Lich for Hire

Long-distance communication had always been a headache.

To keep his identity hidden, Ambrose sent his letter to James Watson under a false name. The letter took a full ten days to reach him. Watson's reply wound its way back just as circuitously, arriving eight days later.

When Ambrose finally received it, his first reaction was pure disdain.

"So this is all you know about such a big affair involving the Draconic Armaments? Useless old man."

In Ambrose's view, if he were the High Inquisitor of the Lyon Empire, he'd make sure he knew what the citizens of the capital dreamed about at night. Yet this old fossil seemed to have no information network at all.

"Forget it. I can't count on him. I'll have to find another way to investigate the Draconic Armaments."

Then his gaze lingered on the final line. "What's with this last bit? Too much is crossed out for this to be a simple mistake..."

He examined it closely. The line had been thoroughly blacked out, every word carefully obscured.

Interesting. Was this some kind of coded message? Had James Watson, afraid the letter might be intercepted, concealed the important information?

But there was no magical seal on the ink, just a crude smear. How was he supposed to decipher that?

After a moment's thought, Ambrose folded the letter and left his laboratory.

He crossed several streets to the other side of the city.

A large building there had been converted into living quarters. Catherine and the drow were housed inside. Their number had grown: Milena had later delivered another twenty drow, along with tens of millions in gold.

It was a rather overwhelming gift. Ambrose once again concluded that Black Rose was the ideal partner, so generous to the point of making him feel almost ashamed. If he'd known, he would've haggled harder with Shara.

Catherine now lived here with forty drow. The originally rough, giant-style architecture had been refined by elven hands—both the high elves' and the drow's—into something far more elegant. Glowing subterranean fungi had been cultivated, bathing the building in a dreamlike light.

It was far more pleasing than Ambrose's purely utilitarian aesthetic.

But he had no interest in such luxury. He strode upstairs, ignoring the drow kneeling in respect as he passed, and headed straight for the top floor.

This floor belonged solely to Catherine. She was hunched over her desk, writing furiously.

Ambrose had instructed her to record every detail of the drow's behavior, and even provided memory crystals to assist her.

Catherine, eager to do well, had gone even further, using mind-reading magic to supplement her observations.

As both a legendary ranger and a legendary mage, her success rate with such spells was extremely high.

But that only made things worse, because what she saw in their minds was nothing but deceit and hatred. No matter how comfortable their lives became, their thoughts never changed, focusing almost entirely on how to kill her and how to escape. Beyond that, how to betray their companions, climb over their corpses, and win Catherine's trust.

The sheer malice left her shaken. They were well-fed and well-rested. So where did all this hatred come from?

Only now was she beginning to understand the purpose behind Ambrose's assignment. Her previous understanding of the drow had been laughably shallow. That realization only drove her harder. Her current records alone could fill half a bookshelf.

When she noticed Ambrose, Catherine looked up.

He had never seen her in such a disheveled state, her hair messy from repeated tugging, with ink stains smeared across her hands and face.

"What are you doing here?" Catherine asked.

"You don't have to push yourself this hard," Ambrose said. "The drow have been separated from the elves for far too long. Reintegration won't happen overnight."

Catherine shook her head. "I know I'm not good at much. The least I can do is follow your instructions properly. If I can't even manage that, then it's not about intelligence, but attitude. This is a divine mandate. I will give it everything I have."

Ambrose, an unbeliever to the core, found it difficult to understand such devotion.

He didn't argue further. Instead, he turned to Naomi, who was organizing the documents beside her.

The druid girl had once lived inside his personal space. It was chaotic but spacious, and she preferred the solitude.

Later, seeing Catherine under such tremendous pressure, Ambrose had sent Naomi to assist her.

"Naomi, I need you to use your time dragon powers." He handed her Watson's letter. "Remove the smudge on the last line and let's see what it says."

Naomi took the letter, conjuring a faint, translucent mist at her fingertips. She gently brushed it over the ink.

The blackened smear began to fade.

Even without transforming, she could manipulate time. Her progress was remarkable, but what truly shocked Ambrose was the message revealed beneath.

"The Lyon Empire is preparing to attack the tiflings? Are they insane?!"

The empire had just fought two major wars, one in the desert, and the other in the mountains. They were victories, yes, but wars cost money. Food, equipment, and logistics didn't come cheap.

Thanks to Ambrose's interference, the desert dwarves had managed an orderly retreat, taking most of their wealth with them. The cities Lyon seized were largely stripped bare. While they had gained in population, the desert would remain a financial drain for years.

Meanwhile, on the orcish front, they were locked in a prolonged siege and forced to pour in troops and resources continuously.

To go to war against the tiflings now, under such circumstances, was ludicrous.

"No matter how rich Lyon is, they can't sustain this. Aren't they worried about internal collapse?"

Faith alone didn't fill empty stomachs. A starving population couldn't stand, let alone serve the empire.

Ambrose didn't know about Lyon's exact economic state, but with the elves increasing exports of magical materials and the cost of two near-simultaneous wars, things couldn't be good.

