Book 2: Chapter 71: Chance Encounter in the City of Sin

Book 2: Chapter 71: Chance Encounter in the City of Sin

Halifax, the City of Sin. Bella wasn’t exactly sure how large this city was and their guide, Lucifer, didn’t give her a clear answer either. This city of darkness was one of the ‘holy’ lands of the Worldbreaker faction, with countless demon kings and gods having left their mark here.

The city was governed by the 【Seven Sins】 seven of the Worldbreakers’ most senior demon gods, being there for as long as the faction had existed. They were, in order of their sins: 【Pride】 Lucifer,

【Envy】 Leviathan, 【Wrath】 Satan, 【Sloth】 Bephelgor. 【Greed】 Mammon, 【Gluttony】Beelzebub, and 【Lust】 Asmodeus. They all matched up with one of Earth’s ‘seven deadly sins’, but in this world, they were all beautiful females.

The 【Seven Sins】 had divided Halifax into seven administrative region and each region had their own currency as well as different products for sale. Most of these things were for the use of demon kings and gods, some stronger demons without a title were also able to come check out the wares but they would have to pay the full price for everything that they purchased here, unable to receive discounts like the demon kings and gods.

Even though each of the seven administrative regions had their own different currencies, there was one currency that could be used in all seven regions, ‘Sin Points’. Sin Points was the easiest way to estimate a demon god or king’s power and ability. Sin Points could be exchanged for either of the seven currencies given out by the 【Seven Sins】 and was effectively the universal currency within Halifax.

There were currently only two ways to obtain Sin Points, the first being invading a dimension and slaughtering the beings that lived within it, but the being must not be of the Worldbreaker faction. Each human killed was 0.05 pts, a beastman was 0.02 pts, dragons depended on their age, giving 1 pt for each year that the dragon had lived, meaning that thousand year old dragons could give 1000 pts at once.

Due to the fact that all demon kings and gods had large area-of-effect abilities, there were rules in place to stop them from being lazy and simply killing a large amount of normal humans to farm points. Each day, one could only get up too 100 pts from lower beings, if the amount killed exceeded 100 pts, the excess would not give any Sin Points.

Of course, there was no restriction on the amount of points receivable from higher beings like dragons and giants, nor were there any limit on points from Saviours. Some of the stronger demon gods would always be on the search for Saviours, as each one was a large stash of Sin Points that they could use to exchange for goods in Halifax.

Saviours were the second largest bounties for Sin Points. Each Saviour killed was at least 1000 pts, with no cap, increasing with each demon god or king that they had defeated.

If those Saviours had previously killed a demon god or king, the Sin Points of those that they had killed would be inherited by whichever demon king or god that was strong enough to kill the Saviour.

The largest bounties currently were the Gods, giving a number of Sin Points based on their level and position. The weakest God-kings were easily worth over 10,000 points each, and any respectable main god could bring in about the same number.

Apart from killing beings from enemy factions, the other way to earn Sin Points was to accept the strange missions given out by the 【Seven Sins】, being able to receive a number of points after completion of the task. These tasks were oftentimes quite strange, Bella was able to see a few of them posted on the city’s bulletin boards as she passed through the streets.

Different from the tasks that one could find at the adventurer and mercenaries’ guilds, the tasks given out by the 【Seven Sins】 were mostly quite sinister and evil, such as collecting 1000 eyeballs from a certain race, reducing a certain city to rubble… etcetera, Bella had yet to see any task that could be considered ‘normal’.

Around each bulletin board gathered large numbers of demon kings, trying to find a suitable task for them to undertake.

“Don’t misunderstand, Samantha-sama, we’re not the ones who decide the tasks!”

【Pride】 Lucifer saw Bella look at a nearby bulletin board and then turn back to look at Lucifer with a strange look, so she decided hurriedly to explain to Bella that even though these tasks were given out under the name of the 【Seven Sins】, the seven of them weren’t the ones who thought up of the things each task required.

“Lucifer, can you call me Bella instead? It’s the new name that I’m using now. You said that the tasks on those bulletin boards weren’t given out by you, then who is it that thinks up such sinister tasks?”

“Bella, most of these posted tasks were given out by humans themselves, these bulletin boards are a way of communication between Halifax and the various human worlds.”

After hearing Lucifer’s explanation, Bella really didn’t know what to say. She learned that these bulletin boards were also known as ‘Demon Wishing Wall’ and when humans of the other worlds summoned one of the 【Seven Sins】’ familiars through dark rituals, could tell these familiars their desires and if they could pay a sufficient price, their wishes would be posted on these bulletin boards. The demon kings of various dimensions would be able to see these tasks and if they took the sheet of paper off the board, it would signal that a dark exchange would then begin.

