Quest: Book 4

Extra: The Dark Legend--The Big Conspiracy 1

  Miss Deere Merlin stood on the balcony, her lovely small mouth swelled. The luck of these days is not that great, a few days, there came a rude mouth parvenu in the store provoked her into almost mad, finally she sold him three clothes with the sky-high price of fifteen gold coins. That parvenu even bought the clothes with gnashed teeth unexpectedly, this made miss Deere Merlin really happy for a while. But who knew that she met the robbery again when she was on the way home that night! It's still not bad that she is proficient in fencing since the childhood, so she could got that through with more scare than hurt.

  Today she didn't want to come to this party originally, but it's too boring to stay at home all by herself. While she just arrived, she was tangled by that playboy named Joey right away. This guy has been like this since he met her a year ago, his those disgusting and boring love letters have filled the trash can in her own room up, but he just feel happy to keep doing so.

  And the mud has been buried to the neck Mr. Pulet, he just doesn't think about that he's old enough to be her grandfather, he even put forward the excessive requirement in a party as well!

  "I'll be a woman like this?" Deere Merlin said to herself indignantly, "you these contemptible pigs!"

  The evening stars on the sky are so beautiful, Deere Merlin sat down on the chair in the balcony, she thought of the childhood days.

  Since she was very young, she is just a person with the boy characters, she doesn't want to lose to anybody for whatever she does. She dared to climb up the tree to get the bird eggs, she also dared to beat mercilessly the next door that noble little boy. At her eight years old birthday, she had her first red pony. The teach her riding teacher was frightened, and he might never think that he would meet such a talented student? And she is a girl as well.

  Her father once touched her hair and said, "Deere, it will be so nice if you were a boy, our Merlin family would be perfect."

  Why I'm not a boy? No, even I'm a girl, I still would not do worse than the boys!

  Her mother has a sapphire necklace, at the night, the sapphire necklace will give out the light blue light under the lights of the moon and the stars, every at that time, the innocent her will grab the necklace with her small hands and not let it go, and keep begging her mother to put it on for her.

  "Good girl, Deere..." Her mother would stroke on her small face, "when the day Deere gets married, mama would put on the necklace for you with my own hands."

  From then on, Deere Merlin is yearning for her married day, not for the other things, only for her mother can put on that necklace for her... But, this day will never come, in her fourteen years old that year, her mother left forever.

  Her mother left, her father became more and more out of all reason, and got more and more absurd. He kills his time at the table to play cards or in the brothel, he doesn't care about his own business. In fact, these things were always taken care by her mother before.

  Fourteen years old, she began to learn how to deal with the tenant farmers and the tax officials when she was just fourteen, she supports her that only knows enjoyment father with the hard earned money. Ah, she is seventeen years old now, she can just find a guy to get married randomly, but what about her father? Once she thinks about this, Deere Merlin can't help the feeling of inability.

  For those people who keep chasing after her, Deere Merlin just has the playing with pets mentality to deal with them, she likes others follow behind her and compliment her, praise her beautiful look and youth breath. She likes to see their expressions in their eyes from extreme craze to cool down slowly, even before they are going to lose the courage to chase after her, she will also give them the proper encouragement.

  "Mama, is this the man? Is this the nobility?" In the still of night, she will also looks at her mother's portrait and asks with the tears on her face, "how could you marry such a guy like him?"

  "No! I can't be depressed like this!" Deere Merlin warns herself, "this evening, I'll let Joey fawn on me like a dog... And then, I'll kick him away in a foot with smile! I'm a strong people, I'll not lose to anyone!"

  The weighed up countermeasures miss Deere Merlin changed to another sitting position, and the smile which can let guys lose breath shows on her face once again.

  A burst o footstep sounds came, Mr. Joey walked to the side of miss Deere Merlin.

  "Have you found any witnesses?" Miss asked with the naughty tone, "Mr. Joey?"

  "I'm sorry," Mr. Joey said very helplessly, "I haven't found one yet."

  "It's so..." Deere Merlin shook the folding slightly in her hand, "I've heard that a lot of people use "dear, sweet heart, my darling, honey, little rabbit, small fat pig..." such words to call your name..."

  "Oh! Miss Deere Merlin! Would you please must believe me! I... I'm really sincere to you!"

  "But... In what way you can prove your sincerity?" Miss Deere Merlin blinked her eyes, the long and curly eyelashes provoked Joey's heart.

