Chapter 10
Encounter and a dark past
"This place is the same as the demon continent huh."
The road to the human city was almost the same as the road in the demon continent. The only difference between the two was the number of withered trees and grass, with the human continent having significantly more.
However, the quantity of monsters here were more when compared to the demon continent. To make up for that, they looked considerably weaker. Maybe it was due to the habitat they lived in. Sure, they were strong enough to survive in this type of habitat, but the demon continent was harsher and with the less abundance of withered plants, the monsters there had to survive in that type of environment. Comparing the two, if the human continent was a landfill, the demon continent would be a desert.
Although I did not notice beforehand, Victoria-san was able to control the transparency of her body, making her really look like a ghost. Oh wait, she is one.
She can change herself to become opaque like every normal living thing, or transparent like glass. She could also be translucent, which makes it easy to know where she is while being able to see through her. This way, I could look at the ground without leaning outwards while she was flying in the air.
Even though I had a phobia of heights, this does not affect me for some reason. It could be because of Victoria-san's company with me and that I could fully trust her.
While having thoughts like that, Victoria-san asked me,
"What do you want to do at the human city?"
"Well, first of all I would like to know if an adventurers' guild exists there."
If there was, I would be excited. I mean, come on, this is another world. When it comes to other worlds, there has to be the classic adventurers' guild right? I would first enter and have the template scene of a couple of hooligans picking on me, then I'll show them my strength. After that, I will hunt for many high tier monsters and my rank will skip, making me a high class adventurer!
Except that will never happen.
Why do I say so? With Ayashi's current state, a thriving adventurers' guild is an impossible scenario.
The main attribute of the adventurers' guild are the quests they give. From my past knowledge about light novels, there are three types of quests. Gathering, escort and subjugation.
Firstly, for gathering quests, in Ayashi's current state, the number of naturally grown plants able to be harvested should be able to be counted with two hands. Thus, this makes gathering quests quite hard to earn a profit from.
Secondly, for escort quests, because of the limited places that you can call liveable in Ayashi, it would be common sense to not head out of the city other than during emergencies. Therefore, escort quests will only appear when a disaster strikes, such as pandemics and the like.
Lastly, for subjugation quests, it is unlikely that any village would submit a request for subjugation. With Ayashi being 99% infertile for anything to grow, the number of villages still existing are small. Even if the village is alive and well, they should have enough fertile land and protection against monsters and the harsh environment. With that, any subjugation quest would be non-existent
Any other jobs an adventurer could do can be done by any other citizen. Thus, I conclude that the chances of even finding an adventurers' guild are almost to none.
"After the war, I myself do not know of the current state of affairs, so I am unable to answer that. However, you should be able to obtain information there as to what had happened to Ayashi."
This was also the second reason of why I want to visit the human's city. They may have the records of the war a thousand years ago. From there, I can figure out why has the planet has been reduced to its current state.
Because the goddesses are basically humans with a huge amount of power and responsibility, they are certain to make some flaws in their investigation. As I can tell from the fight with Nebula and Victoria-san's past, their mindset stays the same throughout these hundred years.
How was I able to know about Victoria-san's past? When Victoria-san came into my possession, she was allowed to share her memories with me, so that I would be able to understand her better. Apparently she said she didn't mind me reading her memories, as she had trusted me with all of her life, although she already died once. This was also how I got to sympathize with Nebula. Unfortunately, I could not do the opposite, which was her reading my memories instead.
With that being said, they are bound to give inaccurate data of what had happened. Thus, I decided to find out the real truth behind the incident, if there was one.
Although the goddesses said that I have to rejuvenate Ayashi, it does not mean that reviving every single plant was the way to do so. I had realized after pondering for a while at the bridge. Rejuvenating may not mean revive the plants, but the land itself.
A plausible scenario is that the plants may have taken the nutrients from the ground, decreasing Ayashi's nutrients day by day and storing it into the [desire seed]. Since the [desire seed] was made by the first [Order of the Goddess], it was entirely possible that they were the main culprits for Ayashi's current state. The reasons for doing so are unknown to me. The hero and demon Lord could have noticed this, and caused a war as a pretext with a cover-up story of why they did so. If this was true, then something really suspicious was going on.
However, this theory was groundless and very less likely to be true, as I did not have any sort of proof for it. If this was true, there should be hidden records somewhere in the city. Alternatively, I could go to the demon Continent's city to find out, but I don't think that I would want to go there, if the Goddesses story was true about the demons starting the war.
While I was thinking of such elaborate thoughts, Victoria-san informed me,
"There are some people down there."
Really? I looked through Victoria-san's body to take a peek at the ground.
There were a pair of girls surrounded by wolf-like monsters.
If this had been a template 'carriage surrounded by bandits' scenario, I would probably immediately rescue them, as it usually was royalty or nobles in the said carriage. Then in exchange for saving their lives, I would gain excess to some royal library that may exist in the city, but requires permission from influential people. However, something has interested me when I take a closer look at the pair.
One was small with short pointy ears. The other one was a young woman with cat ears.
"We're saving them."
"Are you serious, Mina?"
"Yes. It's a loli elf and a neko girl. Who wouldn't want to save them!"
I shouted my inner desires of a man as I declared my rescue.
"Sigh, fine, but don't let them become a burden to us."
"Don't worry, I'll take responsibility. Besides, we might find useful information from them."
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Victoria-san nose-dived towards the demi-human duo.
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-Cat Girl-
"Kaa-san, *hic* I'm scared..."
"Don't worry Hana, I'll protect you no matter what."
How did this happen?
We were supposed to find a valuable material which grows around here in this kind of environment, however, I did not know it was able to attract monsters!
When we picked up the [Witherless Rose], suddenly ten or more [Giant Wolves] showed up.
