40k: Midnight Blade.

Chapter 201 26. Return Journey (End)

"His vital signs are all normal," said pharmacist Serie Donio. "Other than being scared to death, there's nothing wrong with it."

The metal floor burned for a long time, and the air was filled with the pungent smell of burning corpses.

Ashes floated in the air, and the lights in the corridor flickered slowly due to low battery, switching back and forth between bright and dim.The corpses of the orcs crackled, their steel plate armor and their corpses being mercilessly burned by the promethium flames.

Van Cleef and his pharmacist stood side by side. The captain had taken off his helmet, his face expressionless, and he held a brass diary in his hand.

The flickering light and shadow projected from the porthole cut his face into small irregular pieces.That was the impact caused by the Nightshade not far away when it was destroying the rusty ship of the orcs.

"This diary is very interesting," Van Cleef said. "The skin of the Kagel beast is used. That thing grew up eating steel and stone. The skin is so hard that it can even resist a chain sword for a short time."

"And it has been extinct for decades." The pharmacist took over. "At least not until the Empire judged it to have no breeding value."

"It really has no breeding value." Van Cleef raised his right hand, handed the diary to the other giant in the darkness, and shook his head at the same time.

"It takes at least ten years from a cub to an adult. Even if you have to eat iron and stone every day, the final skin will only be able to withstand a chain sword. Besides, their meat is not delicious."

"Have you eaten, Van Cleef?" the man in the darkness asked.

"It's very hard and very resilient." said the first company commander. "It's so hard that I'd rather eat the stone. At least the stone can be chewed into pieces."

Khalil nodded, lowered his head and opened the diary. His movements were very gentle, but the diary itself seemed to have other ideas.

It made a slight crackling sound when it was opened, and immediately the brass cover began to brighten violently.

The next moment, flames rose from the spine of the book, trying to burn.But a hand brushed gently and took the flame away from the spine of the book.They began to burn in the hand, illuminating the darkness as well.

Khalil's pale face was clearly exposed under the influence of the flames, and a slightly interesting expression was slowly blooming on it.

"Self-destruct mechanism."

He rubbed his fingers, extinguished the flame, and resumed flipping through the diary.

The first few pages are completely blank, and the paper has turned yellow.Dust slipped from the pages, adding more impurities to the air.

Khalil continued to flip back and saw a line of words at the beginning of page No. 20. The font was very fancy, and the end of each word even had an upturn of unknown meaning.However, the font itself aside, this sentence is still interesting.

'Money only circulates among mortals, and power cannot oppress certain spines. Therefore, we need names. '

Khalil remembered this sentence and turned to the next page.Immediately afterwards, densely packed names filled his sight. He continued to flip back and saw endless names.

Khalil had never heard of these names, but he recognized the job titles that followed them.From an ordinary clerk in the Ministry of Government to a big businessman, from an officer to a major in the imperial army
Moreover, there is often a line of small text attached to the back of the title, describing in detail what these people have sought from the owner of the diary.

Or money, or love, or a fleeting opportunity.

Khalil closed the diary and turned his gaze to his side.

A man was lying on the ground with his eyes closed. He looked very embarrassed, with blood on his collar.The cheeks are tight and the chin is too long, making him look weak.

Even in a coma, the whole person has a weird pompous temperament, which cannot be cultivated by liars who have been wandering in the gray area of ​​the law all year round.Moreover, such people are often low-ranking people who think they are smart.

A truly skilled liar would never want their appearance to be like this. They would rather give people a solid and reliable first impression, rather than being exaggerated and frivolous.

At this moment, his eyelids were trembling slightly. He wanted to open them, but he didn't dare to.

"What's next, sir?" Van Cleef spoke at the right time, his voice became deeper and his accent changed. At this moment, he sounded like a standard imperial soldier.

"I think we'd better organize our words and think about how we should tell the captain of his unfortunate fate."

Kalil moved his shoulders and deliberately put on an elegant yet arrogant accent: "After all, not everyone can bear such huge losses as a crew of 60.00, a paralyzed engine, and a hull scrap of [-]%. It’s really unfortunate.”

After he said this, he fell into silence and began to wait patiently.

