My wife is an immortal black snake.

Page 12

Okay, he's not entirely sure...

But he had to try. His intuition told him that even killing three city lords wouldn't change the fact that the city was marching towards Bolívar. He also needed eight days to force the city to retreat and evacuate the disaster zone using political points—but if the city had already advanced too far into Bolívar's territory before then, it would be too late no matter what he did.

Yang Hao needs to get everything done in two days; he has to be fast, accurate, and ruthless.

However, if I really do something like that, I'll probably anger some bigwigs in Colombia and won't be able to survive in Colombia anymore... Oh well, it's fine this way, it gives me a reason to leave Colombia.

And in that case, Margarita would accept leaving and start a new life here, right?

With that in mind, he took out his phone.

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

"Huh? Why now..."

Having just finished a political engagement and feeling somewhat tired due to lack of sleep the previous day, Miss Koschke was surprised to receive a text message from Yang Hao when she closed her eyes for a short nap.

At first, she was surprised that Yang Hao would chat with her at this time. After all, based on her experience, Yang Hao rarely chatted with her during the day while he was working; even if he did, there should be an urgent reason.

Was it because he felt guilty for not contacting her last night? Miss Koschke wasn't the petty type. She didn't care that Yang Hao hadn't contacted her last night because he was busy checking on Margarita's condition. After all, she had gleaned a lot of information from his observations, so in a sense, she was the one who benefited.

But he didn't seem to think that way? Her heart skipped a beat for no reason. Miss Kosice calmly took the wine glass handed to her by the maid, and while quenching her thirst and replenishing her energy with the half-filled chilled wine, she sat on the throne in the audience hall and began to browse the text messages she had received on her phone.

...

After reading the text message request from Yang Hao, she revealed a sinister smile.

This seems to be the first time her future husband has asked her for a small favor.

Using her snake scales to help him gather information about the city lord? Ah... that's not impossible... but with the idea that "you reap what you sow," Miss Koschke was already thinking about how to get what she wanted from her future husband.

However, after thinking for a while, she decided that she didn't need him to repay her now. Everything would be decided when the man arrived in Ursus, in her duchy, and in her manor.

"In short... I'll give you temporary control over Serpent Scales." She smiled with interest, elegantly tapping and swiping her fingers across the smartphone screen. "But this isn't free... Given that our relationship isn't clearly defined yet, this is more like a [transaction] than a [mutual assistance] between husband and wife."

...In a sense, Miss Kosiché is also laying the groundwork for her upcoming new life. Right now, their relationship is a "transaction," and such transactions require both parties to give something that satisfies the other—which is perfectly reasonable.

The mutual assistance between husband and wife is less complicated: Miss Kosiché can ask Yang Hao to handle the affairs of the duchy at will, using his talent and ability to help her with politics—and at the same time, Yang Hao can ask her to do anything for him, anything at all, provided that she can do it.

Of course, the premise of "mutual help" is that the other person is "able to do" the task. Miss Koschke doesn't want the antics of those young people to ruin her future married life. Moreover, she's quite certain that she currently has no romantic or romantic feelings for Yang Hao—though she doesn't deny that such feelings might develop after marriage.

It's not uncommon for couples to be just acquaintances before marriage, only to fall in love afterward. Although the immortal black snake didn't believe Yang Hao could evoke that kind of emotional impulse in someone who had lived for over a thousand years.

...

After a while, Miss Koschitch finished editing her text message and was just about to send it. But before sending it, she recalled what she had seen yesterday and this morning through Originium Arts.

After thinking for a moment, she reopened the editing screen and added the following lines at the very end of the message:

If possible, I would like you to talk about a woman you have a good relationship with.

"...Is it necessary?"

Miss Koschke blinked, but finally sent the message anyway.

However, perhaps because she hadn't rested well, she forgot to write down the Snake Scale Unit's contact information for Yang Hao.

...

Meanwhile, while idly pausing to fish and pondering his next move with a pen in his mouth, Yang Hao waited patiently for several minutes before finally receiving Miss Koschche's reply.

Um...

However, as he breathed a sigh of relief and happily read Miss Kosiché's text message, he suddenly felt a chill run from his tailbone to his brain, and cold sweat immediately poured down his face.

First, his current relationship with Miss Koschitch is a transaction, so lending him the snake scales means he also needs to pay some price... He agrees with this and has no objection: after all, they haven't reached an intimate relationship, and in Yang Hao's view, even if they were married, he should manage his own assets, aside from handing over a portion to his family. Of course, the same applies to work-related matters. Unless absolutely necessary, he won't trouble others to share his workload.

but...

