Chapter 332: “Want to Go With Me?”
Chapter 332: “Want to Go With Me?”
Chapter 332: “Want to Go With Me?”
Back when he arrived at the Georgi family home, Shien was welcomed by the entire household and was invited in with full honors. He was shown the greatest respect possible then.
However, when he left, Shien did so all on his own. Those who didn’t know any better might have thought that he got chased out by the Georgi family due to having done something wrong.
When Shien exited the gates of the Georgi family home, the girls around him also just happened to also reappear at the same time.
“Are you done now?”
Airi continued to act like she’s still half asleep and yawned as she glanced at Shien while lazily asking him that question.
Lasha also pulled Beatrice along as she unhurriedly walked up to Shien.
The first thing that Shien did was to shift his gaze onto Beatrice.
“?”
Beatrice tilted her head as if confused.
It was because the way that Shien looked at her was different from how it used to be.
Now, Shien’s eyes showed various emotions like consideration, suspicion, and resignation. It wasn’t just Beatrice either. Even Airi and Lasha turned questioning at the change.
“What is it?”
Although Airi was still not all that interested, she still ended up asking about it.
“… Nothing.”
Shien thought for a bit, but in the end, he didn’t say anything.
Although he had already read through that old book and thus more or less now know about just why Terrance was so wary of Beatrice’s existence, Shien still can’t be certain that Beatrice really is the existence mentioned in that book, so there’s no need to say anything about it just yet.
Right now, rather than Beatrice’s history, the bigger headache for Shien is just what he should do with this little girl.
Is he really going to just toss her away?
But, can he really do something like that?
That’s obviously not possible.
Perhaps if it was someone else, they may very likely do that. However, while Shien didn’t consider himself some kind of good person, he still isn’t capable of doing something like just simply abandoning an innocent girl to whatever fate that awaited her.
Even if he does bring Beatrice along with him, while this may very well lead to him encountering a lot of troubles from then on, in the end, he does still have Yulin, the Holy Sword, and worst comes to worst, he even has Airi. Thus, Shien doesn’t need to be as wary and worried as people like Terrance.
Therefore…
“Let’s let the person in question decide for herself then.”
Shien thus made that decision and knelt down in front of Beatrice.
Beatrice was following Shien with her gaze the entire time from the start, so due to the height difference, she had been looking up the entire time that Shien was standing. When Shien knelt down, her own gaze also slowly followed him downward until their eyes were even.
This young looking girl just stared intently at Shien without saying a word. She looked unusually calm and acted as if she was waiting for Shien to speak first.
Shien thus smiled at Beatrice before speaking.
“Hey little guy, want to go with me?”
Shien met Beatrice’s eyes and asked her as he stared right into her violet crystal-like eyes.
Over to the side, while Airi and Lasha didn’t know what was going on, they did realize that now that Shien had asked that, it meant that he intended to keep that girl with him.
Thus, the two of them did not speak and instead quietly waited for Beatrice’s response as if respecting Shien’s decision.
Beatrice on the other hand pause for a moment. It’s unknown if it was because she was surprised by Shien’s invitation or if she simply didn’t understand what Shien meant.
Only Shien, who was focused directly on Beatrice the entire time had noticed that when he made his invitation, there was an instant where a flash of disbelieving hope that flashed across the young girl’s eyes.
It’s obvious that no one had every said something like that to her before.
Beatrice thus ended up falling into a daze, unable to respond for some time.
Shien didn’t hurry her either. He didn’t say anything more and simply waited patiently.
This made Beatrice’s eyes finally show some ripples.
After an unknown amount of time, the ripples in Beatrice’s eyes finally vanished.
Right after that, Beatrice nodded and agreed to Shien’s invitation.
Shien smiled.
“Aright then.”
Thus, Shien stood up and spoke up without any more hesitation.
“We’ll be setting off now and heading for Cosmos now then.”
In response to that, Airi and Lasha exchanged a glance, but neither had any intentions of objecting, and simply nodded.
Beatrice was still acting as quiet as always, only now her eyes as she looked at Shien contained something else to it.
“Yulin!”
Shien shouted out up at the sky.
“Roar!”
A draconic roar rang out and a black figure descended from the sky like a meteor, quickly flying over with a wave of heat and winds as it arrived before Shien and the others.
Shien’s group immediately climbed up onto Yulin’s back.
Not long after, Yuling’s wings flapped as it flew off into the distance.
Their target is the northern city of Cosmos.
…
On the day that Shien left, in Jiltry, a group appeared over in piece of wild and unowned area.
Those people were diverse in gender and looks, but they all had a certain commonality to them.
Foir example, all of them had a pair of animal ears and a tail. Only, some had wolf ears and tails, some had boar ears and tails, some had cat ears and tails, and some had leopard ears and tails. They also all wore skins and furs, giving them quite a wild look.
They were obviously a group of beastmen. A group of beastmen made of different tribes at that.
At the head of that group of beastmen was a seductive looking girl with fox ears and tail.
Anyone who sees this fox-kin girl would definitely be greatly shocked.
it’s because beastmen of the fox tribe hold a very special status among beastmen. They’re also extremely rare, and they haven’t appeared in many years.
