The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 403: It’s important to have more than one skill in your CV, folks

Chapter 403: It’s important to have more than one skill in your CV, folks

"This is worse than I thought..."

The comment came out unconsciously from my mouth, because indeed, it was way worse than what Fatia told me before. But then again, they left this place about two months ago, probably, so it was natural that the damage would be different.

But even then, this kind of progression in two months was too much.

"There’s a lot of death in this place," Ignis suddenly told me as our horse stopped at the edge of the blackened land. "Probably not a good death too."

"You mean the lingering negative thoughts influenced the progression of the corrupted mana?"

"In the first place, this thing you called corrupted mana is born from that, isn’t it? Death, hatred, the opposite of the mana, which is the source of life."

I glanced at the little lizard on my shoulder and stroked the flaming head. "Look at you being so wise."

"Don’t treat me like a kid! I have lived for thousands of years!" Ignis grumbled in annoyance, but made no move to avoid my fingers. Cutie. You might have knowledge of thousands of years, but your mental age was only twenty years at most.

[Master, should Jade fly around to see the black place?] My little bird flapped its wings in front of my face, looking very much excited about becoming useful.

"You’ll do that? What a good bird!" I squeezed Jade’s cheeks as the little bird let out a crisp chirp of giggle. "Go on, but no need to fly too much; you might need to support me later, yeah?"

[Okii!]

Jade flew high then, so I would be able to see the whole affected area from a literal bird-eye view. As I watched Jade turn into its true form for easier flight, I heard the sound of other horses approaching me. Fatia hopped off the horse she was riding to get closer to me.

"Umm...Sir, what you said earlier..." she asked worriedly, and it took me a while to realize it was because I said it was worse than I thought.

"Ah, about that," I looked back at the eerily jet-black corner. "It’s worse than what you told me, even after calculating the progression."

I recalled what I had read in one of the books I got from Amarein before continuing. "Looking at the condition, it’s just a matter of time before corrupted beasts start appearing from that center."

"T-that’s..."

"No, no--" I saw her worried face and waved my hand dismissively. "What I’m saying is that we’re right on time, so you need not worry."

"O-oh..."

"I might need a longer time, though."

"T-that’s alright, as long as it can be purified," she nodded profusely. It was clear that she had been on her wit’s end, probably because they had no backup plan if I couldn’t do this.

Ah, I should have chosen my words better from now on, phew.

"Oh, right. Did you never do any...hmm, what does it say? Funeral rites...appeasing rites? Here?" I asked her and the Mayor, who just blinked from his horses. "You know, like...after the war?"

"Umm...we performed a funeral after retrieving the bodies, but..."

"We can’t get everyone, because...some are too..." Fatia let out a heavy sigh as she tried to look for better, milder words. "Impossible to be carried."

I see...this world might not have guns or kinetic bombs, but the magic spell was just as devastating. I mean...I was the living proof of that. If Valmeier didn’t protect the front-line soldiers with a barrier to the point of burning his own circuits, there would be a lot of soldiers left...too far off to be able to get carried back.

"So you did nothing in the land itself?"

"You mean the appeasing rites?"

"Yes."

"I...I don’t think so," the Mayor shook his head, and then looked at Fatia and the Regent.

"The war was still ongoing at that time, and we could not afford to linger here," for the first time, I heard the Regent’s voice. It was surprisingly deep and heavy. "By the time the war was over and we had time to take care of it, the place had started to get corrupted."

"Hmm..."

"As you know...Sir, rites like that need the priests to stay for hours. But the environment had become too poisonous for them to be able to do so."

Well, that explained everything.

The Regent, who naturally had a sharp mind, asked me. "Is that why the blackening goes so much faster?"

"You could say that," I nodded. Not that I knew much, but Ignis said that, and it sounded logical too. "It will be better for an appeasing ritual to be held after I’m done with the purification."

"Oh, then, I will contact the church at once--"

"No," I stopped the Mayor. "I can do it myself."

"O-oh?"

"Right! You can do it!" Zarfa clapped her hands, finally remembering that I was also, essentially, a priest.

Sure, that would mean I had to work double, but it was better than having anyone from the church come here. I had told Fatia specifically that I didn’t want any church member to be near me, because even though Lenaar had no influence in Dailamy, the church was present in all corners of the human realm. And well...they might realize who I was then.

