HSB Chapter 14

014：

Julius stared at the second option, wondering if there was a problem with his eyes, or if the useless System was mad.

He was inclined to think the latter.

[Please select one. If you do not select one after ten seconds, the second option will be automatically selected for Bambi’s safety.]

Knowing that the bastard System was capable of such a thing, Julius had to make up his made fast: [Go with the flow].

Although this was only a game, he shouldn’t casually dictate someone’s life and death, not to mention that nothing had happened yet, so why kill Ivan?

Without Ivan, who would take care of his baby girl daily?

“You really can’t sit still without receiving a scolding, can you?” Julius said gloomily. “Under the banner of being for Bambi’s own good, you want me to murder someone. If you’re so capable, why don’t you stop the undead beast from scaring my daughter?”

The System: [I’m incapable.]

Julius: “…”

“I knew Your Highness was here. I haven’t seen Your Highness for a long time and I really miss you.” At this time, a sickly-sweet voice sounded, and then a beautiful and coquettish woman walked in. When she saw Julius, her waist twisted even more seductively.

Because of this person’s sudden appearance, Julius had to exit the game and focused expressionlessly on the charming woman who swayed her hips as she walked towards him.

“Your Highness, when you look at me like this, my heart beats so fast,” said the woman coquettishly, meeting Julius’ gaze.

“How did you get in?” asked Julius.

The woman’s red lips quirked upward, lifted her long legs, and said seductively, “I just walked in like this.”

Julius let out an “oh” keeping to the gentlemanly behavior befitting a member of the royal family as he smiled, pointing towards the entrance, and said, “Then you can change your technique and gracefully get out.”

The bright smile on the woman’s face froze.

Her name was Tara Chambers. She was the niece of the current queen and could be considered as nobility.

The current queen was not Julius’s biological mother. Although the Astra Empire advocated monogamy, the emperor, for the sake of future heirs, married an extra wife.

The one who was married later had no standing and could never step above the queen at any time.

The queen and the emperor were childhood sweethearts. The queen had not been in good health since she was a child, and after giving birth to the eldest prince and the third prince, her health deteriorated even more, not even any technological means could aid her recovery.

Later, the queen became pregnant with the seventh prince. She insisted on giving birth to the seventh prince and died not long after giving birth.

The other wife naturally became the current queen.

The seventh prince lost his mother after his birth. The emperor pitied him and thus became particularly doting so that when the seventh prince grew up to go into business, the emperor let him do what he wanted, as long as he was happy.

Therefore, Julius grew up, except for the occasional bullying by the third prince Ethan, under the great care of the other princes, including the three princes born from the current queen.

——The sixth prince was born but died prematurely.

The current queen was also very kind to Julius, but Julius disliked the titular “stepmother” very much.

Besides the innate hostility to stepmothers in general, there was also this—

The current queen introduced her niece Tara to Julius on the grounds that he has grown and should have a girlfriend.

She also swayed the emperor. After seeing Tara, the emperor thought the girl wasn’t bad and was a good match for Julius. The relationship was worth giving it a try.

With the emperor’s approval, Julius had no choice but to make time to meet Tara. He didn’t like Tara, but the latter was enthusiastic about Julius. Even if Julius rejected her, she was still not discouraged, saying that as long as she persevered, she would make His Highness fall in love with her.

Julius: “…”

He wanted to call her a mental retard, but his identity as a prince forced him to maintain his image and unable to say such foul words.

Later, Julius decided to follow the phrase “out of sight and out of mind” and avoided Tara, but it was useless. Tara knew where his company address was and would go to his company on purpose. Knowing that he didn’t like her doing this, she wouldn’t enter the company and would just wait outside.

Julius was pissed. He did not go to the queen but went to the fifth prince. The fifth prince had been engaged to a noble lady not long ago, so Julius purposefully took the fifth prince to the red district, and let all kinds of beautiful girls play with the fifth prince, and then had people lure the noble lady to see this with her own eyes.

The fifth prince was already an engaged man yet he still went outside to fool around. Even if he was a prince, this was deplorable.

A storm broke out, and the queen was reprimanded by the emperor. After that, Tara stopped harassing Julius.

He didn’t expect to encounter Tara here today.

There was no one around. Julius was too lazy to fake cordiality with her. He was already being nice by not having people throw her out.

Tara’s expression quickly recovered, and she looked at Julius, teary-eyed. “Your Highness, please don’t misunderstand me. I was just thinking how lucky I was to meet you here by coincidence. Besides, I haven’t seen you in a long time, so I came in.”

She didn’t look like she intended to leave, depending on that Julius, as a well-bred prince, wouldn’t drive her away.

