A Runaway Villainess, Now Healing In An Enemy Country - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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【Chapter 73】

“…!”

Crack!

The black egg made a sound like breaking rock as it split open without warning.

As if it had been waiting for this moment, a viscous black wave gushed forth from within.

Marisa, who had been in contact with the egg, was instantly swallowed by the wave. The same happened to the Griffins scattered nearby.

It writhed greatly as if digesting food. It also seemed to be trying to take proper form.

“Dangerous.”

The moment I recognized the magi it possessed, my body moved first, drawn by the instinct to purify it. However, Davuer firmly held me back, preventing me from acting.

That wave, like melted slime, was definitely a Vermin. I could be certain despite its unheard-of appearance and method of emergence.

A monstrous life form that moved with such powerful magi couldn’t be called anything but a Vermin.

That’s what made it even more incomprehensible. How could I, of all people, not have noticed such a Vermin hiding there?

After awakening my sanctity, like a fool?

“—Zephyrus, immediately evacuate non-combat personnel to the castle in order.”

Davuer hurriedly gave orders.

A calm response despite the urgent crisis situation.

He undoubtedly understood the identity of that thing. That bizarre ‘Vermin.’

From when the egg cracked until now, only about ten seconds had actually passed.

‘Too late.’

But I made that judgment faster than expected.

An intense flow of magi was rushing toward us like a storm.

It was as if all the Vermin living in this mountain range were racing here. Perhaps because of this, I could even feel vibrations rumbling from deep underground.

“…Huff, Un, Uncle. I was wrong… I was wrong.”

“Zephyrus Clamente.”

“I won’t do anything…. I won’t do anything…. I won’t do anything….”

Jepi, who had dropped his sword, lay prostrate on the ground, muttering incoherently. He had apparently fallen into sudden abnormal symptoms.

He wasn’t the only one in this state.

“Ahhh! Get, get away from me!”

“Huk, mon, monster. Huuuk, please save me!”

All kinds of screams erupted from among the knight’s order.

They were all shouting at the air as if something terrifyingly frightening was right before their eyes.

“Damn it. Everyone’s too late, my lord!”

Nishe, who had run toward them and knocked them out one by one, reported to his master.

But his voice sounded strangely blocked, as if he were holding his breath. The same was true for Davuer.

I easily realized it. The reason that master and servant maintained their sanity was because they were ‘not breathing.’

And I.

“This is, strange….”

I had never once held my breath.

Without realizing it, my body was drenched in cold sweat. Rapid breathing, a sensation as if my insides were burning hot.

[…Ah…]

Everything was strange, but most of all, this voice that kept stirring through my head was the strangest.

It wasn’t scary or unpleasant. Rather, I even felt a familiar energy from it.

[In—…]

“Who are you….”

That bizarrely writhing Vermin was calling to me. More precisely, something trapped inside it was.

[…was.]

I definitely wasn’t enchanted, yet as if enchanted, I looked at it and used my sanctity.

Perhaps because I left everything to my unconscious. Even I couldn’t tell what I was trying to do.

The moment the flash that bloomed from my fingertips gleamed white.

[Too late, contractor.]

In the light, I ‘met eyes’ with something.

As if lying in a cradle filled with sunlight, I instantly became drowsy and sleepiness rushed over me.

Davuer looked at me with a shocked face and shouted.

“Damn it, Irene!”

Ah….

What did I just do? There’s no time to be doing this. I need to purify the magi right now.

‘Oh no, my consciousness….’

* * *

Davuer lifted the unconscious Irene and examined her. He didn’t even realize that his fingertips touching her face were trembling mercilessly.

Because his senses were damaged, even touching didn’t feel like touching. This was even more so since they weren’t inside the castle where her magic circle functioned.

Was it because of this? It took him longer to properly assess Irene’s condition than it had taken to intuitively grasp the egg’s identity.

Only after realizing that her agitated breathing had returned to normal, that she was merely asleep and showed no signs of nightmares, did his trembling hands stop.

“Zephyrus, take Irene and return first….”

Davuer unconsciously began giving an order but closed his mouth.

His knight was already in no condition to carry out orders, so pressing him would be meaningless.