A few seconds later, Navarro Delcunas, who was lying on the ground, slowly opened his eyes with a bewildered expression of just waking up, accompanied by his half sentence.

"Your Majesty, your Majesty, where am I—"

He stopped his voice abruptly and did not continue to act out the scene, and his expression gradually changed from the confusion he had pretended to be before to one that was truly bewildered.He sat up and looked up at the three giants standing beside him. It took several minutes before he continued to speak.By this time, his voice had changed, becoming hoarse and low.

"——Your Majesty the Emperor, I really didn't expect to meet such a big shot like you."

"We are not big people, Captain Navarro Delkunas," Khalil said gently.

"But let me introduce you. This is Van Cleef, the company commander of the Eighth Legion. This is the pharmacist Celie Donio. I am Khalil Lohars, the current instructor of the Eighth Legion. .”

"Di" Navarro's voice began to tremble. "No. [-] what?"

"The Eighth Legion." The pharmacist replied with a cold voice.

Navarro Delkunas gasped.

He immediately tried to pass out, but coughed violently from inhaling too much dust.

His face turned red, not sure whether it was because of his cough or because of the pharmacist's affirmative answer.Half a minute later, he managed to calm down, and the first thing he did was to stand up immediately, straighten his chest, and speak in a loud voice.

"Please allow me to introduce myself, my lords, I am Navarro from the Delkunas family. I am a completely law-abiding rogue. There is no contraband on my ship - well, maybe there is. A few things, but I believe you adults won’t do anything to me for this, right?”

"Unless what you're smuggling is pure gold," Khalil said. "or something else"

"Of course not!" Navarro quickly denied. "I'm just a little rogue, how could I smuggle those precious treasures - no, no, I have always abided by the law and there is no way I would do these things in violation of the rules."

Having said that, he realized something was wrong, and quickly changed the subject.

"Ah, you must have saved me from the clutches of the orcs, right?"

He rolled his eyes and observed the three of them carefully.The posture was extremely humble, almost groveling.However, as he looked at it, he began to feel more and more that something was wrong.

——Why is this instructor Khalil Lohars so tall?Wait, and his armor?

"Yes, it's me." Khalil nodded to him. "So, your statement is correct. But I don't think those orcs can survive the raid launched by Your Excellency. Your four naval pistols are rare treasures, and the handles are even engraved with the name of the ship. "

He paused for a moment and smiled suddenly.

"This means that their previous owners were all high-ranking officers in the Imperial fleet, and the Empire expressly prohibits officers from selling the weapons they received in any form. I want to know how you got them, Nah Captain Varro Delkunas?”

Navarro was silent for more than ten seconds.In these ten seconds, he recalled his entire life.

During his unfortunate childhood, his family's power collapsed, and he was chosen to be the keeper of the diary. He took it with him to travel across the stars and could not return to his hometown for the rest of his life.
From a pampered aristocratic boy to a bohemian trader - and then, this is the origin of these four pistols.He won them in a bet with one of his colleagues.But now, his intestines were filled with regret.

Why am I so unlucky? !Even if I encounter orcs, why is it that the legendary Eighth Legion came to support me?
O Emperor, if you are indeed a god as your son Lorgar Aurelion preaches, I, Navarro Delkunas, pray to you sincerely. Protect me in the hands of your Eighth Legion.
I don’t want to be skinned and cramped and hung from the bow of a ship like the people in those stories!

"me"

"you?"

"I" Navarro Delkunas took a deep breath. "If I said that these four guns are the trophies I won from gambling, would you believe it?"

"Maybe," Khalil said noncommittally. "After all, Rogue Traders are synonymous with great powers, aren't they? Connections and wealth. As long as you hold the trade license for a day, you will not be short of these things. And of course we will not be bored enough to come here to trouble you. .”

Navarro looked at him in confusion, and he keenly smelled some hint from the other person's words.

"You, what do you mean?"

Khalil stretched out his right hand and showed the brass diary to its owner with two fingers.

"I mean it's very simple," Khalil said. "I just want to ask you to explain the contents of this diary to me. Although this matter is not within the scope of our responsibilities, who let us encounter it? Moreover, we just have nothing to do now. "

Navarro Delkunas's expression quickly changed to one of despair.

　and also.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)