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

The second half of the year had arrived, and Durin was quite keen to take on assignments, but unfortunately, everyone had heard last year that Lord Durin intended to retire, so they all kept their distance, none approaching Durin to discuss new projects.


Experience diminished with use; once over a billion, it had dropped to just thirty million after Durin's promotion against the Candle Dragon.


"Your baldness won't go unnoticed, and it'll get you stabbed in the side," Big Orange sarcastically remarked.


With no alternative, Durin obediently participated in the military academy's opening ceremony—since Durin's troops had engaged in combat in the Foresty Land, this year's enrollment numbers at the Austria-Lublin Joint Military School had reached a staggering three thousand three hundred sixty-seven.


Chapter 186: New Semester