I don't want to conquer witches anymore.

"You thieving cat, I'm going to kill you today!"

"Meow?! Meow!"

Who are you, you crazy woman?! What did I ever do to you, meow?!

Although Duke couldn't understand cat language, he figured that the black cat's angry and inexplicable meows were probably something like this.

His lips twitched slightly, and he stepped in front of Xiao Hei, speaking as softly as possible, "Long time no see, Annie."

The woman Duke called Anne did not answer.

"Um, although I don't know what Xiao Hei did to offend you, could you spare its life for my sake?"

Anne's face changed instantly upon hearing Duke's words, and she screamed as she raised her staff:

"Duke, I'm your girlfriend! How dare you not help me, but instead protect this philandering cat? Cheating! You deserve to die!"

"Hey, Little Black, run!"

Duke... Duke turned around and ran away with the cat.

Chapter Ninety-Seven: This way we can be together forever.

Who is Anne?

Anne is an excellent necromancer and one of the witches of the Floating City. Her power is unfathomable, and she is also funded by the Floating City to maintain her research in magical technology. Her research is said to focus on the extremely mysterious field of human transmutation—a highly sophisticated research area that constantly rakes in funding but rarely yields tangible results.

The necromancer that Duke mentioned to the saint was this Annie. Her skills are undoubtedly top-notch in this field. In the entire floating city and even the entire world, there may not be a necromancer more suitable to create a body for Megan. Even the legendary liches in the Necromancer Kingdom are not qualified.

However, after making that promise to Megan, Duke never went to look for Anne, and there was a reason for that.

Because she was one of Duke's "ex-girlfriends".

Do you remember how Duke's five "ex-girlfriends" reacted during the social death incident?

Cecil was the one who hunted Duke down throughout the city, while Natasha was the one who openly declared herself gay.

Of the remaining three, one announced that he would go into seclusion, another smiled and left the floating city to handle some business, and Annie was the last one left—she attacked the other "victims," ​​denouncing them as immoral third parties (fourth, fifth, and sixth), and declared that she was the only real Duke girlfriend in the entire place.

She is also the only "ex-girlfriend" that Duke has never dared to see again after the social death incident.

Even Duke, the man who was being hunted down all over the city, was certain that she wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it and would dare to let Cecil slap her to vent her anger. But the only one Duke dared not appear in front of Annie.

[Annie's favorability rating: Hatred.]

(Hate - Disgust - Strangers - Ordinary - Friendly - Warm - Intimacy.)

It's safe to say that she's currently the only one whose opinion of Duke has plummeted to an all-time low, and that's not even the most crucial point!

As we all know, hatred and love are both strong emotions and can be transformed into one another. The saying goes, "The deeper the love, the deeper the pain." Often, when you love someone deeply, the hurt they cause you will be more painful, while when you hate someone, you can often see everything about them.

Natasha's feelings towards Duke remained unchanged before and after the incident, and she always referred to him as a good friend. Cecil went from being friendly to hating him, but for the carefree Guangbao, this hatred came and went quickly, so after reconnecting with Duke, they quickly resumed their friendship.

Annie is different... Before the social death incident, her affection for Duke was "intimate". After the incident, due to Duke's infidelity, it immediately reversed to "hatred". However, while "hatred", she still maintained a morbid love for Duke and an extremely strong possessiveness.

Simply put, this Anne is a yandere.

In her fight for her lover, she physically assaulted several of her ex-girlfriends after the social incident. If it weren't for the fact that her other four ex-girlfriends were all incredibly capable, it might have escalated into a bloody incident. Even so, the fight lasted for several days before it finally subsided. Duke had thought she had learned her lesson and hadn't continued that terrifying love affair, but now it seems she hadn't learned her lesson at all!

"Why don't you come to me? Duke, don't you love me anymore?"

"Put that thieving cat down right now! I watched it turn into a naked woman and jump on you. I'm going to tear it to pieces!"

"And Amber, Cecil, Gret, Megan, Natasha, Geyue... Duke, how many times have you cheated on me during this period? Do I need to help you recall?"

"How do you know all this so clearly? How do you even know Megan? Did you install some kind of listening device in my house?" Duke couldn't help but shout. "How are you so skilled at this?! How many times have you eavesdropped on and followed me?!"

