The Experimental Log of the Crazy Lich

People would always be on guard against a salesman who suddenly visited, or a friendly helper who arrived unexpectedly. This was all the more so in a place like the Chaos Abyss.

But while the enemy of an enemy might not be a friend, there would be the potential to become a friend.

And so, I “coincidentally” met with a Bloodspear lizardmen scout team right in front of the dark dwarves’ fortress. Then, I had a major fight and killed off two entire squadrons of lizardmen. After that, the dark dwarves welcomed me in.

Of course, the main reason why I had been able to enter so easily was probably due to the dark dwarf who kept hopping up and down on the fortress wall while pointing at me.

“Master, Master, we can’t understand the martial arts manual that you sold us.”

The moment I walked through the gate of the dark dwarves’ fortress, the rash dark dwarf from before came looking for me. It seemed that he had a rather high status in this tribe.

‘It’s only natural that you can’t understand it. Even I don’t understand it. Besides, if I could understand it, why would I sell it to you? I would have kept it for myself.’

Of course, I would never tell him such a truth. I would naturally have only the best customer service for any customer who was so easy to scam. That was why I wanted to smile and tell him…

‘I’m sorry, your edition is too old and needs to be leveled up. If you wish to level it up, you must first spend 500 soul coins to become a registered member. Another 500 soul coins will be required to level up the manual to the Chaos Abyss language 1.0 edition. If you spend another 1000 soul coins to level up to a VIP account, you’ll be able to access a grandmaster’s recording and explanation, with a guarantee that you’ll understand… What? You don’t want to spend money? Foolish youngster, how can you possibly become stronger without spending money!? Buy buy buy buy, and charge more money!’

And then I would scam him into spending money for a second time, third time, leveling up to become a registered member, VIP member, diamond VIP member, lifetime VIP member, and so on!

However, I felt like it was probable that the dwarves would try and kill me if I told them that, which was why I instead smiled mysteriously.

“Please contact customer service after purchasing the product. Roland reserves all rights to final interpretation… Cough, cough, I mean, I’m here now, aren’t I? It’s impossible to learn such a high-level martial arts technique only by reading the book. Since you guys spent the money, I naturally came here to teach the technique.”

That dark dwarf was instantly filled with tears from being so moved.

“A good person! There’s actually a good person in the Chaos Abyss! Father, I actually wasn’t scammed this time! Father, you were wrong, there really is a good person in this world after all!”

The young dark dwarf passionately looked back behind him with tears in his eyes. The black-haired, long-bearded dark dwarf that he called father appeared to be the leader of this dark dwarf tribe, judging by his braids.

Alright, I didn’t even know where to start commenting on first.

It seemed that this dark dwarf prince had already suffered many insults for bringing back a martial arts manual that nobody could understand. Not only that, it appeared that this wasn’t the first time he was scammed.

He had a high status, yet he was simple and easy to fool…

And so, the way I looked at him changed. Previously, I had only seen him as an easily scammed customer, but now I was looking at a fat lamb.

Judging from how on guard all the other dark dwarves seemed to be against me, such naïve lambs were quite rare in this tribe. In that case, I reached out and created a ball of light on top of my head…

“A Holy Knight!!”

“He’s actually a Holy Knight? How can any Holy Knight possibly survive down here in the Chaos Abyss?”

I could only be grateful for the excellent reputation that Holy Knights had. When I showed them my power over Holy Light, the dark dwarves noticeably relaxed their guard.

What, they thought that a Holy Knight wouldn’t scam them? They were too naïve still.

Indeed, Holy Knights typically wouldn’t scam people. But if Holy Knights really started scamming… well, the dark dwarves weren’t “people”, so who cared?

“The God of Holy Light definitely made a tremendous mistake back when he accepted you as a Holy Knight. Just how much ill reputation have you brought upon the job class of Holy Knight so far in your life? You’ve used your status as a Holy Knight to do so many dirty deeds…”

The silly cat’s comments were unable to shake my will. I was conducting serious business here! It definitely wasn’t that I couldn’t remember how many people I had scammed before!

