Free Web NovelChapter 5: The Saintly Wait at the Tax Administration
Cain smirked. It was a sharp, glaringly obvious, and provocative smile, as if all his previous anxiet had completely evaporated..
To both Jade and Lucy, that villainous grin spoke volumes. It became even more sinisterly clear when Cain deliberately led them toward the public carriage parking zone.
Before entering the Tax Administration Bureau, they had arrived at a truly wretched place. The parking lot was filled with worn-out, shabby horses that looked completely battered and exhausted by the miseries of life.
As Cain paid the parking fee, the attendant bowed deeply before him.
"I am terribly sorry, Lord Duke. I know this place is far beneath your noble status, but please rest assured that I will personally keep a strict eye on your horse."
Cain patted the man’s shoulder reassuringly. fгeewebnovёl.com
"There is no need for that. I don’t think your establishment is bad at all. I shall take my leave now."
Oh. but it was bad. It was monumentally bad. Through the sensory link, both Jade and Lucy boiled with a silent, simmering rage, feeling an unspoken, overwhelming certainty that Cain had done this entirely on purpose.
With that, Cain and Amelia walked away, leaving the horse behind.
—"How dare this blind mortal leave me, a purebred of the Celestial Unicorn lineage, in a garbage dump of a stable?! This is utterly intolerable!" Jade roared internally.
—"Calm down, Jade," Lucy tried to soothe him..
—"We do not know the man’s full intentions yet. Surely, he won’t leave us here for long..."
—"This is an insult! An absolute, unpardonable insult!."
While Jade was throwing a tantrum inside his own mind, a hand suddenly reached out, smacked his backside, and gave it two firm, highly degrading pats.. freewebnovёl.ƈom
Shocked and deeply offended by this absolute audacity, Jade snapped his head around, his eyes blazing with fury.
Standing right behind him was an old woman clutching a walking cane, with the parking attendant standing right beside her.
"Ho-ho... look at this powerful back, my boy," the old woman chuckled. "This is an extraordinary breed."
Jade wanted nothing more than to unleash his celestial aura and blast them to pieces for daring to lay their filthy hands on his body..
"Indeed, Mother," the son replied. "It is a steed from the House of Duke Oster. Naturally, it would be magnificent."
Smack!
The old woman slapped the horse’s flank again.
"This old woman used to work in the Imperial Stables and has seen almost every noble bloodline out there. This horse.. is deeply special. Its posture, its coat, its musculature..."
The attendant nodded, offering no objection to his mother’s aggressive handling.
"I suppose so. I just thought it was a remarkably fine horse, nothing more."
The old woman let out a long sigh and began to shuffle away.
—"Thank the heavens, they are finally leaving," Jade muttered in relief. —"The next time I see that rogue Cain, I am absolutely going to kick his teeth in. What do you think, Mistress?"
—"Mistress? ...Mistress, where are you?."
There was no response. It appeared Lucy had abruptly disconnected from the Sensory Link technique. Jade sighed heavily, resigning himself to just stand there until this farce finally ended so he could leave and demand an explanation.
But as he stood in his stall, he felt something pressing against his backside once again.
This time, he was on the verge of losing his absolute sanity and throwing a lethal kick—until he realized it was a scruffy, ordinary mare nuzzling up to him.
A common, run-of-the-mill mare was trying to hit on him. On him, a legendary Celestial Unicorn. The sheer, unadulterated shame!
"Pfff... Khhh..."
Jade snorted aggressively, trying to warn her to back off, but she continued to rub against him completely shameless.
She was a dull, gray mare, but suddenly, several other mares from the neighboring stalls began to crowd around him, rubbing their bodies against his.
Wait a minute...
—"Are they really... Are they asking to mate?! My godfather told me that this is the universal sign for lower beasts to mate! Damn it, I will never consent to this!" he screamed internally.
Observing the commotion from afar, the old woman paused.
"Hmm... Are you thinking what I’m thinking, my boy?"
The son caught the highly devious, scheming look on his mother’s face.
"But Mother... that’s a massive risk..."
Ignoring his protests, the old woman approached the swarming horses with a wicked grin.
"No one will ever know. Besides, it won’t take long at all..."
Immediately afterward, the attendants began pushing away the mares that didn’t belong to them, guiding only their own personal mares toward Jade’s stall. The attendant vanished for a brief moment and returned holding a potent equine aphrodisiac.
—"Damn you, you absolute scoundrels! This Prince will never allow you to exploit him like this!" Jade panicked, his eyes widening in horror.
It was blindingly obvious. They had officially decided to use him as a free, premium stud to upgrade their own stable’s bloodline.
—"No, no, no! I won’t allow this! Help!"
Nearby, Cain was in an exceptionally good mood. He had, of course, done this entirely on purpose. He could easily have taken them to a high-end, luxurious establishment, but he had explicitly chosen to make them taste a little bit of pure torment instead.
