The decrepit half-orc walked step by step to the front of the battle formation, where a single arrow from Grace would have been enough to put him down.
Yusura proved his sincerity through action.
"Very well. Let me see what you're offering," Li Fei said, tilting her chin upward.
Even now, she hadn't abandoned her "Hero Guo's post-dinner exercise to defend Xiangyang" theory.
A frontal charge into the half-orc battle lines would get her turned into a sieve by flying axes — she knew that much. But given that her flying broomstick let her come and go as she pleased, she was confident she could pick off isolated half-orcs one by one, cut their supply lines, and eventually carve her way through the entire tribe.
That approach, however, might take ten days, half a month, even several months. The time investment versus the return simply didn't add up, which was why she preferred more efficient methods.
"Our wealth is stored in a cave. You're welcome to come see it yourself," Yusura said.
"No problem."
Buoyed by confidence in her own strength — and by the temporary spell circuit that her "My Dear Dean-Mama" had etched just below the small of her back during yesterday's tuition-waiver negotiations, shaped rather like a smiling face — Li Fei accepted Yusura's invitation without hesitation.
The temporary circuit would fade in three days. Its effect was simple: whenever Li Fei activated it, Nicole would sense it — and then Her Excellency the Archmage would personally descend into this pocket dimension.
The circuit had its limitations: it couldn't transmit a precise location, couldn't carry a message. But given that Nicole already knew where Li Fei had gone and could reach Folded Space D-07 in short order, as long as Li Fei wasn't killed in a single hit, she could do absolutely anything she liked in here.
Without looking back, Li Fei unhooked the broomstick from her back and tossed it over to Grace with a wave of her hand.
"Wait here. If I'm not back in two hours, ride that thing and go get reinforcements."
"I'll go with you," said the poker-faced girl, stepping forward.
"Wait for me to come back."
Li Fei waved her off, her tone gentle with just a hint of imperious authority, leaving Grace with nothing but a breezy, retreating silhouette.
A moment later, Li Fei paid absolutely no mind to the hostile, furious glares of the surrounding half-orcs and smiled pleasantly:
"Elder Yusura, I suspect my companion and I are not your first trading partners, are we?"
"Mm," Yusura replied, seeming to have entirely forgotten that Li Fei had just slaughtered his clansmen. His voice was amiable: "Regrettably, none of them were able to bring us out of this… cage. We could only reach agreements with them on other matters."
"Is that so…"
Li Fei pressed further: "If I could bring your people out, what would you be willing to give?"
"Everything."
The old half-orc halted before a pit entrance in the ground, his voice measured and resolute.
That direct? Isn't the old fellow afraid of being fleeced in negotiations?
No — wait. He's deliberately sending a message: "If you can take us out of here, I'll give you everything I have." Which means his obsession with leaving this Folded Space runs even deeper than I imagined. He's already past caring whether he gets taken advantage of.
Li Fei turned the old half-orc's attitude over in her mind, her gaze drifting to the pit at her feet.
The opening was about three meters in diameter. Across it hung two metal doors riddled with rust. In a land so desolate that even common soldiers couldn't afford metal weapons, it was hard to fathom how much effort this tribe had poured into fabricating two impurity-laden metal doors like these.
"Heave — ho, heave — ho…"
Eight half-orcs strained to wrench the metal doors open, revealing a pitch-black cavern that seemed to have no bottom. Dried, blackened bloodstains lingered on the uneven stone steps below.
"Your half-orcs are quite talented at digging," Li Fei remarked approvingly.
"Credit goes to the cave-dwellers," the old half-orc said with a dismissive wave. "After our tribe relocated here, it took the cave-dwellers five years to excavate these tunnels."
Crafty old thing… I haven't spotted a single living cave-dweller since I arrived. One look at all those shriveled black strips of "jerky" tells me the ones who dug these tunnels probably met the same fate as the craftsmen who built imperial tombs for the emperor.
"You manage your subordinates with great skill, Elder," Li Fei said with unfeigned admiration. "The chips you have to offer are down below?"
"Yes. After you."
Yusura took a torch, and ambled slowly into the pit. Li Fei ignored the murderous stare Kenan was boring into her back, and followed him down more than a hundred steps before the bottom finally opened up.
Ore emitting a murky, bioluminescent glow illuminated an underground storeroom roughly five meters high and over a hundred meters in length and breadth. The air was cold and damp. The walls were dotted with circular holes — drainage, by the look of them.
A faint stench of decay and rot hung in the air. Li Fei wrinkled her nose and covered it with one hand as she surveyed the faintly blue-glowing light source.
She strongly suspected those glowing ores were highly radioactive… If not for the fact that Witches as a group could bathe on Radiation Island and steep tea in Ganges water, she'd have turned heel and sprinted back up immediately.
Li Fei strolled through the space, examining the assortment of items piled in the center of the vault, pausing every so often to crouch and feel something.
Some items she recognized; for the unfamiliar ones, it didn't matter — she could cross-reference against the system shop's listed prices and estimate their approximate value well enough.