  "I... I ..." Mr. Joey suddenly got onto the fence of the balcony, "I can jump down from here! To prove my love for miss you!"

  "Oh?" Miss Deere Merlin took a look at the height of the balcony, and made a comparison with the courage of Mr. Joey, and then she said, "you can jump down if you want to jump, I will go in there first to wait for you to come up from the downstairs."

  Miss Deere Merlin walked into the room, she sat down on an armchair close to the balcony, she was waiting the don't dare to jump off the balcony Mr. Joey to come in for his confession.

  Normally to say, what Deere Merlin thought is nothing wrong, at other times, Mr. Joey would definitely not dare to jump off the balcony, even though the height of the balcony is not that high. But, there is still another person in the balcony at this moment, a man in black dress, a man in black dress even has his face covered in black cloth.

  The poor black dress man has been squatting in there for a very long time, he didn't expect that the show is kind of like endless, when miss Deere Merlin walked into the room, the black dress man's feet had already begun to feel pins and needles.

  "Fortunately there will be no one here soon... He will jump down from here," the black dress man breathed a sign of relief, "you this big watermelon, finally I can stretch my body."

  But he had waited for a long time, the stepped on the fence Mr. Joey neither went forward to jump, nor walked back to the room. Obviously, Mr. Joey is considering a very important matter.

  "You this big watermelon, you just go jump off from here!" the black dress man scolds secretly in his mind, this taste of the "unbearable squat in life" is not really funny to stand.

  Mr. Joey was still considering: jump? Or not jump? This, is a question.

  "I couldn't squat over here any more..." The black dress man stood up slowly, he's rubbing his numb legs, he almost fell down, "I don't care about it any more..."

  "If I jump down from here, miss Deere Merlin will surely understand my mind, but here is so high..." Mr. Joey looked at the two people high ground and thought, "I should just better to walk back into the room to apologize to miss Deere Merlin... But she wouldn't forgive me for sure..."

  But tonight, it's doomed to be bad luck for Mr. Joey, behind his back, an eyes emitting green light (squatted down for too long?) black dress man lift his leg up.

  "You this bastard... Just because you are jump or not jump, it made my legs squatted to numb..." The black dress man shook his head, he kicked his feet out, "let me help you to make up your decision!"

  Mr. Joey opened his mouth widely, his both hands grasped his own hair tightly, his mouth gave out the "woo woo" plaintive wail, and he fell down from the balcony.

  The party is held on the first floor, the second floor is the master left out to let the guests to have some rest, there is no other people, the in the room Miss Deer Merlin suddenly heard some of the servants downstairs yelling, "Mr. Joey jumped from the building!"

  Although she didn't know why Joey became so brave today, miss Deere Merlin stil
l stood up and walked to the balcony, she doesn't want anybody die, it's very troublesome to have any relationship with Joey this kind of people, because Mr. Joey's parents are very annoying.

  In the balcony, the black dress man kicked Joey down with one foot, his mood now becomes very well. As he laughed "hey hey" and turned around, he wanted to go into the room and went down the stairs from somewhere to go home.

  Who knows while he turned, he ran into miss Deere Merlin who was just coming out to the balcony, and two people are just right face to face.

  Both people have not the psychological preparation, and they also don't know what to do for a moment.

  Miss Deere Merlin's reaction is very quick, she has a jump to her back, she opened her mouth and was going to shout. The black dress man knew that it's getting bad, when miss Deere Merlin had her jump back, he threw himself forward, he brought miss Deere Merlin down on the thick carpet of the room, his one hand covered on miss Deere Merlin's mouth, his another hand held miss Deere Merlin's right hand.

  But, our miss Deere Merlin still has her left hand to use, now, her left begins to move.

  The black dress man doesn't have other ways, he has to use his head to hold Miss Deere Merlin's left hand to the ground tightly... But how would miss Deere Merlin this kind of character people give up the resistance? She first uses her that still can move left hand to grasp the black dress man's hair, grasped it tightly, and the leg under the skirt kicks to the black dress man as well.

  Because his hair got caught, the black dress man gives out a stuffy hum. He lifts his legs to block miss Deere Merlin's feet attack, but miss Deere Merlin's attacks are once and once again, the black dress man then just simply twined around miss Deere Merlin's legs tightly with his own legs very impatiently.

  Both people refused to give in with the very weird position like this.

