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

Old Klein fell silent the moment he returned because in his memory, Marsala was a city built atop a hillock, with towering city walls, dense watchtowers, and green-skinned orcs who would occasionally come ashore to stir up trouble, engaging with the armed citizens in the streets and alleys of Marsala now and then.


But now the city had enlarged several times over; green-skinned orcs had become a cherished species for viewing in cages,


and he watched the scene—where one even needed to buy a ticket to get in—very silently.


"Old Klein, your memories are all out of date," Ulyula said with his hands in his pockets and shaking his foot, the old gnome sighed while looking down the street: "By the way, do you still remember the way?"


"The Marsala in my memory, it wasn't like this," the old vampire sighed deeply.


Durin turned to the secretary, who nodded: "Seventy-eight years ago, there was a fire in Marsala. The old district was almost completely burned down."


Chapter 314: Lights