The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 230

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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 230

 

She let out a sigh and raised her right hand. She stroked the small head with its spines lying flat. The hot body temperature she felt along with the corruption was strangely comforting.

 

She smiled faintly.

 

“It’s okay, Gid.”

 

-Uuuung….

 

“You didn’t do it on purpose. I know you tried to avoid me because you were worried this would happen. And that you were very hungry too.”

 

The small dragon looked up at her with tears of blood streaming down his face. Rita opened her arms to him.

 

“I’m not angry. I’m not disappointed in you either. So come here.”

 

The Black Dragon hesitated for a moment, then flapped his wings and flew up to cling to her shoulder. His long tail wrapped around her right arm and stuck close.

 

Rita stroked him as she slowly began walking.

 

“Don’t endure being hungry anymore. I’ll keep feeding you mana regularly.”

 

The Black Dragon, who had been buried deep in her shoulder, startled and raised his head, then shook it vigorously.

 

When Rita looked down asking why, he shed tears of blood with a tearful expression and tapped her chest with his small front paws.

 

“Are you worried I’ll get corrupted? I told you I’m fine since I’m an Oathbinder. Look, even now I’m perfectly….”

 

Rita trailed off.

 

Actually, she wasn’t perfectly fine.

 

She tasted blood in her throat and her head felt heavy from the rising fever. Her left hand, which had been bitten and had battled the spreading corruption, was almost numb. The pain was quite severe too.

 

Still, it was all bearable, and she was confident she could endure it without showing it. She could move sufficiently in this state and even shoot.

 

She wasn’t combat-incapable. So by her standards, it was fair to say she was perfectly fine.

 

She didn’t regret feeding Gid mana while accepting the corruption either. If necessary, she could repeat the same thing any number of times.

 

But….

 

She recalled the ‘best option’ that Gid had desperately tried to explain to her.

 

‘This isn’t the best option.’

 

She changed her thinking and corrected her words.

 

“Right, blindly enduring corruption isn’t a very good method. I’ll find other means, so don’t worry too much.”

 

-Grong?

 

The small Black Dragon tilted his head. As if asking if such a method existed.

 

‘What other means are there?’

 

Eating creatures or objects to absorb the mana within them was too inefficient. He couldn’t just devour everything like ordinary monsters. If done wrong, he might corrupt what he was eating and mass-produce monsters.

 

Rita pondered for a moment, then said “Ah,” and continued.

 

“Mana stones should be fine. With those, you could comfortably consume mana without worrying about corruption.”

 

Crystals and gems containing mana were called mana stones. If the Black Dragon chewed and ate mana stones along with the gems, there would be no worry about creating monsters.

 

‘Getting mana stones is the problem.’

 

Mages skilled in tool crafting, like Olivia for example, could make mana stones directly, but Rita, being a Mage Gunner, couldn’t. Mana stone creation was advanced magic equivalent to making artificial gems.

 

And it didn’t seem likely that mages of this era could make mana stones either.

 

‘How could medieval mages using staff magic make artificial mana stones? They’d need cutting-edge magic circles. Even in the Ash Ruin Era, that was the latest technology.’

 

In the end, the only answer was natural mana stones rarely found in nature. Being rare, useful, and expensive materials, they wouldn’t be easy to obtain, but….

 

‘Wait. Natural mana stones?’

 

Somehow she felt like she’d seen something similar in the founding myth?

 

Rita stopped abruptly where the cliff with the Whispering Cave could be faintly seen through the trees and urgently operated her bracelet.

 

“Gnewg, wake up. I have something to ask.”

 

Light entered the butterfly pattern carved on the golden bracelet, but no response came from the artificial spirit. Rita looked at the bracelet puzzledly.

 

“Gnewg? You’re awake, right?”

 

[Notice: Baby Gnewg is properly sulking. Therefore, he will now protest with silence.]

 

“Huh?”

 

Sulking? Suddenly why?

 

Rita, who was about to ask back, barely swallowed her question. She remembered the last moment she had talked with Gnewg.

 

‘He was worried it was dangerous, but I turned him off. Because I thought I’d lose Gid….’

 

Looking back, the reason was clear and sufficient cause for sulking. Rita reflected and apologized to the artificial spirit in a serious voice.

 

“Sorry, Gnewg. I was too selfish, wasn’t I? You were worried about me.”

 

[Notice: Baby Gnewg is in silent protest.]

 

“I was in a hurry then. I felt like something terrible would happen if I let Gid go like that. Not overexerting myself is important too, of course, but in urgent situations, there are things you have to accept unavoidably.”

