57 Chapter 56.

When I finally managed to calm myself down, I had made it to the meeting point. It looks like three of us made it back safely, but one of us was still missing.

It looks like Bravo 1 was here as well. I thought he said he'd be waiting at the police station for us. Didn't this traitorous swine sell us out and already backstab us, maybe I was wrong. I guess because he got his money from the person he planted there, he came to drop off the crown prince after all.

That or his plans changed when we managed to all escape successfully. Perhaps his plan was initially to capture us himself and gain all the credit. He could then use that man he planted back then to smuggle out the money from under everyone's noses.

When we escaped he realized that he couldn't stick with that plan. Perhaps greed got the best of him when he realized we made it away with all that money. After all if we actually escaped he could get more money out of us like that. This man is a true schemer.

"So, where's the crown prince?"

"What are you talking about? I'm here for the money first. Your crown prince will be released once I have the money."

"What are you talking about? We already handed it over to your accomplice you hid in the crowd of people at the bank."

"Accomplice, what are you talking about?"

I frowned as I felt my fears had come true, he was definitely not planning to release the crown prince and was just trying to get as much money as he could out of us.

"Don't mess with us. We already gave you your money. Release our crown prince now."

"I never got any money!"

"Deals off. Scram, you ant."

"Should you really be saying that to me? Aren't you afraid of my gun?"

"There's four of us and one of you, why would we be afraid?"

"You really think I'm alone? Hehe."

Bravo 1 snapped his finger and I could see four people stand up from on top of the roofs of four different buildings with the same long barrelled gun that person on the flying object had. Cold sweat broke out on my back when I thought about the close encounter I just had.

When I looked over at my minions, two of them managed to keep their money, but there was a rotten stench coming off of them. When I looked over at them the two of them said they got lucky and fell into a random hole in the ground and were swept away by the currents and managed to escape without much effort.

I was curious about the brown stuff smearing their robes, but I decided not to ask.

Like hell I'm not going to ask!

"You say a hole in the ground, but you morons really fell into the sewers right?"

"Don't ask boss."

"Come now, come now, your boss had a hard time escaping. You can't try to not talk about your grand escape, right? While I was busy fighting for my life, you guys were swimming around in shit, right? You can just be honest. No need to hide it, I'm not stupid."

The two 9th realm mortal lunged towards me to try and pull me into a big bear hug. Naturally I dodged their attempts. Yes, I dodged their attempts. The brown outline shaped like two people on my clothes was always there.

"Geh. Whatever you no good cop, take your stupid money and scram. Just leave us alone."

The cop took three of the four bags of money reluctantly. It looks like he actually didn't really want it anymore when he saw the condition it was in.

"Damn it! Money is money. Even if it smells like ass, it still makes the world go round."

Serves you right you rotten cop.

He quickly left after he got what he wanted, but he made no mention of releasing the crown prince like I thought.

Anyways, thanks to these two clowns, we managed to avert a small crisis. Unfortunately I smelt as bad as them now. I can only curse their mothers and my stupid mouth that felt the urge to taunt and provoke them.

"Damn it! You morons, we need to go get a change of clothes because of you two idiots. Well it was bound to happen anyways. Looking around at the crowd now, we really do stick out like sore thumbs. We really need to blend into the crowd if we want to survive in this pocket realm."

It was a good thing the two morons still had one bag filled with money left. I grabbed a stack of nasty cash smeared in shit, pinched it between two fingers, and held it far away from me while I searched for somewhere to clean it off.

I found a public bathroom nearby and washed it off the best I could. I got rid of the dirtier looking ones as I doubt anyone would accept those if I tried to pay with them.

This is really too embarrassing though. I was a person who stood above the crowds, yet right now I'm cleaning off shit stained paper in a public restroom. I want to go home. Now that I think about it… where is the exit to this pocket realm anyways?

Well, now that I think back to before entering this pocket realm that mysterious beauty blocked our attacks like nothing. She then snapped her finger and we found ourselves within the pocket realm. Perhaps if I find her, there will be a way to leave.

Wait, I didn't think about it till now, but could that beauty be the reason behind our missing interspatial storage rings? Was she actually just a petty thief the entire time?! So it's her fault I've had to suffer like this without any weapons?!

Ugh… forget it. I'm not her match. No point crying over spilt milk.

Anyways, there should be another way to leave. There is always the chance she didn't enter after all. Then the key would probably be the inheritance that should be hidden within this pocket realm. That must hold the secret to leaving.

Haaah. Where am I even supposed to begin searching for it though? This pocket realm doesn't seem to be small either. It even has a boundless sky with a sun up above. Who knows how far away that sun is. What if the inheritance is not even on the land we are on presently?

Wait… if there is a sun… there is a starry sky.

Then a moon as well, right? What does a pocket realm need that for? If there are people living here, could there also be an ocean? What the hell?!

It could be anywhere, can't it? The bottom of the ocean, on the sun, the moon, a random asteroid floating in space. Where am I supposed to start? Could we have severely underestimated the scale of this pocket realm?

