A flash of light cut across the sky and landed down amid the evergreen forest.
The ‘comet’ was a big ball of orange fur. It bounced up and down a few times on the ground, went left and right between the tree trunks before it could stop completely.
The fur ball opened up into nine fox tails which then retreated to the back of the fox-headed man.
“Bleage!”
The fox in a suit collapsed on the ground, vomiting out the air.
“Why am I puking out when this body has no stomach? Urgh….”
Eithne was having a deep nausea.
“Eeeek….”
Echoing in her mind was the whining of the fox attendant’s dizzy soul.
“This is no science. I have no organ in this body, how come I’m having - Bleage!”
“…”
Eithne swore to make this fleeing method her last resort.
“I should not use this method again in at least three weeks…”
When Eithne finally stabilized herself, she observed the surroundings to locate herself.
The forest that she was in right now was crowded with tall pines that almost covered the upper space – if not for her landing that destroyed a wide area of branches, Eithne wouldn’t see the sunset sky on top of her head. The sun was sinking to the ground, still its light was strong enough to penetrate through the dense range of trees. The air was quite chilling in the forest, feeling much colder than when Eithne was in the southern area – so she likely had flown toward the northern part of Lumovas.
Eithne drew a simple direction compass in her head, based on the known west direction of the settling sun. The sunlight must have come from the sparser part of the forest, so Eithne navigated herself to head west toward the sun before it completely went dark.
“I might find a village there… I’m seriously hungry now, but how do I eat without a stomach…”
Eithne thought. She recalled the damaged suit of the fox attendant.
“Oh I will find you a new suit when we get to the human’s place.”
Eithne communicated with the fox attendant in her mind.
“Uh… You said you will mend it using my mana?”
“Ah yes… there’s no penny on me now… My luggage was on the ferry last time.”
“I wonder how much time has passed since I was caught up with the Primordial Serpent…”
Eithne was clueless of the time passed, same as the fox attendant who had no concept of time in the mysterious castle.
…
The closer they got toward the sun, the farther the pine trees grew next to each other.
The fox in suit swung its cane side to side, jogging in the golden afternoon. With one hand it held a cane, while the other hand played with a dried pinecone. The shoes stepping on the dry branches made some crackling sounds, startling some squirrels and birds on the ground.
The pine trees stationed beneath their coat of leaves, quietly grew in the place that barely had any wind. Their leaves had the shade of innocent green with patches of bright sunlight. On the ground where large trees’ shadow was lacking, short ferns were swaying gently in the shower of golden afternoon’s light, despite the windless weather. Spirit mages often had a theory that such ferns were having a dream of plants, an afternoon dream in which forest spirits were holding noisy picnics on their leaves.
Buzzed and buzzed, the ladybugs snuggled themselves in the cracks on the tree trunks. They had a wary look at the big fox walking by, but the sneaky neighbor spider quickly diverted their attention.
Pack! Two squirrels chased after a rolling pinecone, but the cone went stuck between two heavy rocks. The squirrels then proceeded to steal from each other’s food vault, mocking each other in a squeaky squirrel’s language before they were both startled by a sound of footsteps, thus temporary silence between the two.
Nature was not silent. It was thriving in the chaos of little creatures, yet peaceful than ever.
All worries and disturbance strangely dispersed in this woodland’s peacefulness.
Eithne felt happy.
“I have survived.”
She guessed she could be considered as a homeless, but free person now.
“I have no other objective besides continuing a quiet life… Should I find a house in the suburbs?”
The fox attendant then spoke in her head.
Hearing its reminder, Eithne sighed.
“Right, no money, no property…”
“But your body doesn’t need food to live. Why are you rushing me to earn money?”
“…”
The fox in suit yawned. The yawn came from the fox attendant’s consciousness, not Eithne.
It seemed to be tired, so it became quiet and let Eithne totally hold control of the body.
__
When the sun disappeared, Eithne finally saw some signs of humans.
She followed the faint trails of carriages passing on the ground. Her foot unconsciously walked alongside messy cattle’s footprints.
