Extra Chapter 54 – A Warrior in a World Without the Civil Servant (2)
The winter of 1625 was very cold. Hillis certainly felt so as she clung to Doomstone and screamed, "Kyaaaahh! Too! fast!"
Not only were they going fast, but they were high up, too. How could a person even move this way? One could even say he was flying, rather than running. In addition to the sharp wind, her skin felt like it was freezing. She was unsure whether it was the cold, the fear, or some combination of the two.
"Didn't you say you wanted to save your sister? Hang in there." said Doomstone.
Hillis clenched her teeth. They were headed to the home of the demon king worshippers. Since she didn't know what her sister's current situation was, she didn't dare to ask Doomstone to slow down. As Hillis held it in, clenching her teeth so hard that drops of blood flowed from her mouth, Doomstone took a potion out of his pocket and handed it to her.
"If it's too hard to bear, drink this! Your mana will recover. This isn't Olympus Forest, and you're not a Crow, so don't drink more than five drops."
Doomstone's potion was a mana recovery potion made by Mirpa.
"Five drops? Is it okay to drink so little?"
In addition, they were moving much too fast for her to count out the individual drops. Hillis felt as though she was clinging on to a mad bull, moving by entire kilometers with each step.
"If you exceed five drops, you can get overloaded and die. It's not made for outsiders."
Hillis hesitated for a moment. Then she quickly steeled herself, opened the lid with her teeth, and carefully wet her lips. Shortly afterwards, she felt her mana filling up quickly.
"I can't believe there was such a potion in the world!"
After drinking only three or four drops, she was amazed. She had never thought such a potion could exist, it seemed like something out of an old legend. Her amazement turned to sadness when she thought about how a potion like that could have saved many the day before, or even just earlier that day.
"It's better to let go of what's already happened. If it's something you can't let go of, you can also just bury it for a while."
At Doomstone's comforting advice, Hillis asked, putting the mana recovery potion in her pocket space, "… Are you saying that based on experience?"
"An adult's advice comes mostly from experience."
Hillis nodded, now able to bear the cold with her recovered mana. Doomstone, the terrifying 'Crow of Death' from the rumors, was said to be a violent person who destroyed things as easily as breathing. But after just a short conversation, she felt that Doomstone might not be so barbaric.
"And sometimes you get the drive to live life from something you can't let go of."
"I see."
"The more I see you, the more familiar you seem. Have we met somewhere before?" Doomstone asked.
Hillis laughed and joked, "Are you trying to seduce me? That's a pretty corny line."
"Ahahaha. I only have eyes for my wife. I'll also pass on flirting with a kid."
"Hahahaha! This is my first time being rejected. Of course, I've never confessed or received a confession before."
Hillis had been a saintess from an early age. Nobody was even allowed to approach her romantically.
"Should I consider that an honor?"
"Of course, I'm a saintess." Hillis said smugly.
"How old are you, miss? Are you even over twenty?" asked Doomstone.
"Me? I'm still a teenager."
"Really? Then I guess not. Well, they told me Lucien's daughter's name was Vibrio, so I knew something was different from the start." said Doomstone with a shrug.
Hillis looked at Doomstone blankly. "Do you know my mother and sister?"
"Huh? Sister? Oh, I see. Then, are you Vibrio's younger sister?" Doomstone shook his head; he hadn't even thought about that. "Miss Lucien is my wife's cousin. To be exact, my mother-in-law said that she was the adopted daughter of the family, so she isn't related by blood."
Hillis was astonished. "Really?! Why didn't I know that?"
"Because my mother-in-law died so early that I never even met her."
Doomstone's mother-in-law had died under the curse of a demon king worshipper before he had ever met Anemone. It was extremely rare for adults to tell children the details of their family. In addition, Hillis' parents had died in an accident when she was young, and she had awakened as the saintess shortly afterwards. So, the family was cautious about what they told her.
"Was it about twenty-five years ago? I met her once in the Holy Land when my wife and I visited. At that time, Vibrio was just starting to walk, so she wouldn't remember me. How is your mother?"Visit novelping(.)com for the full chapter.
Hillis smiled awkwardly. "My mother passed away when I was young."
Doomstone quickly apologized and changed the subject.
"Oh... Sorry. Oh! I gave her a unicorn horn as a gift. Do you still have it?"
"Unicorn horn! That's my family's heirloom. Did Chief-nim give that to us?"
"It's because I owed her."
Doomstone stopped running for a moment. Hillis looked at him with a curious gaze.
"Puhahaha! Did you end up getting done in, Father?" said Doomstone, laughing.
There laid Zendia, sprawled out on the ground and covered with wounds. It seemed he had been attacked on the way to the altar where the demon king-summoning ceremony was being held.
"Ugh, shut up. If you have any recovery potions, give them here."
Zendia had no energy left to even get up, and barely even managed to reach out his hand with a painful groan. Hillis approached Zendia and instilled divine power in him.
"Are you okay?"
Zendia was impressed. Unlike Mirpa's recovery potion, Hillis's healing power was not painful at all.
"Thanks, I'm fine now."
When he was able to move his body to some extent, Zendia got up.
"You can't move yet! You are still seriously injured!" Hillis exclaimed.