"Tonight, during our chat... let's talk about... a woman I'm very close to? And not via text... but by phone? Voice? Or video chat?"

Yang Hao was so nervous that he was swallowing hard as he spoke, and sweat streamed down his face incessantly. What was this? He felt that even the pressure of discovering that the city lord might be the mastermind behind the state government was nothing compared to this.

He wiped the sweat from his face with a tissue and rummaged through the desk in the temporary office, but couldn't find a mirror.

"Should I get a haircut first?" he muttered to himself. "Or...and this woman I'm close to? Margarita? When did she find out? Or was it just a sudden whim? Like that routine question you ask someone on a blind date about whether they've ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend? Ugh! I'll think about that later. I need to check things out at work first..."

He quickly realized that dwelling on this matter would be pointless. With the heroic mindset of "I'll be on the guillotine tonight," Yang Hao decided to do nothing and face Miss Koschche in his most natural state: if getting married and facing his wife would be this exhausting, he might as well not get married at all... He didn't want his future family life to involve him having to dress up beautifully just to talk to his wife in private.

and so.

How do I get these Serpent Scale troops to come here?

Yang Hao blinked dryly, and after realizing that he could now see the exact number of the secret force called "Snake Scales" and had the authority to issue commands within the "Puppet Stage," he decided not to bother Miss Koschie for their contact information.

He can handle it.

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

"Did you feel it?"

"...I felt it."

The Serpent Scales troops have gone into hiding in the city. If nothing unexpected happens, they should remain there for a long time, until the overseer leaves.

Moreover, the Duke's orders to them were quite strange: she wanted them to remain hidden, yet forbade them from observing the affairs of the Chief Steward or Columbia. In a sense, this strange order confused everyone in the Serpent Scales, but it was their duty, so they chose to quietly carry out their tasks without uttering any complaints.

...But today, February 13th, at exactly 10:2 AM...the Serpent Scales received the Duke's order to [temporarily accept Mr. Yang Hao's command], and less than two minutes later, they sensed something strange.

Their bodies felt like puppets, their will belonging both to themselves and to others. They stared at each other in terror, and finally, without prior agreement, they all felt an urge to accomplish a certain goal.

"What on earth is going on?!" one of the snake-scaled creatures cried out to his companion, his face contorted in pain. "My body is out of control?!"

Some people's bodies involuntarily rose from their seats and took firm steps towards the door. Although the owner of the body was trying his best to control himself, he could only watch helplessly as his body continued to move, like a conscious puppet on strings.

"Someone is controlling us with Originium Arts?! No, this isn't control...it's hypnosis—[Elegant Ursus Language]! Who, who's speaking in my head?!"

Some people, however, heard someone's voice out of nowhere. The snake scales stared in disbelief at the ceiling, for the voice instructed them to investigate everything about the city's lord.

Just then, a Serpentscale courier who had previously been in contact with Yang Hao, the Ursus messenger, suddenly shouted:

"It's that steward!"

That steward?!

In an instant, everyone understood completely; they realized what was going on!

From the moment the Duke ordered them to obey Yang Hao's commands, their bodies were under his control!

The voice in my head was the same. So, it turns out, it was him who was behind all of this!

...Since it's the future duke, then accepting the order is perfectly acceptable.

The moment this thought crossed their minds, the snake scales discovered that their bodies could move freely again.

"...Damn, if we're willing to accept orders, they give us the freedom to act; if we're not, they force us to act... He's more terrifying than we imagined..."

Feeling the weight of their bodies back in their grasp, the snake scales all breathed a sigh of relief. After exchanging glances, they returned to silence.

They left their hiding place silently, their objective clear: to uncover everything about the city lord, down to the exact number of droppings he produced that morning. However, because someone was on another mission, the Serpent Scales unit wasn't at full strength for this operation.

But it doesn't matter. If we're just gathering intelligence and not engaging in armed conflict, it's not a big deal even if the troops aren't at full strength.

......

Meanwhile, in the temporary office at the construction site, Yang Hao, who was using the [Puppet Stage] to command the Serpent Scale troops to gather information, scratched his head in confusion, looking at the several numbers that popped up on the screen.

Well, when he first ordered the Serpent Scales to move, two values ​​popped up on the unit's badge: one was organization level and the other was training level.

The Serpent Scale troops' organization level was full, and Yang Hao understood what that meant. Organization level refers to the morale of the army; once it drops to 0, the army will inevitably collapse. This value can be restored over time, so there's not much to say about it.

The training level is a bit outrageous... The training level of the army in this world is not like what Yang Hao saw when he played games before, which was simply divided into several levels.