The trails became harder to see in the deepening dark. Mosquitoes were getting active in thick bushes, which they would grab on any animal within their reach to suck out a sumptuous meal of blood.
The fox attendant’s body, though having no organ and blood, surprisingly attracted the mosquitoes so well. Eithne just wanted to escape this forest as soon as possible. She had always been annoyed with those little damned insects.
The fox’s nose twitched.
“There’s human smell over there…”
The smell was awful. It was the smell of sweaty men who might never shower for once in their lives.
It would not be unbearable if she was still having her human nose. However, Eithne’s sense of smell was ten times better in the fox attendant's body. The repulsion was consequently ten times greater now that she was experiencing a deeper level of putrid odor.
More than that, she could even sense the difference in sweat! The putrid odor was similar to that of alcoholic drunkards, and she could get a whiff of faint plonk between the humans.
The fox then pinched its nose.
“Disgusting…”
Suddenly, a line of thought jumped in her mind. It was a thought translated from the grumpy fox attendant’s soul. It seemed that the fox attendant had awakened.
“Good evening.” – Eithne laughed.
A series of incomprehensible fox’s whines came after that as a reply.
Eithne ignored it.
She approached the place where the humans were. She planned to tail them until the humans went back to their village or town.
“My corrupted head cannot be used yet. It’s best that I don’t interact with them.” – Eithne thought.
She was about to hide behind a senior pine tree. Then suddenly, a man shouted out from behind the bushes.
“The Fox! I knew you would come!”
“??!!” – Eithne flinched.
Fox? Was he referring to her, the fox-headed one?
She was discovered!
‘Who are they? How do they know me?’ – Eithne asked herself in silence, tensing her nerves because she thought that her secret was likely exposed.
She stood motionlessly to make no sound, hoping that her hiding spot was not discovered yet.
‘What if they are talking to another ‘Fox’ around here?’ – She thought. ‘Shit… I never expected to encounter somebody who knew me too early. I didn’t hide my footstep’s sound earlier, so that’s how they discovered me?’
There must be one strong guy in that team, he could hear her footsteps from so far away!
“…”
Both sides were silent to wait for the response from the other party, but after a few minutes, there was no ‘Fox’ showing up.
“I know you’re here. Step out, scaredy Fox!” – The man shouted again.
Eithne took a sneak peek at the people through a gap of leaves. They were men in tattered clothes, looking strong and barbaric. All of them had weapons hanging on the sides of their hips or behind their backs, while a few tipsy-looking men carried leather bottles that had a reek of alcohol inside. From their look, Eithne guessed that they were close to being a bunch of bandits. On the other hand, the man who was calling out for ‘the Fox’ had a quite clean appearance. He put on a dark blue hood and neat adventurer’s clothes. The man was at the center of the bandits, blatantly sitting on the smoothest stone to express the fact that ‘he was the boss’.
Eithne squinted her eyes. There were around twenty people.
Although she did not sense any obviously strong mana fluctuation from the people, Eithne would not carelessly act.
Who knew the situation might escalate so fast that she possibly lost her life again, like how she was on Raphael’s boat?
Eithne decided to face them, but she would run away instantly when something went off.
“Don’t let me come to you.” – The man shouted again, but he was losing some patience this time.
He stood up and walked toward his left direction where he heard footsteps coming.
Holding up an oil lamp in his hand, when suddenly, the man saw a tall figure looming out from the pine branches’ dark shadow.
All of the bandits then heard steady footsteps, accompanied by the rustling sound of woody debris when a cane stabbed onto them. The experienced bandits could speculate that the cane was made of good, heavy materials. Their minds instinctively invoked the idea of seizing the cane – an object which they robbed many times before and it always had wonderful silver or gold ornaments, but the intention was shut off right that moment when they saw the appearance of the ‘newcomer’.
It was a fox-headed man in an expensive-looking suit, holding a gold-inlaid cane in its hand. The fox lightly lifted the hat from its head to greet them.
The bandits were all silent, simultaneously, they clenched their weapons.
