The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 39

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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 39

Richard had experience subjugating monsters as a holy knight, but he had never experienced war.

No, it wasn’t just his problem. It had already been over a hundred years since the empire fought its last war. Now, there were no living citizens of the empire who had experienced war.

An extremely peaceful era.

Unlike him, who couldn’t even approach the stench, insects, and horrific sight, his younger sister was calmly examining the corpse and analyzing the cause of death.

“He was struck on the back of the head and fell forward, then had his organs devoured. He was still alive right after falling… The culprit isn’t human. Not an ordinary beast either. It looks like he came out hunting alone and met with misfortune. How tragic.”

As she said this, she adjusted her gloves, straightened the corpse’s twisted posture, and gathered the spilled organs to put them back into the abdomen.

Richard was horrified.

“What, what are you doing?”

“We can’t leave a person in this state. His family would faint if they saw this.”

He stared at her in bewilderment. Her respectful attitude while handling the corpse gave him a strange feeling.

‘It’s not even someone he knows, just a stranger’s corpse.’

Her touch wasn’t that of someone handling something horrific, but one filled with respect for the human who had been alive. Natural consideration that came from witnessing countless deaths of living people.

‘Rita really is…’

He could tell how many deaths Lillieta had witnessed, how accustomed she was to such death.

Richard found her both unfamiliar and admirable. And he was surprised at himself for feeling such emotions toward a younger sister he had thought was much younger and weaker.

‘Admirable?’

Unaware of Richard’s feelings, Rita, who had been repositioning the sprawled limbs, suddenly stopped. Then she stared intently at the dangling joint areas.

“Richard.”

“Y-yes?”

“Someone grabbed this person’s limbs and shook them until they were about to tear off, then only ate parts of the organs and left the other parts. Is there a monster that kills people this way?”

“Uh… Goblins are vicious but too small to grab and shake an adult man, ogres are big but don’t have the habit of playing with food and are too strong to control their strength precisely. If anything, it could be orcs, but orcs live in tribal groups so they don’t leave prey behind and take everything…”

“So there’s no monster that particularly comes to mind?”

“Right, not immediately. But there are all kinds of monsters out there, so if we investigate properly, we’ll figure out what it was.”

Rita opened her mouth, then closed it.

Ape-type demonic beasts usually killed people this way. They would grab limbs and shake them, playing with them like toys, then only devour the organs that suited their taste and throw the rest away like garbage.

That’s why this type of corpse was familiar to her.

‘But there are no demonic beasts here. This is supposed to be a world that doesn’t even know what demonic beasts are.’

She lifted her head and looked around.

There were no footprints or traces of something else moving around the corpse. Instead, she could see broken branches on nearby trees. Looking closer, that tree was dying.

‘Ape-type demonic beasts move by climbing trees.’

Plants affected by demonic beast aura sometimes die from the aftereffects of magical contamination.

Rita approached the dying tree, removed her gloves, and placed her bare hands on it.

“Rita?”

“Just a moment.”

She channeled her Oaths to scan for traces of magical contamination.

‘If it’s dying from contact with contaminated magic, there should be signs…’

She didn’t feel anything in particular.

It could mean the tree was simply dying from the shock of broken branches or other reasons.

‘Right, this is a world without magical contamination, so this makes sense. There are no demonic beasts here. It can’t be the work of demonic beasts.’

Still, she felt uneasy.

She turned to look at Richard.

“Richard.”

“Yeah, let’s call people first. To report that there’s a corpse here…”

“Are you certain there are no demonic beasts in this world?”

“Of course. I heard that term for the first time from you.”

“It’s not that they exist but haven’t been found?”

“Hey, when unidentified monsters are discovered, the Holy Order is the first to know. When people see something unfamiliar or strange, they first run to their local temple. Asking for extermination.”

“Ah.”

“According to you, demonic beasts aren’t actually breeding creatures, but animals, people, or even objects that turn into monsters after being affected by magical contamination or something like that, right? If such bizarre things appeared, the Order would have been in an uproar, but I’ve never heard such news. I’m currently, ahem, on leave, but I’m still a holy knight anyway.”

“…I see.”

“It’s probably the work of some little-known monster. It could be an undiscovered monster. It likely came down from the Black Forest, so we can investigate.”

“Okay.”

Rita nodded for now.

If this were a world where demonic beasts existed, it couldn’t be this peaceful.

Not knowing when or where demonic beasts might appear, and without even being prepared for magical contamination, a hell worse than the Ashen World she grew up in would unfold.

‘But what if… demonic beasts exist here too, but it’s still early stages of contamination so they haven’t been discovered yet?’

She felt a chill.

She gripped the gun at her waist tightly to swallow down all the nightmares that suddenly surged up to her throat.

‘…No. I’m probably overreacting. This is my homeland, a different world from that place.’

She slowly released the grip and steadied her breathing.

‘Still, let’s not be completely off guard. Variables can arise at any time.’

Meanwhile, Richard shot up a signal flare.

The hunt was immediately suspended due to the discovery of a corpse.

A person being killed by an unidentified monster in the Amethyst Forest wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unprecedented either. Since it was a forest connected to the Black Forest where all kinds of monsters lived, there were rare but existing precedents.

The guard would investigate the corpse’s identity and strengthen security in nearby villages, while the Raskail Knight Order would sweep through the entire Amethyst Forest to track and subjugate the monster.

Although it was a simple accident unrelated to the hunt, Duke Raskail ordered that funeral expenses and a modest consolation payment be delivered to the victim’s family as a gesture of sympathy.

And Lillieta requested to be notified when the monster’s identity was revealed.

Rather than feeling even slightly relieved from the hunt, her anxiety only increased and her nightmares became more frequent, but she didn’t show such signs to her family.

After the incident was concluded that way, on April 7th, 1770.

The Raskail family departed for the capital as scheduled.

The ducal house that left their territory arrived in the Imperial Capital Lambard after three days of peaceful travel.

Around the same time, many nobles arrived in the capital. The empty town houses were gradually filled, and the capital overflowed with vitality.

It was the beginning of the Kairam Empire Social Season.

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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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