Game of Divine Thrones

Chapter 98: The Missing Princess 3

Chapter 98: The Missing Princess 3

Choi Kayoon’s monster taming technique was quite rough.

She would first beat it to a pulp until it couldn’t think of anything else before laying down her orders.

However, it wasn’t an absurd or immoral act.

The enemy was a monster.

They are not gentle like domesticated pets nor can they follow orders efficiently.

Therefore, if the taming skill’s proficiency was still low, she would have to resort to simpler methods.

Woohyuk had done the same as Choi Kayoon back in the Primordial Forest when taming the jabberwocks.

However, innate talent wasn’t something he could beat.

Despite her low proficiency, Choi Kayoon tamed the orc and successfully managed to converse with it.

It was obviously not complex enough to be called a conversation, but the intentions and meaning behind their words were being properly conveyed to each other.

The orc used all kinds of gestures to try to express himself. It spilled out all kinds of information as it didn’t want to get beaten up any more. Amongst those information, there were even a few pieces of vital news.

‘They’re summoning a demonic beast.’

Woohyuk was reminded of the leviathan that Aleister Crowley had summoned back in Martinus’ spiritual world.

To summon a demonic monster, they would need the magic circle and the power of the Abyss along with an offering.

The completion of the magic circle depended on the individual’s skills, and they had to receive the power of the Abyss from a Demon King or a Witch.

And for the offering, they had to raid villages or cities and sacrifice all the residents.

As of currently, the Witch Cult had satisfied all the necessary conditions for the summon.

‘They must’ve burnt down countless villages in advance.’

He wasn’t sure which demonic beast they were trying to summon, but Woohyuk predicted that the number of sacrificed lives was quite consequential.

Amy had most likely assassinated many aristocrats for the purpose of this summoning as well.

The blood of priests and nobles were highly efficient during evil rituals.

‘And there’s no need to even mention the princess’ blood.’

It was possible that they had kidnapped Princess Lizbeth to summon a high-ranking demonic beast.

But it was still too early to come up with such a conclusion as there were still some aspects that were off and didn’t match.

One of them was that Princess Lizbeth was the only royalty who was kidnapped.

While it was true that her existence as a direct descendant of the king would greatly increase their chances, the blood of an extended member of the royal family would’ve been more than enough.

That signified that the purpose of the princess’ kidnapping wasn’t the summoning ritual.

‘Their final objective is most likely to obtain the Izuna Kingdom in its entirety.’

King Henry was famous for being a doting father.

That was why she hadn’t been engaged in a political marriage even though she had reached a mature age.

If the Witch Cult or a demon took Princess Lizbeth as a hostage, King Henry would have no choice but to become their puppet king.

“What are you thinking about so seriously? We’ve almost arrived.”

“I was just sorting out information about our current situation.”

They were planning on executing a plan with a low success rate, so he had to check all the potential variables in advance to increase the rate as much as possible.

If he wanted the Izuna Kingdom’s military support in the future, he absolutely had to succeed in this mission.

After bracing himself again, Woohyuk stared at the wasteland in the distance.

“The atmosphere is so eerie… Maybe because it’s already nighttime.”

“It’s better to be nervous but attentive than not.”

If, by any chance, Lucas were living here, he would’ve made countless chimeras by now.

However, as his skill were yet to be perfected, the completed chimeras wouldn’t compare to a masterpiece like Irene.

‘Now that I think about it, Aris is also quite the genius.’

She had used a seemingly impossible concept to create a magically engineered weapon with enormous power.

If he made Lucas or Drake work with her, they would have a great synergy and create astonishing results.

“Huh? There’s something flying at us in the sky.”

“...Gargoyles.”

The stone statues located at various spots on the wasteland had awoken.

This situation was different to the one back in the Adventurer’s canyon.

The difficulty level of that area had been reduced. There were no gargoyles and the chimeras had diverse amounts of debuffs placed on them.

“How do we defeat those?”

“It’s a piece of cake if we use holy magic.”

Gargoyles were of the darkness attribute, therefore were weak against the skills of priests.

As Woohyuk stared at them, the Spiritual Society’s members took out their staffs.

They had switched their weapons out using the power of their belts.

“Please leave the gargoyles to us.”

“We can easily block that many of them.”

As the members of the society began to chant a holy spell, a pure white magic sigil covered the ground.

And soon enough…

Swoosh swoosh swoosh!

Within the darkness of the night, countless spears of light heavily rained down like a meteor shower.

[Divine Fall].

It was a wide-range holy spell that was activated by a group chant.

Stab!

The gargoyles began to drop like flies one after another as they got pierced by numerous spears of light.

But at that moment, monstrous cries resonated from the wasteland.

“Kieeeeeeeeek!”

“Kyaaaaaaaaaak!”

Hideous chimeras had joined the battlefield.

“I’ll move independently for a while. Follow the orders I gave everyone in advance!”

“Will, will you charge at them on your own and kill the commander again?”

“I won’t do that this time.”

The most urgent task was to infiltrate behind the enemy lines and rescue the princess.

Woohyuk handed the commanding rights to Ronald and covered himself with the Banshee’s Cloak.

‘I hope this works.’

The executives of the Witch Cult would easily discover his presence if he merely made himself invisible.

He had to hide his spirit as much as possible and aim for an opening.

‘I also have to watch out for stigmas.’

Amy was able to scout Count Oswald’s mansion’s interior due to the witch’s stigma.

The witch’s stigma could be imprinted on living creatures, but also on puppets or statues.

If the stigma were deeply hidden, he wouldn’t notice it unless he came in contact with it.