Every cold and dark forest always had some legends about the monsters living inside the forest. The situation now suddenly became eerie with a creature that did not resemble a human, which emerged from the darkness of the forest like a tale.
The bandits could see the cold light reflected in the animalistic eyes of ‘the Fox’. Its ears, its fur, its facial movement were all too realistic to be a fake mask.
A man who dressed in a formal suit and appeared at night in the wild was already too suspicious, not to mention that he had an animal head!
Eithne observed the tense reaction of the men.
They seemed to be more surprised than she thought. Both sides were staring at each other without saying a word.
Eventually, the man in dark blue hood broke the silence first.
“Are you the Fox?” – He asked.
He maintained his calmness toward Eithne, but she could see that his face was much more serious than before. He carefully stood two meters away from the strange ‘Fox’.
Eithne reluctantly nodded to answer him. She did not talk to reveal less detail of her identity.
The man then continued to talk.
“I’m Bator. You have come here, it means that you have agreed to my proposal.”
Eithne widened her eyes.
Which proposal?
‘They are actually looking for another Fox?’ – Eithne was baffled.
Not waiting for her reaction, Bator announced his plan to the bandits.
“As per agreement, all of you attack the carriage and take all the cargo. If there are people inside, kill them all.”
He took out a pocket watch to check.
“It’s time to execute the plan. Let’s go!”
The bandits raised the swords to approve, but their spirit was somewhat off. They whispered to each other, not wanting to stand close to the fox-headed man. All of them set off quickly after Bator, some of them warily glared at ‘the Fox’, but none of them ever said anything to the fox-headed man.
‘That’s odd.’ – Eithne thought. ‘They are quiet and more organized than I thought. Maybe this is a trained unit in disguise of bandits?’
She eventually followed them.
‘Maybe I can find a human’s village or town by following them.’ – She thought. ‘I will stop their killing plan if possible…’
Eithne quickly chased after the bandits.
__
Shortly after the bandits all left, a hunter arrived at the old meeting spot. On his head was a round fur hat, and on his shoulders was a loosely draped fur scarf to keep warm for his upper body. The man had a full beard on his face. His hair was bright ginger like the fur of a red fox.
The hunter held up his bow cautiously, looking for any possible ambush. When he confirmed there was no other beside him there at the moment, he finally relaxed his arms. Quickly, two red foxes thrusted out from the nearby bushes to accompany his feet.
“Rotten aristocrat!” – He cursed, while petting his pet foxes.
This man, with his title as the famous Fox thief of the area, received a letter from a man named Bator. The letter said that Bator would offer him five thousand gold coins if the Fox could assassinate three kids. The famous Fox thief knew instantly that it was a scheme of a wicked noble – perhaps a battle of inheritance when the family members tried to finish off each other for the profuse wealth.
Stolen novel; please report.
Although five thousand gold coins was more than enough for the Fox to spend lavishly until the end of his life, the man had his morality. He had set his goal to rob the rich and give the money to the poor, so he would never agree to this vicious plan.
However, The Fox was afraid that the plan was actually carried out, so he came in person to check.
“They aren’t here, but I can see some shoe marks on the ground. Have they left already?”
The man quickly tracked the marks to chase after the bandits.
“I hope I can make it in time to save the kids…”
The Fox and his two red foxes ran into the dark wood…
_
__
There was a strict principle for those who entered the forest at night: Beware of monsters.
What were monsters? The priests liked to address them as children of evil, servants of Demons and the Depraved. The aristocrats called them vile beasts, while the commoners called them foul man-eaters. Psychopaths called them friends and children might mistake them as forest’s fairies. Monsters had various shapes and sizes, as many as different people in this world.
It was not the first time that Bator had ever seen a monster. Northern Lumovas was a place filled with monsters. He had witnessed many brutal and gruesome monsters before, but clever ones often excelled at disguise.
Bator glanced at ‘the famous Fox thief of Northern Lumovas’.
The fox-headed man dressed in a light grey suit was walking leisurely behind them. Meeting his glance, it lifted its hat as a response.
