Castle of Black Iron Vol 3 Chapter 3

CoBI, B3 Chapter 3: A Scheme and Rat Poison

 

Zhang Tie did not know what transpired in the cla.s.sroom. When Barry and the gang have finished voting, he has already step out the gates of school.

Sometimes, life can be a b.i.t.c.h. All you did is sit under a tree and relax, minding your own business. Yet, some f.u.c.ker just have to throw some dirty trays in front of you, forcing you to choose between humiliating yourself and wash the trays for free or be thoroughly beaten up by them.

Indeed! What the one eye dragon said is very accurate, some people will see your rejection of their humiliation as humiliating them instead. Even if that is the case, this daddy will not back down, after thoroughly humiliating these people, will you still dare to bite this daddy’s a.s.s?

As he exits school, Zhang Tie chance upon the one eye dragon who is also leaving. Since they have met, Zhang Tie naturally cannot ignore him, what’s more, they seem to be heading down the same direction.

“Captain Colin, are you heading to the dojo?” Zhang Tie initiated a conversation with the one eye dragon, working as a part-time instructor at the Iron Bramble Dojo is not really a secret anyway.

Seeing Zhang Tie and hearing about his unyielding performance yesterday, has greatly improved Zhang Tie’s image in Captain Colin’s eyes. He felt that Zhang Tie is a good material and is man enough, causing him to feel appreciation towards this student and feel that his eye is indeed good at discovering a person of potential, “That’s right, I am heading to the battle dojo. I heard you have another part-time job, working in a general store, right?”

Captain Colin did not know that Zhang Tie is the “daring guy” nor is he interested to know, to him, anyone is responsible for their own choices, since that “daring guy” chose to cause Gree and his gang pain, then he should be also courageous enough to face the consequences alone. With so many students in school, Captain Colin cannot protect them all nor is he their nanny.

Understanding the mentality of the one eye dragon, Zhang Tie did not bother to bring up the incident that happened in the afternoon but chose to engage in small talk with him instead.

“Yes, this is a job recommended by my family, I have been working there for a long time”

“How’s work over there?”

“The boss is nice, I have learnt a lot from him……”

The two of them chatted as they strolled away…

When they are far off into the distance, behind the shade of a tree at the school gate, Gree and his guys are wearing an ugly expression, as they watched the backs of Zhang Tie and Captain Colin moving away, each of them gritted their teeth angrily.

“What do we do now? We did not expect that kid and the one eye dragon to be that close, their relations.h.i.+p is definitely not normal!” Salom commented. The reason behind the incident in the afternoon is because Gree is holding a small grudge against Zhang Tie for preventing him from scoring brownie points with Ms. Dinah in cla.s.s and wanted to lightly oppress him.

To Gree, in this crucial period where his future will be determined soon, there can only be one star in the school and that person can only be himself, no one can steal his limelight.

He only wanted to casually pick on another unlucky fella, to his group this is just another small daily affair, none of them thought that Zhang Tie will have the courage to reject them and silently protest. Therefore, in a moment of carelessness, they experienced the darkest moment of their lives this afternoon.

Salom’s words caused everyone to furrow their brows, the burning sensation freshly minted on their backs be
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gan to flare up as though salt has been rubbed on them, constantly reminding them the humiliation they have suffered.

“If we deal with that kid, Captain Colin will definitely stand up for him. There’s a possibility that today’s incident happened because the kid has Captain Colin supporting his back, therefore he dared to tell on us. We cannot use our normal methods when facing this kid!” Ja.n.a.l angrily said.

“As long as we are outside school and Captain Colin has no evidence, there are lots of methods we can use to deal with that kid, heh… heh…” Zohar smiled deviously.

“What are you thinking?” Salom asked Zohar.

Zohar looked at his surroundings for a moment, when the others saw this action, they know the contents of Zohar’s idea will be alarming and does not want others to hear about it. Therefore, they went to hide behind the tree and put their heads closely to each other before Zohar told them his plan.

“If we do this, then we will not be able to control the outcome!” Zohar looked at Gree, in the group, he is just the brains, the final decision maker is Gree.

“Is.. is this… a bit too much? All I want is to give that guy a good beating, after all we are still… still cla.s.smates… this can cost a person’s life!” Ja.n.a.l stuttered as he heard the plan, obviously being shaken by the ruthlessness of Zohar’s scheme.

“Ja.n.a.l, are you trying to back out?” Salom deviously looked at Ja.n.a.l. “I did not know the injury on your back has recovered so quickly”

“Ja.n.a.l, you are too naive, in this era, how much coppers is the word ‘cla.s.smate’ worth?” Zohar mockingly said.

