Half-step Purgatory

Durin stroked the black cat on the armrest of his chair, sitting on the black leather sofa. Through the glasses perched on his nose, his gaze passed over the long table in front of him and settled on the man kneeling on the carpet:
"I understand, you've made money in Naples, your business has been very successful, and you've led a happy life. You've had those secret police, friends in both the law and the underground, and even the Royal Family speaking on your behalf."
"You don't need a friend like me, I know that. You're afraid of owing me a favor, and you don't want to get involved in troubles."
"But now you come to me and say, 'I beg you, Mr. Durin of the Corleon family, please help me seek justice, so that my life and my family will not suffer and sink into despair.'
Yet, in your eyes, I was nothing more than a second-rate artist involved in movies and music. Even at the brink of death, you still show me such disrespect, not even willing to call me by my title... Keeper of Secrets."

Durin's Diary

As dawn broke once again, when the tide-like green-skinned orcs retreated, when there was no longer anything alive that sought desperately to kill him.


Rota, trembling, fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket.


A week prior, Rota had never smoked, because he thought cigarettes were bad for the lungs, the arch-enemy of life.


But today, he felt that one more wouldn't do much harm — after all, everyone has to die, whether it's at ninety, incontinent in bed, or at seventy, from some lung issue that causes you to drop dead. It sounds like you're losing twenty years, but in terms of suffering, there's no difference.


At least the latter wouldn't have to endure the pain of living like the former.


He lit his cigarette from a burning piece of wood nearby, and took a satisfying drag.


At that moment, a green-skin struggled to rise from the pile of corpses.


Chapter 155: Allocating Merits