Clearly it was not the petty thief that Bator expected.
The bandits who spent most of their lives in Northern Lumovas were even more experienced.
Northern people had a rule when they encountered monsters:
If a monster asked to join the human group, unless the group was confident to fight, the humans must not decline the monster. They must act normally to deceive the monster that its disguise was a success, in order to stall the time and come to the nearest town where priests, mages or knights were available. A monster, after being declined or knowing that its disguise had failed, might unleash its bloody rampage instantly.
When Bator – the most capable man of the group acted as if nothing was wrong with ‘the Fox’, the bandits already perceived that as a clear warning.
Even with twenty men, they did not have the confidence. They whispered a new plan to each other:
“Lead the monster to attack the robbing target on our half…”
The bandits who lived dangerously had no plan to seek refuge first. The operation tonight was set for the big money.
…
Eithne and the bandit group arrived at a wide dirt road. She could see faint horse footprints and wheel trails extending from a far village.
It was dinner time so nobody was outside of the village. The houses were all lighted up warmly, while the smell of food travelled from the windows to cover at least three low hills.
Eithne heard some men swallowing their saliva.
‘I wonder how much money Bator offered these barbarians to ambush a carriage. Who is such an important target that he needs twenty people to kill them?’ - She pondered.
Thanked to Bator’s lead, Eithne could finally find a village.
‘Now, how should I deal with them?’
The fox-headed man stared at the bandits who quickly hid into their designated spots.
It was quite strange that they were very quiet, though the target had yet to appear.
Eithne had heard no coarse cursing or even seen an uncivilized manner on the whole journey. It gave her a hard time to determine if they were actually bandits, and they seemed tense as if it was their first operation ever.
Eithne glanced at Bator’s hiding place, she also found a secluded tree shadow to stand in.
Bator was the only guy that could use mana in the bandit group. Though his mana influence was not so strong, Eithne was having a hunch that Bator was not easy to deal with. The fox attendant was also barking in her head as a warning.
Not long after they went into hiding, Eithne heard the sound of a galloping horse and wooden wheels that stumped on gravel and dried branches. She picked up a small stone on the ground.
The fox’s ears twitched.
‘A sound of a bow string being pulled … That direction!’
Eithne threw the stone toward a high tree branch.
Pack!
“Ah!”
One bandit was hit by the stone. The arrow flew out from his bow and missed the target.
Swoosh! The arrow flew past the horse’s nose and stabbed on the ground.
Neigh!
The horse cried loudly as it was startled. Strangely, there was no horseman at the front to pull the halter, so the horse started to run frantically to escape.
“Attack!”
The bandits shouted. They jumped out from both sides of the road to pursue the carriage.
The carriage launched itself on the road, with an uncontrollable horse, it quickly went off the track and fell over to a side.
Slam! The wooden carriage hit the ground and stopped by the large tree trunk. The horse was also pulled along with the heavy carriage, but the reins suddenly snapped so it broke free and ran deep into the forest.
The bandits yelled.
“Take them all!”
They lashed out on the carriage, stabbing the carriage’s door in order to break the lock.
Eithne stepped out and was about to attack the bandits. Right after she moved, most bandits suddenly stopped their action and looked at her intensively.
“Hm?”
Eithne was surprised by their action so she also stood back.
Bang!
At that moment, the carriage’s door burst open. Three small kids rolled out of the carriage.
When they stood up, Eithne got to see their faces.
‘Rigel, small heroine, crown prince?! What are they doing here???’
The kids looked frail and dirty like they had been struggling for a long time.
What had happened to them?!
Not wasting a single second, the young crown prince lifted a strange staff in his hand up. Azriel stood shielding before Rigel and Noori. Brilliant blue light emanated from the head of his staff, where powerful mana gathered like a cyclone. Everyone’s vision faded in a few seconds before the bright light.
When the light disappeared, the three children were also gone.
“What happened?!”
“Look! Look at the carriage! It’s empty!”
The bandits were stunned by the scene, however, the sight of the empty carriage when the door was opened caught their attention more.