Obviously, it would be easy for me to deal with them now. Even if I didn’t want to hurt them, all I needed to do was call for Natha and teleport back to the Demon Lord. Still, wouldn’t it be better to not have any disturbance when we tried to do some business--I mean...good deeds?

"Well, I expect the best payment for my service," I cleared my throat and stroked the horse, which immediately bent its legs so I could alight easily.

"Of course, you don’t need to worry about that, Sir."

Fatia bowed her head readily, but I could hear the Regent take a sharp breath--perhaps calculating how much she needed to fork out to get the relics, or what kind of atrocities she might turn a blind eye to for it.

Not my problem.

"Good boy; go get some rest away from here," I patted the good horse who had bravely taken me as close as it could to the corrupted land. Other horses were stopping a few meters behind and had been anxious ever since.

The horse neighed once before clopping back, and the Regent told the Mayor to leave with the horses until we called for them again. Obviously, a place like this was not good for general living beings, just like how the villagers in that forest started to become very sick.

[Master! Master!]

"I saw it, Jade," I closed my eyes. "It’s quite wide, huh...but it seems like nothing else is there."

Of course, that would be expected from a dead land. But sometimes, there would be stubborn people or animals staying, and it would be harder for me to concentrate if I had to be selective about which mana I could absorb. Worst case, they could have their mana absorbed by me, and that would become uncomfortable both for them and for me.

The black center, fortunately enough, wasn’t so big--only a few meters wide. But the affected field was easily encompassed a few hectares. That was only the place that was directly corrupted. The lack of mana also affected the surrounding field, making it drier. Fall was usually a season of harvest, but there were barely any crops even outside the corrupted meadow.

Well, it used to be a meadow. Now it was just a dried, cracked land that was a step away from desertification with corrupted beasts running around.

"Come back now," I told the little bird, who wasn’t little anymore, honestly.

"What should we do?" the Hero asked as I was getting ready to move.

"Just stay away," I said, glancing at everyone. "All of you. No one enters the field, and make sure no one can enter from now on."

He frowned and, once again, asked what he had been arguing since last night. "But what about your safety while you’re--"

"His safety will be my problem," Ignis said sharply. "You just make sure nothing comes inside. Patrol the place or whatever."

[Jade will also protect Master!] the bird who still had a child’s voice but now a bigger body added, landing on my other shoulder.

"As you see, I have my trusted bodyguards," I shrugged my heavy shoulder.

"Val..." Zarfa held my hand then. "You promise, right? Like you said, it’s worse than you thought."

"Don’t worry, I won’t finish this today," I swept my gaze across the dreary field. "I’ll just get rid of that blackened center first. Why don’t you...make sure I’ll get a nice meal after I’m done with my shift today, mm?"

She finally laughed, even though I could still hear anxiety in her voice. "Okay, I know you are strong. You have always been," she squeezed my cheek slightly--although I had been trying to act cool--and gave me a short hug. "Good luck."

I patted her head and started to step into the corrupted field. Regular people would immediately become dizzy and sick in this kind of place. Those with a lot of mana would have more resistance to it, but ultimately, only a druid could stroll through this place since they--and by that I mean me, obviously--had the natural blessing of coating our body in elemental mana, which was the opposite of this corrupted one.

Hmm...the Hero might be able to, if he had the blessing of the Goddess of Light, since the properties also resist death and corruption. High Priests who received blessings might be able to, but the regular priests would be poisoned by the mana.

Especially now, when the Goddess was incognito.

Thanks to my clothes and boots, it didn’t take long for me to reach the pitch-black center that almost looked like a bog already. Like a truckload of tar had been poured into the land.

"Can you do this?" Ignis asked me one last time.

"Of course," I nodded. "And I won’t do it alone, would I?"

Ignis let out a snort and jumped off my shoulder. The moment it landed on the blackened field, the little lizard had turned into a full-blown Salamander. The flame itself had a bit of purifying property, so the black tar below its foot wriggled away from Ignis. Nothing got burnt, however, and the land did not melt since Ignis had learned hard to control its fire better.

From my other shoulder, Jade flew up in its juvenile form glory, like a flurry of majestic rainbow as it hovered above me.

[Master will be safe!]

I gave long-distance kisses to my companions, before getting back to the pool of tar-like substance in the center.

"Alright, it’s our turn now, Alveitya."

I called forth the Spear of Judgment and struck it to the ground in front of me.

"Let’s begin."

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.