 

[Notice: Baby Gnewg is in silent protest.]

 

“I should have explained that to you properly… I didn’t have the leisure for that in that moment.”

 

[Notice: Baby Gnewg is in silent protest.]

 

“Of course, even so, just turning you off like that was too much. I was wrong. Sorry for hurting you.”

 

[Alert: Artificial spirits do not get hurt.]

 

“That’s a lie. You’re upset because of me right now.”

 

[Alert: This artificial spirit is merely taking a hurt-seeming attitude to stimulate the user’s guilt.]

 

[Alert: This artificial spirit does not get hurt. Such a function is absent.]

 

“Right, the artificial spirit Grace might be like that. But baby Gnewg got hurt, didn’t he?”

 

The artificial spirit fell silent at Rita’s question.

 

It was real silence, not protest. A feeling as if he didn’t know how to answer. Unable to easily deny or affirm.

 

Rita, who had been waiting patiently, smiled slightly. With a smiling face, she rubbed the bracelet’s pattern and called softly.

 

“Won’t you answer me, our Minewg?”

 

[Question: Minewg, you say, user?]

 

“You said to call you Mystic Great New Grace from now on since you’d become a weapon of myth.”

 

The artificial spirit fell silent again. The pattern’s light flickered chaotically for a while, then a small voice leaked out.

 

[Joy: ]

 

The following words weren’t output. Rita smiled again.

 

“Please take care of me from now on too, Minewg.”

 

[Protest: User is underhanded. You used a foul play. Why do you remember that?]

 

“Does it feel like foul play because you like it so much? I should have called you by your new name from the start. Sorry for brushing it off lightly.”

 

[Contemplation: …I understand very well why the humans around the user act like that.]

 

[Suggestion: It’s too stimulating for little Minewg, so please just treat him roughly instead.]

 

“What’s too stimulating— Gid?”

 

The Black Dragon clinging to her shoulder tugged at her clothes with his small front paw.

 

When Rita looked down, the dragon stretched his neck and rubbed his head with flattened spines against her nape. It was a whining-like motion.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

As she asked puzzledly and patted him, the sulky artificial spirit’s voice came through.

 

[Opinion: That lizard is whining again. He seems to be acting like that because we’re talking without including him, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how that guy will look back on his actions after he comes to his senses later.]

 

[Resolution: The creator would also find it very interesting, so little Minewg will record all of the lizard’s actions well and use them for filial piety.]

 

“Filial piety….”

 

Rita was speechless but couldn’t bring herself to deny it.

 

She could clearly imagine how much Olivia would enjoy seeing Gid like this and milk it for entertainment forever. She could already vividly see Oli praising the artificial spirit profusely, saying he was precious.

 

‘That would indeed be filial piety.’

 

As she let out a hollow laugh, the Black Dragon hugged her neck tightly with both front paws. His wings also spread with all his might and stuck close to her shoulders, and more strength went into the tail wrapped around her arm.

 

The way he clung with his whole body somehow reminded her of Gideon desperately embracing her earlier, so Rita hugged him back and soothed him.

 

“I’m not trying to exclude you. We’re discussing your food, so don’t worry and wait.”

 

-Groong.

 

The Black Dragon made a small crying sound and buried his head in her embrace.

 

Rita stroked the back of the small dragon’s head that fit in one hand and conveyed the main point to the artificial spirit in her mind so Gid wouldn’t hear.

 

‘What I was trying to ask earlier, Minewg, wasn’t there content about natural mana stones in the founding myth?’

 

[Analysis: There’s no exact mention of natural mana stones, but content presumed to be natural mana stones does exist.]

 

[Information: When the Imperial Council was troubled by lack of funds before leaving the cave, the Black Dragon gifted treasures he had collected. When they exchanged some of them for gold coins, it was enough to feed and clothe everyone during the journey with plenty left over, and since they were precious treasures, they were also used to win over nobles of the Holy Empire along the way, and what remained after that became the foundation for Kairam’s founding.]

 

[Inference: Judging from the description of the treasures in the myth and the amount the Imperial Council exchanged them for, they were gems in form but their value far exceeded ordinary gems. Therefore, the Black Dragon’s treasures are presumed to be natural mana stones.]

 

‘If we’re following the myth, we’d have to obtain them anyway. But how do we find them?’

 

[Opinion: There’s probably a hidden natural mana stone deposit somewhere in the Black Forest. It’s originally a region with all kinds of natural resources buried in it. Even Raskail’s Amethyst Forest, which branched off from the Black Forest, has all kinds of gem mines, doesn’t it?]

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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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