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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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Lina’s party watched the village chief and his men enter the shrine. They needed to consider whether to rush in now or observe for a while longer.
“What’s there to think about? Let’s just go in and kill them all.”
Natasha uttered frightening words in a cute voice. She was always so quick to suggest killing. Scary.
Well, if their assumptions about what these guys were doing were correct, they would have to die anyway.
In times like these, being in another world was quite convenient.
If this were modern times, they would have to spare even these criminals’ lives in the name of human rights.
“What should we do, Lina-nim? Should we attack?”
In ambiguous situations, asking the regressor was the best course of action. Lina would make the right judgment.
That was when it happened. Before any judgment could be made, a woman’s voice drifted intermittently from the shrine.
“Kyaa! P…Please… spare me. I’ll… I’ll do what you say… I want… my mom… Why… are you doing this… I’m sorry…”
A terrified woman’s voice reached them in fragments.
Lina’s eyes turned cold in an instant. It was over. There was no way the village chief and his men would survive now.
“Let’s go in now.”
The party nodded at Lina’s words.
Lina took the lead, smashing the shrine’s door and charging in. Natasha, Victoria, and Kerry followed close behind.
The old woman was slowly walking behind them. So carefree. Her knees weren’t good, so he understood, but still.
“What! Who is it? No, the H…Heroes? How did the Heroes get here…?”
“….This is, well…”
The village chief’s men began to panic.
There was no need to hear their explanations.
Inside the shrine, a grotesque goat-headed statue was visible.
And in the corner, a woman who appeared to be a villager was trembling.
“Secret royal inspector, arriving! You bastards.”
Some were still looking around, trying to come up with an excuse.
The village chief, meanwhile, remained calm.
He walked in front of his men and began to speak calmly, as if nothing was wrong.
“This place is off-limits to outsiders. Heroes, please leave. And we would appreciate it if you would not interfere in the matters of our village.”
The shameless bastard.
Hearing his words, his men also shouted for them to leave, despite the Heroes having saved their village.
Then Lina, with cold eyes, faced the village chief and spoke.
“Lady Natasha, could you please take care of that woman?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t! Even if you are Heroes, this is a village matter! Don’t interfere any further. This woman is here of her own free will, for the sake of the village.”
The woman was trembling. Judging by her appearance, she hadn’t been treated well.
She was extremely frightened, and her clothes were torn in several places.
It was obvious what had happened with those burly men.
“Of her own free will? How does that look like she’s here of her own free will?”
The woman’s arms and legs were tightly bound.
With a swift movement, Natasha brought the woman over to their side.
Lina raised her sword. With her beautiful blonde hair and resolute face, she truly looked the part of a hero.
“Hero, our village has its own circumstances. What you are doing now is not righteous for a hero. Once again, this is a matter of our village.”
That silver tongue. He couldn’t just rip it out.
Then, the village woman who had been held hostage cried out.
“Don’t lie, you bastards! You… You tricked me. You said if I became the sacrifice… the village would prosper. But what’s this? You just kept raping me.”
“That bitch is spouting nonsense!”
“Hero, this is a misunderstanding! We did no such thing.”
This was getting frustrating.
Kerry pulled a dagger from his pocket and threw it at the village chief.
He wasn’t a master of dagger throwing, but he was skilled enough to hit a target at this distance.
The dagger lodged in the village chief’s chest.
He looked down at the dagger embedded in his chest without a sound.
“Show your true form, monster.”
The village chief laughed emptily and began to transform.
Horns sprouted from his head, and his skin turned a deep green.
He looked similar to a goblin.
“Kerry, get behind me. How did you know his true identity…?”
“H…Hero…?”
“A…A monster!”
As the frightened men tried to flee, the transformed village chief’s arms extended and grabbed them.
Then he snapped their necks, killing them.
“Useless fools.”
Lina stared intently at the scene.
She could have slaughtered the village chief right away, but she remained silent.
