*Was I always unlucky?*
Upon hearing the lazy young man’s inquiry, Leon, who was previously excited, suddenly became serious and hurriedly asked,
"Yes! My luck had never been great. No matter how well I planned, something would always go wrong during missions, and I’d always encounter inexplicable dangers. I even once witnessed an Anomalous Object go berserk at a theater... Senior, do you have any insights?"
"Insights... rather than insights, it’s more like experience..."
After tossing the sour apple in his hand, hitting and skewing the picture frame on the side of the staircase wall, the lazy young man said with a bitter expression,
"If I’m guessing correctly, our situations should be similar. We’ve both angered the world will by doing certain things and become disliked by this world."
"Disliked by the world? What does that mean?"
"To put it simply, it means inexplicable bad luck and misfortune."
Glancing at the picture frame that was slowly coming off the hook and falling toward the staircase, the lazy young man pulled Leon a step forward and sighed,
*I don’t know about your situation, but my situation was that I revealed too much of the future and erased some things that were supposed to happen, causing considerable changes in the course of the world, which made me despised by the world will.*
"For instance... you know the Aquarius Director, right? Did the Director ever tell you that my core Anomalous Object, those probability-calculating dice, was something he helped create?"
"He did mention something like that..."
"If the Director told you about it, then it wasn’t just ’something,’ he’d have said a lot."
The lazy young man said somewhat helplessly,
"Did he also tell you to be cautious of me and not to trust me completely?"
"That’s fine, the Director was right."
With a loud crash of the heavy solid wood picture frame breaking and damaging the stair railing in the background, the lazy young man explained to a somewhat embarrassed Leon,
"The Aquarius Director’s target was exposed by you, and now all the operational members of the department know that he intended to infiltrate the Watcher’s Palace. But this target of his, I was actually the first to know, and I was practically in cahoots with him, so the Director was right to warn you about me."
"Yeah, it was mostly my bad luck..."
After sighing quietly, the lazy young man grumbled with a difficult expression,
"When the Anomalous Objects were first created, the Aquarius Director asked about my Ability, and I told him. He got interested and said he wanted me to help him with a small favor.
The Aquarius Director’s Abnormal Genesis Sorcery is quite proficient, and countless people in the Purification Bureau have used the Anomalous Objects he created. His connections with Taurus His Excellency are on par, and when such a bigshot asks nicely for your help, would you refuse?"
*If it were me... Facing the request from a Director with high reputation and status, and who could create Anomalous Objects, I would probably also agree...*
Seeing the agreement in Leon’s eyes, the lazy young man couldn’t help complaining,
"I was really unlucky. Who would’ve known that a Director could harbor malicious intentions? So I agreed without thinking, and only realized something was off when he put a word spirit on me to prevent leaking the secret. But by then it was too late."
Avoiding the railing that fell to the side after being broken, and giving Leon’s back a push, he led him down before the suspended stone staircase collapsed, then Tom said grimly,
"The Aquarius Director had a ritual-kind of Anomalous Object that could temporarily boost the Leon Value. He force-fed me a lot of Divine Flesh, temporarily changed my race, and forced me to drink his blood, cut open my arm to insert his rotten flesh, and planted his fallen tooth in my forehead..."
Pointing to the strange scar on his forehead, the lazy young man gritted his teeth and said,
"After tormenting me , he temporarily raised my Leon Value to nearly 70 points, then forced me to use the dice to help him calculate how he could replace the next Ascension Palace Person, becoming the new Ascendant to take over the Watcher’s Palace.
Out of sheer necessity, I helped him boost his mere 12% coup probability to 66%, but this also made me despised by the world. Now, I end up with bad luck whenever... Hey! Is anyone up there? The staircase just collapsed, we’re stuck!"
Unaware that the person below asking was the culprit who destroyed nearly fifty meters of the staircase, upon hearing Senior Tom’s question, someone above who rushed over to the commotion hurriedly responded,
"We are figuring out a way... How are you doing? If you’re uncomfortable, please continue downward. Our family’s head is also down there, he can get you back up. Also, this is the token needed to continue downward, catch!"
With that somewhat unclear shout from above, a bright silver cat emblem was tossed down. It bounced twice among the debris of the collapsed staircase before landing precisely in the lazy young man’s outstretched hand.
"Alright, I’ve got my badge too, let’s talk as we go."
Pinning the badge retrieved with the sour apple to his collar, the lazy young man led Leon downward while explaining,
"This world, it prefers humans. Compared to the Demons that want to turn the entire land into lava, the Evil Gods preparing to keep the sun from rising, the Moonchildren who want to hollow out the Earth Core like the moon, or the Ancient Ones hoping to freeze everything back to an ice age, we humans are the gentlest beings to her. We even consciously maintain her stability.
Therefore, anything that can pose a threat to humans and the world or possibly disrupt this stability, would be met with invisible rejection from the world will. As it can’t directly kill us, it can only use unconventional means to endlessly jinx us, hoping to get rid of or drive us away."
*No way... it could be like that?*
"Don’t worry, being despised by the world isn’t entirely a bad thing."
Seeing Leon’s somewhat dumbfounded expression, the lazy young man, somehow producing another apple, handed it over with a complex expression,
"The wheel of fate is equal for everyone. It can’t always stay at a low point, so for us who are disliked by the world, if we can withstand the bad luck gifted by the world will, we’ll eventually experience a surge of fate.
But after the surge, comes an even sharper decline.
Compared to the minor fluctuations in others’ fate, ours, like a wave with increasingly intense amplitudes, will see rewards and crises grow bigger, until we either ascend as a god at a towering peak or are sent to the realm of the deceased by a sudden twist of bad luck in a fatal trough."
*Become a "god," or become a "ghost," is it?*
Feeling like Senior Tom wasn’t lying, Leon pondered for a moment and couldn’t resist asking,
"Then what about you, Senior? What’s your current situation?"
"I can’t become a god, but I usually can’t die either."
Pointing to the apple in Leon’s hand, the lazy young man earnestly suggested,
"If you trust me, just carry a few apples with you all the time. When you notice your luck turning bad, eat one, then throw away the apple core; this thing can be a lifesaver when needed."