“There’s no good inside!”
“Bator, you asshole! Come over here!”
The men were infuriated. They started to point their swords as their blame toward Bator, their contractor. Out of their expectation, Bator seemed calm. He just clicked his tongue in pity.
“They got away…” – He murmured.
One bandit directly put his dagger next to Bator’s neck, threatened him.
“Since there’s not a single piece of shit in this carriage, you m*fucker will have to pay for it.” – said the angry bandit.
“Hey just kill him!”
“That guy can use mana, don’t let him have a chance to fight!”
Other bandits shouted, then they swung their weapons aiming at Bator.
“Ha!” - The man in blue hood smirked.
A short wand slipped down from his sleeve into his hand. Bator pointed the wand toward ‘the Fox’.
“Fire!”
A small flame flew from his wand toward the fox-headed man.
“Fuck! He tries to trigger the monster!”
“Run!”
The bandits cried. Most of them immediately turned their heads to run, but a few bold men still stayed to finish off Bator.
“Fucking asshole.” – They cursed. “Die!”
When their swords almost touched Bator, he smiled.
“Oh really?”
He raised the wand.
“Thunder!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Instantly, lightning struck down heavily on the bandits, including the fleeing men. They all collapsed on the ground, exhaled burning smoke.
After a quick glance around to check the number of bandits, Bator looked at the fox-headed man and politely bowed.
“Well, they’re all yours. I hope you have a wonderful meal.”
He said with a smile.
“…”
However, the fox-headed monster seemed unfazed with Bator’s work. It had dodged his simple fire spell earlier as Bator expected. The fox in suit was staring at him, behind its back was a burning pine tree that was hit by the spell.
It was quite strange for monsters to not reveal their bloodthirst after seeing a feast of humans like that.
Bator stood up and gazed doubtfully at the fox-headed man.
“Oh, perhaps you are not satisfied?”
Eithne was also observing Bator. She had just realized what kind of character Bator was in a plot of romance:
A side villain who never succeeded in harming the main characters!
Although Bator seemed capable, his series of failures as an assassinator had begun since the lead characters were still babies. Eithne knew that the young prince had escaped with Rigel and the heroine by teleportation magic, though she had no idea where they had gone.
‘His planning skill just sucks…’ – Eithne thought. ‘It’s full of holes for plot armor to act in.’
He was quite talented in her evaluation, having mastered two offensive elements fire and lightning as a mage. Eithne was curious why both her instinct and the fox attendant felt odd about this man, he must have been hiding his true strength.
Under Eithne’s scrutiny, Bator was uncomfortable.
He was planning to let the monster rampage on the bandits to erase his trace of magic. The fact that the monster was unperturbed was not in his plan.
Bator squinted his eyes. He pointed the wand toward the fox-headed man.
His mana twisted into bolts of lightning that aimed at the monster.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The fox in suit agilely stepped aside to dodge all of that.
Bator looked at the fox calmly standing with its cane. The ground spot that it used to stand on had been fried with his spell into dark charcoal.
However, the fox-headed man was too silent. It was just staring at him, which gave Bator a bad omen.
He slowly approached ‘the Fox thief’.
“You are not a monster.” - Bator’s voice turned heavy. “Who are you?”
Suddenly, the fox’s whiskers shook.
The fox let out a sharp scream.
“KEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!”
The scream echoed through the dense wood. The animalistic shout startled Bator. He had never expected a normal human to make that sound.
He flipped the wand in his hand. The dark wand quickly expanded into white blobs that clasped onto his arm then transformed into a huge mantis raptorial leg. Bator thrusted toward the fox and swung the blade on his modified arm.
“Kakk!”
The fox shouted. It jumped high to dodge the swinging blade.
Bator slid under the fox-headed man and backflipped. When he stood up again, the white blob had engulfed his body and turned him into a two-story high white mantis.
‘Shapeshifter mage!’ – Eithne widened her eyes. ‘He was truly hiding his strength before!’
The fox in suit bore its fangs.
