meticulously crafted plan, she should have been back at the inn by now.

She suddenly stopped, lifted her head slightly, and looked at the seven-colored clouds in the sky, formed by the collective desires of the city's populace. An idea came to her. She extended a single, delicate finger from her sleeve, aimed it at the massive blue cloud symbolizing greed, and gave it a mischievous little flick.

Gima felt a warm current flow from her finger up her arm. The feeling of being full she’d had earlier gradually disappeared, while the blue cloud in the sky grew larger and larger.

She had just thought of something. Maybe her target was so focused on the act of following her that he had no active “greedy” desire. But if she strengthened the ambient greed in his heart, maybe she could make him start to have some… ideas.

A faint, but distinct, stinging sensation pricked her from behind. Gima stopped her stirring, feeling her head grow slightly hot. She didn’t look back immediately, but pretended that nothing was wrong and continued forward, heading towards a less crowded area.

Because of her “stirring,” the people around her began to change.

She passed a small stall selling clothes. The seller was arguing loudly with a customer.

“What?! You dare to sell a shabby hooded cloak for three silver coins?!” 

“This cloak is sewn with the hair of a genuine water nymph! It should be three gold coins, you cheapskate!”

On the other side, two previously amiable merchants suddenly started arguing furiously over the amount on a contract. The whole street became stranger and stranger. As Gima passed a small alley, she saw someone threatening a passerby with a butter knife, demanding his money pouch.

Several stinging gazes fell on her one after another. Gima quickened her pace and made another turn. Some of the stinging sensations disappeared, but there was always one that followed her, a persistent, unnerving prickle on the back of her neck.

That must be the one.

Gima pretended to casually look back, tracing the desire directed at her. When her gaze fell on the tracker, she froze.

It was a donkey! A donkey with long, floppy ears that looked completely, utterly harmless.

Her worst, most paranoid fears had been confirmed. She took a sharp, horrified breath, her heart tightening in her chest.

The Fellen Brothers Bank and the Great Good Master really have joined forces.

As a former VIP of Salem City, Gima knew that the Great Good Master had a set of professional “cultivation” methods at his disposal. His agents were called “Flesh-crafters,” and they were skilled at altering flesh and implanting organs. At Gima’s suggestion, they had once researched creating super-soldiers with two hearts and three lungs, but had failed. After all, they were much, much better at giving female slaves plastic surgery, liposuction, breast augmentation, and hymen restoration…

They were also highly skilled in organ transplantation—for example, giving an animal the brain of an orphan to serve as a spy and tracker. After all, even the most vigilant person would not pay attention to a simple passing animal.

Gima continued to move forward, the faint stinging sensation like a thorn in her back.

This was much, much more terrifying than being caught by George for being late. If the Great Good Master couldn’t hold back and decided to make a move, she wouldn’t even have a chance to run.

Gima’s scalp tingled with fear. She suddenly thought that her current self was the perfect “auction item.” A succubus was already hard to come by; in her past life, she had spent a great deal of effort just to get her hands on a “public bus” succubus who had been with many masters.

If the Great Good Master were to capture a virgin succubus, he would probably laugh like a pig and immediately assign the ten best, and most perverted trainers in the city to jointly “educate” her. At that thought, Gima’s tail couldn't help but tremble uncontrollably.

Leaving directly from the main street was definitely not an option. There were several “animals” waiting. And she didn't have enough lust to stir up street after street of people to create a distraction.

Gima gritted her teeth and ducked into a small, dark alley, hoping to shake off her pursuer through the complicated network of backstreets.

Unfortunately, the alley was not complicated at all. It had only one exit and no convenient manhole leading to the sewer.

Gima, at the risk of being robbed, walked out of the alley exit. The moment she did, the familiar stinging sensation found her again.

They’re like ghosts.

She walked a dozen more steps and ducked into another small alley. The stinging sensation behind her disappeared. Gima didn’t breathe a sigh of relief, because she could see the end of this alley, and it also had only one exit.

However, there were a dozen or so children playing in the alley, gathered in a circle. A boy in the middle was tossing a small stone up and catching it, singing a grim little song as he did:

“One second’s short, two seconds’ long, if you don’t run in three, the hangman’s noose will come for you!”

The boy who was tossing the stone noticed the unexpected visitor, Gima. His hand trembled, and he failed to catch the stone.

The child next to him laughed, took a piece of rope, and playfully wrapped it around his neck, shouting, “Locke’s been caught! He’s been caught!”

The little boy named Locke opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue, looking just like a hanged ghost.

It seemed the sight of child thieves being hanged had left a very deep, and very formative, impression on them.

Gima’s heart felt a little heavy. She walked towards the raggedly dressed children and said, “Kids, want a gold coin?”

A shiny gold coin appeared in her palm.

Locke tore the rope from his neck and stared at the gold coin. Gima found that even without her stirring, the greed in this boy’s chest was unexpectedly, and quite impressively, large.

“I would be happy to serve the little lady,” Locke said, his voice suddenly all business. “What do you want us to do?”

“Someone is watching me.”

“Leave it to us.”

“This gold coin is your reward. And this silver coin… children are always so forgetful. Forget this ever happened.” A gold and a silver coin were tossed to the little boy named Locke.

“Strange. How did I get so much money in my hand?” Locke said, catching the coins with a practiced ease and winking at Gima.

A quarter of an hour later, a group of children in hooded cloaks, all about the same height as Gima, poured out of the alley. Like a group of rats, they quickly disappeared into the crowded streets and alleys in every direction.

Half an hour later, Gima, who had been hiding in a barrel full of smelly, stagnant slop water, finally couldn’t take it anymore. She pinched her nose, pushed open the heavy lid, and climbed out. Her new clothes were stained with some foul-smelling, unidentifiable filth.

“I definitely need to take a good, long bath when I get back.”

Gima frowned and quickly left the alley. She just hoped the kobolds in the sewer could hold out a little longer.

She did not like the idea of returning to the inn only to see the damn virgin sitting in a chair, holding a feather duster, waiting for her.