Ya Xiao was a very adaptable demon.
When he was a child, he could sleep soundly even if he casually buried himself in the sand.
But that didn't mean that Ya Xiao didn't have a desire for a place to live. On the contrary, the little demon who grew up in hiding wished very much that he could have a very beautiful and safe house.
However, the buildings in this world were all very ordinary. Ya Xiao originally didn't hold much expectation for the temporary residence.
Until now, when he looked at the grim villa in front of him â beautiful, safe, and better-looking than the castles of some of the great demons he had seen!
It was his dream house!
Ya Xiao was stabbed in the heart. His blue eyes widened like an excited cat's at the sight of a new toy. He leaped out of the hovercar with his suitcase in hand.
The villain actually had such good taste!
Seeing Ya Xiao's undisguised excitement, Mist's heart was a little complicated: It turned out that there really were people who shared the marshal's bizarre aesthetics.
It was just that the marshal would like such an eerie house because of childhood experiences, but this young man who appeared to have a sunny personality without a hint of gloom liked this style, perhaps it was.... innate?
But it was a good thing that the other party wasn't afraid to live here.
Mist thought as he entered the villa's password and guided Ya Xiao in, "The marshal is currently still at the front line and won't be back until a few days later."
At the mention of the villain, Ya Xiao's attention was immediately drawn away from the beautiful villa.
The villain, Qin Qi, was a marshal of the empire as well as the head of the Sixth Base. Every once in a while, he would lead his men to the front lines to kill the demonic insects.
It was normal that he was not at the base at this time...
Ya Xiao was distracted by his thoughts while listening to Mist's introduction of the villa, "Fresh ingredients will be delivered every morning at seven o'clock. I've sent the nanny robot's operating instructions and the villa's passwords to you before, so if there's any problem you can contact me directly on the optical brain."
"I will hand the marshal's various schedules all over to you one after another in the next few days." Mist said, handing over the document he had been holding in his hand to Ya Xiao, "This is the marshal's current possible taboo spots. You can analyze them yourself."
Looking at the boy who was still a bit young, Mist paused for a moment and spoke out, "A large part of the reason for the previous butlers' departures was because they left the base privately."
"The border base is different from the central city and second-tier bases. This is the closest to the front line, and there are a large number of demonic insects outside the base."
Mist seemed to recall something, and his gaze under his gold-framed glasses revealed a few moments of icy coldness. However, he dispersed his emotions in a whirlwind and instructed softly, "If Ya Xiao wants to go back to the central city someday, be sure to notify me in advance."
He currently had a good feeling about Ya Xiao. No matter which way he looked at it, Mist didn't want anything to happen to the other party.
"Okay."
Ya Xiao took the papers and nodded obediently.
Unlike the previous butlers, he had no plans to return to the central city, so naturally, he wouldn't find it hard to accept.
Mist was very pleased with the new butler's cooperation. He smiled and said, "The marshal has been away for the past two days. Some of the schedule can be delayed, but tomorrow's banquet cannot be postponed, so I'll trouble you to attend it instead of the marshal."
"Tomorrow's banquet?"
Ya Xiao paused and scraped the relevant words from the book, but there were only two or three sentences, and they weren't detailed.
We're sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we're going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
"Right." Mist explained, "You as a butler need to show your face instead of the marshal. I've already prepared the gift. You just need to attend on time."
"Ktf rmtfveif lr gjatfg aluta. Ktfgf'r cb cffv ab yf cfgnber, la'r pera j kfvvlcu yjcdefa."
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Qtfc Zlra kjr rfca jkjs, Tj Wljb gfmjiifv atf qiba.
Deabt kjrc'a jc lwqbgajca mtjgjmafg, jcv atf ybbx tjv bcis tlcafv atja Deabt tjv yffc yjvis lcpegfv atf olgra alwf tf jaafcvfv j yjcdefa ja atf yjrf.
Unsurprisingly, it should have been this wedding.
As for the reason, Ya Xiao remembered that it should be the riot caused by a taboo getting out of control.
Taboo?