  Miss Deere Merlin has her chest up and down severely, there never a young man dare to get so close to her body like this before! She is very angry! Her hand grasped his hair tighter again...

  The black dress man doesn't feel that great, he is panting deeply, his hair is pulled by miss Deere Merlin mercilessly, very hurt. He needs to catch and hold her right hand, cover her mouth, withstand her left hand with his head, and even needs to keep the legs of two people twined together... Now this position makes him feel that it's worse than the one he was squatting down in the balcony earlier.

  He would be dead many times if miss Deere Merlin's eyes can kill people, she keeps struggling, but after all, the girl's power has her limit. Soon after, miss Deer Merlin has been already very tired.

  The black dress man feels the hand which is grasping his hair is a bit looser, to express that he has no means to harm, he also looses the hand which is covering her mouth a bit.

  Deere Merlin can breath through her mouth now, she breathes heavily, she calms down slowly.

  Because the black dress man has his face covered, she just only can see the outlines of his face, the black dress man is also watching her, his eyes reveal the information that he wants the reconciliation.

  Both people were looking at each other in the eyes, everyone's breathing is getting gentle gradually, the force of the hands is also getting lesser and lesser, it seems that they can solve this matter peacefully.

  "Miss Deere Merlin!" Someone knocked on the door from the outside, "are you alright?"

  Heard someone coming, the black dress man has a bit nervous, his hand which is covering her mouth has a tight involuntarily! Of course miss Deere Merlin would not let him to feel good neither, she tightens her hand which is grasping his hair to show her revenge, the two people's eyes become fierce and hostile once again, and the atmosphere becomes tense again.

  "Miss Deere Merlin?" The people outside of the door didn't know about the serious consequences because of his speaking, he is still knocking on the door, "miss Deere Merlin, what's happening to you?"

  Now miss Deere Merlin is very contradictory, she can struggle again, but if other people see that she is lying down on the floor with this position when they walk into the room... She also can't explain it clearly even she has ten mouths... The more hateful thing is, this damn guy is still covering her mouth and not let loose... Or if she doesn't open her mouth and speaks again, the people outside of the door will come in!

  Think of this, miss Deere Merlin gave a stare at the black dress man with her eyes.

  The black dress man suffers badly as well, he has the headache, his waist feels sore, the feet feel numb... Saw the stare from miss Deere Merlin, his smart brain know the reason why just in a half circle.

  He took a look at Deere Merlin, shook his head slightly, and then slowly let go the hand covering Deere Merlin's mouth, put the hand on the black iron dagger which is tightened to his leg.

  "If this smelly women yells, I would cut his throat..." He told himself, although he is not sure that he really can do it.

  "I'm fine," miss Deere Merlin calms her mood down, she slants her head to speak to the people outside of the door, "I was just a bit tired and rested for a short time, "what's the matter?"

  "Oh, nothing," the people outside of the door replied, "just Mr. Joey slipped and fell off the building."

  "It's really unfortunate..." Miss Deere Merlin said with sorry, "is injury condition of Mr. Joey serious?"

  "Not that serious, our master has arranged the carriage to send him back to his house... You take a rest, I will come to call you up at the end of the party."

  "Thank you very much."

  Deere Merlin who just finished talking with the servant has her head turned back, she found that the man by her side is smiling, although he has his face covered, but she still can tell it from his eyes, he's smiling, and smiles with somewhat difficulty.

  Miss Deere Merlin gave him a stare very hard once again.

  The black dress man holds back his smile, and gently shakes his head again, releases her hand, and loosens his legs which twined around her legs...

  Miss Deere Merlin lets go the black dress man's hair, she pushes her both hands on his chest, so the two people are separated like this.

  "You just incredibly dare to laugh at me?!" The originally very lovely Deere Merlin now looks very awful, she is like an about to go crazy mother wolf, "the not dare to face woman guy, what qualification do you have?"

  "I have laughed at you? How do I not know about it?" The black dress man seems not very care about it at all, "oh! You mean just now, I was laughing at that Mr.... As for whether I dare to face woman or not... I think that the other women have more rights to speak than you do."

  "What do you laugh at him?" Miss Deere Merlin knows with her intuition that this guy knows many things about herself.

  "Oh... I was laughing that he looks very funny when he falls down." The black dress man hey hey has a smile, he finds himself a chair and sit down on it.

  "You saw him jumping down?"

  "More than just seeing," the black dress man has his eyes turned around, "it's me who kicked him down after all..."

