The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 425: I'm Allergic to Humans

When Ashe sprang up from the bed, his first instinct was to rub his eyes furiously, as if wishing he could dig them out and rinse them a few times over.

Harvey’s voice drifted down from the top bunk. “You’re awake, Ashe? I’ll open the curtains, then.”

The window curtains were drawn back, allowing the piercing morning sunlight to wash over the dust motes dancing above the desk.

Faint, pure golden words echoed through the cramped, dim room. Iger sat on the lower bunk opposite them, idly flipping through his Book of Gospel. Specks of sunlight, filtered and fragmented by the floral curtains, fell across his sleepwear, giving him a quiet, serene look.

Come to think of it, Ashe recalled that the fraudster’s Book of Gospel used to be incredibly gaudy and golden, practically engraving the words “money worshipper” onto its cover. Recently, however, its design had begun to shift. While it was still dominated by gold and silver tones, the patterns had started to mirror Ashe’s own Book of Gospel.

What did that mean? It meant Ashe simply had better taste. Even Iger couldn't help but copy his social media aesthetic.

Ashe glanced at the neatly folded blanket and pillow on the top bunk opposite him. “Where’s Pankey?”

“He went to make breakfast,” Iger replied. Noticing Ashe staring at him with intense thought, he raised an eyebrow. “Can you stop looking at me like that? It’s a bit disgusting.”

Ashe adopted a highly professional tone. “No, it's just that I've spent a massive amount of time looking at beautiful girls recently, so I’ve basically figured out all their characteristics. Iger, if you let your blonde hair grow a bit longer, your hardware would be perfectly fine... No, you don’t even need to grow it out. Just style it a bit messier, and it would work. Iger, you get what I mean, right?”

After staring at the Swordswoman and the Witch for a full hour the previous night, Ashe was seeing their afterimages everywhere. Their silhouettes kept overlapping with Iger’s features, leading him to the sudden realization that there was still room for improvement in the fraudster’s aesthetics.

Iger scoffed. “I get it. Of course, I get it. You just woke up and already want to pick a fight, and now you’re trying to trick me into shaving my head, right? Harvey, why don’t you show Ashe what you achieved last night?”

“Hm? Ashe wants to see?”

From the top bunk, Harvey lowered a wooden box. Ashe glanced inside, and instantly, the elegant afterimages of the Swordswoman and the Witch vanished from his mind. All that remained was a dense, writhing mass of cockroaches tangled together in a horrific swarm.

Thwack!

The Honeyed-Tongue Sword shot straight into the opposite wall, and in the next millisecond, Ashe teleported onto Iger’s bed, clinging to the wall like a cat with its fur blown entirely out. His eyes stayed locked on the necromancer and his box of horrors, poised to teleport again at the slightest movement.

Iger’s lips twitched as he fought back a laugh, throwing a blanket over him. “Are you seriously afraid of cockroaches?”

Ashe immediately pulled the fabric over himself, forming a defensive dome. “Anything becomes terrifying in large numbers! Even Lala Fats and Gold Coins! Harvey, can’t you just use your unbeatable Frost and Flowing Fire to burn them to ash? Are you keeping them for supper?!”

The necromancer closed the box with an analytical click. “Firstly, Frost and Flowing Fire cannot ignite physical matter. Secondly, you’re actually on the right track. I’m planning to marinate them in poison and turn them into food later.”

Ashe whimpered from beneath the blanket. “I-Iger... I feel a bit weak right now. Can you help me contact the Red Hats? Report that there’s a perverted necromancer on the loose...”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Harvey said, handling the box as if it were a perfectly normal parcel. “It’s not for you to eat.”

“Why does that sound even more threatening? I’m literally trembling! Can you please do something even remotely human?!”

Harvey shrugged. “It’s for Alice. I’m preparing a ghoul enhancement for him. One of the ritual steps requires the consumption of scavengers. Ideally, the components should be scarab beetles, blood-thread maggots, or corpse beetles, but given our current situation, we can only make do with cockroaches.”

Ashe looked blankly at Iger. The fraudster explained calmly, “Scarabs can crawl into the flesh and migrate toward the brain. Blood-thread maggots slip into the blood vessels to nest in the heart. Corpse beetles carry highly potent necrotic toxins. They are very common scavenger pets back in the Blood Moon.”

Ashe was genuinely shaken. “Pets? Are you people in the Blood Moon that hardcore? Why don’t you just keep normal cats or dogs?”

Iger brushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “Self-destruction, masochism, and a craving for filth all intertwine and corrupt one another there. In a country where literally everyone has a psychological disorder, you have to drastically lower your expectations.”

“I’ve already lowered them! They’re practically scraping the bedrock!”

“If you spent a few days working as a psychologist there, you’d know you need to dig with a shovel, breaking through the topsoil until you reach the rotten, foul, twisted roots underneath. Only then would you see the true Blood Moon.”

“So, what about you, Iger?” Ashe suddenly asked, peeking out. “If you had a pet, what would you keep?”

“Hm?” Iger paused, caught off guard. “Probably... a cat.”

“Oh, as expected,” Ashe said, looking profoundly relieved, which only left Iger more confused.

Harvey sighed, staring wistfully at his box. “See? That’s why I’m already considered very normal just for collecting cockroaches. Ah... why can’t cockroaches grow to the size of a palm? This size isn’t even enough for a decent meal.”

