Free Web NovelA corner of the grasslands.
Vieya kicked her former teammate Tiya out of the party. Ignoring the other’s sullen, aggrieved little look, she continued sitting on the bird’s back with her eyes closed, resting.
With one noisy little sparrow gone from her ears, it instantly became quiet.
Only now did she finally have the leisure to review everything that had happened on this trip.
First of all, Aislin’s mission had failed.
The monster den that was the mission target had already been cleared out in advance by the team led by Xubing, who then laid a perfect net waiting for them. It was hard not to suspect that the Third Prince who had escaped earlier possessed some kind of special real-time information transmission method, sending the news out the moment he encountered them.
But that no longer mattered. Phoenix said she had burned all the arsonists clean with a single blaze, turning them into fertilizer for next year’s grassland sprouts.
Perfect—except that Aislin’s mission had failed, and there was one more regret.
A large swath of trees on the outskirts of the Elven Forest had been burned. If gardener elves weren’t dispatched to tend to them, it would probably take several years to recover naturally.
Second, there was the matter of the nine-tailed fox.
Since parting with Anna that day, there had been no news of her for a long time.
In recent months, Vieya hadn’t even checked whether gold coins were still being deposited regularly into her account. She seriously suspected that Anna had run off with the money.
As for the nine-tailed fox, she seemed to have chosen to leave her homeland behind and walk an extremely dangerous tightrope alone.
Originally, Vieya had almost forgotten that back then she had asked the fox to fulfill their old promise—“act as my mole inside 【Ghost】.”
But how did that mole, while doing mole things, end up becoming one of 【Ghost】’s nine bosses?
Back to the point. Matters on 【Ghost】’s side didn’t need worrying about for now. The most important thing left was Aislin’s election ceremony.
Look—right now, the silver-haired elf was sitting on the bird’s back sighing heavily, propping up her cheeks, even her ears drooping.
At this point, even if you went over and touched her elf ears, she probably wouldn’t react much, right?
But that was fine. When it came to dealing with Aislin, Vieya was quite experienced.
Just distract her attention.
“Aislin-jiejie, can I touch your ears?”
Vieya went straight to the point, shifting over to sit beside the elven princess. She fed her several bowls of “chicken soup for the soul,” and back and forth like that, quickly restored Aislin’s mood to a normal level.
“Actually, I think it’s fine even if this mission failed,” Vieya said with a smile. “Even though your merits are temporarily behind, with your strength in the other categories, you definitely won’t be inferior to the other elves by much. The real key issue is the lack of accumulated merits from when you left the Elven Forest for over ten years back then. So we play to our strengths and avoid weaknesses—treat the other areas as our opening. Don’t worry... I’ll stand on your side.”
Those words immediately scratched the elven princess right where it itched.
After all, if she hadn’t been young and hotheaded back then and run off wandering, she wouldn’t be agonizing over this now. Her parents always poked at her sore spot over this matter, but Aislin didn’t regret it at all. If she could do it over again, she would still choose to go out and become a bard.
So now that her best friend openly expressed approval of her actions, how could she not be happy?
In an instant, her fondness for the slime rose a bit more.
“I’ll win!” Aislin clenched a fist at her chest, confidence surging.
Very good. Looks like the elven princess had been thoroughly muddled by the soul-chicken-soup.
The slime slung an arm around Aislin’s shoulders and shook her slightly. “I’ve looked into your biggest competitors—they’re not flawless elves either...” If it really comes to it, I’ll just dig up their dirty laundry and spread it in the Elven King’s Court.
Of course, Vieya only thought the latter half to herself and didn’t say it out loud.
“I will win,” Aislin promised again, her beautiful eyes shining with light.
You have to win!
“Hahaha.” Hearing this, the slime only laughed a few times and comforted her. “You don’t need to put pressure on yourself. The Elven Throne is important, but we’re not forcing it...”
At that moment.
The great bird beneath them suddenly came to a sharp stop, nearly flinging the slime off its back.
Vieya: “......”
Fortunately, Aislin reacted quickly and hurriedly steadied the slime, asking with concern,
“...What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Unstable airflow,” Phoenix said calmly.
“What’s unstable about the airflow?” Aislin frowned. She felt that her father—or perhaps it should be her second mother—seemed to be deliberately targeting her slime friend.
“I said it’s unstable, so it’s unstable!” Phoenix snapped.
Meeting Phoenix’s provocative gaze, Vieya raised an eyebrow, reached out and wrapped an arm around the elven princess’s slender, well-proportioned waist, and said calmly, “It’s fine. If the airflow’s unstable, I’ll just hold you tighter.”
Aislin nodded calmly, but the faint redness at the tips of her ears betrayed her unsteady heart.
Vieya subtly kicked the fiery red bird, her lips moving slightly: Your daughter is amazing! Oh right—your wife too.
“Gah!”
Phoenix’s eyelid twitched. She wanted nothing more than to bind this filthy-handed, morally corrupt slime to a cross and purify her with flames!
“Dad, fly more steadily. Little Vieya gets motion sickness...” Aislin patted the broad bird’s back and reminded him unhappily.
Steady?
What do you # Nоvеlight # want me to steady with?!
This elbow-outward-leaning dead daughter! I wish I could shake this slime brat to death!
Phoenix was so angry that the feathers on her head practically exploded.
...
The grasslands—endless emerald green stretching to the horizon. freewebnoveℓ.com
After being kicked out of the party, Tiya could only travel alone across the grasslands.
According to the results of her water-mirror divination, the journey ahead was long, with mountains high and waters vast... and the location information of the Aurora sisters also seemed to be obscured, hard to track down.
It was already past noon. Tiya wanted to find a tribe, announce herself, and ask for a horse, or at least beg for a bite of food or a sip of water.
But doing that would mean owing others karma. If it wasn’t repaid, the accuracy of her divinations would be interfered with.
“Sigh, that heartless bastard of a captain...”
Under the blazing sun, she didn’t know how much farther she walked when she suddenly saw a figure in the distance. She swallowed unconsciously, and finally couldn’t resist heading over to ask for some water.
The next second, alarm bells went off in her mind.
The figure that had just been a hundred meters away appeared right in front of her in the blink of an eye.
It was a raggedly dressed girl, filthy from head to toe.
“Have you... seen a white little kid? About...”
The girl gestured to a height roughly reaching her own chest, then added, “Mm... about this tall. Very cute, but with an aura as cold as iron, and likes to trick people. Oh, right—she seems to be called a Holy Sword Wielder by the people around here.”
“......”
Holding the water mirror, Tiya shook her head and said, “I know the Holy Sword Wielder. She appeared in Aydin City not long ago and defeated a terrifying cultist.”
The grimy girl’s eyes lit up.
“But... after defeating that cultist, the Holy Sword Wielder rode a bird and flew away. I don’t know where she went after that,” Tiya continued.
“—Ah!”
A small white dog suddenly jumped out, glaring at the grimy girl and shouting,
“I told you we should’ve stayed locked up a few more days! At least there they feed you and give you a place to sleep, and all you have to do is move bricks six hours a day! But no, you insisted on coming out to look—insisted on looking! And now what? We didn’t find our target, and we’re about to starve to death!”