Yusura waited in silence. Beside him, Kenan was visibly restless, his porcupine-like nostrils flaring as he huffed noisily through his nose.
Li Fei's Charisma had reached the point where it worked across species. Had his father not been present, this young heir to the chieftainship might well have thrown caution to the wind and ordered his warriors to swarm and kill the incomprehensibly alluring, blood-debt-laden female of another race.
After a thorough inspection, Li Fei straightened up with a pensive expression and offered her verdict:
"It seems you've unified this entire Folded Space, Elder."
Kenan grunted with smug satisfaction.
"Not quite," Yusura said after a brief pause, giving an honest answer. "But close enough."
The items here amounted to roughly eight thousand gold coins in value — a mix of various ores including a small quantity of gold, along with all manner of medicinal ingredients.
Beyond that, she had spotted a few Transcendent items, though it was obvious those had been obtained through trades with other students.
To have accumulated such a sizable fortune in a wasteland like this was no small feat.
"If I had to guess… all the outsiders who came before us agreed to your deal at first, but then vanished and were never heard from again. Am I right?" Li Fei continued.
"That's correct."
"I think I understand what happened," Li Fei muttered, rubbing her chin.
She had pieced together why no other student had ever come back to claim this fortune.
Even for an institution as vast and resource-rich as the Magic Academy, Folded Spaces were core assets, governed by systematic and rigorous management protocols.
These included restrictions on who could enter and for how long — Folded Space D-08, for instance, being a beginner's zone, only admitted students at Sequence 9 or Sequence 8, with a maximum stay of three days.
That effectively ruled out simply overpowering the half-orcs and taking their wealth by force. The only viable approach was acquisition through "trade."
And extracting a native from a Folded Space required two steps: first, filing an application with the Academy; second, paying the corresponding credits.
The second step posed no difficulty whatsoever — after all, how many credits could it possibly cost to bring out a few Sequence 9 half-orcs? Eight thousand gold coins was more than sufficient.
But every previous attempt at a "leave the Folded Space" deal had fallen through. That could only mean every other student had gotten stuck at the first step.
Li Fei's best guess was that the Academy found the practice of using "immigrants" to replenish the native population to be… not exactly something they cared to advertise — and the immigrants themselves might have arrived through questionable means to begin with. Operating on a "the less said, the better" philosophy, the Academy had simply rejected every student's application.
"Bureaucracy…" Li Fei murmured, a slow smile spreading across her face. "Lovely."
The beauty of bureaucracy was this: when you were on good terms with the person at the very top, you could enjoy extraordinary privileges.
"You seem quite confident," Yusura observed, watching Li Fei's expression, his own eyes brightening.
He had long since learned from other outsiders that this cage of a world belonged to a formidable organization called the "Magic Academy," and that leaving required going through certain procedures. But after watching outsider after outsider make cheerful promises that came to nothing, the chieftain that he had been for so many years had a fairly good idea of what was really going on.
"That's right," Li Fei said with a nod. "But bringing people out will cost me precious social capital. What you have here isn't enough."
"Greedy woman — this is everything—" Kenan erupted in outrage.
"Kenan."
His father's gaze swept over him. This time, Kenan breathed hard through his nose, stubbornly holding his father's eyes, his own filled with bitter reluctance.
Within this Folded Space, Kenan had been singular from the day he was born.
He was the mightiest warrior, the greatest chieftain-to-be — the only son of Yusura.
He had inherited his father's valor, and one day would inherit supreme authority. The females of the tribe had always fallen over themselves to court his favor; the males deferred to him without question. Beyond the tribe, Kenan had personally led his clansmen to exterminate the remnant cave-dweller settlements. Swinging the heaviest, hardest stone axe in the tribe, he had taken seven cave-dweller heads; then raised them high with one hand, bathing in the cheers of his people and the wails of the cave-dwellers, riding across the weeping, struggling cave-dweller females — what exhilaration that had been.
And now, outsiders had slaughtered their way into his homeland, left corpses strewn across the ground, come to plunder the wealth his people had painstakingly accumulated — and had the audacity to be picky about it on top of that.
What humiliation.
Hatred. Envy. And a fierce, possessive desire for the outsider woman's beauty. These burned like a roaring fire in Kenan's chest, briefly overwhelming even the weight of his father's long-established authority.
A femme fatale who brings ruin to nations. That was the only way to describe it.
But in the end, the fire cooled beneath his father's increasingly cold and disappointed gaze.
"Go outside."
"Hmph."
Kenan stamped his foot hard, shot Li Fei a glare, and strode up the steps and out of the pit.
Once he was gone, Li Fei resumed without any particular hurry:
"You surely understand that a word from a great personage is worth ten thousand gold coins…"
"But this is the entirety of our tribe's wealth," Yusura said with a sigh, a troubled expression crossing his face. "However, if you can bring my people out, we will walk through fire and flood to repay you…"
Old man, are you trying to sell me empty promises?
