450 Chapter 450: Amount of Cooperation is Ling Dan

The joke might be lost in translation, but basically "Ling Dan" was honophonic with "zero". You know, when a Chinese student gets absolutely zero on a test, they called it "ling dan." Yeah, sorry for making Chinese jokes, but it is a little hard to write something that catered to both English and Chinese readers while wanting to make all these stupid pun jokes.

Anyway, Ling Dan was no longer my responsibility. I dumped it on Feng Hai, who in turn referred the unconscious receptarier to Docotor Dorden to monitor his vitals and health. I then briefed Feng Hai on what happened and why I was forced to knock him out.

"He actually attacked you?!" Feng Hai was surprised. I nodded, understanding his skepticism. After all, we were supposed to rescue a hostage who was supposedly incarcerated by the notoriously cruel Dark Church. He shouldn't be in any shape to assault anyone, yet he did when I opened the door for him.

"Brother Richard isn't lying! I was there too! We saw everything!"

"We can testify as witnesses too," Melina added to reinforce Adrian's declaration. Feng Hai raised a hand.

"No, I definitely trust Richard. I'm just…surprised. That's all. I never thought Ling Dan would be so violent."

"Yeah, I wasn't aware that receptariers could fight." I rubbed at my cheek absently, adjusting my glasses as I did so. "He was unleashing fire spells at me, but they didn't feel like normal fire spells. They were of weird colors."

"Purple and green in color!" Adrian added helpfully, and I nodded to confirm his statement.

"Well, duh." For some reason, Feng Hai was scoffing. "This is Ling Dan, the legendary receptarier we're talking about here! He's known as the Flame Emperor, and he's capable of wielding the Heavenly Flames!"

"I thought we already established that this isn't the guy who's ripping off the main character from Battle Through The Heavens," I muttered as I slapped my forehead in exasperation. Feng Hai shrugged nonchalantly.

"Does it really matter? The fact of the matter is that he attacked you with Heavenly Flames. There's no use denying that he's a blatant copy of Xiao Yan. That's the reason why he looks so young – he's supposed to be this unprecedented genius who excels at both medicine making and combat. Not to mention, he'll have a harem of his own. I heard that he's currently engaged to his childhood friend who is almost like his sister…as long as he can get approval from her clan."

"Are you kidding me?!"

"Anyway, you don't have to worry about this. I'll take over from here. You did a great job, all three of you." Feng Hai swept his gaze from me to the two kids, and smiled in satisfaction. "You should get some rest now."

Without me realizing, the Silver Wolves had set up camp at the edge of the forest. I raised an eyebrow, wondering if this was wise. Wouldn't it be a better idea to escape from here as soon as possible? The enemy's base was just next to us, and the forest wouldn't conceal our presence for long.

Feng Hai must have seen my skeptical expression, for he chuckled and patted my shoulder reassuringly.

"Don't worry. I want to monitor the Dark Church's base for a bit longer, and get a bit more intelligence." He scowled. "We'll return back here to wipe them out, so I want to get as much information as possible. Besides…" he glanced in the direction of the medical tent, where Doctor Dorden was tending to Xiao Yan…I mean, Ling Dan. "We have several people who can't move much at the moment. We'll wait for a couple of hours for them to recover first, before we set off."

Apparently there were a few mercenaries who had sustained injuries during the conflict against the Barbaric Baboons. As I said, even though they were estimated to only be rank D, that didn't mean they should be underestimated.

The human body was still very fragile, especially when compared to the tenacious physical anatomies of monsters. A single claw strike to our vitals, such as our hearts, or a crushing blow to our heads would still kill us. Even with physical reinforcement spells, that didn't make us immortal. One wrong move, and even the lowest ranked monsters could kill us. Yeah, it wasn't very likely, but it wasn't impossible. Reality didn't work like a game where you had stats or HP, where a level 1 monster would deal 1 damage to you in a pathetic manner and find it hard to defeat you and your 100 HP.

No, here…if you take a blow to the heart or head, or any of your vitals, you were dead. Monsters still possessed all sorts of lethal weapons, regardless of their rank. Even a toddler could kill an adult black belt martial artist if he or she was armed with a gun or knife. Yeah, it wasn't very likely, given that they lacked the training or didn't know how to handle the weapon, but if they were lucky enough (and their opponent was incredibly unlucky), a stab from the knife into the eye or chest, or the accidental discharge of the gun was more than enough to kill the highly trained black belt martial artist.

Stranger things had happened, yes, and there were no guarantees in life. Being of a high rank didn't automatically guarantee that you will definitely win against anyone who was ranked lower. I still didn't understand the readers' obsession with ranks, levels and stats – these were all meaningless in the face of reality.

"Okay."

But I didn't care about that. Right now I was too exhausted to bother with semantics and debate. I just wanted to drop down and rest. And so I did just that, leading Adrian and Melina into our tent. The Silver Wolves had been super helpful enough to assist us in setting it up for us, while the three of us went to infiltrate the enemy base.

Without any hesitation, I dropped down into a makeshift sleeping bag and dozed off immediately. I didn't know what Adrian and Melina did, but I was pretty sure they followed my example and lay down to get some rest.

The mission had been both physically and mentally exhausting, after all.

*

I woke up abruptly when a loud noise cut through the wilderness, penetrating the thick canvas layer of my tent and stabbing into my ears.

"What the fuck?!" I snapped irritably, still feeling very drowsy.

It didn't take long for me to rise to full wakefulness and find out what was going on. Apparently Ling Dan had finally woken up, and was making a racket.