Amelia stood right beside him, clutching the mountain of paperwork in her arms, silently grumbling at this absurdly unfair treatment.
The moment the two of them stepped inside the Tax Administration Bureau, a wave of stunned silence washed over the crowd. Many of the onlookers genuinely thought it was some kind of elaborate prank or illusion.
Yet, right before their eyes stood the legendary Duke Oster, casually dressed in a shirt covered in cute shark illustrations, appearing in person at a mundane tax office with a single young girl carrying his documents.
Once the initial shock wore off, everyone confirmed his identity beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Still, they could hardly believe their eyes. What on earth was the ruler of the entire city doing here?
But what truly defied the imagination of both the citizens and the clerks was what Cain did next: he walked straight up to the counter just like anyone else, took a waiting number, and calmly stood in line. He was waiting. Waiting patiently in front of them like an ordinary, everyday citizen.
Exactly like one of them.
"Lord Duke, please, I beg of you, take my spot in line...!"
"Clear the way, you bastards! Make way for the Lord Duke! Let him pass!"
The citizens immediately began parting the crowd, offering him a clear path. None of them could bear the thought of a man of his stature standing in line. Even one of the senior clerks rushed over, bowing frantically.
"Lord Duke! Our Director is waiting for you in his private office to personally assist you...!"
Cain paused for a moment. He was genuinely annoyed. Back when he lived on Earth, whenever he was in a rush and desperately didn’t want to wait, he would be forced to stand in lines for agonizing hours. And now, when he was explicitly trying to kill as much time as possible, they were practically forcing him to the front.
Cain raised a hand, stopping them in their tracks.
"There is no need," he declared, his voice ringing with a calm, steady authority. "I shall wait here like any ordinary citizen. I do not desire preferential treatment. I request that everyone here treat me as an absolute equal."
Everyone in the hall froze, utterly struck dumb by his words.
Yes, the Duke was famously known for his humility, but right now, they didn’t just see a high aristocrat—they saw a living saint. A savior who truly understood their daily struggles and was willing to experience them firsthand, refusing to abuse a status that was vastly superior to the petty nobles who constantly flaunted their wealth.
A literal aura of holiness seemed to radiate from him.
"He is truly... truly on a whole different level."
"How can a person like this even exist...?"
Cain was starting to feel a bit awkward under the sheer weight of their worshipful reactions. Meanwhile, Amelia was fighting the sudden, burning urge to scream at the top of her lungs that this man was an absolute scoundrel... or perhaps yell that he was trying to kidnap her.
At that exact moment, not too far away, a woman with black hair, brown eyes, and slightly shabby clothing was standing in the crowd, watching the entire spectacle play out. Her features were remarkably ordinary. In truth, this was Lucy, wearing a near-flawless disguise.
She gritted her teeth, barely suppressing a curse under her breath. She hadn’t anticipated this at all. A part of her began to suspect that he was deliberately stalling, but then again... who in their right mind would willingly stand and wait in a tax office for this long? Only a complete lunatic would do such a thing.
Is this really a side of him I knew nothing about? she wondered.
It felt as though she had stumbled upon a genuine revelation regarding his character.
Lucy had slipped inside the bureau, but in her haste, she had completely forgotten that she only carried her official identification card; she didn’t possess a fake identity. Before she knew it, she found herself standing right in front of the counter where the queue numbers were distributed.
Panicking slightly, she leaned closer to the female clerk sitting behind the glass window.
Releasing a microscopic trace of pressure—so subtle that absolutely no one in the room could perceive it except for the clerk—she transmitted a direct telepathic message straight into the woman’s mind:
"I am a secret guardian of Duke Oster, operating under strict cover. Give me a number. Immediately."
Terrified out of her wits, the clerk instantly complied, handing over a ticket so rapidly that the slot designated for the citizen’s name was left entirely blank.
Lucy didn’t care how long she would have to wait; she was determined to keep her eyes on him no matter what. With her ticket in hand, she seamlessly blended into the queue like any ordinary woman.
At that very moment, Amelia, driven to absolute madness by the soul-crushing boredom, began utilizing her unique ocular prowess to spy on the secrets of the everyday citizens around her.
While everything else seemed perfectly mundane, her eyes caught onto something highly anomalous. Her legendary trait—The Eye of a Thousand Souls—was completely unable to pierce through the information of a seemingly ordinary woman in the crowd who possessed no distinct aura whatsoever.
But instead of viewing specific data, Amelia’s innate senses picked up a faint, undeniable resonance that she could recognize anywhere. It was the distinct aura of her mother.
Why on earth is she here?! Amelia screamed internally. Furious and utterly bewildered, she immediately resolved to march right over to her and demand a full explanation for what the hell was going on.
