Free Web NovelShe was listening — of course she was.
But even so, Vieya still could not understand why Anna would abandon such a fine position as a Hero, only to bring herself to the point of becoming humanity’s enemy.
Because, by any reasonable measure—
Even if she truly wanted to change something, the benefits her Hero position could have granted her far outweighed her current state of being hunted everywhere, skulking around, a once-glorious Hero reduced to stealing and starving.
A bit stupid, really.
When Vieya herself had been a Hero, she had not been blind to the disgusting things Anna spoke of — but... no one ever dared order her around, nor did anyone come to provoke her.
As long as Vieya stood there, everyone would hide their malice so perfectly that not a trace showed, all treating her with utmost respect.
Besides, back then, her teacher had not vanished from the world like now; sometimes the teacher still made appearances, intervening here and there.
And on top of that, Vieya had never reached the stage of “I can’t stand cilantro,” so she had been too lazy to care about those matters anyway.
A Hero’s duty was to kill Demon Kings — everything else, sorry, was outside her jurisdiction.
As long as it didn’t disgust her personally, fine. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Just don’t let her see it.
If she saw it — she’d root it out entirely, and wipe out the offender’s nine generations. freeweɓnovel.cøm
But thinking back now, her goals at that time had always been fixed on external enemies — meaning monsters.
Killing monsters gave lots of experience, leveled her up quickly, and dropped materials...
As for human affairs, she neither knew how to handle them nor cared to. Just part of the game world’s background culture — what did it have to do with her?
Yes, she had basically treated this world like a leveling-up game — until the Demon King captured her.
There was no helping it.
Vieya sometimes thought: if there were no demon race in this world, if Flaviel had just been an ordinary girl she happened to meet... how nice that would have been.
Maybe they could have lived a neat, happy life as one family, carefree and content.
But if she hadn’t been a Demon King... would she still have come to find me of her own will?
The world is so big — two people meeting is truly rare.
Throwing away those stray thoughts, Vieya rubbed her cheeks and returned to normal.
She did not doubt Anna’s character back when she was a Hero, but she remained wary of how Anna had changed since giving that up. Just recalling their first meeting — the fierce battle that nearly broke out — it was hard to see Anna as any sort of trustworthy, ordinary friend.
Still, for the moment, Anna showed no malice, no intention to harm. Instead, inexplicably, she treated Vieya as if she were some venomous fiend to avoid at all costs — and even spoke carelessly in front of her daughter... Annoying, yes, but a free tool delivered to the doorstep was still a free tool. Might as well use it.
Now then.
Since the woman had already turned into a pitiful stray cat, unloved and unwanted, and since Vieya herself lacked any good usable agents under her hand — why not test this one? ƒrēewebnovel.com
If she had no one to send on errands, she’d have to do everything herself — and how was she supposed to spend time with her daughter then?
More importantly, considering what Hu Xiaoqi had told her, and the warning Flaviel had given that night... even if she had decided to focus on raising her daughter for now, she could not ignore unstable factors lurking in the dark.
Everything was for her daughter.
Judging by Anna’s demeanor, as long as their basic ideals did not conflict, there was a good chance of taking her in.
Vieya calculated quietly.
First, she would have to make sure Anna would not turn against her — not the way she had once betrayed the Royal Capital and fought her own comrades.
Hm, my personal charm should be stronger than theirs, right?
Looking at it this way, the remaining issue centered on Anna’s future plans. From her earlier complaints and frustration, Vieya guessed her next move would be to develop quietly in this border town by the Monster Forest.
Fengxiang Town lay far from the Royal Capital, and its flow of people was chaotic. If anything unexpected happened, one could just flee into the Monster Forest outside the city, and the humans would be helpless.
Anna was now all alone — trying to survive in a city on her own would indeed be difficult.
Look — that person staring at someone else’s child’s cake and swallowing hard, who is she?
A Hero — a deserter Hero.
In short, Vieya already had a plan for handling Anna. The woman’s head wasn’t too bright, but she was obedient, simple, and had strong execution. Even after being expelled from the Church of the Resurrecting Lord, Anna held no deep grudge; instead, in her bitter muttering was a yearning to find people who shared her ideals.
“All in all, strength comes from numbers — if there are qualified people, we should rally them,” she said.
...
“This... is for me?”
Anna swallowed hard. The large black cake she had bought for three silver coins hadn’t been nearly enough to fill her stomach, which was used to being half empty most of the time.
She had planned to eat a good meal, then head to the black market to see if she could pawn her staff for money, maybe get herself a new legal identity... start over here.
But meeting Vieya had shattered that plan.
“Yes... it’s for you. Although you greeted me with insults on our first meeting and attacked me, and the second time you shouted ‘plague god’ to my face...”
Vieya said softly, pushing the plate toward her, then turned to Jasmine and added gently,
“If it’s not enough, Mommy will get you more.”
Jasmine shook her head hard, picked up a piece of cake, and tried to feed her mother.
Across the table, watching the tender exchange between mother and daughter, Anna looked down at the cake before her and thought back to everything from the first time she’d met the woman until now.
A strange guilt stirred inside her... Maybe the other really was just a young single mother who loved her daughter — and each time it had been she herself who ran into the woman, not the other way around.
Perhaps, to Vieya, she herself was the true plague god who kept disturbing someone else’s peaceful life.
Eating the cake given by someone she had once seen as an enemy, Anna felt a momentary daze... When had she become like this?
When the Royal Capital had ordered her family’s slaughter? The night she decided to defect? Or the moment she joined what others called an evil cult?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t say.
“Thank you...” Anna murmured quietly. It drew a curious glance from Jasmine, but Vieya, still absorbed in teasing her daughter, gave no response at all.
“......”
Seeing that, Anna bowed her head and continued eating. She could understand why the other disliked her.
Anyone who took their daughter out for a meal, only to run into a self-declared plague god yelling in public, would lose patience too.
“I won’t bother you again... What happened today was me acting on impulse,” she said.
A single piece of cake had dispelled her hostility — that was a surprise to Vieya, though she said nothing. She only made sure Jasmine was full, then packed several more slices of cake — placing one before Anna, and keeping two others to take home for the cat.
“Tha—” Anna looked up, wanting to thank her, but only saw the woman’s back as she left with her daughter.
Her lips moved soundlessly; in the end she only lowered her head, eyes dimming.
...
The pastry shop was not far from home.
But Vieya did not take Jasmine straight back; instead she wrote an anonymous letter reporting that an evil-god follower had slipped into Fengxiang Town and dropped it into the mailbox.
“Ah, looks like I’ve unknowingly done another bad thing again.”
Vieya sighed, holding her utterly confused daughter as they turned for home.
Inside the shop, Anna was still devouring her cake. She decided that once she had money, she would treat that woman to a meal in return — and she would wash and dry the stolen night clothes and return them to the family’s yard, and repay the three silver coins she had spent today...