Zendia smiled kindly. "This much is fine. I can get by. You don't seem to be doing too well either, so save your strength."
Hillis closed her mouth when Zendia assessed her condition at a glance. She had regained some mana thanks to the potion, but she needed medical care as she had used up some of her lifespan in the previous battle. Zendia patted Hillis on the head and looked north with sad eyes.
"It seems it's too late now."
"I know."
To the north, there had been an explosion of mana and a fierce battle that slowly faded away and had now calmed down. If either side had won, it wouldn't have been so quiet. If the Demon King had won, he would have led his army to advance. If the warrior had won, he would have attacked the remainder of the Demon King's army.
"I should have moved earlier."
Zendia regretted not having fought with everything he had earlier. He could have stopped Galak, and he could've seen why the warrior was so obsessed with unsealing the Demon King. But it was too late. The realization made him feel like he had lost his way at the end of the road.
"But since the Demon King has disappeared, it won't be difficult to handle the aftermath." said Doomstone.
"My sister! She was taken away by the demon king worshippers!" Hillis exclaimed.
"If it's your sister, she'll probably be fine." said Doomstone.
"How do you know that?" asked Hillis.
"My instincts."
Hillis ran to the altar where the Demon King summoning ceremony was held, ignoring Doomstone.
"Unni! Wait for me, I'm coming!"
Doomstone scratched the back of his head. "I'm right, though…"
"I'll take care of the remnants of the demon king worshippers, you should go with that child. I'm sure there's a reason you brought that kid, right?" Zendia asked.
Doomstone scratched the back of his head again.
"Yes, well, that was due to my instincts, too."
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Three people gathered at the altar of the summoning ceremony for the Demon King, which had collapsed due to the battle between the Demon King and the warrior.
"As expected, you're alive, Arpen."
Mercenary King Marco Farhan, the former member of the Demon King subjugation team who had also been sealed with the Demon King, greeted his madosa comrade. To Marco, it seemed like just yesterday that they had said goodbye.
"Long time no see, Marco."
Arpen hugged his comrade who he hadn't seen in one-hundred-and-twenty with tears in his eyes.
"Ahahaha. I heard that people cry more as they get older, but I didn't know that our iceman would become so affectionate." Marco joked.
Arpen cursed at him to shut up.
Mirpa stepped in and greeted Marco. "You must have suffered a lot, spending so much time in the reverse world."
Marco smiled playfully. "It's definitely a place I never want to go again. But time goes by so fast. Speaking of which, what happened to our beautiful Mirpa, she's been replaced by some granny… Ahh!"
Marco dodged Mirpa's magic staff.
"This f***er aged backwards. Do you want me to throw you back into the reverse world again?" Mirpa threatened, poking her staff in Marco's direction.
Marco pretended to wipe away tears. "Heuk, heuk! Even though the years have melted our iceman, your foul mouth has gotten worse. Your swearing has become very strong, like fermented food."
"What?!"
Mirpa swung her staff at Marco again, who continued to tease her and avoid all of her attacks, until eventually they all burst into laughter. For a moment, it felt like they were a hundred-and-twenty years younger. Still, a sadness hung over them now that the two lovers of their group had disappeared.
"It's sad for the rest of us, but it's the end that that selfish warrior longed for."
"Yes, it would be greedy to want more than this. If we didn't have to deal with the aftermath, I would have congratulated them with tears."
Even so, she cursed. It was too much of a nuisance to get people involved who had nothing to do with it. There was sadness and regret in Mirpa's voice.
"Anyways, the geographical location of the Demon King summoning is also a problem."
The location was Golgoda Hill, one of the old holy lands. The holy land was where the world tree had taken root in the reverse world in the past, so it was an ideal place to summon the Demon King. However, the location provided such a strong link to the reverse world that there was a risk that the other entities from the reverse world might leak out as well.
Mirpa sighed and pulled out a piece of paper. "This is the data that the Curse Specialist got from his experiments in Zaharam some time this summer. It seems that the world tree was the lid that was blocking the reverse world from our world."
Arpen quickly scanned the paper and frowned. "Galak…! That crazy bastard screwed it up in the end!"
"Well, it just fixed in time the disappearance of the world tree. However, the problem is that this incident has advanced it by decades."
"Do you mean the destruction of the world that has already been decided…? If we want to fix it now, we will need the power of the world tree, the power of the extinct Holy tribe, or some other huge source of divine power."
Mirpa looked at Vibrio, who was fainted and lying down. "It'd be impossible for this kid, right?"
"Of course. It hasn't been long since she awakened as a saintess, so she won't be able to use her power properly." Arpen answered definitively.
Mirpa sighed hopelessly. "So, that means we're going to die here. I wonder if another saintess will fall from the sky. With the miracle crystal if possible." she joked wryly.
Marco, who couldn't understand what the two great madosas were saying at all, pointed to something flying towards them from far away.
"I don't know what you two are talking about, but is that what you need?"
In the distance, they could see Hillis' sky-blue hair, wrapped around Doomstone, flying towards them rapidly.
"Chief! As expected of the Blade family! You followed your instincts and brought her here!"
"Crazy! Is the Blade family's instincts some kind of foresight?!"
The two great madosas cheered.