As if she had questions she wanted to ask.
The village chief, still seemingly bewildered, asked the party,
“How did you know my true identity? I haven’t done anything in front of you that would give me away…”
“We went to the dungeon. The Spider Queen babbled on and on about you. So, I did some digging.”
In truth, he had known from the beginning that the village chief was strange, thanks to the Eyes of the Goddess.
“That damned spider bitch. She should have just stayed dead. Causing so much trouble.”
“So, you two know each other? What’s your relationship? Were you two dating and then broke up or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Those bitches are just leftovers I’ve already consumed. I didn’t know they would cause such a nuisance even in death.”
Kerry had a hunch that his suspicions were correct.
“…Those female spider monsters were the village maidens offered as sacrifices, right? Like this woman here?”
“You’re quite perceptive.”
The village woman who had been held hostage, listening to their conversation, began to tremble.
“Th…Those spider monsters were people sacrificed from the village? Then my sister… Did my sister become a spider monster? Village chief, what nonsense are you talking about… You said if I sacrificed myself, the village would prosper. That the plague would disappear, and the famine would end!”
“Stupid bitch. Kekeke.”
The woman shuddered at his words and fainted. Seeing this, Lina said,
“Lady Natasha, please take that woman and the grandmother to safety.”
Kerry was a little puzzled.
“Is that really necessary?”
He didn’t think the village chief could defeat Lina anyway.
“It’s absolutely necessary. The village chief himself is nothing… but the ‘Idol’ behind him is dangerous.”
“…Idol?”
Was she talking about the goat-headed statue with a human body behind the village chief?
What was so special about an idol?
Anyway, it couldn’t be anything ordinary. Lina rarely showed signs of tension.
“Indeed, the Hero knows much. But as long as Vagnito protects me, even a Hero can’t lay a finger on me here. Vagnito!”
As soon as the village chief called out that strange name,
A purple barrier appeared around his body.
An ominous energy began to emanate from the goat-headed statue, which had previously appeared to be just a simple statue.
Kerry used the Eyes of the Goddess on the goat-headed statue.
Damn it.
“An idol isn’t something a mere village chief could create. Who taught you how to make it?”
“Kekeke! Vagnito is with me. I won’t tell you anything.”
“Is that so?”
Lina smiled faintly. Her calm and collected expression was always reassuring.
She lowered her sword from the barrier-protected village chief.
Lina began to aim her sword not at the village chief, but at the statue of Vagnito.
The air around Lina grew heavy.
He had felt this sensation before. The same feeling when Lina broke the barrier set by the White Witch.
As if focusing, Lina closed her eyes. Just then, Natasha appeared.
“Husband, I’ve taken the grandmother to safety. Everything alright?”
“Yes, Natasha. But it looks like things will be over soon.”
“Kekeke! Over? You will die under Vagnito’s curse.”
Before the village chief could finish his sentence,
Lina swung her sword downwards.
In an instant, the statue of Vagnito created a barrier as if to protect itself.
But the barrier was useless against Lina’s sword.
The barrier momentarily blocked Lina’s sword, but it eventually shattered.
The statue of Vagnito was cleanly split in half.
“…V…Vagnito?”
At that moment, black smoke billowed from the idol of Vagnito. The smoke gathered like a black cloud and rushed towards Lina and her party. The rising black smoke passed right through them and drifted out.
Am I alive? I was so scared. Shit.
“As expected, the true idol worshipper was someone else. Was it his doing…?”
He had been terrified when the black smoke rushed towards them, but it turned out to be nothing.
Judging by Lina’s words, the smoke had returned to its true master.
The village chief, bewildered, stared blankly at Vagnito, which had become nothing more than a broken statue. His form was also returning from that of a monster to that of a human.
Lina asked the village chief,
“Who taught you how to create the idol?”
“…”
The village chief was rapidly aging.
It was as if the life force was draining from his body moment by moment. He would die without them having to lift a finger.