Then, my only hope would be to find that mysterious beauty to at least get a hint, right?

Ugh. Even finding a single person is an extremely difficult task.

What do I do?

Whatever, first things first. Rescue that idiotic crown prince. Escaping this pocket realm can come after that.

I left the public restroom after I managed to get rid of most of the brown stains on my clothes.

I still smelled horrible and I wanted to quickly get changed so I could blend in more naturally with the crowd.

I took my three remaining lackeys with me and we found a clothing shop nearby. When we were about to enter we were barred at the doorway. They said the three of us stank too much. They said the only one they would let enter was my minion who had managed to escape the clutches of the two smelly clowns.

He had a cocky look on his face when he stretched his hand out towards me. I begrudgingly handed over the dirty money and he strut into the store proudly with his head held high.

After keeping us waiting for two hours he still didn't come out. This son of a… he's really putting on airs. Are you having fun knowing you're making me stand outside waiting on you while you take your fine time picking out clothes?

After another hour, when I was just about to lose my mind, the arrogant peacock came out looking very different from when he entered. He had a disgusting tacky rainbow coloured tie, with a long white jacket with white fluff popping out of it everywhere. He was wearing long blue pants with some black shoes. He had some pink shades and a stupid looking cowboy hat on his head.

I really wanted to slap him silly when I saw how confident he looked with his horrible fashion sense, but I decided to learn from my past mistakes this time. I don't want a repeat of the two shit brothers over there.

I didn't notice at first, but there was some ugly woman grabbing onto his arm showering him with praises like, "valued customer you look so good in anything you wear. I'm so wet again, shall we have another go? How much money do you have left, handsome big brother?"

Y-y-y-y-you incompetent piece of garbage! You kept me waiting because you were playing about with this ugly gold miner? How lonely were you? Actually, is something wrong with your head?! I started to get concerned and I wondered if he hit his head on his way into this pocket realm. Could it be a cop managed to catch him and he got a good whack then?

Absolutely not!

"Give me the clothes now."

I wasn't in the mood banter with this idiot after waiting three hours for no good reason.

"Boss, what do you say?"

"Huh? What are you talking about? Just hand over the bags with clothes in your hand."

"Boss, you're supposed to say please."

"Yeah, don't you know any manners you ugly old man? When the young rich money bags… I mean handsome man asks you to show manners, you should be getting down on your knees and begging."

"Shit brothers."

"Eh? Are you talking about us?"

"Yeah."

"What do you want boss?"

"Give these two a good hug for me."

When they heard my words it looks like they were also pretty irritated having waited three hours for this moron. They sported devious smiles as the slowly closed the distance.

"Wait! We can talk about this. Boss, it was a joke! Just a joke! Please shit brothers stay way!"

"What are you talking about, you are also one of our good brothers. How can we not share the love with one of our good brothers?"

"No it's fine, really! Here boss! The clothes, take them."

He finally tossed the bag of clothes over to me and looked at me with pleading eyes like a little puppy.

He was so pitiful that I decided to forgive him. With boundless warmth in my eyes I shook my head left and right with a slight sigh like he couldn't be blamed for his little prank and told him my words of pardon, "boys get him."

I bet you believed me, right?

It was three hours, okay? Three damn hours! For three hours I had to smell like shit! You think a simple "here's the clothes" is going to quell my anger?!

Do you know what it feels like for ants to walk past you and stop for a moment and smell under their arms wondering what that strange smell is? They would then realize it wasn't them and look around to see us, the three shitketeers in all our brown glory.

They would then grab people off from the side of the road to whisper back and forth and point their fingers towards us. When have I ever suffered such injustice before? This is complete nonsense!

I wanted to cry but no tears would come out. All I could hear was the pleading cries coming from that moronic, now stained brown peacock, and the ugly woman grabbing onto his arm.

Forgetting about them I was elated to finally be able to properly dress myself and get out of the disgusting clothing with brown stains all over it.

When I opened up the bag I found there were four sets of clothing all the same. Did he also buy one for the missing Kuro Dong? Well, whatever, it looks like that now brown clothed moron will be needing it soon anyways.

He bought four black suits with white dress shirts and black ties. They looked very formal and professional. I ducked into an alley way and stripped my clothing and wore the black dress pants and white collared long sleeve shirt. I fastened the black tie around my neck and wore the black overcoat.

I noticed there were some black shades as well, so I put them on as well. I felt slightly refreshed after changing into this attire and felt like a whole new person.

When I came out of the alleyway and saw the three smelly individuals I pointed towards the alleyway and motioned for them to get changed. The ugly woman looked to have long ago fled in fear of the smelly duos wretched hands.

When they finished changing and we stood facing each other, I had to admit we looked pretty cool.

It was at this moment someone called out to us.

"Hey you! I swear I've seen you before."

"Ah! Aren't you that guy I saw escaping from the cops? You're that dude who pulled off all those fancy moves against the cops, right? Were you shooting in an action scene in a movie? That was really incredible! I've never seen anything as amazing as that, ever!"

