Demon Bible

Chapter 140: If It's Not One Thing, It's Another

The bartender, who was just about to reach out and take the gold coin, froze.

He sized Isabella up once again.

"That thing is useless to you," the bartender finally said. "Users have almost no chance of reaching a higher tier. They might not care, but do you not care either?"

"I just want to use it for research," Isabella replied immediately, having caught a subtle shift in the bartender's emotions at that moment.

"If that is the case, then it makes no difference whether this new thing is brand new or currently attached to someone else," the bartender said, pointing toward another street outside the tavern.

"There are Scavengers on that street. Their leader has that kind of new thing."

"If you capture him, you can naturally conduct your research on it."

A plate of pan-fried fish was then brought over and placed in front of Isabella.

Taking the gold coin, he pushed the pan-fried fish toward Isabella.

"Here is the fish you wanted."Isabella shot the bartender a glance, then turned and walked away.

"You can have it."

The man's emotional response was incredibly fascinating. There was a high probability that this bartender had a rather discordant relationship with the Construct Protocol.

That explained why his reaction was so intense upon hearing her vague mention of the Berserk Accessory.

After all, under normal circumstances, Isabella's behavior perfectly fit the image of a witch curious about such artifacts.

The man was heavily guarded against her, to the point of completely disregarding basic trading rules. A gold coin that could feed an ordinary family for a year had actually been exchanged for a mundane piece of pan-fried fish.

However, this worked out perfectly. At the very least, Isabella had obtained the information she desired.

'The Scavengers on the opposite street.'

The so-called Scavengers were corpse collectors. They abducted all sorts of marginalized people from the fringes of society and sold them off.

In some particularly rampant areas, they even ran institutions like orphanages and nursing homes.

They used these facilities to pen humans up, rearing them like captive livestock.

Whenever the time was right, they would harvest and sell them.

The bartender watched Isabella leave, a faint smile creeping onto his face.

His figure subtly shifted. Pushing up his glasses, he revealed his true appearance as Krew.

Lord Nemus valued Isabella highly. As Lord Nemus's capable assistant, he naturally needed to see what she was truly capable of.

At the same time, Isabella and her group were acting far too cautiously. He needed to step in and slightly accelerate their progress.

Moreover, he could use this opportunity to drag them into a few other brewing matters.

There were indeed quite a few Construct Protocol members among the Scavengers. However, the organization now felt its wings were strong enough to fly solo, showing signs of wanting to establish an independent faction and break away from the Construct Protocol's framework.

It was also true that the lame demon had previously been delivered to the Construct Protocol by the Scavengers.

'Well then, do your best, Isabella,' Krew thought to himself before leaving the tavern.

On Isabella's end, she immediately summoned the others and shared the information she had just acquired.

The group then set off toward the street where the Scavengers were located.

Isabella stopped the rest from approaching, deciding to infiltrate the area by herself.

When it came to pure infiltration, the Holy Knights were far more agile, but they were notoriously bad at masking their presence.

Given that, she was better off doing it alone.

Relying on her spells, Isabella was perfectly capable of approaching a location quietly and soundlessly.

Casting several spells upon herself, Isabella instantly concealed her figure and movements. During this process, she even utilized the Sealing Art she had recently learned.

The Sealing Art was incredibly profound, requiring the application of interconnected relationships between objects.

It was a special spell that was difficult to learn and even harder to master.

The vast majority of sealing-type spells available on the market were actually rather substandard.

They were called seals, but in reality, they were mostly just suppressive techniques.

A true Sealing Art focused on locking down as much as possible with minimal power, whereas suppression relied entirely on sheer, brute force to crush a target.

The two were simply not on the same level.

Isabella seemed to vanish into thin air as she slipped into the alleyway known as Clean Alley.

Many doors on both sides of the alley were left slightly ajar, yet the entire passage was deathly quiet.

There was a high probability that the Scavengers resided behind those doors on either side.

Anyone who mistakenly wandered into this alley could easily be snatched into one of the rooms, vanishing completely from the face of the world.

Isabella could even smell the stench of corpses lingering in the air; dismembered body parts were shipped out of here on a daily basis.

Very soon, Isabella located a room that looked slightly cleaner than the rest.

As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt for one's own profession.

Once Scavengers cleaned themselves up and slightly elevated their status, they tended to grow increasingly repulsed by the stench of death clinging to their own bodies.

Therefore, in an environment like this, the place that stood out from the crowd was usually where the leader resided.

Sure enough, when Isabella arrived at the side of this building, she focused slightly on her hearing. Her perception rapidly expanded, and the voices from inside the room quickly flowed into her ears.

"I told you to go cause some havoc, and if it's not one thing, it's another! How many days has it been?!" someone inside the room angrily demanded.

"Now, now, don't be so angry!" another voice replied, sounding incredibly helpless.

"There really is nothing we can do."

"We had originally found the perfect candidate, but then the guy went crazy. His boundless greed ended up triggering a Demonization upon himself."

"While we were dealing with that, some other guy next door suddenly underwent Demonization right in front of a cleric."

"Now the higher-ups have issued a notice. We have to lay low for the time being. We simply don't have the time to do anything for you."

"That is your own problem. When you accepted the goods, you made a guarantee." The one asking the questions couldn't care less about their excuses.

"You need to be clear on one thing. You didn't secure your current position by relying solely on the Construct Protocol."

"You were extremely bold when you wanted to break free from the Construct Protocol, but now you're obediently laying low just because they told you to?"

"Do you really think our family is easy to mess with?" The threat in the person's voice grew thicker by the second.

"The envoy doesn't need to worry about that. I will get the job done properly within the remaining time," the Scavengers' leader replied, his voice chilling slightly.

"I hope you actually have the capability for it!" As the words fell, the door swung open. Isabella instantly held her breath and peeked from the corner of her eye.

She then saw a figure pulling up a hood. With just a brief glimpse, Isabella memorized the person's facial features.

That face felt somewhat familiar, though Isabella could not immediately recall where she had seen it.

Her attention gradually refocused on the interior of the room.

Sure enough, the conversation inside hadn't ended.

Another person, who hadn't spoken previously, asked, "Boss, should we chase after..."