Julius suddenly asked, “Do you like it here?”

Tara was delighted, nodded, and was about to say a few words of praise when Julius stood up, his long legs stepping towards the door. “Then you stay here. I won’t disturb you.”

Saying this, he instructed the attendants outside, “You go in to accompany Miss Chambers. Attend to her until she is satisfied. If she isn’t satisfied, you can’t let her leave.”

“Miss Chambers, I wish you a good day.”

Tara wanted to chase after him, but Julius’ attendants stopped her.

“Your Highness, I heard you want an NR virtual reality projector?” she said toward Julius’ back.

Julius paused in his step.

The NR virtual reality projector was the same device that Ethan returned to Jellal Nox.

Since Jellal Nox asked for the device back, there was no way Julius would trade with a nine-clawed dragon. However, it just so happened that no one that Julius asked had this kind of equipment, so he could only instruct his subordinates to keep their eyes out for it. If they found a second NR virtual reality projector, they had to get their hands on it.

How did Tara know he was looking for the NR virtual reality projector?

Where did this moron hear the news?

This moment of hesitation gave Tara a chance as she ran towards to, surveying Julius secretively and knew she had bet correctly, and said sweetly, “Your Highness, I know who has an NR.”

“Who?”

Tara swayed her hips and approached Julius. To be honest, Julius’s baby face which looked to be younger than her was not her type, but Julius was the most favored seventh prince of the Astra Empire, and he was so rich…what reason did she have not to fall in love with such an identity?

“Your Highness, if I can help you buy an NR, how are you going to thank me?”

“I’ll invite you to dinner.” Julius smiled politely and gracefully.

“Only dinner?” Tara pouted. “Is there nothing else?”

Julius looked at her with a smile. “What do you want?”

“Hmm…I haven’t thought of it yet. I’ll tell you when I think of it, okay?”

Julius tried to control the goosebumps that were rising on his arms and then restrained his irritability to beat up this woman, smiling politely without saying a word.

Fortunately, Tara knew not to go too far and didn’t beat around the bush anymore as she said cheerfully, “Does Your Highness know about the Aureus Triad Black Market? The black market has the NR you want. I happen to know one of the owners of the black market. He knows who possesses an NR in the black market. Is Your Highness free this afternoon? I can take you there.”

Julius thought to himself, you better not lie to me, or else…

…it’s time to teach a lesson you’ll never forget.

Julius had heard of the Aureus Triad Black Market, but had never been there, so he was a little curious about the place and took the opportunity to check it out.

He met with the owner Tara knew, but unfortunately, the owner who was selling the NR wasn’t open today, and he didn’t leave any contact information.

Julius could only return with nothing to show for it and try again next time.

Since Tara didn’t lie to him, Julius ended up patiently accompanying her to dinner.

After finally sending Tara away, Julius got in the car and went home.

Turning on the game, the screen went dark and the System prompt reminded him that Bambi was sleeping.

Julius glanced at the time. It was no wonder his baby girl was asleep. It was late.

Baby, your daddy sacrificed his body for you.

Remembering that today’s apple hadn’t been bought yet, Julius entered the shop to buy an apple, put it on the bedside table, and then prepared to exit the game.

Suddenly, he paused and then clicked back into the shop.

If memory served him correctly, he remembered that the System had six columns in total: [Food], [Weaponry], [Martial Art], [Clothing], [Medicine], and [Household Item].

Now only two columns were showing in the system. With another look, Julius realized the [Weaponry] slot was completely gone.

“What’s going on?”

The System didn’t pop up a prompt answering his question.

Assuming that there was a bug in the System, Julius didn’t think too much of it. Today was a busy day. He was especially mentally exhausted. He was a little tired and wanted to return home to go to sleep early.

To make Ivan’s injury heal quickly, Bambi took several wind-type crystals from the metal box and gave them to Ivan, who hesitated and accepted them.

The priority was to heal his injuries and recover his full strength so that he could better fight the undead beast.

Ivan went outside to inspect the undead beast’s tracks while Bambi stayed home. She stared blankly at the large apple on the bedside table, and carried it to the living room, placing it side by side with the big apple on the table.

The two large apples were exactly the same. There wasn’t even a difference in the color on its surface, as if it was carved out of the same mold.

“Winnie, don’t you think it’s weird?” Looking at the two identical large apples, Bambi looked down and carefully pulled at the teddy bear’s arm that had been repaired with red thread.

The appearance of the undead beast made Bambi forget to tell Ivan that there was an invisible villain in the house and that there was another big apple today. Because of Ivan’s presence, Bambi wasn’t as afraid as before.

However, Bambi began to feel that she might be wrong.