As he died, the village chief uttered his last words.
“…A man wearing a mask… passing through… told me how to save the village… I truly… know nothing… else…”
With those words, the village chief died. Although Kerry didn’t understand, Lina seemed to have gained something from his words.
It seemed she had someone in mind.
The matter at the shrine was thus concluded.
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Lina’s party recounted the events at the shrine to the villagers.
Some wept and begged for forgiveness, admitting their wrongdoing, while others shirked responsibility, claiming they had no choice at the time or that they were unaware of what was happening.
But Lina secured one promise: that they would never repeat such actions again. And that they would offer sincere apologies to the village maidens who had been sacrificed.
Lina prepared to leave for their next destination. They couldn’t properly rest in a village that had become uncomfortable due to what had transpired.
Naturally, they didn’t forget to collect the 30 gold coins promised by the village chief. The village chief must have been quite wealthy, as they easily found 30 gold coins when they searched his house.
There seemed to be other valuable items as well, but Lina insisted on leaving them for the villagers, so there was nothing they could do.
‘My pockets are quite full now. I’ve been saving since the beginning of the journey, and my companions entrust me with all the lump sums they occasionally earn.’
What should he do with this money? He’d think about that later.
The villagers waved goodbye to Lina’s departing party.
“Is it really alright to leave like this? I’m worried we should have punished them more severely.”
“They will have learned their lesson from this incident.”
Well, as long as the tears they were shedding weren’t fake, that would be the case. Kerry looked back at the people waving from the village entrance.
That woman was among them.
The most beautiful woman in the village, the one with whom he had shared a passionate tryst.
‘Is the person next to her her husband?’
The woman was nestled in her husband’s arms, waving.
Please take good care of my child… No, that wasn’t it.
Kerry hoped they would live happily together. That was all he could do.
As they left the village in the carriage, with Natasha unusually quiet, the carriage itself was also quiet.
“Natasha, why are you so quiet?”
Surprisingly, Victoria was the first to notice and check on her. Except for Kerry, of course.
“…I just don’t feel well.”
“Should we stop and rest at a nearby village, Lady Natasha?”
“No, I’m really fine. It’s just a light cold…”
Perhaps worried about being contagious, Natasha wasn’t clinging to Kerry.
Kerry placed his hand on Natasha’s forehead. It was burning up.
It hadn’t been this bad just a moment ago. It felt like her condition was rapidly deteriorating.
The old woman, sensing the gravity of the situation, began chanting a strange incantation inside the carriage, examining Natasha’s condition.
As everyone looked at Natasha with worried eyes,
“Natasha, have you been exposed to any evil energy?”
Evil energy?
That reminded him of something. The black energy that emerged from the idol.
“Yes. It was the black smoke that came out of the statue Lina-nim destroyed. Natasha was exposed to it. But Victoria, Lina-nim, and I were also exposed, and we’re fine.”
“Tsk. As I suspected.”
“…”
“You remember that Natasha was cursed, right? I alleviated it once… but the curse wasn’t completely lifted. We need to catch that Nasen fellow to completely lift Natasha’s curse.”
Kerry checked Natasha’s condition with the Eyes of the Goddess.
“You, with your healthy and abundant mana, would be fine even if you were exposed to that black smoke, but Natasha’s case is different. Because of the Curse of Weakness. If an ordinary person were exposed to such potent energy, they wouldn’t have survived.”
“…”
A serious atmosphere filled the carriage. But Lina spoke with a calm expression.
“I know a good place to purify the poison. Lady Natasha is a strong person, so if she rests there for a few days, she’ll recover quickly.”
“Where is that place?”
“The Norsia Hot Springs, secretly run by the Water Spirit, Undine.”
Hot springs!
A hot spring trip with the Hero’s party. He couldn’t help but have lewd thoughts.
“I hope Natasha recovers at that place, Lina-nim.”
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