Ya Xiao's eyelashes slightly drooped. He pondered for a moment, turned his head, and put this matter behind him. He looked at the surrounding area with a few points of appreciation in his eyes.
Upon entering the villa, he realized that the interior was even more demonically appealing than the outside.
There were some lizard specimens hanging on the mural in the living room. The lighting of the villa was not dark, but the surrounding atmosphere was inexplicably gloomy. The coiled staircase was quietly stretching upwards, and the large villa was so depressing that it took one's breath away.
Ya Xiao: Oooh, love it so much.
He bounced up to the second floor with his suitcase in hand. According to Mist, he could take his pick of the rooms on the second floor, except for the marshal's room.
The demon never wrongs himself.
Ya Xiao looked from room to room before choosing the one that he liked the most from it, which was right next to the villain's bedroom, making it easy to suck up the demon value.
The room was brightly lit, but the atmosphere was dreary. The carpet, curtains, and bed were all depressing black and gray. The wall was decorated with paintings in a twisted style. The more Ya Xiao looked at it, the more he liked it, and the tail behind him wagged a few times in mid-air.
After confirming that there was no danger around, Ya Xiao released his tail, also appearing were two small black horns on his head.
The tip of the tail, which glowed with a dark, ghostly blue light, rose slightly, signifying that the demon was in a good mood.
He sat cross-legged on the carpet and opened his suitcase, which was full of odd things aka Ya Xiao's treasures in this world.
The skeleton toy that makes an evil shriek when you put your hand on it, the black ball alarm clock with a long tongue and a black body, and the hellhound hand puppet with three heads.... These were all things that Ya Xiao had collected in the past half a month.
Of course, there was also a whole bunch of gadgets that he had no place to put that he threw inside the system warehouse.
The ones in the suitcase were all the ones he had recently bought.
Wagging his tail, Ya Xiao arranged these weirdly shaped, but in his opinion, particularly cute little things in the room he was about to move into.
The eerie room was made even more "cozy" by the addition of the little ones. Ya Xiao nodded in satisfaction and then took out his favorite mask.
The smile on the mask was exaggerated.
The mouth, outlined in white lines, was grinning to the ears, making it even more sinister against the black background of the mask, and sending shivers down the spine of those who saw it.
"What a kind smile."
Ya Xiao commented with appreciation in his eyes.
The tail behind his suit pants wagged a little faster.
It was the same reason the mask was worn yesterday.
A friendly, genuine smile always made for a smoother transaction, something only demons who specialized in equal deals could agree on.
The success of the first transaction made Ya Xiao like the mask in his hand even more. After thinking about it, he didn't put the mask on display but placed it back inside the suitcase with great care.
The suitcase was from the system mall.
Unless it was him personally, it would be impossible for anyone else to open it.
Although this room was his, for Ya Xiao, who was a low-level demon not long ago, caution was his instinct. Before confirming that it was absolutely safe, Ya Xiao wouldn't put out his favorite mask.
After getting his babies all organized, Ya Xiao's eyes fell on the file that was sitting on the bed.
It was the information Mist had given him.
It was rumored to contain the villain's no-no's.
Ya Xiao's tail wagged a bit as he reached out and brought the file over to him.
Although they knew most of the information about the villain, but because of the permission issue plus the protagonist's perspective, what they knew was limited. They needed to gather more information if he wanted to be a good butler.
According to the book, the villain had a lot of taboos. There were even some that hadn't been discovered, which caused almost no one to be fully capable of being the villain's butler.
Mulling it over, Ya Xiao flipped through the papers and looked at them for a few moments. After realizing that he knew all of this from the book to begin with and that he even knew a bit more than this information, Ya Xiao tossed them aside.
"Fourth Uncle."
[I'm here.]
The system was in much better spirits after resting. At the same time that Ya Xiao made a sound, it immediately switched on and answered.
Ya Xiao's eyes curved, "Can you pull up the original book's plot again, so I can read it?"
[Okay.] The light mass in the sea of consciousness held up the prescription glasses on its face and directly pulled up the plot of this world, projecting it in front of the host.
This world had been heavily damaged before, and some of the data was somewhat missing, but it was not too much of a hindrance to their current understanding of the original book's plot.
