Chapter 565 - 561 – HUNTING PREPARATIONS, MORNING BREAKFAST, AND THE ELDER SISTER’S LECTURE

Morning sunlight streamed in through the gigantic glass windows on the fiftieth floor of the Silver Tower Apartment Building. The golden light illuminated the white marble floor, bringing a warmth that woke Sylvia from her dreamless deep sleep. The Queen of Death slowly opened her heterochromatic eyes and stretched her body gracefully upon the thick fur-blanketed mattress.

Today, Sylvia had a new agenda. After spending her first day shopping, relaxing, and obtaining a comfortable place to stay, she felt her body needed a little stretching. She wanted to see firsthand what the quality of the high-rank monsters outside the walls of Black Lotus City was like.

Although the Hunter Association was the center of activity for Zombie Hunters and Tamers, Sylvia knew she did not need to waste time going there. In this border city there was no such thing as "bulletin-board missions" for hunting ordinary monsters. Missions from the Association were usually only special requests from nobles or the military directed specifically at high-ranking individual hunters or particular mercenary groups. To simply go out and hunt for mana cores or material resources, a hunter was free to leave at any time.

Sylvia rose from her bed and walked toward the crystal mirror in the corner of the room. She regarded the black silk evening gown she usually wore.

"This gown is indeed elegant," Sylvia murmured while touching the lace at the end of her sleeve. "But it is too conspicuous and impractical for leaping between mutant trees or avoiding monster blood splatters. I need something more flexible."

With a flick of her fingers, spatial energy rippled around her body. Her sleepwear vanished, replaced by a set of far more casual clothing that fit the contours of her body perfectly.

Now Sylvia wore a deep-black sports bra made of flexible magical carbon fiber harder than steel, exposing her flat and pale-white abdomen. She wrapped the outer layer with a tactical leather jacket that fit her body, left unbuttoned at the front. For the lower half she chose long dark-gray leggings that were extremely tight, revealing the silhouette of her long and athletic legs, paired with a pair of knee-high combat boots.

Her appearance had now changed drastically. From a mysterious noble girl, she had become an elite fighter radiating a dangerous yet extremely captivating aura.

"Better," Sylvia said with satisfaction, lightly brushing imaginary dust from her jacket.

Sol, who had just woken up, meowed softly and leapt nimbly onto Sylvia’s shoulder. Meanwhile Noir emerged from the shadow in the corner of the room, ready to follow its master.

Before going outside the city, Sylvia decided to look for breakfast. She descended from her apartment and walked along the middle district that had already begun to grow busy with morning activity. Unlike the night market filled with magical goods, the morning market in this area was filled with hot steam and the aroma of cooking.

Sylvia’s steps stopped in front of a semi-open breakfast stall that was very crowded with citizens and several low-class hunters. Smoke billowed from a gigantic wok filled with hot oil. Inside it, the vendor was frying long strips of dough about thirty centimeters in length that puffed up and turned golden-brown.

Sylvia observed the fried dough with raised eyebrows. In the Kingdom of Nocture, the availability of cuisine was never a problem at all. Her kingdom’s civilization was so advanced that every dish from the pre-apocalypse era from pizza layered with melted cheese, premium meat burgers, to five-star quality steak was available and routinely served at her dining table. However, Sylvia was not particularly familiar with the variety of typical Asian street foods. Of the many Eastern cuisines, the ones she knew and often enjoyed were only ramen and sushi.

Yet when her eyes fell upon the large wooden barrel beside the frying wok that emitted white steam with a distinctive plant-based aroma, Sylvia immediately recognized it.

Ah, soy milk, she thought. In that case, this long fried bread must be its companion.

"Give me ten portions of that long fried bread," Sylvia said to the busy vendor, pointing toward the wok. "And ten bowls of that pure soy milk as well."

"Ah, Miss! Ten portions of warm youtiao and fresh soy milk coming right up!" the vendor answered with a wide smile, slightly captivated by Sylvia’s extremely fashionable and beautiful appearance. "The best combination for starting the morning before hunting!"

Sylvia placed a small fragment of a monster core as payment, whose value far exceeded the price of the breakfast, causing the vendor to bow repeatedly in delight.