“Be a little more serious! We’re currently in the middle of scamming them!”

Even though I was mentally retorting to Harloys, I put on a serious expression filled with Holy Light that glimmered all over. This gave me a divine aura filled with justice.

“I came here to this wicked place in order to carry out a holy mission…”

That was all the explanation necessary. Every year, idiotic Holy Knights would voluntarily go out to fight against evil. Any Holy Knight who dared to come all the way down to the Chaos Abyss was probably the particularly idiotic type.

“What place could be more evil than the Chaos Abyss? We should sweep through the Chaos Abyss and slay those evil demons and devils. Why should we wait for those villains to attack us? We should attack them instead and remove the threat before it can attack us!”

This type of thinking was quite popular among the more extremist Holy Knights. However, as for the end result of those who actually went to the Chaos Abyss, eighty percent would end up dying there, ten percent would have their wills broken and become fallen, and the final ten percent… No, they wouldn’t succeed in their fight against evil, if that’s what you were thinking. Instead, they would transform into demons and become new permanent residents of the Chaos Abyss.

To my knowledge, very few Holy Knights were ever able to return from the Chaos Abyss.

The evil Chaos Abyss was capable of devouring anything. Holy Knights would receive special treatment from the will of the Chaos Abyss, meaning that they would typically die especially pitiful deaths.

Maybe you could win one or even many battles, but could you forever win every single battle in the Chaos Abyss? Maybe you could defeat a major Demon Lord, but could you successfully escape alive from numerous Demon Lords chasing after you? Every single creature here, and even the very land itself, was filled with evil. Just how much could you fight?

If you stopped in your determination to fight against evil, that would mean betraying your own belief, leading you to become fallen. Yet, there was an endless amount of evil here. How much could you possibly fight?

The lucky ones would be able to escape the Chaos Abyss before they became completely useless. The unlucky ones would stay here forever. Of course, there were always exceptions to everything. Estrada had previously gone to the Chaos Abyss for a special reason and then returned without any problems.

Back when I was adventuring with Adam and the others, we had also been through several levels of the Chaos Abyss. The 100th level where I had arranged to meet up with them was the same place that we had met up before.

Cough, I was getting off topic. Currently, the dark dwarves were looking at me with expressions of “yet another idiotic Holy Knight” and “I wonder how long he can survive down here?”

But with this status, the dark dwarves were far less hostile and on guard against me. It also helped that even though the dark dwarves were considered “evil” residents of the Chaos Abyss, they were actually relatively far easier to communicate with than most other species down here.

Since both sides weren’t on guard against and wanted something from the other side, it naturally became much easier to communicate.

I gave a slight amount of martial arts advice to Morr, the dark dwarf prince and son of the Blackrock dark dwarf tribe living here. Just this alone obtained the full trust of this simple-minded young dwarf (one hundred years old was young for dwarves).

I then told him that I intended to “go even deeper into the Chaos Abyss to fight against stronger evils”, and Morr almost exposed the fact that the dark dwarves had a teleportation portal here to me.

A teleportation portal with a fixed teleportation point would be priceless. This would obviously be considered top secret in the Blackrock dark dwarf tribe. Luckily, his guards managed to stop him from revealing the secret to me. If Morr had told me the portal’s secret location so easily, even I wouldn’t have known what fun I could have next.

And as we talked, Morr was filled with idolatry and dreams about the mortal plane. He wanted to instantly go up there to adventure, which was quite surprising.

Such a simple-minded dark dwarf had actually managed to live to one hundred years old in a place like the Chaos Abyss. I could only sigh that the workings of fate were inscrutable indeed. And as I chatted with the dark dwarves, I gained a much better understanding of the relationship between the Blackrock dark dwarves and the Bloodspear lizardmen.

Actually, it was all quite ordinary. Basically, both tribes had an unspoken agreement to leave each other alone, but there were many past accumulated grudges and much friction between them. One day, the lizardmen suddenly obtained some powerful treasure that greatly strengthened their tribe. The lizardmen then began to expand their territory and enslave other species.