If there was an invisible villain in the house, Mr. Ivan was very strong, so how could he not have noticed?

Originally, Bambi planned to tell Ivan about this today, but Ivan was busy preparing to find the undead beast outside. The little girl saw this and knew she should behave and not disturb him, so she didn’t mention it to Ivan.

“Maybe he isn’t a bad guy?” said Bambi in a low voice. “Grandpa used to exchange many stones for a shrunken little apple. Such a large apple must be very valuable and precious.”

“If it’s a bad guy, even if he wants to raise me to be plumper, why use such a precious big apple?”

“But if it’s not a bad guy, why would he be so kind to give me so many big apples?”

Having followed Hugh around, she had seen several men fight over food and even saw them being mean to her for food.

Once, Hugh rescued a family of three. The son of the middle-aged couple was thin from hunger. Bambi happened to have a bag of sacks Hugh gave her—a pack of mini cookies.

Bambi felt bad for the older boy and decided to give the cookies to the older boy. She approached the little boy, but before she had the chance to give it to him, she was pushed away by the little boy.

The little boy hurriedly stuffed the things in his hand back in his bag, glared at her, and said viciously, “I don’t have anything to eat nor will I give it to you if I did. Go away!”

Bambi was a little upset by this, but still plucked up the courage to take out the packet of cookies from her pocket. “These are for you.”

Later, Grandpa told Bambi, “A lot of food has been taken by the people from the bases. There is a limit on the amount of food that can be found, so a lot of people value food greatly and fear others will take it from them.”

Bambi seemed to understand, and then buried her little head in her grandfather’s arms and said sullenly, “But I still don’t like that little boy.”

She didn’t like how he treated her.

Hugh caressed his granddaughter’s soft hair. Of course, he knew what his granddaughter was sad about. She still didn’t understand human nature.

“That little boy thought you were going to take his food. Food is more important to him than his life. This is why he was so mean to you. It’s understandable…but I don’t like him either. I only like Bambi. When we meet these kinds of people in the future, we’ll avoid them and won’t offer them any help.”

Bambi became happy because her grandpa said” I only like Bambi,” but after a while, she added, “We still have to help them. Grandpa taught Bambi to help when we can.”

Hugh laughed.

Then Bambi covered her small pocket. “Bambi will not give snacks to others anymore.”

However, the next time she encountered the same situation, if the little girl had snacks in her pocket, she would still take them out generously.

……

Bambi, who was confused about the two big apples, was attracted by the fragrance of apples while she thought about what to do. The image of the bad guy disappeared from her little head and she stretched out her little hand and picked up one of them, taking it to the bathroom to wash it.

“I’ll eat one with Grandpa and leave the other one for Uncle Ivan.” The little girl didn’t forget to count the teddy bear too. “And Winnie.”

This time she didn’t use a knife to cut it but used a spoon to dig into it. The apple was big so she would just scrape the skin off and give it to Grandpa!

At the same time, a hideous monster slowly climbed up to the top floor.

If you shrank it by a thousand, you could tell it was a black and red ant. Now, it was an undead beast that had been infected with the virus, causing its mutation.

It was a black-red ant that nearly measured five meters long.

Reaching the rooftop, it moved dexterously to the entrance to the rooftop, which was blocked by a thick layer of metal.

The high-level presence emanated from within.

The undead beast’s eyes flashed a fierce blood red, but there was an instinctive knowledge that the high-level undead beast possessed.

The presence of the threat in the metal wall couldn’t come out.

It seemed to confirm this.

A moment later, it moved, climbing silently in the direction of the third-floor balcony.

Bambi sat in a chair and slowly dug into the apple. Next to her was a small bowl. She took a bite, and dug another piece, putting it into the bowl, which was for her grandpa.

Shadows gradually stretched out from the window, and blood-red eyes stared at the small figure that was facing away from the window and that was focused on digging into the apple.

Wait…

Sensing the light dimming, Bambi stuffed a piece of apple she dug out into her mouth and turned her head to look behind her.

A hideous head peered in through the open window. You could clearly see that the head was desperately trying to force its way in, but it couldn’t get in, as if something was holding its head. The scene was bizarre.

“Winnie, is this the monster who just wants to eat me and Uncle Ivan?” Bambi jumped out of her chair holding the teddy bear and held the spoon like a weapon, subconsciously chewing the apple in her mouth. “What is it doing?”

With a clatter, a gun suddenly fell out of mid-air.

Bambi: “?”

Rubbing her eyes, the little girl tentatively stretched out the tip of her feet, carefully poking the gun, and then quickly retracted her feet, keeping a vigilant watch on it.

After two seconds, she decided to pick up the gun.