  "You..." Miss Deere Merlin is speechless.

  "Like this man, no, we can't call him a man..." the black dress man says light-heartedly, "just the toothpick height, want to jump but not dare to jump, it gets me mad... So I just help him up a little bit, oh right, you just tell him if one day you can meet him again, tell him no need to thank me."

  "You are not afraid that I'll shout?" Deere Merlin feels that she really takes no way to deal with this kind of people, "you this murder."

  "It doesn't matter, I will use this to cut your throat open once you dare to shout..." The black dress man takes out a black dagger, "and then run away."

  "You just know about how to do these kind of things?" miss Deere Merlin has no fear of the dagger which is in the black dress man's hand at all, she doesn't know why, she just knows that this man would not do any harm to her, even though he looks like that he is very annoying.

  "Then what else miss you wants me to know about?" The black dress
man has found another way to go down the stairs, "tight you up? Smell the perfume in your hair? Or kiss your that inviting small mouth... If you agree, I have no objection to take a bigger advantage from you..."

  "You this rascal!" Deere Merlin grabs a vase and throws it at him, the black dress man has a backflip and catches the vase firmly in his hands.

  "It seems that the vase is worth a lot of money..." The black dress man takes a look at the way to go down the stairs, he thinks that the vase is a bit too big, so he puts it down aside.

  "Hey! Give me something..." The black dress man walks over to her, "I don't want to leave with empty hands."

  Miss Deere Merlin has her hand flipped, and she slap at him, but unfortunately, her hand is caught by him.

  "It's really headache," the black dress man avoids her one kick as well, and then he takes down her hair ribbon, "just use this to make up for it..."

  "You this thief!" Miss Deere Merlin reaches her hand out, "Give it back to me!"

  "It's very funny, the robber of your family will return the things that he robbed?" The black dress man puts the hair ribbon away, "Goodbye..."

  Miss Deere Merlin had to watch this guy jumped out of the window, and she felt suffocated very much.

  "I said..." Who know that guy poked his head out in the window again and asked, "what place is down there from here?"

  Miss Deere Merlin almost got her breath out, she answered him with no good temper, "the kitchen!"

  "Oh, I see," the black dress man nodded his head, "to give you a suggestion, do you want to listen to?"

  Miss Deere Merlin makes a very proud "hum!" sound.

  "You shouldn’t use the long sword any more in the future, I give this to you..." The black dress man put a thing on the window and then disappeared.

  Miss Deere Merlin looks at the window, waiting for the black dress man to show up again. There are often such people, for attracting her attention, they would do everything. But, the black dress man never shows up again...

  She walks to the window slowly, then she just sees that the black dress man jumps over the fence and disappeared in the night.

  On the window, there is a dagger with the scabbard.

  Miss Deere Merlin picks up the knife, she takes a look at the workmanship of it, she is pretty sure that this thing is cast by the extremely excellent artisan of the dwarf race. She slowly draws out the dagger out of the scabbard, she shouts out in a loud voice, this is a black iron dagger indeed. Miss Deere Merlin has been doing the business for years, of course she will know the value of this dagger clearly, this is not the normal noble people can own.

  On the handle of the dagger, it's the silk thread twined with a kind of fish skin which she has never seen before... The thread winding way is also very special... All of these, are same as its host, appears so extraordinary.

  The black dress man... Who is he exactly?

  Miss Deere Merlin decides to go home to think about it again, she puts away the dagger well, tightens her hair with a silk ribbon, tidies up her evening dress, and then goes downstairs to say goodbye to the master of the house.

  ............

  "Ah! Feshert! How was everything?" Kone Cada just changed the black dress, and then he saw that the alias Otar Feshert walked into the room.

  Feshert has a crying face, "we won..."

  "You won, why do you still have this look?" Kone looked up and asked, "how much we won?"

  "We won too much..." Feshert breathed out a sigh, "we won Ian Merlin four thousand and eight hundred some gold coins, and also won that old noble nine hundred some gold coins by the way..."

  "Ah..." Kone had his eyes a wink, "didn't you say that you can control everything?"

  "How could I know all of that? It's all your that wine's fault!" Feshert said, "when I was awake, the people of the whole table had all their faces pale! And, the lost a lot of money Ian Merlin cheated in the last set, it was seen by all of us..."

  "What did they say?"