We ran as fast as we could, turned corners, jumped ledges, but they were as agile as us. We were surrounded by the pack in the end. Thus, we arrived in this situation.
This is really bad. If I were to die here, I rather protect Hana with my life.
As I was hanging by a thread, I recalled my entire life until this moment.
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I was born in a cat sith village. I did not know when it happened, but I was sold off to a slave trader. I was too young at the time to understand such things. The only thing I remembered in that village was the time I spent with my parents. They gave me the name Machi. I do not know my surname. Maybe it was for the best, because my parents were abused by the village as a form of discrimination. The reason for that was that our family had a bloodline of Grey tails. Grey tails are scorned by the village for bringing bad luck. Maybe they sold me off to protect me from the village. With that thought, I deeply thanked my parents in my heart.
However, all was for naught.
I was labelled as a slave when they placed a hot iron behind me, scorching a mark on my back. It was horrible. The pain I felt when it happened made me pass out.
When I woke up, I was suddenly noted by the slave merchant that I had been purchased by a Noble. I followed him to his mansion and said that I was going to live here from now on. I was happy at first, as I had a place to stay, but that was just false hope.
He was very arrogant and abusive. The many things he did to me was dreadful. He punished me for the slightest mistakes I made. He punched me for dressing up improperly by just one speck of dust. He used me as a tool for his pleasure when his wife was not around, although he still kept his moral standards by not taking my chastity.
The only saving grace about the place was his wife, Risha. She was the second daughter of a poor noble of a low status. She was the same as me, had loving parents who cared for her. But they were assassinated one day by unknown people. Her aunt took her in, but treated her horribly in the house. She was then arranged to be married with the Noble. Despite her fate, she was kind-hearted and graceful and endured through all of it.
At times when he was with his wife, her treatment was the same as me. This made me furious. I felt like wrangling his neck. But, Risha said to not worry about her. Although she had suffered a lot because of him, she was unable to retaliate against him. Because he was of a high status, she had to listen to his every order.
Knowing this, I continued to serve the man, enduring whatever abuse that was thrown at me, for the sake of reducing the abuse he gave to Risha.
However, a decade worth of suffering later, when I was in my early twenties, he did something which I could not forgive him for.
He got me pregnant.
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The moment I noticed I was carrying a baby inside of me, my emotions were at the limit. Without even getting Risha's permission, he got me, who was lower than a mistress, pregnant? Wouldn't she be heartbroken? We cat siths are very sensitive to family, so if someone cheats on their spouse, we will never forgive that person. For the sake of Risha, I will end his miserable life. I did not care about getting into trouble, killing him was the first priority. On a day when he was very busy and went straight to bed when night fell, it was then that I took my chance.
When he was sleeping on his bed, I snuck into his room and strangled him. When he woke up and noticed what I was doing, he started to hit me frantically with a blue face. With the claws I have hidden from him since the first time he bought me, I scratched his neck with a slash as he bled from the wound. I tore his body part by part with my claws as he screamed in pain. Each splatter of blood painted the room scarlet. Bits and pieces of his flesh were strewn across the carpet. The bed turned into a pool of red. By the time he was limbless, he had an expression that was about to meet his misery. The life in his eyes slowly faded away. When he has no signs of life left in him, I left his room and went to change my clothes which have been bathed in blood.
Next, I went to Risha's room and informed her that I had killed the Noble in a calm tone. Because I regarded her as a friend, I had no hesitation to tell her what I had done. As expected, she was as still as a statue when I told her the deed I had done. With this, I would be labelled as a criminal. As I was about to leave to escape the country, I was suddenly hugged by her.
Risha cried on my shoulder, saying thank you to me over and over to me. She didn't even consider his well-being. However, she told me that she really did not care about him one single bit. Really, just how screwed up was this Noble? Who cares, he's dead anyway. Rather than standing up for him, she chose to side with me. I was a little touched by her. Risha's then made the resolution to follow me whenever I go, even going as far as abandoning her noble status to follow me. She was fed up with the nobility of this city and how they treated people of lower status. She even wanted to kill them herself for the horrible things they had done, but lacked the power and resolve to do so.
Thus, we escaped the Noble's mansion and left the city in the middle of the night, where night watch was lax.
The next day, I was labelled as a criminal in the city and Risha was found missing. The rumours of me killing the Noble and kidnapping his wife had spread very quickly, so while speeding up our pace, we travelled towards the city, Rakusha.
Risha didn't look like it, but she was trained by a good instructor of hand-to-hand combat when her parents were still around, so she was able to defend me against the monsters that attacked us. Luckily, the monsters we encountered were little.
Strangely, my belly felt bigger while we were in the way there.
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When we arrived, we quickly settled in an inn and rested ourselves. The baby in my belly was growing extraordinary fast. Normally, it would take a week for a cat sith's baby to be born. But the baby in my belly was growing so quickly that it looked like I was being inflated like a balloon. By the time we were on the inn's bed, I was about to give birth.
Because Risha did not have any experience in nursing, she panicked. But I calmly gave her instructions on what to do, as I was taught my parents before. It could be because my mother had really emphasized on it, that I remembered how to prepare for giving birth.
Every push was hard, a pain worse than the burn mark on my back keeps assaulting me. In the end, I succeeded in giving birth.
Thus, a baby girl was born.
She had big eyes, a cute face which resembles me and nothing like the Noble and was crying in a soft voice. However, the weird thing was that she had short, pointy ears. This was very shocking. I, a cat sith, had given birth to a half-elf.
I do not know how this had happened. Was the Noble secretly an elf, or was he not the father, I was unsure. But, no matter what race she was, she was still my daughter. I, made an oath to raise her and protect her as my own, my dear sweetheart, my Hana.