The ritual for asking the demons for a wish wasn’t all that different from one that asked the gods. The main difference was that the number of wishes that were granted by gods were simply too little. When the gods received this kind of requests, there were some designated gods who removed all the ones who made no sense or were too hard to achieve, the first ones to be removed were usually the ones on the line of wishing for world peace. Those who passed the initial purge were then put into a lottery, which on occasion the gods would draw a few wishes from and complete to keep their believers faithful.

It was much more probable for a wish to be granted if it was asked of a demon, for as long as one could pay a sufficient price, demons would be able to make their wish reality. Even the ones who made as little sense as having their world be destroyed or for them to become supreme ruler, etc, etc, could be granted. Most of the time, it was just that the wisher was unable to pay the sufficient price rather than the demons being unable to complete such tasks.

There were 4 levels to asking a demon to grant one’s wish. The lowest level was the simplest, asking a normal, non-demon king level demon to grant a wish, the price for these were comparatively low and most of the time gold and other valuable items were sufficient enough as payment. The second level was to request a wish from a random demon king, these required lifespan as payment, increasing based on the difficulty of the task.

The third level was rather hard and normal people weren’t able to complete it. It was to request a certain demon king to grant their wish, requiring the wisher to know the true name of the demon king. The 【Seven Sins】 were the target of most of these wishes, due to the large number of people who knew their true names, the price of these wishes were almost always the lives of the one who placed the wish.

The last level was to ask for a demon or evil god to grant one’s wish, something that only a select number of people had completed. The only way to do so was after completing the third level summon and obtaining the agreement of the summoned demon king for them to become the wisher’s reference and then for the demon king to communicate with a demon or evil god.

The demon or evil god that the demon king communicated with had the ability to deny meeting with the wisher. After being denied, the one who placed the wish would still die due to paying the price of the third level wish, meaning that their life was lost for naught.

No matter if the fourth tier wish succeeded or not, the one who placed the wish would have to pay with their soul, offering it up to the demon or evil god whom they had requested their wish to. When a person lost their soul, they would no longer be able to reborn or reincarnated, suffering a true and eternal death.

Bella hadn’t expected for the ones that had thought up such sinister tasks to be the humans themselves, as a former human herself, she really didn’t know what to say. As she was preparing to keep walking forward, a request on the bulletin caught her eye.

‘Bring a beauty called Bellina(?) onto my bed, unconscious and tied up, I want her to experience something worse than death. If possible, bring the other beauties from the Rose Society onto my bed just in the same manner as Bellina(?).’

The request also came with the name and information of the person who placed the wish, ‘16th Dimension, Human, Carlos’. This wish was of the third tier and the demon king that it was designated towards was one of the 【Seven Sins】, the seventh sin herself, 【Lust】 Asmodeus, with the price being the wisher’s life.

Bella looked a little dumbfounded at this request, wasn’t Carlos the president of the Golden Legend? How big was the grievance between them, all she had done was take the seat of honour from one of his lackeys, was it really worth it for Carlos to offer his own life?

“Lucifer, this request… has Asmodeus accepted it yet?”

“Not yet, but she should see it soon. What is it, do you recognize the person who placed the request?”

“No, I’m just a little curious…”

“This wish probably won’t be granted, do you see that question mark in brackets behind Bellina’s name? That shows that Bellina isn’t the true name of his target, making this wish invalid. However, based on just how Asmodeus is, she might actually go and investigate this Bellina’s true name and identity.”

“This… can you cancel this wish? This Bellina is me… my friend!”

“You can’t cancel a wish, and there has never been an occurrence before where we have done so. Even if the one who placed the wish itself regretted doing so, we wouldn’t let them.”

“However, you can accept this request in place of Asmodeus. Based on the rules of the whole process, a demon or evil god can accept the tasks requested of a demon king or any demon/evil god ranked beneath them. I’ll take you to find Asmodeus later, you’ll probably have to have a good discussion with her as she isn’t the type to surrender her requests so easily.”

In Bella’s heart, she had already turned Carlos into mincemeat. That damn kid, dared to do such a thing to her? It was fortunate that she had discovered this early, or it would be quite awkward if she were to be randomly attacked by an ‘ally’.

“Oh yeah, Lucifer, you called me a demon god earlier, my memory is a little blurry recently. Can you explain a little more to me?”