It wasn't as if they were suffering from an internal schism. Why attack the tiflings now?

Catherine read the line as well, stunned. "What reason would Lyon have to attack the Unholy Kingdom? The tiflings have only been erecting more Hellgates along the border. They haven't directly clashed with Lyon. At the very least, Lyon has to justify such a war."

Ambrose chuckled. "Maybe Lyon's rotted so far that it doesn't even bother with rationales anymore. I can't believe James Watson is still hesitating. He has no backbone."

He could guess Watson's dilemma. Nothing else would explain the smear. The man lacked the boldness to break free of his obligations. Bound by duty, yet unable to fully support the empire's future...

In short, he was a reformist, not a revolutionary.

Ambrose didn't expect much from him. The real figure who could fracture Lyon was still wandering the continent. Allen's return would be the moment the empire split.

But for now, Ambrose had to get involved. This war was different. It came after the reactivation of the Draconic Armaments, and under circumstances that made no sense.

"The royal family must be behind this," Ambrose muttered. "They're after something in the tiflings' territory... something tied to the Draconic Armaments."

Ambrose was almost certain of it, and he had no intention of letting them succeed. That artifact was more dangerous than ten Silvermoon Knights combined.

"So what will you do?" Catherine asked.

Ambrose shrugged. "With such limited information? Nothing yet."

"Can't you divine something?"

"I need more context. Blind divination doesn't work. You need to anchor your intent, or you'll get fragments that only serve to mislead you."

As a veteran diviner, Ambrose followed one principle.

Divination does not direct your path. It merely refines it.

Novices might consult fate for every decision, only to misinterpret vague prophecies and doom themselves.

The root of the problem was simple: they had no plan for the future, knew next to nothing, and were trying to rely on fate to get them through life safely.

Ambrose had specifically warned Harvey not to hand every decision over to the dice of fate. Only when he had a goal of his own would the power of fate have any meaning.

Without a specific goal in mind, even divine insight was meaningless.

As for this war, Ambrose simply didn't know enough about it yet. If he tried to divine it now, he'd likely get nothing but a misleading fragment, something that would bait him into walking straight into disaster.

"So how are you going to gather information? Are you planning to go to the Unholy Kingdom?" Catherine asked.

She clearly didn't want him to leave. At this point, she had grown somewhat dependent on him. If she were left alone to handle the drow, things would likely spiral out of control within days. Only with Ambrose around did she feel at ease.

"No need," Ambrose replied. "I'll write to a few old acquaintances. Didn't I tell you? The place I spent the longest time in was the tiflings' territory."

When Ambrose first arrived in this world, he had appeared in a nameless little village of the Unholy Kingdom. The population was half human and half tifling, with a smattering of other races. It had been a small place, but one full of trouble.

It was also where he had nearly lost his life.

He had no intrinsic cheats nor advantages, nor anything to his name.

After struggling for several days, he finally met his former master, Old Pete. At the time, Ambrose had been beaten half to death by villagers who thought he was a thief, while Old Pete was a crippled old man who had blown up his own house with a failed alchemy experiment and been driven out.

The two miserable souls finding each other became master and apprentice.

Later, Ambrose became an alchemist and brought Old Pete to a larger town. And then, just before he died, the old man saddled him with debt, leaving Ambrose deep in the red.

To escape his creditors, Ambrose ran again, changing his name and drifting from place to place.

He had spent most of his life in that kingdom, yet in the end, he chose to leave.

Not because the place was bad, but because he had left behind too many unpleasant memories and too many enemies, enough names to fill an entire book.

It was like playing a game without save files. Make enough wrong choices, and all you can do is keep going until the story collapses, then move to a new city and start over, leaving a mess behind you.

"...Though after all these years, most of them are probably dead," Ambrose muttered.

With that thought, he returned to his laboratory and took out a sheet of parchment.

His pen hovered for a long time before he finally began to write, "Senior Vladimir, it has been far too long. I have missed you dearly. How have you been? It has been nearly two hundred years since our last exchange on the art of divination..."

The letter grew long. Ambrose spent an entire day on it, revising it over and over, until the final version stretched past two thousand words.

After sealing it, he summoned Harvey and handed it over. "Harvey, you're to deliver this personally."

Harvey quickly nodded.

"Don't worry, Master. I'll make sure it reaches... Mr. Vladimir."

Ambrose immediately warned him, "When you see him, don't call him ‘Mr. Vladimir.' Call him anything else but that name. If you do, you'll definitely regret it."

"...Why?" Harvey asked.

"Back then, we made a wager. He lost, and his name became mine. In this world, I'm the only one allowed to call him that."

"...Master, that sounds like an enemy."

"Enemy? He's my fellow disciple. We learned divination from the same stone tablet. Sparring between senior and junior disciples is perfectly normal. Don't overthink it. He's not the type to hold grudges, and he won't take it out on you."

"...And you still say he's not an enemy?"

Why was every task his master assigned him so bizarre? Fleeing with a phylactery, then running a fraudulent shop, and now delivering a letter to what sounded suspiciously like a personal rival. No matter how he looked at it, this felt like a setup.