"Heh heh heh." Annie sat cross-legged on a broom, chasing after Duke and Little Black at lightning speed. Hearing his question, she merely sneered, "Darling, do you even remember how many loaves of bread you've eaten?"

Seriously, how exactly do you calculate the "hatred" value in the favorability system?!

Duke swallowed hard and glared angrily at the black dog beside him:

"It's all your fault, you stupid cat! You're the one who lured this crazy woman out!"

"Meow meow meow!"

You brought this crazy woman here yourself!

Little Black brandished its claws in dissatisfaction.

To be honest, if it hadn't been Black who "touched" Duke this time, but some other witch instead, Annie wouldn't have gone so far as to summon the undead scourge in public in the floating city. As a theoretical mage, she was already at a disadvantage in human combat, and as a necromancer who needed a large number of corpses as materials, she couldn't unleash her full power in the floating city—not to mention that Annie's opponent at the time was a monster like Cecil.

Besides, the principle of the floating city witches is to love each other. Although it is normal for there to be some minor frictions from time to time, they would never beat each other to death... Even someone as crazy as Annie would not go so far as to kill other witches.

But Xiao Hei is different. It's just an elemental creature. Killing it is fine, but how dare it lay a hand on her beloved? It deserves to be killed without mercy!

The zombies and skeletons that had appeared earlier were clearly minor trouble. Realizing that she couldn't catch up with Duke and Blackie who were running at full speed, Annie gritted her teeth, slapped her broom, and began chanting.

"What?! Death Finger?" Duke was all too familiar with the spell she was chanting; he himself had used this famous 7th-level spell many times. His expression immediately changed drastically, and he turned around and cursed, "No way, are you serious?"

"Don't worry, darling, if I accidentally hit you, I'll definitely use a full resurrection spell to bring you back to life." Annie revealed a maniacal smile, but said something chilling: "If the resurrection spell fails, don't worry either, I'll turn you into a cute zombie, so we can be together forever."

"I refuse!"

If I had known this would happen, I wouldn't have dared to mess with that necrophiliac crazy woman!

In a fit of rage, Duke raised the neon sign in his hand, aimed it at Annie, and pulled the trigger. The magazine was filled with "sheep-transformation" bullets; he intended to temporarily subdue Annie and then take the opportunity to escape.

"Boom-boom-"

Gunshots rang out, but the "sheep-turning" bullet missed Annie. As if by magic, she pulled out a zombie from somewhere and used it to shield herself from the bullet, then casually tossed the sheep-turned-zombie off her broom.

“Give up. I’ve already investigated how effective your revolver is.” Annie laughed. “Just hand over that sly cat to me, darling.”

But just as Annie was laughing, the "explosive" bullet that followed the "sheep transformation" hit the stone slab in front of her. With a huge explosion, thick smoke and flames engulfed Annie. She escaped the smoke in less than a second, but instead of regaining her vision, she entered a dark abyss.

Darkness spell (2nd Ring)?

Annie was startled. She raised her hand and cast a spell, easily tearing through the low-level spell, but Duke and Black disappeared from her sight.

Chapter Ninety-Eight: No one has ever dared to owe me, Du the Skinflint, money!

Duke tucked the black cat into his pocket and hid it, then took out the prop he had just obtained.

[Task completed, reward available.]

【receive.】

[Item: Name Change Card (24 hours), already generated.]

[Item Name: Name Change Card (24 hours)]

[Item Description: Free name change? I'm not Gabe Newell's Steam, why wouldn't I, a capitalist, take advantage of an opportunity to make money?]

[Item Effect: A one-time use item that allows you to change your name within 24 hours and mislead others into believing you are a different person.]

In such a short time, it is extremely difficult to escape from a professional Stuka like Annie. So after a combo of "Sheep Transformation," "Explosive" bullets, and Dark Magic, Duke pulled out his name change card.

Please enter your new name.

Because of the time constraint, Duke wrote down the first name that came to mind without thinking.

【amber.】

Duke regretted entering the name immediately, because the system's item effect wasn't clearly described. If he changed his name and became Amber in other people's eyes, he might not be able to escape the attention of the crazy woman, Annie. Fortunately, the name-change card wasn't that powerful; it couldn't drastically change a person's perception—at least not their perceived gender.

