Bear School Astartes

The night had already fallen, and the entire King's Landing, except for a few all-night revelries and debauchery, was engulfed in silence due to the curfew.

Outside the city, the area reserved for the tournament grounds was still bustling with lights and noise.

Merchants were preparing goods for the upcoming days of the tournament and the influx of people, and the citizens venturing from the city and mixed in with petty thieves kept them up all night.

Lann looked down at this scene from a high window in the Tower of the Prime Minister.

He had already removed his high-level Bear School Armor and the two longswords from his back.

He was only wearing a tight-fitting black leather outfit and the hunting knife at his waist.

This gear was enough for Lann to take on ten in a fight against night wanderers. And against fully armed Goldcloaks?

Lann truly felt that these guys who moved according to patrol routes wouldn't notice his movements.

"Are you ready?"

Edd Stark, holding a candle, walked up to Lann and asked softly.

The Demon Hunter slightly turned his head, not wanting his slightly glowing eyes in the dark to scare him.

"The map you provided is very clear, worthy of the city defense map only accessible during the Imperial Council."

The precision of the military map and civilian map could not be compared.

According to this Hand of the King, not only was the accuracy different, but this map even stipulated that it must be updated monthly.

To address the minor changes in shops and landmarks constantly happening within King's Landing.

"Sir, Mr. Edd doesn't worry about whether you remember the route, he's worried about you being unable to distinguish the changes between day and night scenery."

The smart voice in his mind was soothing and calm.

The change between day and night scenery is significant; some people can't even find their way home at night after moving to a new place.

And Lann's response was equally calm.

"Then, should I be worried about it?"

Mentos didn't reply, only projected a 3D model of King's Landing at the corner of Lann's retina.

And Lann's real-time location was marked with a red dot.

"After your [memory deep dive] last night, I conveniently also uploaded King's Landing's terrain map."

Lann's mouth twitched; he finally realized why his headache was worse than usual when he woke up today.

"...Well done, remember to inform me next time."

After communicating with the biological intelligence in his mind, Lann nodded at the Prime Minister beside him, then turned and headed towards the lower levels of the Tower of the Prime Minister.

The density of guards in the Red Castle was very high, after all, it housed the King, the Prime Minister, and many high-ranking nobles.

But because the space was quite ample, Lann didn't even need to hold his breath or crouch and sneak.

He merely used his extraordinary senses to know the patrol team's movements in advance, then simply sidestepped to hide behind a tree by the roadside.

When he reached the Red Castle's gates, Lann pinched his fingers together.

[Yakxi] Two strikes.

Two clusters of hazy magical glow focused on the guards' heads.

As his body continued to grow with the catalysis of the gene seed, Lann estimated that his magic power was now enough to cast spells three times consecutively.

One guard began stepping repeatedly on the ants passing underfoot, not raising his head.

The other directly leaned against the wall with his spear to sleep.

The castle gates generally incorporated a small door for individuals to go in and out conveniently; Lann extracted the key from the guards' belts, opened the door, and then reinserted it back onto the guards.

Lann quickly slipped out through the small door.

Reaching the urban area of King's Landing, the nighttime patrol team of Goldcloaks was essentially nonexistent.

"Mark a route, Mentos."

Walking in the night, Lann submitted the task request in his mind.

And Mentos almost completed the task immediately.

"Marked, sir."

On the map at the corner of his retina, a green route was marked out.

Running in the shadow by the roadside, Lann avoided being seen by unnoticed night wanderers, and quickly arrived at a two-story house.

This was the house Shuofu rented in King's Landing; he lived on the second floor, the landlord on the first.

Lann glanced at the outer structure of the building, reached out and grabbed the protruding brickwork on the second-floor outer wall.

Then with strong arm strength, he leapt onto the window.

This was yet another display of the Interstellar Warriors' physical capabilities.

If it were Sando Clegane, his arm strength probably couldn't support him accomplishing such a move under body weight.

Lann nimbly entered Shuofu's room.

As soon as he entered, he found indeed quite a few strange items in the room.

Knowing that local items might not trigger reactions from the Bear Head Necklace, Lann touched everything in Shuofu's room one by one this time.

Most were not particularly special, just shaped into bizarre forms.

Or arranged into incomprehensible 'array' shapes purely for novelty purposes.

This was normal because judging by the attitude of those vagrants towards Shuofu, it was evident they didn't respect him and were unlikely to really bring good stuff, much more just to scam funds.

But after searching around, Lann still found some gains.

It was a large chunk of dark bone fragment, seemingly with high iron content, similar to the texture of Edd's dagger handle.

It was a piece of dragon bone.

Upon probing with magic power, Lann once again felt that persistent vitality.

It was genuine.

Actually, because dragons had lived in King's Landing for hundreds of years, people believed that King's Landing had plenty of dragon-related items.

So the city's merchants developed quite a lot of dragon bone forgery techniques since many people wanted to buy, but there were only limited dragon bones.

After putting away the dragon bone, Lann approached the bedroom and saw the resting Knight Shuofu inside.

This attendant to the former Prime Minister had a full head of blonde hair and seemed not sleeping soundly.

Lann walked to the bedside and abruptly covered his mouth and nose with his palm, causing sudden oxygen deprivation that woke the already restless sleeper.

And in that moment of panic and helplessness, a cluster of hazy magical glow enveloped him.

"You are very afraid now, so you should speak up."

The enhanced fear emotion from the [Yakxi Rune] suited the current situation very well.

Shuofu lay on the bed with wide eyes, made 'hurloo hurloo' throat sounds like a cicada but was unable to scream.

Until Lann began questioning.

"Did the former Prime Minister die naturally?"

"Cough... No, not!"

"Was it you who killed him? Or was it some other situation?"

"It was... It must have been someone's curse! It must have killed him!"

When Lann heard the mention of 'curse', a thing capable of terrifying this world's people, his expression didn't change.

Because he truly knew of the existence of curses, and if he wanted, even a Great Mage at dean level would come to explain personally.

But in this world, he didn't believe that what was already considered extremely rare magic would appear so coincidentally.

"Is that your speculation, or do you have actual evidence? The items in your room were meant to guard against the so-called 'curse'?"

Under the fear emotion created by the [Yakxi], Shuofu's face further twisted.