“I… I… I mean that…” before Ja.n.a.l can finish his sentence, his neck is firmly gripped by Gree’s hand. This is when the huge difference in physical capabilities between a Rank 2 person like Gree and a normal student can be seen. As Gree choked Ja.n.a.l by the neck, he used his single hand to lift Ja.n.a.l off the ground, causing Ja.n.a.l’s face to flush, slowly showing a suffering expression.

“Do you have any more things to say?” the edge of Gree’s mouth curled as he asked.

Ja.n.a.l who is finding it harder and harder to breath, frantically shakes his head twice before Gree released his grip, causing Ja.n.a.l to fall onto the ground, kneeling on the ground coughing badly.

“Let’s do it, let that kid feel pleased for another couple of days. When the survival course starts, we will give that kid a lesson he will remember for the rest of his life…” Gree displayed a cold and cruel expression as the others began to laugh, though it is not sure if their laughter is genuine or forced.

If it is uncontrollable, then at most someone will die, it is not a big deal anyway. Just another black hair kid, another small timer who has no relation to them. In this era, there are people dying daily in Black Flame City.

Although Zhang Tie likes to refer the guys in school as animals but it is just because they act like animals in heat. Yet, Zhang Tie did not expect that among these animals, there are actual real animals* hiding within.
(Cuppa: The initial ‘animal’ term refers to mindless like animals or doing things on instinct like animals, the other ‘ animal’ term meant heartless and cold like wild beasts)

……

When Zhang Tie reached the general store, he saw that Tang De is running about busily within, serving three different customers at the same time. When the fat man saw that his free labour has arrived, he released a small sigh of relief…

“Show these two customers our ‘Super Rat Poison’…” Tang De instructed Zhang Tie with a phrase only he understands…

After a few minutes, the three customers left with their things in hand while Tang De happily counted the several pieces of gold coins in his hand.

For unknown reasons, ever since news about the Red Scarf Bandits have spread within Black Flame City, the patrolling law enforcers and soldiers near the train station have increased and strangely, business in Tang De’s store have also increased along with it. The visiting customers have at least increased by twenty percent, some of the general goods and even some shady items have an increased in sales volume.

One of the items that is riding this trend is the ‘Super Rat Poison’ that was mentioned by Tang De earlier on – it is a hidden word that refers to a raw material used to build a terrifying weapon by humans before the Cataclysm.

It was said that before the Cataclysm, this material is so dangerous that humans cannot stay in the same room as it, let alone touching or eating it, the school teacher has referred to this material as ‘Radioactive Materials’. The Cataclysm and Star of G.o.d caused these ‘Radioactive Materials’ to lose their radioactive energy, causing the materials to undergo a fundamental change and can no longer be used to make those terrible weapons.

However, the lethality of the material still exists, although the humans before the Cataclysm need to refine this material using a complicated process to reach weapon grade purity, but after the crazy s.h.i.+fting of the tectonic plates during the Cataclysm, many high purity deposits gushed out from the ground.

Eventually, these natural highly poisonous minerals are named ‘Devil Stones’ by the humans, without the need for a complex refining process, just by grinding the stones into fine powder, a small amount will possess a terrible amount of poison.

In the history of Blackson’s Human Corridor, this ‘rat poison’ has been used by evil cults or organizations to cause tragedies that lead to close to ten thousand human deaths. Therefore, the officials of Black Flame City have imposed a law and categorized this item as special goods under supervision, but in fact, to many adventurers and pioneers or people whose work requires them to often go into the wilds, this is a highly effective weapon that can be used against low ranking magical beasts and monsters.

Most of the time, all they need is a simple bait lightly laced with the stuff and you can kill quite a number of magical beasts or, by using a simple method to process and coat the poison on weapons, it will greatly increase the lethality of a normal weapon.

Unless a person use special methods or is Rank 10 or higher and use their superhuman senses to check, most humans or beasts will not be able to discover this colorless and odorless poison, this is also one of the reason it is so popular.

Therefore, to completely forbid the trading of this item is basically impossible. Although there is a law that prohibits trading of this stuff among the civilians but the city officials maintained a lax att.i.tude as it is practically impossible to stop it. ‘Rat Poison’ eventually became the hidden language used by the people.

In this area where the store is situated, a place near the train station where people from all walks of life will visit, it naturally will not lack both the supply and demand for ‘Rat Poison’.

With the curfew imposed by the city due to the Red Scarfs, the sales of ‘Super Rat Poison’ have also experience a sharp increase, a small bottle of the stuff used to sell at 75 silvers with only five to six bottles being sold monthly.

Now, the price has increased to one gold with three to four bottles being sold every day, the buyers are also mostly normal civilians. When he thought of the afternoon incident in school and the impending revenge, a terrified feeling began to well up in Zhang Tie…