“Samantha… Bella-sama, you’ve forgotten your identity as a demon god? Look at the ranking plaque over there, you might remember some stuff after you see it!”

Following the direction which Lucifer’s finger pointed towards, Bella was able to see a magical wall which displayed the rankings of the demon and evil gods based on the number of Sin Points that they possessed. The name at the top was that of the 【Sanctified Demon God】— Bellastier Samantha, followed by a long strand of numbers. As for how long the strand of numbers was, it had six more digits than that of the 2nd placed evil god.

This meant that Bellastier had over 100,000 times the Sin Points of the 2nd ranked evil god. She hadn’t expected for her the true owner of her body to be so evil, it was hard to imagine how many kills would one have to grind to reach such a number.

“Lucifer, are you sure that there’s no mistake? Why do I have so many points?”

“Bella… there’s no mistake. Even though you are the 4th ranked Worldbreaker, that number is 100% authentic.”

“Then what about the top 3 Worldbreakers? Why haven’t their name appeared?!”

“The top three Worldbreakers are actually… you’ll know this later, I can’t tell you the reasons right now.”

Lucifer had a complicated look as she told Bella. What she didn’t tell Bella was that all of the Sin Points held by the top 3 Worldbreakers were owned by Bella. Ever since the 4th chief of the Worldbreakers had taken her seat as chief, the three of them had constantly been farming Sin Points for Bella in secret. Apart from the three of them, there were also quite a few other Worldbreakers indirectly helping Bella grind for points, they would purposefully take all of the hard requests and not finish them, leaving the easier and more rewarding tasks to those Worldbreakers who were directly farming points for Bella.

Lucifer couldn’t talk about such an explicit point farming system in front of Bella. Also, the Worldbreakers weren’t the only ones farming Sin Points for Bella, the Troublemaker’s commander and four sub-commanders also took part. Members of the Troublemakers didn’t appear on this ranking, but their points could be traded with or sold to the Worldbreakers.

The Troublemaker’s commander and four sub-commanders, under the rouse of ‘exchanges’ with Bella, openly farming points for her. They had never actually undergone a single exchange with Bella, in the ten thousand years that Bella had been absent from Halifax, the Troublemakers had always been providing Bella with a constant stream of Sin Points.

Apart from the Troublemakers and the Worldbreakers, there was also another mysterious existence that was grinding Sin Points for Bella. Different from the other two factions who farmed requests, this mysterious existence took the role of hunting various characters, secretly helping the members of the two factions farm points, indirectly helping Bella.

She would hide around members of the two factions as they were completing their tasks, ambushing all those Saviours who had attempted to stop them from farming points. Up till now, this mysterious existence had already successfully killed thousands of Saviours. Even though the Worldbreaker’s chief and the Troublemaker’s commander had some knowledge of this mysterious existence who was helping them out, but they had never gotten the opportunity to meet. The mysterious existence was on the same level as the two of them and if she wanted to hide, not even the two could do anything to find her.

Looking at the confused Bella, Lucifer realized that she had probably truly forgotten everything. However, the three parties who were secretly farming points for Bella had explicitly told Lucifer and the other members of the 【Seven Sins】 not to tell Bella of their actions, so Lucifer couldn’t explain to Bella why she had so many Sin Points.

All of the【Seven Sins】 gave Samantha 70% off of all their goods, one should know that even the Worldbreaker’s chief only got 40% off at most. As for the reasons of the other six members of the 【Seven Sins】, Lucifer wasn’t clear, but she had done so in hopes of Bella being able to come visit her stores more often. As for whether she wanted Bella to come and look at herself or her wares, Lucifer was the only one who knew.

Bella’s attention didn’t stay on the rankings for too long, because she spotted someone familiar on the streets. In Halifax, most of the demon kings who wandered the streets weren’t in their human forms, instead showing their true bodies, and it was quite easy to spot humans in the city.

Bella saw an unworldly beauty with orange hair who currently had her back to Bella and the others, around her right arm was a brand new armband bearing the insignia of the Rose Society. Who else was it but Elaine? The current store that Elaine was shopping in had a mirror and even though Elaine’s back was towards Bella and the others, Bella was able to catch a view of Elaine’s face through the mirror.

Elaine who was currently looking through the dolls offered by the ‘Terror Dolls Emporium’ and didn’t detect Bella walking towards her from behind. Bella was able to spot the Sin Points card in Elaine’s hand and the six digit strand of numbers surprised Bella, she wouldn’t have been able to expect that this dorm mate of hers had been able to obtain such a large number of Sin Points.

—TL NOTES—

IOU:28

—END—