Right now, she could feel the strong waves of mana coming from Bator. It was as strong as the original priestess in her prime strength!
Shapeshifters had great camouflage ability, they could reduce their outer mana influence to trick their enemy’s senses.
Eithne cautiously analyzed Bator’s movement.
‘I wonder which church is he under? Which organization could produce such a strong mage?’
“You must be a shapeshifter as well, no?”
The human voice came out from the mantis mouth, where two curved fangs like two scythes were clapping constantly. Two pink eye orbs on sides on the mantis’s head were focusing on the small fox who warily rose its fur.
Unknowingly, the sense of humanity had faded on this battlefield.
The mantis thrusted forward and opened its deadly scythe legs. The sharp blades intended to stab the fox from behind and drag the prey toward the mantis’s mouth for the fatal bite.
However, the fox was one step faster. Eithne had arrived before the mantis’s fully armored belly before sliding beneath it.
BANG!
The fox’s cane smacked onto the mantis leg, making an explosive sound like two heavy metal blocks collided.
The shell on the mantis leg was dented, but it was not enough to make Bator stagger.
The fox clung on the mantis leg and leapt on the mantis’s back. Compared to the fox, the mantis was too slow. Eithne ran on its spine and hopped to its head, clutching the mantis’s antenna. When Bator hadn’t reacted, she forcibly jabbed through the mantis’s head with the cane.
Pack!
The cane penetrated the head like it entered a block of dense clay, then it got stuck. Eithne could not withdraw the cane from the mantis’s head right away.
“!!”
The fox’s fur abruptly stood up. Eithne nimbly lifted her lower body and single hand-stood on the cane. Faster than an eyeblink, two mantis blades sharply cut the air right next to her arm.
Two more mantis raptorial legs had grown on the mantis’s back. If she had not reacted fast enough, Eithne would have been stabbed. It seemed Bator had predicted that the fox would climb on his back to aim for his head, so he prepared a trap.
Swoosh! Two blades retreated backward and struck out again.
Eithne clutched the cane and swung herself down. The fox kicked in the mantis’s left eye as it fell down on the huge head. The mantis left eye was broken, so Eithne intended to grab the last eye to destroy it.
The huge mantis then rose its upper body and shook violently. Eithne was being pulled with the cane side to side when she saw the mantis’s large scythe leg below were trying to scrape off the annoying fox on its face. Eithne let go of the cane before the saw-like blade swung past her. As the mantis shook its head, she was flung far away.
Eithne maneuvered in the air then landed down on the ground with her knees bent low. She stood up to catch the cane which also flew out from the mantis’s head.
The huge mantis suddenly broke down into multiple white blobs and shrank back into a small wand that fell into Bator’s hand. He had returned to his human form.
The fox in suit picked up the hat which had flown off earlier on a low pine branch. It pressed the hat down on its head, glaring at Bator who was standing at the opposite.
Crack… The fox clenched the cane, whose knuckles crackled. Bator’s hand pressed on his wand, his fingers blanched.
Both of them suffered no injury.
“How formidable.”
Bator complimented, then his tone turned cold.
“What do you want?”
The fox in suit remained silent, as if it could not speak human language.
“Tsk!”
Bator clicked his tongue. If they continued to fight, there was no way that he could get out of this mess safely. His opponent did not state their purpose clearly, nor did they attack first. It confused Bator and gave him the impression that the fox-headed man might be stalling for time. The man was cautious, he did not want to be caught in something worse, so he decisively turned back – and ran!
‘Huh?’
Eithne was surprised by Bator’s action. She chased after Bator. When Eithne saw the teleportation magic circle under Bator’s feet, she knew that his spell was almost completed.
Darkness instantly flowed out from the fox’s hand to cover a large area surrounding Bator. The grass on the ground, the unconscious bandits, the pines and the pale moon on the sky was erased in the pitch black. The temperature in the atmosphere dropped like a rolling stone. Bator could not hear any sound from nature, as if he was purged into an empty prison underground.
“Domain user?” – He gasped. “My mana is moving slower!”
