Starting from the Dragon Tribe!

Starting From the Dragon Tribe

Chapter 40: The Journey Back, and a Suspicion

“Which one is it? This one? Or this one?” Lu Chen’s eyes flitted around, his fingers pinching the left card, then gripping the card on the right, but his opponent was unflinching. A poker face was the best face.

Finally, Lu Chen had no choice but to bet on luck. He drew a card; it was the Joker. He immediately deflated.

“Junior Brother, it’s your loss again,” Lutecia laughed as she said nearby. Chu Zihang took his cards back and reshuffled them with a composed look.

They were on the journey back, and due to boredom, Lu Chen, Chu Zihang, Susie, Milana, and Lutecia were playing Draw the Joker. As for Lancelot, because his injuries were too severe, he was being treated at the local hospital. Once his condition stabilized, he would then be transferred back to campus.

Draw the Joker is a simple game: take turns drawing cards in order. Players then discard any pairs they have. They then offer their cards facedown for the person on their left to choose. The game continues, with players drawing cards and discarding pairs until no pairs can be dropped. Whoever ends up with the Joker by then loses. (See, Old Maid)

But the strange thing was that Lu Chen never won a single game.

Forget about Chu Zihang, who was born with a poker face, Lutecia and the other girls were also extremely serious while playing the game. It was as if it was a secret service training class.

But Lu Chen’s luck was horrible; every single time, he drew horrible cards. Yet, every time Milana drew her cards, she was able to discard more than half of them immediately. How unfair.

***

Ding—!

Everyone’s Pads lit up. Lu Chen saw that it was a call from the college.

On the Pads was the follow-up of their mission. The fire in Redhill Park was spun as a tragic incident caused by the dry weather and a tourist throwing a burning cigarette into the forest.

And because of the source of this incident, the five deceased young masters of rich households, plus Marissa, were reported to have been accidentally killed as a result of a home invasion, and that the culprit had been caught already.

And the parents of those people only got word of their deaths in the past two days. Lu Chen originally thought they were way too careless: they’d been missing for several weeks already.

But it was only after that he found out that these young people would usually sneak out, sometimes up to two months. No one expected them to die after disappearing for less than a month.

And of course those parents did not fully accept such a sloppy and hasty statement. Just the fact that the ‘police’ wouldn’t let them see the bodies was suspicious enough. So the college later intervened to give them some ‘psychological counseling.’

Swipe, swipe, swipe. He kept swiping until he reached the end, where it displayed information about those teenagers, details of the cause of the incident, and even miscellaneous details. Lu Chen shut the Pad off.

“They sure know how to play around,” He snickered.

Everyone else knew what Lu Chen was referring to.

“Western countries are indeed more open.” Chu Zihang’s simple comment caused the two women across the table to glare at him with displeasure.

“Who said that? True ladies practice self-love!” Lutecia retorted. The details of the matter were too explicit for a girl like her, who had an aristocratic upbringing. And Milana was the same. She turned off the Pad halfway; it was too much for her eyes to handle.

But Susie quietly nodded toward Chu Zihang’s direction, seemingly agreeing with his perspective.

“After returning to school, Junior Brother, aren’t you going to succeed the throne?” Lutecia changed the topic.

“Succeed the throne? Why does it sound like it’s becoming an emperor?” Lu Chen didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, but this mission did result in him taking a step closer to the throne of Lionheart Society. His first mission was AA level, and he was instrumental in turning the tide. It was said that in addition to Fremont reporting his own negligence within the mission report, he also heavily praised Lu Chen.

He even included the words, “We should not set aside the great sword that is Lu Chen just because he is only a first-year student,” clearly indicating his desire for Lu Chen to be more active in the Execution Bureau.

Lu Chen had no problem with that, of course. Compared to listening to lectures in college, finding high-risk hybrid species to cut apart was more interesting.

“In reality, this mission still has a lot of suspicious factors and unexplained circumstances,” Lutecia slightly frowned as she remarked.

“What’s wrong?” Milana confusedly asked.

“For example, I don’t know if it’s because of Albert’s bloodline awakening, and he’s admittedly not bad-looking, but I don’t think he’d have been able to charm that many pretty girls and take them back to their place in such a short time. Also, what kind of godly charisma would it take for them to follow a guy they knew for less than a day to a place that’s clearly dangerous, like a backwater trail, or Redhill Park during the night?”

At this point, Lu Chen interjected, “You went there, Senior Sister, and it was you who brought him there.”

Lutecia rolled her eyes. “Your Senior Sister did that for the sake of the mission, can that be considered the same? Don’t interrupt me; I haven’t finished yet.”

Lu Chen shrugged and gestured for her to continue.

“Think about it, those victimized women, their looks were one in a million. The number of suitors must’ve been countless. They’d all have to have been veterans in the dating scene. Would they realistically have been taken in by a wimpy dog in a single day? Of course, Albert was a wolf in the skin of a wimpy dog.”

Lutecia’s words were thought-provoking, and Milana raised her hand to speak, “Senior Sister does have a point. Is it possible that he had some special hybrid abilities that were used to manipulate these women?”

Susie shook her head, “Albert’s Kotodama was Bronze Throne, and other than pureblood dragonkin, no one can possess two Kotodama. Even if he continued to dragonize even further, he still wouldn’t have been able to change that.”

“Maybe he used drugs?” Chu Zihang raised a hand, but he was greeted by several strange looks.

Chu Zihang’s face remained blank, making people fully believe that he was only making this point from an academic perspective.

“The Execution Bureau’s forensic scientists previously examined the victim’s remains and found no traces of drugs.” Lutecia ruled out this possibility.

“Senior Sister, are you suggesting that… in this incident, there were others helping Albert?” Lu Chen raised his head, his voice revealing his shock. The others were similarly horrified.

“I don’t know, but this series of events has many details that cannot be explained, which is why I didn’t suspect Albert. If there really are other people behind this helping Albert… then I’m afraid that…” Lutecia didn’t finish her sentence, but everyone understood what she meant.

Then this matter could be very complicated, far from the likes of an AA level mission. Even Albert’s awakening was fishy.

An ordinary teenager, from using Blood Rage, to dragonizing to such an extent while in combat with the Execution Bureau… it just wasn’t normal.

If his blood was so outstanding yet unstable, it should’ve showed already long before he reached seventeen years old. What happened to Albert was as if… some external force had aided him.

Chu Zihang also became deep in thought. He originally supported the idea that Albert forcibly awakened his blood, because he was the best example of someone who did so.

But after he thought some more, his physical capabilities were already unusually outstanding before he had awakened his blood, but he saw even more substantial improvement afterwards.

“So, Junior Brother, you should’ve left him alive back then,” Lutecia said with a playful smile.

“My bad,” Lu Chen shrugged helplessly, thinking, if I hadn’t killed him, he would’ve eaten you.

“Forget it, I’ve already written the report anyway, it’s the Execution Bureau’s problem now. Our mission this time was to hunt and kill Slaughter. This mission has ended; what happens afterward isn’t our problem anymore.” Lutecia stretched, showing her pretty curves, as she looked at the floating clouds outside.

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