Free Web Novel“Kid, why were they hitting you?” After healing her wounds, Vieya casually asked.
“Me?” The little girl paused, pressed her lips together, and said pitifully, “Can I... not say?”
“No.”
Vieya stood up and looked down at the little girl from above, deciding to see if she could pry some information out of her mouth.
“Answer my question. Otherwise I’ll throw you into the river to feed the fish. There are man-eating fish here—crunch crunch—they’ll bite you in half, your guts and blood floating all over the water.”
“......”
The little girl froze. Her small face instantly went deathly pale. Forcing a smile, she said, “I—I just stole things from their homes...”
“Just stole?” Vieya said, disappointed.
No—what are you disappointed about?!
Are you looking down on my past crimes?!
The little girl’s fantasy of a gentle, angelic god shattered on the spot. Under the slime’s icy gaze, she trembled as she answered,
“I also stole dogs, cats, chickens, and dried fish from around the village. After they found out, they...”
“Stop.”
Vieya pressed her forehead. Oh my god, if I’d known I wouldn’t have asked. Listening to this makes me want to beat her.
Tsk tsk—by comparison, my daughter suddenly seems so well-behaved.
Jasmine really is the best.
But wait—why would a scrawny little girl steal that many things?
If she were eating them herself, would she still be this skinny?
Sensing something off, Vieya narrowed her eyes. “Why did you steal those things? To eat them yourself? Or for a sick mother? A gambling father? A young younger brother?”
“Huh?” The little girl didn’t understand the implications in Vieya’s words and shook her head. “I took them to offer as sacrifices to the god.”
【God】
Having successfully caught the keyword, Vieya’s gaze sharpened. Based on her abundant experience from her Hero days, once words like god, demon, or Demon King appeared in an NPC’s dialogue box, it meant you’d brushed against the core of the quest.
And considering this was Isabel’s consciousness, this 【god】 was definitely related to her somehow.
Of course, it could also just be a child’s fantasy.
So—
Vieya’s mind raced as she asked the unfamiliar little girl a crucial question.
“The god you’re talking about—do the adults at home know about it?”
“The adults at my home?” The little girl shook her head. “I’m an orphan. There are no adults at my home. But the adults in the village all know. Every year they prepare lots and lots of boats, tie cows and sheep onto them, and push them into the sea.”
“The adults say this is a sacrifice. If they don’t make sacrifices, the god will use storms to kill them when they go out to sea.”
“So those adults all make sacrifices. Then why do you still steal things to make offerings on your own?” Vieya asked, pointing out the inconsistency.
“Because!” As she said this, the dull light in the little girl’s eyes instantly flared up. “Someone told me that as long as I complete three thousand sacrifices to the god, the god can grant me one wish!”
“Big sister, you should join my special operations squad too! I know Daniu’s family in the village raises a whole coop of chickens, but there’s a big black dog in front of his house and I can’t steal them! If it’s big sister, you’ll definitely succeed in stealing the chickens!”
The little girl’s eyes sparkled. She believed without question that completing three thousand sacrifices could be exchanged for a wish.
As if there truly existed a god—one even Vieya had never heard of—who would grant wishes just because they were made.
Vieya knew very well that even the Light God, the most widely worshiped and most powerful deity across all continents, couldn’t grant every believer’s wish.
Thinking of this, Vieya smiled and began to lie.
“Can you take me to meet the god? As long as I see the god, I’ll agree to your request.”
“Yay!”
The little girl jumped up, wiped her grimy face at random, and said excitedly, “My name is lala! Lala from Brookwood Village!”
“lala?” Vieya repeated. What an awkward name. It didn’t match the mainstream naming styles of any of the four continents—more like something a small, isolated village came up with on its own.
“Huh?”
The delighted lala suddenly frowned. She ran back and forth nearby as if looking for something, and as time passed, her expression grew anxious.
“Big sister, this is bad!” lala shouted in panic, spinning in place like she’d stepped on a landmine. “This is really bad!”
Vieya: “Speak.”
lala: “The flour mouse I stole earlier is gone!”
Vieya thought for a moment. “What’s that?”
“The offering! The offering I stole!” lala emphasized, raising her skinny little hand to gesture. “A flour mouse—about as big as my palm!”
“I smashed it into meat paste.”
“...Then where’s the meat paste?”
“Stuck to the soles of those kids’ shoes.”
“...So cruel. Just like a poisonous balloonfish.”
“Yeah.”
Time passed quickly here. In the blink of an eye, the sun set, and a massive silver moon rose from beyond the horizon, bright as a jade plate. Pods of white whales leapt across the sea, their long, melodic calls echoing through the night.
This was a small fishing village with fewer than a hundred households. Every family closed their doors early, and aside from torches, there were no other sources of light.
At dusk—
lala stole another fish, tied it to a long bamboo pole, hoisted it over her shoulder, and walked back to the village along a narrow path.
At the edge of the village stood a crude little courtyard with three low buildings: a bedroom, a kitchen, and a shed for storing firewood and air-drying fish.
This was lala’s home.
Vieya was invited to stay and was arranged to sleep on the only plank bed in the house.
A creaking wooden plank bed. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
After that—
lala said she would use the dried fish she’d picked up to cook.
But Vieya saw her hurry out of the courtyard.
Her expression immediately turned strange.
Don’t tell me she went out in the dark to steal again? Like Kong Yiji—ending up with broken legs, thrown out, fate unknown?
Fortunately, only a few minutes later, lala ran back, panting, with an armful of things in her arms.
Entering the house and meeting Vieya’s strange gaze, lala said without blushing or hesitation, “You smeared the flour mouse meat on other people’s shoes, and I didn’t have anything else at home, so I borrowed a bit more from the neighbors.”
“Please wait a moment. Once the dried fish finishes soaking, we can eat.”
After saying that, lala left again and went into the kitchen to get busy.
Such strange interpersonal relationships.
Clearly a thief beaten by everyone, yet in a night when every household had shut its doors, she could still go out and borrow food.
Before long, the meal was brought out. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
They were all very ordinary foods: more than half a °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° strip of sticky dried fish, charred bread that crumbled apart, a bowl of what looked like mashed potato soup, and a dish of dark green unknown vegetables.
No—this is what you eat?
The slime girl couldn’t say she had absolutely no appetite, but she really had no appetite at all.
Yet lala looked expectant, with a hint of nervousness, as if waiting for the slime girl’s evaluation and praise after tasting it.
“Is this what you eat every day?” Vieya found it hard to comment.
lala shook her head and answered honestly, “No. Usually I can only eat these things during festivals.”
Vieya sighed.
Alright.
It seems I had expectations of this illusion that I shouldn’t have had.
