When the first rays of sunlight in the morning sprinkled on the entire city, the night was torn apart in an instant, and then the cracks became bigger and bigger, and when the darkness completely faded, the imperial capital was only full of vitality gold.

Rickett is a handyman at Sandy's Tavern, and at this time of day he goes from room to room in order to get guests to tip more.

This is the way of survival of the people at the bottom, who exchange their precious time for a small amount of money to fill their empty stomachs.

Speaking of his stomach, Rickett suddenly remembered that a guest had left in the middle of dinner last night. And the rest of the big steak went into his stomach, it was a delicacy he hadn't eaten in a long time.

It just so happened that the closest room to the staircase was the guest's room. This customer is very strange and always stays in the store during the day and only goes out at night.

But it's none of his business, anyway, this guest tipped a lot, and that was enough.

Rickett knocked on the door, and a hoarse voice came from inside.

"What's the matter?"

"Hello, do you need hot water?" Rickett was confident, because every day at this time of the day the guest would ask for a bucket of hot water, never stopping.

"Put it there, I'll take it myself later. To Rickett's surprise, this time the guest didn't ask him to help carry the water, but had to do it himself.

It also means that he won't be able to tip this guest today.

Rickett was slightly disappointed, but past experience told him that this was the time when he should leave and not try to ask for tips.

That can lead to very bad consequences.

As Rickett reached the top of the stairs, he heard the door open behind him.

He turned and saw a crack open in the closed door, and then a hand reached out, pushed the crack wider, and brought the hot water in the doorway.

Rickett continued to walk towards the top of the staircase, when suddenly his steps stopped.

Just now...... That hand...... Are there scales?

Rickett shook his head, thinking that he might have just hallucinated.

Really, how can there be scales on people's hands?

When his footsteps disappeared at the top of the stairs, the last crack in the door slowly closed, and a dark shadow slowly walked away from behind the door.

If Cezel could be awake at this time, he would naturally find out that this strangely behaved tenant was the culprit who attacked him and Susan in the dark alley!

By this time he had taken off his trademark cloak, his gray shirt had a huge hole in his chest, and his bare skin was covered with small milky white sarcomas, which looked like they were covered with scales from a distance.

"Ahem!"

The man coughed hard twice when he put his hand over his mouth

When the palm was spread out, a pool of blood came into view.

He took off his shirt, which had a terrifying hole in it.

The man picked up a towel, dipped it in hot water, and wiped the blood from his body.

After a long time, the man threw the towel into the bucket and threw himself into the couch.

The emaciated man collapsed on the couch, and the sarcoma on his face slowly subsided, revealing his true face.

A face that was scary, a little skinny, with a stubble all over the chin.

He's the merchant of Norton! the man who worked with Auston's brother to thwart Cezel from opening an alchemy workshop!

I don't know why he's here, but he's a world of difference in size compared to in Norton City. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, almost no one would have believed that anyone could lose so much weight in such a short period of time!

It's almost impossible!

Although compared to his previous plump state, he looks a little healthier.

But this was not the original intention of the merchant at all, he did not want to come to this place at all!

His real name is Nifa, and for some time now, he has lived in a dire nightmare every day.

I saw him looking at the ceiling with a desperate face, and a line of tears slowly fell from the corners of his eyes, recalling the experience of this time, so that he had to cover his eyes in pain and let the tears rain down.

It all started on the day of the Festival of Lights in Norton City.

Nifa, a small businessman, attended the Norton City auction that day, and after handing over the money and goods, he was about to leave.

But a colorful gem rolled down from the shadows and stood in his way.

Nifa immediately recognized that it was the 400,000-dollar Alkena gem, and after a little struggle, Nifa's greed finally won.

After sneaking it away, Nifa didn't rush to make a move, but probed the recent limelight.

As a result, he learned that at the same time as the Arkena gem was missing, the vice president of the Norton City Auction House and his parents and son were both killed.

Nifa, who learned about this, knew that this was a hot potato for the first time, but at this time it was too late to return it to its original owner, and he still had a trace of luck.

If you wait for the limelight to pass, you will get a lot of wealth!

This temptation led Nifa to keep the gem hidden.

Of course, he was cautious, he never told anyone about it, and he hid the gem in a small box made of Mithril and carried it with him.

As long as he doesn't open it, no one can know what's inside.

Then he went about his work as usual, even against Cizer and them, out of consideration for his own development, as if there were no gems at all.

But at some point, he began to have frequent nightmares, sometimes hearing the voice of a strange man.

What's even more terrifying is that he will suddenly wake up from a strange place, and yet he never remembers how he got here!

Things got worse and worse, and later, he found out about the changes in himself!

The sarcomas were parts of his body that would emerge from under his skin at night and disappear by daybreak.

But at the same time, whenever night came, he lost control of himself and waited until daylight to return to normal.

And in the fragments of his remaining memories of those nights, there were all extremely terrible things.

This scared Nefa so much!

And the Alker gem was long gone, and he didn't know how it flew out of the box minted by Mithril, could it be himself?

The more Nifa thought about it, the more terrifying he became, and he came directly to the imperial capital, hoping that someone here would help him.

But something terrible happened on the first night, and when he woke up the next day, he found himself covered in blood, even on his hands and the corners of his mouth.

Especially the strong rust smell in his mouth made him vomit towards the toilet bowl for a long time.

In order to prevent himself from continuing to kill, he even tried to lock himself in his room before nightfall, but when he woke up, the room was in shambles. And the chain, broken in two, lay quietly on the ground, telling with its irregular section how violently it had been treated.

Nifa had gradually understood that he was the creator of the black magic incident in the imperial capital at this time, and he unconsciously drew those weird and bloody symbols, which frightened him a lot.

But he didn't dare to say it, he couldn't say it, he could only huddle in his room, spend the tormented day, waiting for the night to awaken another soul in his body to preside over the bloody rituals.

Today Nifa is in a worse condition.

There were so many wounds on his body for some reason, and although most of them had healed, the internal wounds in his body still caused him to endure great pain.

In particular, the huge piercing on the chest of the shirt made Nifa shudder.

He couldn't imagine what kind of weapon could leave such a piercing hole in his clothes, and how he could have survived in such a situation.

Nefa felt like a monster at the moment, both mentally and from above.

At this moment he shed tears of despair again, staring blankly at the ceiling and muttering uncontrollably.

"Help me...... Who can save me?"

The hoarse voice echoed through the room, and it didn't take long for it to fade away.

So, no one heard his cry for help.