The dark dwarves were no pushovers. Their tribe was strong and well-armed. Both sides had several bloody battles. The lizardmen used enslaved dragons as cannon fodder, while the dark dwarves were more limited in population and couldn’t afford the losses. Finally, the dark dwarves were forced on the defensive.

Recently, the lizardmen had been acting more and more arrogant. They kept attacking dwarven merchants and travelers. No merchants dared to visit the dark dwarves to purchase weapons anymore. The dark dwarves’ food supply also became slightly problematic to maintain.

Judging from how easily the dark dwarves told me all this, they fully intended to drag me into this battle.

A young and reckless Holy Knight who heard about “such evil creatures” would instantly charge forward without a second word. That would really fit my current identity’s personality, but…

“Unfortunately, I’m currently undertaking an even more divine mission. The grand Holy Light is guiding me to complete my personal trial. And, my holy sword was destroyed in a previous battle, so I’m currently searching for a new divine weapon…”

I showed just an appropriate amount of regret along with my desire for battle… Actually, everything I said just now was worthless. What exactly was a divine mission supposed to be? And for every Holy Knight, couldn’t every single day be considered a personal trial? As for my holy sword being destroyed, I never mentioned a specific time. I had already lost track of how many holy swords I’d lost in battle already.

But with my truthful words and skilled acting, Morr and the other dark dwarves saw a Holy Knight who was filled with hesitation and regret due to being unable to complete his divine mission and fight against the evil right before him.

In my carefully chosen words to the dark dwarves, I also faintly “revealed” the fact that I was extremely powerful, to the point where I could rival the entire lizardmen tribe. I also “unintentionally” revealed that I needed an “excellent holy sword” to equip myself with.

Alright, they would be far more worried about me wanting to leave on a divine mission. But since I made it so obvious that I wanted a weapon, they had nothing to worry about! This was a dark dwarf castle!

When mentioning dwarves, everyone would first think of their blacksmithing abilities. But since they were skilled diggers, they were also excellent miners. This Blackrock tribe was extremely rich as they monopolized a teleportation portal. They especially had thousands of years of accumulated wealth and resources when it came to magical metals.

Right now, I wanted to create several magic swords for myself, but lacked top-level resources. Since I had now come across these dark dwarves, how could I possibly miss this opportunity?

And so, I kept telling stories and teaching martial arts to Morr. I then waited for the dwarves to voluntarily show me their treasury and ask me to choose what I wanted.

Meanwhile, my new subordinate was probably with the lizardmen already.

“Ha, in our line of work, we eat both the plaintiff and the defendant…”

But while Roland was busy being so proud of himself, in the air space between the dark dwarves’ and lizardmen’s territories, a single mature adult black dragon met three young adult black dragons.

They were heading in the direction that the other party had come from. These black dragons exchanged glances and saw obvious signs of recent injuries on each other’s bodies.

Originally, dragons should have been highly territorial. Conflicts among dragons of the same species were quite common. But when these four dragons thought about the big boss who had enslaved them, they each went their own ways while merely spitting some saliva.

“Tsk, three disabled dragons!”

Little Red had beat her three black dragons to the extent where one was single-eyed, one had half a tail, and one was missing a wing…

“Ha, a disabled dragon who’s missing his entire tail. He’s still bold enough to go around outside?”

Meanwhile, Roland had eaten Hakas’s dragon tail…

Both parties were making similar comments. Dragons had excellent hearing, and all dragons heard what was being said. However, they only exchanged glares while continuing to carry out their respective master’s commands.

Although the black dragons were looking down on each other, they didn’t realize that they all had extremely similar fates. They had all been enslaved by rather ridiculous masters, and they had all been sent in as double agents, all in order to extort as much as possible from both the dark dwarves and the lizardmen… It was probable that these black dragons would eventually meet each other on the battlefield. But who knew what sides they would represent while fighting? And they didn’t even know that their masters were excellent friends who were currently on opposite sides of the dark dwarf/lizardmen conflict.

This relationship was really chaotic…