His teleportation was delayed!
Goosebumps rose on Bator’s arms. He then saw the hazy figure of the fox-headed man. In the dark, Bator could only see the enemy from its shoulders down to its arms. The fox with its face hidden was walking toward him, hauntingly, on its white gloved hand was a bloody woman’s head.
The head opened her eyes to look at Bator, concurrently, the cuts on her face also opened to reveal many more eyes inside that stared at him. Those irises were filled with sinister symbols, when he met that gaze, the madness encrypted within the eyes pierced into Bator’s rationality.
The woman’s head opened her mouth. Grey Chaos flowed out from the detached throat to her lips, pushing out more bizarre eyes that appeared out of nowhere.
[My computer][https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ec/1a/3a/ec1a3aa01fa68819610ae58c39aea380.jpg]
The voice was buzzing like a chaotic bee swamp. When it reached his ears, Bator felt a corruptive power creeping to his head. His confidence was cut off like a snapping spider web.
The man gritted his teeth. He quickly took out a handful of white paper flowers from his belt bag and threw them toward the fox and the woman’s head.
“Purify!”
Bator chanted in ancient language.
“Begone filths!”
Bam! The paper flowers exploded into serene white light. The warmth and holiness that came from the white light pushed the darkness back in a few seconds, giving Bator a chance to complete his teleportation.
Swoosh! An invisible blade suddenly flew past his arm. Bator only had enough time to tilt his body so that his arm was not cut off entirely. His figure then disappeared after that, together with the fading white light…
Eithne looked at the blank spot where Bator successfully fled. Her head sighed.
She did not mean to scare him away like that. If possible, Eithne did not want to bring out her head which had not been fixed. However, the fox attendant could not speak normal human language. It did not have lips to pronounce properly!
“I haven’t known who he works under yet. I can’t capture him with my current ability.”
Eithne withdrew her domain of darkness. She let the fox attendant store her head in its subspace pocket, then they went to pick up the fragments of paper flowers.
“This is a purifying charm from the Peace temple. Bator himself or his superior must be a great donor of the Peace temple to receive so many charms. A Peace priest doesn’t need to use a purifying charm, so Bator was not an official member of the Peace temple.”
“His planning skill truly sucks. He left me with fainted bandits – the living witnesses of his crime, the flower paper – clue to his identity, the blood from his arm is dropped here, what if I use it to cast some curse or trace him… No wonder this side villain never assassinates the protagonists successfully.”
Eithne was not sure if she should feel sorry for Bator. There was always one kind of villain that was powerful but dumb enough for the protagonists to beat.
“Speaking of the Peace temple, I’m curious how Raphael has been.
I wonder what happened to everyone when I was away.
How is Hesata doing, what kind of trouble do the kids get into…”
When Eithne finished collecting all the paper flower fragments, her fox’s nose twitched.
“The smell of another human!”
The real famous thief – the Fox of Northern Lumovas was crouching behind a thick bush. He was shivering. He had witnessed everything, from Bator defeating all of the bandits with just a spell, a combat between the huge mantis and a fox-headed man, and a scary darkness covering everything – that the Fox thought he actually went blind. He also heard a haunting woman’s voice, which he clearly remembered there was no woman in this place originally.
The Fox believed both Bator and the fox-headed man were all monsters in disguise.
When no more sound came from the other side, the Fox thought they had all left, so he was about to run as well. However, the bush was suddenly pushed out.
The ginger-haired hunter looked up. He saw a furry fox head looking down at him. It had a pair of golden eyes and a playful expression on its face. The fox wore a half top hat and a fine suit, and it was really tall compared to ‘the thief Fox’.
The man had yet to stutter the word ‘monster’, when the fox-headed man suddenly held up a bloody woman’s head. The head then smiled terrifyingly.
[https://i.pinimg.com/564x/89/51/8d/89518d62feeb214f526dce4855f6dfca.jpg]
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”
Caw … caw… caw… Some crows were startled and flew away from the pine forest. They did not forget to cry loudly on the way…