They had all breathed in that energy directly.

‘The power to plunge those who inhale it into terror.’

As expected, perhaps? His intuition that pierced his mind the moment he recognized the egg was correct.

Davuer spoke to Nishe, the only one besides himself who remained sane in this place.

“A horde of Vermin is rushing toward this location. Can you handle them while holding your breath?”

“Yes.”

He couldn’t know exactly what Irene’s sanctity-induced flash had been that caused her to suddenly lose consciousness.

Both her sanctity and she herself were mysterious unknowns.

However, he knew well about the Vermin before his eyes. And what needed to be done now.

Looking at the Vermin writhing in apparent pain from the recent flash’s influence, he commanded without inflection.

“Then we’ll subdue it here.”

—Are you insane? You need to flee immediately!

A shrill telepathic message immediately pierced his mind after he made his decision. Davuer coldly continued.

“Giselle, send Ally here as reinforcement and evacuate the residents from areas close to the mountain first.”

—It’s the same situation as back then, you know that! That thing can’t be defeated!

‘Back then.’

Long ago, the day the Mage Tower collapsed.

A ‘contaminated entity’ that appeared suddenly just like today had plunged the Mage Tower into unprecedented chaos and devoured the mages.

—If it absorbs again this time, Master will go berserk!

And the Mage Tower Master had devoured it.

It was right after the Holy War ended in failure.

The Countess died without even leaving a corpse, and the Rotten World Tree, far from being revived, became filled with even greater magi and created a Contaminated Region.

Magi had not disappeared from the world.

The entire continent fell into chaos.

The Imperial Court and Temple that led the Holy War needed someone to bear the burden of that disastrous failure. The Mage Tower Master who returned bearing magi was a fitting candidate.

That God had fallen and become the source of magi.

That the ‘Countess,’ erased from the world so that everyone barely remembered her properly, had died together with God.

No one suspected the truth that if he who sealed the magi left by that God died, disaster would occur.

Only the very few who experienced the final battlefield knew the truth. The ‘facts’ visible to the world’s eyes were these:

The Mage Tower Master had fallen to magi and killed the Countess.

That’s why the Holy War failed.

This was at least a much more plausible and believable causality than the truth that the god they served was false.

After all, the Countess was dead and magi had taken residence in the Mage Tower Master. He was no longer human anyway.

A sacred trial was held without the defendant present, and Davuer Winze was sentenced to death in a manner befitting the disposal of Vermin.

However, there were several problems with its execution.

“The Mage Tower is a place that protects the Tower’s mages. We follow the Tower’s principles, and you are still the master of this place.”

First, the Mage Tower believed in him.

All the mages, from those who had participated in the Holy War to those who hadn’t, those who chose to abandon the Castle and naturalize to the Mage Tower, still regarded him as their master.

His Older Sister, who had newly ascended to the ducal position after the Duke and his wife passed away, and even the former Duke stood by his side.

“I was sick of those damn Imperial bastards anyway, so this worked out well. Let’s take this opportunity to declare independence and move the Mage Tower entirely to the Duchy.”

Thus, an unavoidable war structure was established.

During that time, right after the Countess’s death, all kinds of power were rampaging within Davuer, who had absorbed what God had left behind.

Fundamental magi, fragmented divine authority. The limits of a human body drove him toward death.

His death would mean being devoured by magi, meaning the worst disaster on the Surface would occur. It would mean failing to keep his promise.

He could not die and must not die, so he received protection from the Mage Tower and Belmayer. A precarious state of tension on the verge of explosion continued.

Then the former Duke was assassinated by the Imperial Court, pulling the trigger of war.

On a day so overcast that the entire world seemed gray, Juansi, who had been her close aide, came fleeing to the Mage Tower carrying that corpse.

“According to her will, the Mage Tower Master must inherit the ducal position. And please… take revenge…”

They say misfortunes come in pairs.

There was one more visitor to the Mage Tower that day.

The ‘Unknown Entity’ that had been secretly parasitizing within his Older Sister’s corpse.

It was born without any proper warning from within the heart of the corpse it had been inhabiting, instantly plunging the Mage Tower into chaos.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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