Annie, freed from the effects of the dark magic, narrowed her eyes and searched around for Duke. Even though Duke was right in front of her, she completely ignored him, clearly thinking he was just a passerby who was somewhat handsome.

The commotion she caused quickly attracted nosy people.

Generally, the first to arrive at such an event is usually the Witch of Light, but unfortunately, Lightbao is still fast asleep at home, so another witch came to check on the situation. She flew straight to Annie and complained helplessly, "Miss Annie, what are you doing again?"

"It's nothing, I'm just looking for someone." Annie gave the arriving witch a perfect smile, showing no trace of her previous frantic chanting of the Death Finger. "As a necromancer, having zombies and skeletons help find people should be quite common, right?"

"That's really rare!"

"In short, don't be nervous, I'll put the cute undead creatures away now."

Anne smiled and comforted the poor witch on duty, but in reality, she did nothing. Under Anne's control, the terrifying zombies and skeletons quickly concealed themselves and began their covert search. She believed that Duke must have hidden himself through some means and hadn't even gone far.

"Or rather... did they use a magical artifact that alters perception? Were they actually standing right in front of me?"

"Huh? Miss Anne, what did you say?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

Duke, who was standing not far from Annie, broke out in a cold sweat.

Fortunately, the little black creature in his arms was an intelligent elemental being, and it knew that this was not the time to make a fuss, so it wouldn't suffocate from not breathing.

Fortunately, the witch on duty was there, so Annie didn't try to attack any of the passersby. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Duke immediately ran away with the cat.

He can't go back home for the time being. Annie has installed a listening device in his house, so going home would be like walking into a trap. Similarly, Amber and the others probably can't go back to their homes either. Annie is capable of spying on Cecil, so she can certainly spy on Amber and the others. Even the hero-level Cecil can't detect her surveillance, let alone anyone else.

Of Duke's friends, only Ge Yue has the ability to find Annie, but the problem is, Duke doesn't know where that near-legendary lives.

After walking a few steps, Duke saw several adventurers queuing up. In front of the queue, a witch was standing in front of the game house, hosting a witch game. His eyes lit up, and he immediately took Xiao Hei to the end of the queue.

If I can't afford to mess with them, I can at least avoid them! Going home won't work, so I'll just run to another dimension and hide, okay?

Duke was at the back of the line. There were four adventurers in total who were going to participate in this witch game. Three of them already knew each other and were chatting together. The fourth adventurer, who was being sidelined by the three-person group, could only awkwardly speak to Duke: "Brother, you look a bit unfamiliar. Are you new to the floating city?"

"How did you know that?" Duke put on a show of surprise and asked, "I haven't been in the floating city for very long."

“That’s normal. Someone as handsome as you, brother, would probably be on the list of handsome men in the floating city by now. Since I don’t know you, it must be because you haven’t been here long.” The young adventurer became very talkative when he talked about his area of ​​expertise. “I think you look a bit like that pretty boy Duke who’s number one on the list. Someone as handsome as you, brother, would be on the list in no time at all during the Witch Games.”

"The handsome men list..." Duke looked at the young adventurer in front of him with some surprise and said with sincere admiration, "I didn't expect that you, who are so handsome, are actually a restless and horny guy. You can actually know the handsome men list so well."

The leadership of the floating city is all witches. There used to be beauty rankings, but they were all abolished because they were "detrimental to harmony among the witch sisters," leaving only the handsome men rankings, something Duke never looks at. However, these rankings are supposedly quite popular among witches and sell very well.

The young adventurer glanced at Duke with a puzzled look, wondering what he was talking about. He then scratched his head and introduced himself sheepishly, "My name is Tom. Actually, I'm an editor for the Floating City newspaper, which is why we're so familiar... But brother, with your talent, I guarantee you'll definitely make the list someday. I'll go back and introduce you. Don't forget me when you get your reward!"

Duke: "?"

A reward?! This thing even has a reward?!

Duke, who had dominated the list of handsome men in the floating city for months, was shocked.

Someone actually owes me money and won't pay? I, Du the Skinflint, have never suffered such humiliation!

Duke patted Tom on the shoulder with a forced smile: "Great! I'll definitely remember you, Tom, when I receive my reward. By the way, where's your newspaper's address?"

"I'll take you there myself after the game is over." Tom patted his chest, completely oblivious to the "danger" sign hanging over him and the newspaper. "By the way, what's your name, brother?"