Instead, within the framework of several large skull ranks distinguished by color, there are further subdivisions of ranks and functions.

Miss Koschke's [Serpent Scales] belong to the highest level of the golden skulls in the major categories. In the framework category, their [Stealth] and [Intelligence Gathering] are at the highest level, while their combat level is much lower.

This was exactly the kind of infiltrator Yang Hao had anticipated, skilled in intelligence gathering. But if even a duke's subordinate was this formidable, wouldn't the Ursus Emperor's private army be...?

Yang Hao nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly felt a strange excitement welling up inside him: If he were to have the ability to play with the emperor's private army in the future, it would seem quite fun.

"Huh? Didn't they just need manual control to perform the mission? How come they're performing the mission on their own now?"

Besides these numerical aspects, Yang Hao also discovered several new features—he could manually control all the troops under his command, whether they were temporarily given command or were his original subordinates.

However, unlike controlling workers, where Yang Hao could simply issue a few commands and they would complete the work themselves, controlling soldiers... Yang Hao could choose to manually command them to go to a certain place, or manually command them to fire at a certain person: but he didn't want to perform such cumbersome micromanagement, so after issuing the orders and manually commanding them to carry them out, he simply left them alone.

...Now, the Serpent Scales are heading out to gather all information about the city's lord. So, is there anything else I can do?

Yang Hao frowned, realizing that he really did seem to have nothing to do.

…………

Margarita was walking down the street.

Ever since hearing the news from Mr. Jack, Margarita has been in a state of mental instability.

Knowing her current situation was dangerous, Margarita didn't choose to bother the tailors' guild. She simply wandered aimlessly through the bustling streets, trying to suppress the dark undercurrent surging within her, while also wondering if she had done something wrong.

Her body is also changing.

She can smell scents coming from much farther away.

She felt stronger and reacted faster. For a moment, she could even see everything in the world slow down, while her own movements seemed perfectly normal.

Her prophetic abilities also changed. She no longer controlled the shutdown of her abilities, and she foresaw many things.

But all of this paled in comparison to the fear emanating from the "second voice" within her...

...

The blood of the true vampire progenitor flowed through her veins. But Margarita was unaware of what was happening.

.....

Margarita:

Race: Sarkaz Blood Demon —> True Ancestor of the Sarkaz Vampires (First Stage)

Positive effect: Strengthens prophecy

Chapter 32

...What kind of person is Yang Hao to Margarita?

Hmm... was she the only one with color in her black and white life?

No, it's much more... important than that.

"...Did I do something wrong? Is it...because of me...?"

For Margarita, Yang Hao is the only ray of light in her still relatively short life, besides her parents.

This is more like a trivial matter. Yang Hao's existence is what allows the individual named Margarita to stabilize. If she loses Yang Hao, Margarita knows very well that she will revert to her self-destructive state.

Ever since he pulled her out of her world of depression, all her efforts have been for him.

In order not to hold him back in the future... Margarita took the initiative to become a messenger of natural disasters, using her special Originium Arts to make a living... Although this Originium Arts still needed his help, Margarita was genuinely acting with the idea of ​​not wanting to hold him back.

In order to have a happy family with him in the future, Margarita had once forced herself to eat normal food for a period of time—like bread that was tasteless like dirt, like cola that had been left out for more than ten days in the hot weather and tasted moldy and bloody... She tried many things, and only when she was sure that she could not do it no matter what did she choose to give up in despair.

...

She knew Yang Hao had given up a lot for her, so she had given up a lot too. She knew that working away from home wouldn't yield good results, so she was also trying hard to find a job in the city...

But, but she didn't know... that before she achieved this goal, someone... someone would take advantage of her absence...

“...bad guy..."

Dark emotions were building up inside her... Margarita didn't know if this was her true personality... She only knew that she felt terrible right now.

Regret, unease, pain... and anger towards someone—all these emotions piled up in Margarita's heart, making it hard for her to breathe.

Even under these circumstances... her prophetic abilities activated uncontrollably... Under Margarita's prophecy, she saw many things.

She saw Yang Hao chatting with someone on his phone in his home.

She could see that it was evening. The calendar on the wall still showed today's 13th.

She could see... on Yang Hao's phone screen was the image of an Ursus woman with long brown hair, a great figure, and a beautiful and charming appearance, yet she appeared gloomy.

That woman seemed to be older than Yang Hao. Could it be... could it be that he's attracted to women older than him?!

Margarita was terrified by this situation that left her helpless: even if she was a Sarkaz Blood Demon, she... she couldn't overcome this problem!