Sylvia carried the large tray containing her food to an empty table in the corner of the stall. She distributed three portions of youtiao and bowls of soy milk each to Sol and Noir, and the rest for herself.

Sol, in its golden-cat form, dipped its nose into the warm soy milk and immediately licked it rapidly. Its eyes sparkled with happiness upon tasting the refreshing sweet and savory flavor. It then bit into the fried youtiao with enthusiasm. On the other side, Noir stared at the long fried bread for a moment, then without preamble opened its jaws wide and swallowed three whole pieces of youtiao at once without chewing, before gulping down its bowl of soy milk in a single swallow.

Sylvia ate in a far more elegant manner. She tore the youtiao that was crispy on the outside yet hollow and soft on the inside, dipped it slightly into the hot soy milk, then chewed it slowly. "Simple, warm, and sufficiently nutritious. This fried bread reminds me of the edge of a pizza without toppings, but lighter."

After a satisfying breakfast, Sylvia rose and walked straight toward the eastern gate of Black Lotus City.

Unlike the long queues when entering, the exit path from the city was far more empty. When Sylvia approached the gate, the guard soldiers who recognized her black-gold VIP Access Card immediately stood upright and gave a weapon salute, allowing her to pass without any questions.

The moment she passed through the city’s magic dome, the fresh morning air mixed with the smells of rust, moss, and a slight fishy scent of mutation radiation immediately welcomed her. The ruins of concrete elevated highways and the mutated wilderness forest stretched widely before her.

Sylvia did not immediately shoot into the forest. She stopped her steps atop a rusted car already overgrown with climbing plants.

"Searching for targets blindly by walking is too much of a waste of time," Sylvia murmured. She raised her left hand. From within her spatial ring appeared a small silver metal box the size of a palm.

The box opened with a soft ’click’. From inside it scattered hundreds of mechanical objects the size of a thumb. The objects resembled steel mosquitoes, with transparent wings that vibrated while radiating an extremely thin blue mana flow, and small crystal eyes that glowed red.

Those were Scanner Mosquito Drones, a mechanical masterpiece Sylvia had created herself during the time she was bored inside the ship.

Sylvia touched the communication bracelet on her left wrist. The bracelet projected a blue holographic interface screen into the air. "Disperse. Scan a radius of fifty kilometers. Search for mana energy fluctuations of Rank 5 and above," Sylvia commanded.

The hundreds of mosquito drones immediately shot off in every direction, entering the dense forest and vanishing from sight like micro guided missiles.

While waiting for her mechanical mosquitoes to map the border region, Sylvia sat leisurely atop the roof of the rusted car. She slid the holographic screen on her bracelet and opened the internal social network of the Dreadnought ship, a platform she had designed herself so as not to grow bored during the journey.

Sylvia read several complaints from her ship’s crew on the screen.

[Daily Captain Log]: 02:00 hours. Radar detected a gigantic mutated sea monster resembling a 300-meter octopus approaching the left hull of the ship.

[Weapons System Log]: Spatial Anomaly Cannon No. 4 activated. Target confirmed obliterated.

[Crew Log]: Oh my god, the sound of the cannon last night made me drop my night-shift pizza ration. Do these octopuses in the ocean not know how to read the death aura of our ship? So stupid.

Sylvia chuckled softly while reading the post. She then pressed the video-call button, contacting one name who was certainly currently in a fluster: Stacia.

Stacia was not merely her deputy general. The woman with golden-gray hair was her own elder sister. Although hierarchically Sylvia was the Queen of Death, behind the scenes their relationship was far from rigid or formal.

The screen flickered briefly before Stacia’s face appeared. Her elder sister’s appearance was very far from neat. Her hair was slightly messy and tied carelessly, her reading glasses had slipped down her nose, and a high stack of documents was piled on her work desk.

"Oh, look who finally remembered to contact this poor elder sister of hers," Stacia snorted, narrowing her eyes as she stared at her younger sister through the holographic screen. "Hello, my honored little sister as well as the Queen whose only job is to wander around. Do you need orbital cannon support from the ship to level the city where you are currently playing?"

