"If I wanted to acquire some Danger Beast flesh and obtain some Teigu, do you have any good ideas?" Chen Li asked, propping his chin up with one hand as he looked at the noble lord beside him, who had already been turned into a "servant spirit."
"My lord, I can recommend you to the Empire's Minister. As long as you can win the Minister's favor, power and wealth will naturally flock to you. Then, you can control the Minister just as you control me, achieve a leap in social class, and subsequently take control of the entire Empire," the noble lord offered, doing his utmost to devise a strategy for Chen Li.
The plan wasn't brilliant, but for a noble lord who, aside from torturing people and swindling country folk, used his brain for basically nothing, this was an extraordinary performance.
"Tsk. If it weren't for the lack of suitable materials to forge a Curio that automatically loots spoils of war, I would have cleansed this entire capital long ago," Chen Li sighed.
In the world of Akame ga Kill!, the Empire where Chen Li currently resided was a nation with a thousand-year-old civilization. At its political and economic heart was the Imperial Capital, the seat of the Emperor and the Minister.
Although it was the center of the Empire, it was utterly corrupt, and the lives of its people were filled with hardship.
Chen Li's client this time, Aria, despite her beautiful and youthful appearance, was in truth a vicious and malevolent noble girl whose favorite pastime was luring country folk who came to the Capital to make a living to her home and torturing them to death.
How depraved can you get? Did the country folk do something to offend you?
You only know how to pick on the weak, is that it?
Of course, her parents were no better. Each of them had their own cruel hobbies.
And nobles of this ilk were scattered all over the current Imperial Capital.
If one were to kill every single official and noble in the entire Capital, there might indeed be one or two who were killed by mistake, as the Empire still had a few conscientious individuals who didn't quite deserve to die.
But if you killed ten nobles and officials and let one go, there would definitely be some who slipped through the net.
And the Imperial Minister the noble lord spoke of was an even bigger piece of work.
Minister Honest had personally murdered the current young emperor's biological parents, then helped the current emperor stand out from among numerous successors. He then held the emperor hostage to command the nobles, monopolizing the entirety of the Empire's power and implementing an endless tyrannical regime.
Although the Imperial Capital was a place where demons and monsters ran rampant, it would be troublesome for Chen Li to use the [Longbow of Peace] to cleanse it, because all those wicked people wouldn't gather in one place.
There were many villains, but they were scattered. This was the most prohibitive situation when using the Longbow's [The Reckoning].
Forging a Curio to attract them all together would also be a hassle, as they didn't share a high degree of commonality like the ghosts in Miko's world.
So Chen Li had to wait. Wait until the Longbow had accumulated enough evil souls.
"Speaking of which, what year is it?" Chen Li suddenly asked.
"Ah, this..."
"Forget it, no need to answer." Chen Li suddenly remembered that the anime he watched didn't seem to have a timeline.
Never mind then.
"Different question. Has this world's General, Esdeath, gone to suppress the northern tribes' rebellion?" Chen Li continued.
"She has already left." Although he didn't know how Chen Li knew of this, the noble lord answered the question very honestly.
"I see... Then I have a rough idea of the time frame," Chen Li nodded.
It was probably not long before the start of the main plot.
Chen Li wasn't entirely clear on the specific details.
After thinking it over, Chen Li couldn't decide whether to help the Revolutionary Army or the Empire.
The Empire was corrupt. The Revolutionary Army was incompetent and had even colluded with the northern tribes.
So, regardless of which side he helped, Chen Li had a relatively quick way to "clear the game." But if both choices made him feel disgusted, then he would have to find another path.
Chocolate-flavored shit and shit-flavored chocolate. Chen Li didn't want to choose either.
Coincidentally, Chen Li had a good idea.
"Take me to see Minister Honest," Chen Li said, turning his head to the noble lord.
"Ah, me? Now?" The noble lord pointed to himself in disbelief.
While it wasn't impossible for him to see the Minister by offering some treasures with his noble status, how was he supposed to go out looking like this?
"Useless. Forget it. You should know where the Minister's residence is, right? Just lead me directly to his house later," Chen Li said, cracking his knuckles as he stood up from his chair. His left foot, however, remained firmly on Aria's body.
"Oh, I know that." The noble lord nodded repeatedly, frantically trying to highlight his existence and value.
Because the noble lord really, really did not want to return to the inside of the [Longbow of Peace].
The Longbow used the pain and suffering extracted from evil souls as its energy source. That place was a veritable hell for evil souls.
Killers were forever trapped on the mountains of corpses they created, pierced by thorns grown from the fingernails of the dead.