Right now, though, a fox-kin girl had appeared her. If this were to get out, it would definitely cause a major commotion.
However, the foxkin girl who appeared here with a group of beastmen instead had a very heavy and cold look on her face. She looked like she was in a bad mood.
Looking closer, right before that fox-kin girl was several corpses that had been dug out, now exposed to the outside air.
Those corpses were actually the homunculi who had committed suicide right before Shien just the previous night.
Lasha had buried them here.
Only, how they’ve been dug back up.
A strong looking wolfman approached the fox-kin girl and spoke up with somewhat terrible expression.
“As expected, it wasn’t here, holy maiden.”
Hearing that, the fox-kin girl who was addressed as holy maiden looked like her mood had gotten worse.
Behind her, various beastmen also started complaining angrily.
“Yet again. Every time we find a clue, all that’s left ends up being a bunch of homunculi corpses.”
“The mastermind behind all this really is disgusting.”
“Even if they’re homunculi, something that can simply be made at will, to casually throw them away like this after using them up is worse than even the Old Demon Faction.”
“Enough already. That’s just the common methods of the mastermind behind all this. How could they possibly still be free to run about otherwise?”
“Yeah. If not the for the fact that it’s all homunculi who are sent out to take all the actions, we would have caught the mastermind behind all this a long time ago.”
“Gah! So annoying! I really want to just dig that guy up and have him drawn and quartered already!”
The group of beastmen all shouted angrily. It’s obvious that they’ve encountered the same things over and over now, to the point where they’ve already gotten sick and tired of it to the point of collapse.
If not for that, the holy maiden leading them wouldn’t be in such a terrible mood.
“Do we know who buried these homunculi here?”
The fox-kin holy maiden asked the wolfman.
“No, we don’t.” The wolfman spoke with annoyance, “We had already sniffed around this entire area, but we couldn’t catch the slightest scent of the person who buried these homunculi. It’s as if the person in question had purposefully erased all traces of themselves. They’re definitely extremely skilled, having done all this perfectly. It’s in fact even more flawless than any of the times we previously encountered before.”
“There was nothing at all?” The fox-kin holy maiden frowned, “This never happened the previous times we found homunculi moving about outside, right?”
“That’s right. The previous times, thanks to us beastmen with senses far sharper than that of other races, we had always been able to more or less find some clues and tracers, which thus allowed us to figure out what these homunculi had done and who they made contact with. It wasn’t like this time at all, where there was no clue at all to be found.” The wolfman spoke solemnly, “It should have been someone very powerful who did this. No normal person could possibly have been able to do such a thing.”
“… Is that so?” The fox-kin holy maiden fell silent for a while before speaking up again, “Is it possible that this person is the mastermind behind all this?”
The one to answer that question wasn’t the wolfman, but a catgirl next to the holy maiden.
“No, that’s not possible.” The catgirl shook her head and denied it, “Based on the previous actions of the mastermind, they don’t care the slightest about the lives of these homunculi, so there’s no way that they could possibly risk the chance of us discovering him to run out here to bury these homunculi.”
“Then just what’s going on then?” The wolfman voiced out his confusion, “Why were the homunculi buried this time?”
The group of beastmen immediately all looked toward the catgirl.
From the looks of it, this cute catgirl should be the brains for this beastmen group.
That was in fact the truth too.
“I think it could have been done by an unrelated outsider.” The catgirl went silent for a bit before giving the following explanation, “Although all traces were removed, based on the way they were buried, the person who did this should have at treated these homunculi with respect. That’s not something that someone who considered homunculi mere tools would do. Thus, it might be someone unrelated who had no idea of these homunculi’s histories who simply couldn’t bear to watch their corpses just left around outside who did all this.
“An unrelated outsider you say?” The fox-kin holy maiden immediately spoke with some worry, “It can’t be that this time, this matter finally ended up getting innocent outsiders involved?”
“Oy, oy, oy! Are you serious!?” The wolfman was very shocked, “That’s not something to joke about. If something goes wrong, then those innocent outsiders who got dragged in will be dead for sure!”
“That’s right.” The catgirl also spoke worriedly, “The thing that we were most worried about might have happened.”
Those words induced a sinking feeling in the hearts of all the beastmen present.
They absolutely don’t want to see any innocent outsiders be harmed.
“It looks like we’ll have to hurry up then.” The fox-kin holy maiden took a deep breath, “There’s no other way anymore. We’ll have to use some exceptional methods then.”
When she spoke those words, the other beastmen all reacted with alarm.
“Holy maiden!”
“Holy maiden!”
Both the wolfman and the catgirl also spoke up in alarm.
“Enough, don’t say anything more.” The foxkin holy maiden refused any more objections, “We cannot allow the hell from back then to appear again. For the sake of that, a little bit of harm to me means little.”
The beastmen had nothing they could say to that. All they could do was be even more angry and hateful toward the mastermind behind it all.
The fox-kin holy maiden took a knee and begun praying.
“———— Oh great goddess of life, please answer your faithful believer. Where is the catastrophe of darkness————”
With that, a holy light shone from the fox-kin holy maiden.