"Good morning to you as well, dear Stacia," Sylvia teased with a deliberately sweet smile, waving her hand casually. "No need for cannons; this city is pleasant enough to stay in. How are you and our ship? Did the octopus last night cause any trouble?"

Hearing that, a vein on Stacia’s forehead appeared to bulge. The elder sister let out a long sigh, holding back her frustration.

"The ship is in perfect condition, of course! Except for the fact that a gigantic mutated octopus tried to hug our ship’s hull at two in the morning, followed by a flock of bone birds seeking death at dawn," Stacia lectured in a rapid tone. "But the main problem is not those stupid monsters, Sylvia. The main problem is this damn pile of documents!"

Stacia pointed toward the stack of parchments behind her with her quill pen. "Without you here, the bureaucracy of guard-schedule distribution, logistics budgeting, and core-reactor management has to be handled by me! So tell me, when do you plan to return and do your job as a proper ruler?"

Sylvia smiled mischievously, twirling the tip of her black hair with her index finger. "Hmm... I think I will be here for quite a while. Maybe a few weeks? Or a few months? The air on this new land is very good for my skin, you know? Besides, you are such a great elder sister; you can definitely handle everything!"

"SYLVIA!" Stacia’s voice rose to a screech, completely discarding any formality. "You cannot dump all this administrative work on me just because you want a vacation and to roleplay as an ordinary girl at the border..."

"Oops, the signal seems bad, Stacia! It’s cutting out! My mosquitoes have already returned with the data. Take good care of the fleet, Sis! Bye~!"

Click.

Sylvia immediately cut the communication connection unilaterally with a wide, guilt-free smile.

It took only three seconds before her bracelet rang Ping! Ping! Ping! in rapid succession. Sylvia opened the incoming text notifications. The screen was immediately filled with a string of messages from Stacia. Instead of military reports, the content was purely an outpouring of an elder sister’s anger filled with typical sibling scolding, curses about documents, and several pink skull emojis inserted at the end of the warning sentences.

Sylvia could only laugh until she held her stomach. "Ah, making Stacia’s blood pressure rise in the morning is always the best entertainment."

Her laughter gradually subsided when the interface screen on her bracelet changed into a three-dimensional topographic map. Hundreds of small dots blinked on the map, sending real-time data from the Scanner Mosquito Drones.

On that screen there were two types of colored dots. Gray dots represented packs of living dead or mutated zombies, while red dots indicated mutated beasts.

"Let us filter the screen," Sylvia said while tapping the holographic screen. "Remove all signals from living-dead entities. Leave only Rank 6 and above mutated beasts."

Instantly, nearly ninety percent of the dots on the screen disappeared, leaving three clusters of red dots to the north and northeast.

The reason Sylvia ignored the zombie signals was extremely simple and logical. As the Queen of Death whose existence was the peak of the necromantic hierarchy, the underworld submitted to her absolutely. If she deliberately went to a mutated-zombie nest to "hunt," the packs of monsters regarded as humanity’s nightmare on this continent would not deign to fight her.

Instead of attacking, those zombies would simply throw themselves to the ground, prostrate en masse, and worship her like a goddess. Hunting zombies for Sylvia was as boring as picking up motionless pebbles. There was no sensation of battle, no challenge at all.

"Mutated beasts are a far more reasonable choice," Sylvia murmured, her eyes staring sharply toward the deepest red-dot cluster about twenty kilometers from her position. "Wild animals at least still possess remnants of territorial-defense instincts. They are crazy enough to attack anything that enters their nest, even if it is a god. I need targets that can put up a little resistance."

She rose from atop the worn-out car, stretching her legs wrapped in tight leggings. The death aura and mana pressure she usually kept tightly suppressed were now allowed to leak out very thinly, merging with the savagery of the border air.

"Sol, Noir," Sylvia called, a hunter’s smile blooming on her red lips as she regarded her two pets. "Let us move. Let us see how tough the monsters that regard themselves as rulers of the jungle in this world really are."

The two dragons responded with low growls that shook the air around them. With a single light stamp of her foot that was somehow enough to crush the roof of the rusted car into pieces, Sylvia’s body shot into the air like a black arrow piercing the wilderness.