"Let me go!" he was yelling.

"Quiet!" Feng Hai snapped at him at the same moment I exited the tent I shared with Adrian and Melina. "Do you want the Dark Church to hear us? Do you want to get captured again?"

At that, Ling Dan naturally shut up. He glared at us resentfully. Feng Hai shook his head and sighed, and then gave me a look that suggested that he finally knew what I was talking about.

"We are here to help."

"I never asked you to save me."

"Should we throw you back to the Dark Church then?" Glacia asked icily, having enough of the fucker's nonsense. Ling Dan went very pale.

"You can't do that!"

"Then shut up and listen to us!"

"No," Ling Dan sneered. "I have no obligation to listen to you guys."

"You do realize we were the ones who rescued you, right?" Redfield growled impatiently, his fists clenched.

"Like I said, I never asked!"

"So we should throw you back to the Dark Church," Glacia repeated coldly, to which Ling Dan shook his hands, flustered.

"No! You can't do that! You…you monsters!"

"How rich, an ungrateful bastard calling his saviors names." Redfield was disgusted.

"I told you, I never asked…"

"It's basic human decency. Or what, you're going to claim that you would have broken out of the prison cell and escape on your own?" Redfield countered.

"I would have," Ling Dan insisted. "I'm not a newb like you. I'm perfectly capable of escaping on my own."

"Why don't you prove it then?" Redfield sneered. "We'll throw you back in there and watch as you perform your oh-so-professional escape."

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Why wouldn't we?" Feng Hai asked frostily. "You dared to attack us and spout such ungrateful nonsense even after we risked so much, so why wouldn't we dare throw you back in there?"

"Like I said, nobody asked…"

"Sure, but I'm certain my men will be asking me to throw you back to the Dark Church. And the Dark Church would love to have you back with them. I'm thinking it's a better idea to oblige them." Feng Hai nodded as a tightening circle of Silver Wolves closed around the trembling Ling Dan.

The receptarier growled in fury and heavenly flames burst into life around his hands. However, they were immediately frozen by Glacia's spell – the ice mage merely waved a hand and entombed him in ice. She wasn't alone – I was there to reinforce her ice spells with my own gradually developing ice magic along with a few other ice mages in the mercenary group.

"You can't do this!" Ling Dan howled.

"You're the one who forced our hands," Feng Hai replied flatly. "You assaulted my team, tried to escape on your own, and put my men at risk with your stunts. We don't need your gratitude, but your attitude is jeopardizing my team's safety. I will happily deliver you back to the Dark Church if you don't stop you bullshit."

"Ugh…!" Ling Dan bristled. "You only saved me for your agenda anyway, didn't you!? You have some ulterior motive in saving me – you wouldn't be so altruistic otherwise!"

"I won't deny that." Feng Hai shrugged. "We currently have a comrade who is suffering from the Woeful Poison Body and is unable to suppress her rampaging powers. Her life isn't in danger, but we're trying to help her control her magic so that she wouldn't accidentally kill other people. Teacher Cure says you might be abe to help with that."

"Teacher Cure…?" Ling Dan frowned for a moment, and then went still. "Don't tell me you know Mary Cure?"

"She is my teacher at Jing Tian Academy, and the one who suggested that you might be here." I could almost hear the gears grinding in Feng Hai's mind as realization dawned on him. This wasn't a coincidence. Teacher Cure didn't send us here randomly or happened to hear about the rumor regarding Ling Dan's location. She definitely knew something, at least a lot more than she let on. I wouldn't be surprised if she even knew that Ling Dan was captured by the Dark Church, and sent us to rescue him.

But why didn't she just inform us about the Dark Church and give us whatever intelligence she possessed from the start? Was she afraid that we wouldn't storm the Dark Church's base if we knew about it? That made no sense.

"Hmph. That girl, always looking out for me." Ling Dan snorted, and then turned his head away. "But I never asked her."

"For now, we'll just bring you back…as long as you cooperate and stop pulling your stunts by sneaking away, attacking my men and escaping on your own." Feng Hai folded his arms. "You can choose whether you want to help us with Anastasia's case or not after we return."

I could see the dismay on the other Silver Wolves' faces. Even I felt a hint of frustration. We came all this way, spent all this time, and went through all this trouble for this ungrateful bastard…in return for nothing? Yeah, true…it wasn't as if I would have saved him just because he could offer something in return. That was the essence of being a hero. But it was still frustrating nonetheless to find that someone you helped refused to assist you in return.

Not to mention, his rude and arrogant attitude made it several times worse.

"Hmph! Why should I help you?" Ling Dan sneered. "Go to hell. There's no hope for your friend with the Woeful Poison Body. He can die pathetically like the poison user he is."

"She," Feng Hai corrected. "And we're willing to pay and reimburse you if you're willing to develop a medicine to help her."

At the mention of money, Ling Dan's eyes lit up. He nodded.

"I charge a high price for my services. I don't care if you saved me or not, I'm not going to give you a discount."

"Money won't be a problem. Name your price."

"Also…bring me to her, and I'll see what I can do."

There was something about his tone and I caught a glimpse of a licentious glint his eyes when he said that. Something gripped my heart uncomfortably and I frowned. This guy…his attitude changed slightly when he heard that Anastasia was a girl (did he not recognize the name as feminine? Whatever). No doubt he had some ulterior motives of his own for listening to our request.

I vowed to keep a close eye on this bastard…if not for Ana's sake, then my own.