  "They will give me the money in ten days... No one debunked Ian Merlin on the scene," Feshert shook his head, "Kone, what should we do? This might make somebody lose their lives."

  Kone asked Jack to come over in a hurry, he whispered a few words in Jack's ear, and then Jack left immediately.

  "You write a letter to Ian Merlin immediately, to extend the reimbursement ten more days in the letter. Besides, also tell him all of you believe that he was drunk in the last few sets and forgive his move!"

  "I will write the letter right away!"

  "Shit!" Mr. Kone took a look at the night outside of the window, "there's better no incident happened, I have to go take a look."

  ............

  Miss Deere Merlin hums the cheerful dance music, steps the fox trot to walk through the long corridor of her own house, carries the skirt edge of the evening dress with her both hands lightly, a dagger with the scabbard on is hung by her little finger and swayed up and down.

  She will go to say good night to her father, and asks her father how much gold coins he lost again today by the way.

  "Good evening, miss." When she walks to the door of her father's study room, the servant says hello to her.

  "Good evening! Have my father come back yet?" Deere Merlin inserts a rose which she brought back from the dinner party in front of the servant's chest.

  The servant accepts the miss's flower with a smile, he sways his head once and says, "yes, but he seems not very happy."

  "Ah... It doesn't matter, let me talk to him, you go to rest, thank you."

  Deere Merlin is in a good mood today, she doesn't want to quarrel with her father.

  "Yes, miss." The servant opens the door for her.

  She walks into her father's room, she sees a middle age man is drinking at the desk, there is a short sword drawn out of the scabbard on the desk.

  "You lost again today?" Deere walks to the desk, she takes away her father's glass, "I have told you to give up playing cards this hobby, that is not suitable for you."

  "Yes... I lost..." Ian Merlin takes the wine bottle up, and gulps down a mouthful crazily, "I lost all of it."

  "Really? How much did you lose this time?" Deere Merlin asks, her father will lose money every other few days.

  Her father doesn't answer her, but picks up the short sword from the desk, and he puts the blade point to aim at his own heart.

  "Deere, you must help me..." He said, "otherwise I will be over..."

  Deere Merlin takes a deep breath, she is ready to accept the fact that her father has lost a lot of money.

  "You just tell me the truth, how much money did you lose today?"

  Ian Merlin says, "Deere, I'm very sorry..."

  "How much exactly?"

  Mr. Ian Merlin reaches out four fingers and sways.

  "Father, you've gone too far! How absurd that you could lose forty gold coins in just one night! You know..."

  Mr. Ian Merlin says very difficultly, "not forty..."

  "It’s... It’s four hundred?" Miss Deere Merlin bulges her eyes, "that's almost all of our property!"

  Mr. Ian Merlin drops his head down, and he says with a barely can be heard voice, "not four hundred neither..."

  Miss Deere Merlin slumps into the chair by the desk, she loses all her strength.

  "If you still don't tell me exactly how much you lost... I swear that I will not care for you any more..."

  "I... Lost..." Mr. Ian Merlin looks at the floor, "nearly five thousand... Gold coins..."

  "......"

  "I'm sorry! Really! I'm really sorry!" Ian Merlin looks up at his daughter.

  "I knew that we will have this one day, I just didn't think that it will come so soon... We will have to go to the street begging," miss Deere Merlin is completely mad, "Mr. baron! Have you thought of which street we will go to?"

  "It's more than this..." Don't know whether he is afraid of going to beg on the street, or has the apology to his daughter, Mr. baron has the tears in his eyes, "they also saw that I hid
the card..."

  "......"

  "I swear I didn't mean to do it! I drank too much wine."

  "......"

  "You must believe me! I was really not intentionally!"

  "You just go to hell!" Miss Deere Merlin looks at her father with her cold eyes, stands up, and turns around to walk out of the room.

  Mr. Ian Merlin drops his head down again.

  With "Bang" the sound, miss Deere Merlin kicks open the door and rushes back into the room, takes away the short sword from the desk, the long knife from the bookcase and the spear from the wall... All the things that can be used to suicide easily, and then, she walks out once again.

  "You'd better get back to your bed to sleep!" she stands in the doorway and says, "if you haven't died tomorrow morning, you must get up for me to prepare the breakfast!"

  "I'm your father!" Ian Merlin shouts loudly, "you have to respect me!"

  "Shut up!" Deere Merlin doesn't even turn her head back, "now I'm your father!"