The 401 System didn't know why the host offered to review the world's plot again. It was just that it had always trusted Ya Xiao and never questioned his judgment.
The tail behind Ya Xiao wagged as if he already knew the target. His fingers kept scratching the projected plot. After skipping a certain point, he finally saw the plot he wanted from a certain paragraph.
[After Qin Qi's death, Qin Chen went to sort out his belongings. What was funny was that there wasn't much of his stuff in the villa that belonged to Qin Qi. Even the miscellaneous things left behind by those few outsider butlers outnumbered Qin Qi's.]
Qin Chen, the younger brother of the villain Qin Qi, was also one of the members of the protagonist's group, but that was not important.
The villain had employed four butlers before his death.
Butoh was the last butler, and the "several" mentioned in the plot means that the previous butlers' belongings were also kept in the villa.
Logically speaking, after the death of the previous butlers, their things should have been disposed of, but it was also possible that things such as sundries had been overlooked.
Ya Xiao thought for a moment and spoke out, [Fourth Uncle, help me find out if there is a utility room in this villa.]
[Okay.]
The system used its detection program to check around the villa and finally said, [There is one under the stairs on the first floor.]
It paused for a moment and said, [Host, are you going to look for the things left behind by those butlers?]
Anything that could be placed in the utility room should not be too important.
Naturally, Ya Xiao was well aware of these things, but he also remembered that the protagonist group had talked about the contents of the villain's first butler's diary shortly after sorting through the belongings. With the context, that pile of miscellaneous items might actually contain the first butler's diary.
After a brief explanation, he got up and went downstairs to the utility room to rummage around.
There was a lot of stuff in the utility room, but Ya Xiao had good eyesight, and with the system's detection device, he did find a notebook-like book.
After blowing the dust on it casually, Ya Xiao directly opened it up. It was full of handwritten words. Ya Xiao has not fully grasped the words of this world and only roughly understood the meaning of the sentences:
[January 3, Marshal Qin was reading alone in his study. His TH value suddenly spiked, reaching the danger zone at one point, nearly losing control. No triggers were found in the surveillance].
[January 4, Marshal Qin's behavioral trajectory was the same as yesterday, but this time, he did not lose control.]
[January 5, the behavioral trajectory was the same as yesterday. Why did he lose control this time? Why?!]
[January 6, Marshal Qin's behavior was the same as yesterday, but did not get out of control, what have I overlooked....]
......
It was really hard to figure out.
The system looked at this diary and swallowed a mouthful of saliva. It was worthy of being a villain, making people confused.
Generally speaking, the taboo of the taboo people are very well grasped. For example, Soren was a taboo person with the number BFN10. Smelling a pungent odor would make him lose control. In order not to lose control, he could manage by simply wearing a gas mask.
But for a type like the villain, this world simply didn't have a single case to refer to.
The system was a bit skeptical. At first, it discussed with the host whether the decision to become the marshal's butler was the right one or not.
Knowing that the main duty of a butler in this world was to assist the taboo person and prevent the other party from getting out of control, if the host would not be able to successfully assist the villain, perhaps it wouldn't be long before he would be dismissed.
Compared to the system's worry, Ya Xiao had been in a good mood after taking a look to make sure this was the butler's diary.
After noticing the system's mood, Ya Xiao was quite optimistic: "Fourth Uncle, so many people don't know what the marshal's taboos are. It's normal for me to be included. As long as I avoid known taboos, they won't dismiss me because of this."
System: It seems so.
As long as they can't pick a fault, it's fine.
Ya Xiao's tail wagged behind him, very much looking forward to meeting the villain. He badly wanted to grow his bat wings.
Meanwhile, Mist, who had left the villa, stepped into the top floor of the military base's headquarters, where Soren was dealing with paperwork in his office.
Hearing the commotion of the door slamming, Soren raised his head, and a slightly cold and hard voice came through under his gas mask, "How's it going?"
Mist thought of the scene not long ago. After a moment of silence, he said in a complicated tone, "Well, he likes the style of the marshal's villa very much."
Soren: ......
Liked what?