Betrayers were gnawed upon by ten thousand faces, each one a replica of those they once harmed.
The souls of the greedy were encased in liquid gold, forced to suffocate on more metal with every breath...
Everything was illusion; everything was real.
That place was hell! A true hell.
Is that really a proper Longbow of Peace? That's a Ten Thousand Soul Banner, isn't it?
"Reporting, my lord. There are two more survivors in the warehouse. But they are both unconscious and gravely injured," just as Chen Li was thinking of starting with Honest to get some Teigu, a guard walked in and reported to him.
"Ah? Two more survivors? They're quite lucky to have run into me."
"But they're about to die."
"Oh, that's fine. As long as there's a single breath left, I can save them. Saving a life is more meritorious than building a seven-story pagoda. I'd like to see just how much [Approbation of Sublime Morality] I can get for saving a person," Chen Li said with considerable interest.
Although it was somewhat disrespectful to the injured, as the Divine Healer of the Xianzhou, Chen Li hadn't actually treated that many people in a proper medical sense.
And so, led by the guard, Chen Li grabbed the hair of Aria, who was pinned to the ground and constantly screaming shrilly, and dragged her towards a warehouse on the mountain behind the estate.
---o---
"..." When Chen Li arrived at the warehouse, the sight that greeted him was two people he had quite an impression of.
One was a girl, hung up, with bloody welts seeping through her clothes. The blood was very fresh, as if she had just been whipped.
The other was a boy, trapped in a cage, his body contorted unnaturally, seemingly in great distress.
"So when you told me you had already eaten dinner, you weren't just being polite, it was actually true?" Chen Li looked at the two people inside, then looked at the foolishly smiling noble lord and the constantly screaming Aria, and was almost angered into laughter.
Are you people really that busy?
Can you even handle the workload?
Want me to help you out?
"That... you arrived rather late, my lord. Before you came, my unfilial daughter had already brought two country folk to the estate," the noble lord said with an ingratiating smile.
"I... forget it." Chen Li was so angry he could barely breathe.
Only by directly witnessing this warehouse, which was specially used by this family of depraved nobles to torture country folk, could Chen Li more intuitively grasp just how much this family deserved to die.
And Chen Li also recognized the two relatively "fresh" country folk before him. They were Sayo and Ieyasu, the childhood friends of the anime's protagonist, Tatsumi, who would have also been lured to this house by the noble lady.
"Count yourselves lucky that you ran into me," Chen Li sighed.
It was also lucky for them that Chen Li was bored today and decided to come to this world to screw over Aria.
If Chen Li had come to this world just one day later, it would be hard to say what would have become of these two unlucky kids.
"This one has been whipped dozens of times. The injuries are severe, but treatable," Chen Li walked up to the girl who had been hanging for a short time and waved the Divine Item of Abundance in his hand.
Surging Abundance power quickly helped her physical injuries recover.
The Divine Item of Abundance manifested differently in different worlds. Its effect was weakened in the world of Akame ga Kill!, but healing these kinds of physical wounds was no problem at all.
Although the people of the Xianzhou shunned the Abundance, and the followers of Abundance had a very, very bad reputation throughout the universe, the blessings of Abundance were still very useful.
In a situation like this, he couldn't use the immortality pill enhanced with the power of eternity.
Because the effect of the power of eternity was to maintain the target in the state they were in when the power was applied.
Using it now would only make them maintain these injuries forever.
In fact, after learning that Kaguya Houraisan was the real deal, Chen Li had been pondering a question.
If Kaguya gave him a Hourai Elixir, and he happened to have a canker sore when he ate it, would he have to live with that canker sore for the rest of his life?
Kaguya Houraisan hadn't answered Chen Li's query, merely shooting him a look.
"This one seems to have been poisoned..." Chen Li turned his head to look at the noble lord.
"This is my wife's handiwork. She loves to use all sorts of poisons she concocts herself on the country folk. But I don't know the antidote. This time, the poison seems to be a slow-acting one, but its effects are very potent," the noble lord explained hurriedly.
"Sounds good... Remember to send it to my room later," Chen Li said after a moment's thought.
"Ah, my wife?" the noble lord asked, stunned.
"Send the poisons your wife concocted to my room! Dammit to hell!"
Chen Li, who had copied his Guide to Forging Curios and used it to smack the ghost soundly on the head, cursed as he plucked a new grain of wheat that had only just grown on the Divine Item of Abundance and tossed it onto Ieyasu.
The local nobles were so impolite, and had no class at all.
They were just a bunch of trash with filthy minds and despicable actions.
You little brat, you still want to take advantage of me? In your dreams.