Pillar of Yita

The door clacked open.

Fang Hong turned to look, only to see a marble head suddenly thrust in from inside, refracting a faint, ash-white gleam under the moonlight. The thing almost scared him witless on the spot—what the devil was it!? A puppet? A stone golem statue?

But the marble head suddenly turned sideways, slamming against the doorframe with a bang, causing a shower of dust to fall from above. Fang Hong wondered why the thing suddenly started to self-harm, and then he heard a voice from behind.

”Xiesta, be careful, that thing is worth quite a bit of money.”

The voice was melodious and distinctive.

So much so that Fang Hong immediately recognized who was speaking and incredulously asked, ”Miss Hilveld?”

”Mr. Ade?” the voice curiously inquired.

Only then did Fang Hong see the marble head slowly withdraw. It turned out to be a half-bust statue, with its base, easily cradled by Miss Maid.

Hilveld stood to one side, looking at him somewhat surprised: ”Captain, you are here too.”

”Miss Hilveld, what are you doing?”

Fang Hong could not help but look at the master and servant pair with surprise; their style was too peculiar. Not to mention Xiesta carrying a marble statue, Hilveld was holding a canvas-wrapped painting in her left hand and, surprisingly, a verdigris-covered candelabra in her right.

Seeing the two laden with both large and small packages, he almost thought he was hallucinating and mistook Parker for Hilveld.

The noble young lady put the painting and the box down on the ground and smiled faintly at him, ”Just helping myself, Captain, didn’t you see?”

Of course, he saw—

The problem was that the scene didn’t look right at all. In fact, ever since the other party suggested splitting up to act separately, he had felt that something was not right, and only now did that uneasy premonition turn into reality.

”Miss Hilveld...”

Hilveld smiled slightly and lightly pressed the frame of the painting with her lace-trimmed glove, ”Building a ship costs a big sum of money, doesn’t it? To ease the burden on you, Captain, I have to keep an eye out for some extra income now and then, besides it’s nothing but a simple effort.”

Fang Hong did not believe it for a second; he felt she must have had this in mind from the very beginning, starting from when she suggested the plan. He pointed at the items: ”But these are...?”

”They are antiques. This painting perished in the Dolifen disaster, and this stone sculpture hasn’t appeared since then.” Hilveld seemed to know the value of these antiques by heart.

”How much are these things worth?” Fang Hong might not see anything special in these items, but he believed that Hilveld, with her eye for quality, would not have chosen something trivial.

”This painting and the candelabra aren’t worth much. This painting is an early piece of a well-known artist, probably around ten to twenty thousand Lycel, and the candelabra is a Holy Relic, which should fetch a few thousand Lycel,” Hilveld answered nonchalantly: ”But the key is the stone sculpture Xiesta is holding. That’s a rare masterpiece by the great Mipawon, a rare treasure. With luck and the right buyer, we might make a tidy sum.”

”A tidy sum?” Fang Hong asked doubtfully.

Hilveld flicked her palmed hand in front of him, her slender white fingertips teasingly playful. ”Fifty thousand?” Fang Hong guessed.

”Five hundred thousand, Captain.”

Fang Hong took a sharp intake of breath: ”That much? Will the Phantom Realm materialize it for you?” He suddenly felt as if he was exploiting a system glitch, were it not for the fact that this was no game.

”Why wouldn’t it?” Hilveld looked at him curiously: ”It’s not as if it’s tons of precious metal, right? It’s really just a piece of stone, after all. Works of art are just the attributes we assign to it, but essentially, in this Phantom Realm, it’s equivalent to a stone.”

Still, Fang Hong found it unbelievable. If it were as Hilveld said, wouldn’t the antique market near Elpaxin collapse? The Phantom Realm of Dolifen had existed for nearly twenty years.

He couldn’t help asking, ”But with such a vast Dolifen, there should be more than just a few antiques, right? Why haven’t I ever heard of such things happening before?”

”How could you not have heard? It’s just that the Captain is unaware of the matters within the noble circles. In fact, such nonsensical events happen every year, like ’fakes’ clashing with genuine items, causing many people to be disgraced, and there are many more cases we don’t know about, some of whom have made fortunes this way—”

”Then, Miss Hilveld, you—?”

Hilveld smiled faintly, replying: ”Actually, I saw far more than these few items earlier. But unless I am absolutely certain, I wouldn’t act. I only take those I’m sure have disappeared.”

Her eyes twinkled mischievously as she said, ”Actually, the Captain is lucky. The real buyers and collectors in Dolifen know what’s what, but before now, no one had ever entered Hustings Cathedral, or even found this place in the Phantom Realm. So how could anyone know whether these art treasures, which were supposedly turned to ashes in the fire, were truly gone or buried beneath some ruins?”

She answered assertively, ”In this sense, this sculpture is even more authentic than the original. Because not only is it identical, but it is also the only one in this world—at least for now. So Captain, if you don’t consider it the genuine article, then what is it?”