“If they were the size of a palm, cockroaches still wouldn’t be enough to eat. No, wait, I mean I wouldn’t be enough for them to eat,” Ashe stammered as a horrifying realization struck him. “Hold on, Harvey, how did you even manage to catch so many in the first place?”

The necromancer explained casually. “I have a spirit that specifically attracts scavengers. I woke up from the Virtual World at midnight anyway, and since I had nothing better to do, I just collected them on my way back. This is actually the haul from the entire apartment building. After all, many necromancy rituals require scavenger creatures as consumables.”

Ashe swallowed hard, his voice trembling. “Th-then when the cockroaches were being drawn over... wouldn’t they crawl... crawl right over us—”

“No,” Iger cut in calmly, closing his Book of Gospel with a faint smile. “I came back early last night too. I watched Harvey collect them the entire time. The cockroaches all crawled along the ceiling and dropped straight into his box. They never came anywhere near our beds.”

“Exactly,” Harvey agreed, waving a hand reassuringly. “Don’t let my appearance fool you. I’m actually quite fastidious. I would never let food touch you guys.”

The cult leader stared at the fraudster with a mixture of awe and profound dread. “You... watched them the whole time...?”

“Self-destruction, masochism, and a craving for filth,” Iger murmured, his eyes locking onto Ashe. “Care to guess which of those tendencies I fall under?”

Before Ashe could process the horror of his roommates, Pankey’s voice drifted in from the hallway. “Breakfast is ready!”

Seeing Harvey actually preparing to carry the cockroach box out into the common area, Ashe snapped into battle mode. “If you dare bring that box outside, I will fight you to the death!”

The necromancer shot him a bizarre look, then nodded. “As you wish.”

With a casual flick of his wrist, Harvey summoned a dark green spirit, squeezed a murky purple-green liquid out of thin air, and let it drip into the box. He then sealed the lid, locked it, and shoved it directly under the bunk bed. Because Harvey and Ashe shared the unit, the box slid right under Ashe’s lower bunk.

Harvey shrugged. “The transformation ritual requires contact with the earth. I originally planned to leave it on the balcony, but under the bed works just as well.”

Ashe stared into the dark shadow beneath his bed where the silent box now rested. A cold sweat broke out across his spine. “Iger, let’s switch beds.”

“Not happening.”

“Your bed looks pretty spacious, so—”

Iger shut him down firmly. “Your options are either to squeeze in with Pankey or go sleep with Annan and Lys. I am allergic to humans.”

“You weren’t this picky when we were in prison!”

“Meeting you developed the condition. Reflect on that.”

Giving up, the three of them left the bedroom and entered the cramped, roughly twenty-square-meter living space, where the kitchen and living room were separated by a single thin wall. Pankey had swapped his formal butler uniform for a casual apron, giving off the gentle vibe of a high school boy straight out of a dating simulator. He was busy arranging six breakfast plates on a folding round table.

Lys sat nearby, yawning widely in an oversized nightgown, her long white hair curled into a messy bird's nest. When Ashe and Harvey tried to slip into the bathroom to brush their teeth, Annan instantly shoved them back out. “Priority goes to the boss.”

When the cult leader walked out, he saw Iger gently brushing his daughter's hair. Curiously, he asked, “Iger, why aren’t you brushing your teeth?”

“I already showered,” Iger said, keeping a firm grip on Lys’s shoulders to stop her from squirming away. “Refusing to coordinate my schedule with you people is a simple way to drastically improve my quality of life.”

Left with no choice, Ashe and Harvey resorted to brushing their teeth out on the balcony. Barely three meters away across the narrow alley was the opposite balcony, which served as the home for a remarkably diverse, mixed-species family.

It consisted of an orc grandfather, an elf grandmother, an orc father, a sea witch mother, and their young sea witch son. The sea witch boy looked completely miserable about having to wake up, while the orc grandfather sat contentedly in a rocking chair, sipping tea while reading his Book of Gospel. Noticing Ashe and Harvey, the old orc raised his cup in a silent morning greeting.

Ashe and Harvey nodded back in unison. Then, they took a massive gulp of water, tilted their heads back to gargle loudly, and spat it directly into the balcony drain.

Training in the Virtual World was technically considered a form of rest for sorcerers, and Ashe felt a distinct sense of clarity following his recent ritual session with the Chaotic Shopping Guide of Blessings and Curses.

He leaned against the railing and looked up at the sky, which was sliced into jagged geometric fragments by thick webs of electrical wires strung between the buildings.

Down on the streets, office workers zipped past on balance scooters, while disorganized, chaotic apartment blocks loomed in the distance like a jagged, postmodern forest. A few drunken goblins lay sprawled on the pavement, their clothes entirely stolen by thieves. The morning commuters carefully stepped around them, while stray dogs casually urinated on them.

The morning sunlight spilled over the city like a fresh coat of bright paint, illuminating a chaotic yet wildly vibrant metropolis. Advanced, high-end technology was woven into every corner, yet grotesque urban decay and social disorder coexisted right alongside it. The entire city looked like a toilet bowl rimmed with pure gold.

This was Fedela, a chaotic metropolis that consistently ranked dead last in quality-of-life indexes, yet firmly held a spot in the national top five for population. A city praised as the Noise of the Gospel and known throughout the kingdom for its absolute freedom.

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