Li Fei suppressed a snort and said, with perfectly earnest sincerity: "The Dean of the Magic Academy is my godmother."
At those words, the habitually half-lidded old eyes blazed open with a fervor Yusura had never shown before:
"Is that truly so?"
"Don't you have something to detect lies?" Li Fei said, spreading her hands.
Yusura hesitated a moment, then fished from his person a half-sheet of yellowed sheepskin, its edges burned away in ragged, charred gaps:
"If you lie, the flame will go out."
"Then let's begin."
As the sheepskin was lit, Li Fei spoke with unhurried composure:
"I am the adopted daughter of the Magic Academy's Dean. I am fully confident I can bring the half-orcs out of this place."
The flame burned on.
Its light illuminated Yusura's face — contorted with emotion so overwhelming it had become almost grotesque.
He pressed his palm against the flame and snuffed it out. A faint hiss accompanied the acrid smell of scorched hair and skin, but Yusura didn't seem to notice at all, his aged frame rising and falling with deep, ragged breaths.
"Don't get too excited, Elder," Li Fei said calmly.
"It's time to let me see your actual chips."
"Very well…"
Yusura let out a hoarse sound and hurried to one side of the wall, pressing against it with all his strength.
With a soft cascade of sand and grit, a hidden door swung open.
Typical old fox — he won't release the hawk until he's seen the rabbit.
Li Fei crossed her arms and sauntered unhurriedly to the hidden door. The moment she swept her gaze across the secret chamber beyond, her brow arched and she broke into a delighted clap.
"Elder, I have to say — you've genuinely surprised me."
Yusura allowed himself a faint smile:
"In my youth, I found knowledge left behind by my ancestors… Though most of it had been worn away by time, and only a few alignment Common Tongues remained mostly intact, even the fragmented remainder was a priceless treasure…"
"It was thanks to those treasures that I was able to unite the tribe — and build this."
Yusura gestured toward the altar inside the hidden chamber. A light moved through his weathered old eyes, as though he were looking back on the winding, turbulent years of his life.
"Good. Everything here combined is enough to…"
Li Fei kept her smile at the corner of her lips, paused a beat, and then showed her hand:
"…get exactly one half-orc out."
"That joke isn't funny."
Yusura turned his head and looked at her calmly.
"You know, in my homeland there is a sage by the name of Maslow, who once said something like this," Li Fei said, spreading her hands and delivering the words with the rise and fall of a practiced orator.
"In the eyes of those who have nothing and cannot even fill their stomachs, food and water are everything. Once people no longer fear for their survival, they yearn for safety and stability. Those who have those things turn next to hoping for friendship and love. And once those needs are met, they begin to chase fame and standing…"
"So tell me — what do you suppose a leader whom everyone worships, who has vanquished his enemies and can take almost anything from the world, would then try to obtain?"
Without waiting for the old half-orc to answer, Li Fei supplied the reply herself:
"An aspiration that seems impossibly out of reach. An ambition that ordinary people would call a miracle. An obsession worth pursuing at any cost."
"Like certain mortal emperors who sought immortality. Or like a certain tribal chief who wants to break free from the cage of this world."
"So I believe that no matter how steep the price, you would still accept this deal. Wouldn't you?"
Yusura's expression didn't waver:
"A most admirable sage."
"And yet my wish," he continued, "is to lead all of my people out of here."
"If I can only leave alone, I would rather die here together with my tribe."
Li Fei listened with genuine reverence:
"Now that is a truly great leader… My utmost respect."
"However — I would argue that only the living count as tribe members. Would you agree?"
Yusura's eyelids lowered slightly, and a keen light flashed from within his clouded old eyes:
"What do you mean by that?"
Li Fei smiled pleasantly: "No matter how you look at it, you can't possibly transport several thousand tribespeople all at once — choices will have to be made. And I suspect that even you, Elder, conqueror of this entire pocket world, might struggle to make a selection that is truly fair and just to everyone."
"In that case, I happen to have a solution that works beautifully for all parties."
"To celebrate the conclusion of this momentous deal, the illustrious tribal chief Yusura — before leading his people into the new world — shall host a grand and solemn ceremony, a feast of collective celebration for the entire tribe."
"Regrettably, ninety-nine percent of the tribe's members will perish of poisoning at this feast… The surviving chieftain and his son, bearing the final wishes of their fallen kin, will carry that weight forward and depart this place with tears in their eyes."
"In this way, doesn't it perfectly fulfill the great aspiration of 'bringing everyone out,' while also solving the numbers problem in one stroke?"
Yusura recoiled, shock and fury breaking across his face. His voice trembled with rage:
"Vile human… what would you possibly gain from butchering my people like this?"
Li Fei smiled gracefully:
"That's my business. As for whether you'll take the deal — that's yours. Oh, and one more thing: you and your son may keep a modest portion of the wealth on your persons. I'm willing to look the other way on that."
Yusura was silent for a long moment. Then, in a low, subdued voice:
"Kenan's wife is with child. She comes with us as well."
"Deal."
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