"Movie?"

I was confused by the unfamiliar term the young man with a weird hat in front of me mentioned.

"Oh, it really wasn't for a movie?"

"I knew it! There's no way any director could be better than me when it comes to action scenes! So does that mean you're a free agent?"

Free agent? What's that?

"From you lack of response I'll take that as a yes."

Aren't you a bit presumptuous to think that?

"Since you're not answering I must be right. Buddy, you're exactly what I've been looking for! The main star in my action movie had a horrible accident in one of our stunts. From seeing the stunts you pulled off earlier I can say with certainty you can definitely be a star. Would you be interested in auditioning to become the main actor in the movie I'm directing?"

"No."

"What? Why not? You're not going to say your taken now, right?"

"I don't have the time to play around. I'm busy."

"Such a shame, we were even preparing to act out our prison break scene tomorrow. It is going to be our most action packed scene in the entire movie. Such a shame, with someone as amazing as you I was sure it would turn out to be ground breaking."

"Did you say prison break scene?"

"Naturally, we even have permission to use an area right outside the prison downtown."

"It is a film that even the top brass in the police are looking forward to."

"A tale of two comrades. One on the inside, searching for clues to a certain drug lord who killed his sister, while the other on the outside is ready to bail him out the moment he is given the signal by his comrade who is behind bars. It is planned to be a hit drama with a touch of comedy."

"They were both retired cops, but were sick of the limitations that fighting in the light gave them. Thus, they decided to take things into their own hands. They would stop at nothing to track down this drug lord and take his life."

"Sounds interesting, right?"

"Yes, very interesting. Hahaha."

Interesting indeed. I can definitely use this.

"So how is he supposed to bail his comrade out?"

"Naturally we're going to make it big. There's going to be tonnes of explosions. Ah of course it's all CG. I'll fill you in on the details later. Since you're interested, how about we get you to the auditions for the replacement. They'll be going on for another five hours until 10:00 PM. You won't have long to memorize your lines for tomorrow, but there's no helping it since we're in a pickle and on a very tight schedule."

He handed over what looked to be a manuscript containing the lines for the actors. I assume this is something similar to the manuscript to a play.

Hah. As a semi transcendent my memory is naturally top quality, remembering these lines is no problem at all.

I followed behind the young man and we reached a building that had the word "theatre" written above the entrance.

When we walked in, the young man was greeted by many different people. He paid them no heed and quickly walked into a room that had a bunch of males sitting on chairs in a line who seemed to be also auditioning for the role. The young man pointed towards the end of the line of chairs and told me to take a seat.

My three minions also followed behind me and remained standing behind the chair I sat on.

"Boss are you really going to take part in this movie? What about the crown prince?"

"You moron! Naturally we can use this movie as a chance to break the crown prince out. Are you really that stupid?"

"Ah! Now that you mention it, he did say something about the prison downtown tomorrow."

"Hey boss, speaking of prisons, something has been on my mind for a while now. The whole point of the bank robbery was to bail him out right? Then shouldn't he have been released after the cops got their money? Is there any reason to go back on his words? What would they gain by not releasing him? That sixth fellow who took the money… did the cops really go back on their word, was that fellow really one of their men?"

"They would gain our silence by keeping him locked up. He is basically a hostage now. With him in their hands, we can't rat them out regarding the embezzled and stolen money."

"Now that you mention it though, that man… he was wearing daoist clothing similar to ours."

"Back then I thought that was a sign that he might have been someone they planted there and the clothing was to make it obvious. When he winked and nodded at me I was even more convinced that was the case. But… if you're right and he wasn't…"

"It's been bugging me, but boss, didn't his clothing look similar to the sect garments of the Good Fortune sect?"

Are you kidding me?! Damn it! That brat conned me! I couldn't stop myself from standing up in rage when I realized how badly I'd been played.

A simple wink and nod was enough to deceive my eyes? What the hell was that wink and nod even supposed to mean then? Was it fun playing me to death? Did you enjoy the feeling of being handed over all that money without breaking a sweat?!

No, I refuse to believe a brat from the Good Fortune sect could play me like that. The clothing must have been a coincidence. That cop was crafty after all, he probably had seen someone with clothing like that recently, most likely someone really from the Good Fortune sect and decided to use that as a guide.

He may have actually just taken the sect garments by force if he did see a sect disciple and gave it to his accomplice. After all, the disciples from the Good Fortune sect are mostly mortal realm ants. With their guns, taking care of some mortal realm cultivator brats is no problem.

He likely wanted to misdirect my anger from him and the police and make me think I had really given the money away to an unrelated stranger. Perhaps he even interrogated the disciple he found and unveiled information pertaining to the Good Fortune sect. He may even have thought to try to use them as a scapegoat so his side could play dumb and act like they knew nothing.

That cop!

Honestly, isn't he pretty good? Why is he just working as a dog for law enforcement when he is such a schemer?