As there were too many dangerous variables, Woohyuk took out the Moon Shadow Ring to modify his status window more sophisticatedly.

[Urkheim]

- Class: Orc Warrior

- Title: Son of the Chieftain (Strength +15, 15% additional experience gains), Human Slayer (Absorb 1~3% of the stats of a human you personally killed), Male Orc of Mature Age (Additional violent tendencies, agility increased by 15% at night)

- Stats

Strength: 122

Vitality: 117

Agility: 103

Intelligence: 41

Spirit: 85

- Other

25% increase in affinity with other subspecies

‘This looks satisfactory.’

Urkheim signified ‘the child picked up beneath a bridge’ in Orcish.

In other words, a swear word.

He had come up with this name as he couldn’t think of any other word.

‘With this, I won’t easily be suspected even if I get detected within the wasteland.’

To prepare for the worst case scenario, Woohyuk wore the Jester’s Mask and modified his appearance into that of a male orc, just in case his invisibility was seen through.

After finishing up his preparations, Woohyuk infiltrated inside the wasteland.

“Kueeeek!”

“Krrrrrr!”

The chimeras on standby screamed oddly, as if they wanted to be sent out as quickly as possible.

They were artificially modified low-rank beings, and couldn’t sense Woohyuk’s approach.

‘I don’t see the Witch Cult.’

They were most likely performing the evil summoning ritual underground.

Woohyuk walked through the castle in ruins and found the staircase leading downstairs.

As he carefully walked down to the first underground floor,

Click.

A metallic sound resonated in the air.

A blond puppet in the shape of a young girl was looking down on Woohyuk.

“Hi Urkheim. I’m called Agnes.”

“...”

Agnes was a doll with a consciousness. She could also use appraisal magic and had already inspected Woohyuk’s status window.

However, that status window had obviously been falsified.

‘I got detected even before reaching the first underground floor.’

Fortunately, Agnes wasn’t planning on harming him.

He still had the opportunity to continue his mission.

‘I need to get past her as quickly as possible.’

He was certain that Agnes also had the witch’s stigma imprinted in her, and her master was most probably Amy.

Even if he could trick Agnes, Amy could still see through his disguise by sharing her vision with the puppet.

“Agnes…”

“Yeah, that’s my name. Looks like you know the common language, since I didn’t speak in Orcish earlier.”

Languages differed according to the regions of the Eeth continent, but humans mostly used a single language all-together.

Similar to how Europeans during the Middle-Ages mostly used latin to communicate.

Agnes had spoken in that common language.

“Know… little…”

“Kyahaha! You’re funny. Maybe you studied a lot from a young age as the chieftain’s son? But your stats are a bit low considering that… Oh well, that doesn’t matter. In any case, tell me why you came down here after casting invisibility magic on yourself.”

Agnes’ crimson red eyes scanned Woohyuk up and down.

It was a dangerous situation.

Woohyuk had to come up with a proper excuse.

“Human… magician… thing… touch… regret… shocked… entered…”

“Kaka… So you became invisible after carelessly touching an artifact? And you entered this place because you were in shock?”

“That… true.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll return to normal in a while. I want to reassure your heart, but I don’t have those kinds of programmed skills within me. I’m just a cute puppet. Hihihi!”

Agnes kept laughing as if she found something funny.

‘Looks like she was quite bored.’

Woohyuk made a sigh of relief in his mind.

‘It’s been a while since I last felt like digging a hole and hiding myself in shame.’

He had to quickly go down to the first underground floor if he wanted to stop his shameful orc persona.

However, it didn’t seem like Agnes would just let him go quietly, as she was currently making a fuss with sparkles in her eyes.

“Hey actually actually actually, you should just play here with me instead of going back outside. Alright? If someone comes looking for you, I’ll defend you and make up an excuse. Tell me honestly. You don’t want to go back out and exhaust yourself again, right?”

“What… we… play…”

“Let’s just chat a bit. I’m feeling a bit lonely these days. I’m always sitting here in a daze by myself with nothing to do.”

Agnes moved her joints and limbs and did a crying pose.

She was crafted so exquisitely that one would see her as an ordinary young girl.

Woohyuk began to sort his thoughts to escape from her grasp.

‘I only have two choices.’

The first choice was ignoring Agnes and going down to the 1st floor.

Although he wanted to do that, he knew better not to execute that plan.

Agnes was placed here to attack all invaders and infiltrators.

Even if she considered him as part of the same faction, if he acted in a suspicious manner she would immediately report to Amy.

The second choice was to spend time with her and befriend her.

He didn’t have the certainty that she wouldn’t report to Amy in this scenario, but it was the choice with the best success rate.

Moreover, he could also potentially obtain valuable information.

Woohyuk pondered for a bit and made his decision.

‘The 3rd underground floor is still far away.’

If his destination were the first floor, the first choice wouldn’t be a bad idea, as he would quickly reach it and exit as fast as he had entered. There wouldn’t be a need to waste time here.

However, in this situation, the second option was the better choice.

“You… know… meaning… Urkheim…”

“I don’t. I didn’t learn Orcish.”

“Child... picked up... beneath... bridge…”

“What? Pffft… Bwahahahaha!”

Agnes was laughing uncontrollably in the air as she waddled her legs.

The chieftain’s son’s name was far too foolish.

“Now… you… turn…”

“Pfft, pwahahahaha! Huh? Are you asking me to tell a funny story as well?”

“Not… funny… story… Anything… you want… say…”

Since things had come to this, he was about to make Agnes spill as much information as possible.

Woohyuk’s eyes brightened as he continued his clumsy orc act.