Free Web NovelLooking at everything before her, Aislin’s heart jolted, and an ominous premonition rose instantly.
Had something gone wrong in the death cell where the prisoner was held?
But they had only just left. How could a problem have occurred in such a short time? In an instant, countless questions surged into her mind.
Those questions were like heavy storm clouds, suddenly pressing down over her head, lingering without dispersing.
Aislin didn’t dare linger any longer. She turned around and hurried back along the way they had come. She needed to go back personally and confirm exactly where the problem was.
“What’s going on now?”
Seeing this, Vieya spread her hands and followed after her.
Very quickly, they returned once again to the stone gate leading to the death cell. But this time, they did not see the two elven elders who had been on duty earlier.
The stone gate was tightly shut. Inside, there was deathly silence.
Aislin frowned and personally reached out to push open the hundred-ton stone gate.
But when she looked into the pitch-black world beyond the door, she suddenly hesitated. She turned her head, looked at the little slime that had followed her, and kept her voice gentle,
“We’ll split up. You go notify the other elves about what’s happened here in the dungeon and have them make preparations. I’ll go in and take a look.”
“What are you saying?”
Vieya shook her head decisively. “Let’s go in together. With me here, how big of a problem could it be?”
“You really are... confident,” Aislin squeezed out those words.
Vieya shook her head and stepped through the doorway first. Her small figure was quickly swallowed by the darkness.
Aislin sighed helplessly, pinched a pale-green little bird between her fingers, and sent it flying toward the upper reaches of the spiral staircase. The pale-green energy messenger bird flapped its wings as it rose upward, gradually disappearing from view.
Only then did she press her hand to the elven slender sword at her waist and step after Vieya.
“Hey, slow down. It’s dark in here.”
Pa! A light sound rang out.
The next second—
A brilliant golden fire lotus suddenly floated in midair, and the surrounding darkness receded like a tide.
The temperature in the dungeon rose noticeably by several degrees, and Aislin felt much warmer. freewebnσvel.cøm
Vieya was walking ahead at an unhurried pace, holding a torch.
“So you can play with fire too?” Aislin said in surprise.
“It’s not fire. It’s dragonflame.”
Vieya said. As for where it came from, don’t ask. She wasn’t about to tell outsiders that even an egg could play with fire.
As for the branch, it had been found in the dry hay nest used for incubation. To build a nest, you first need to mix a certain proportion of dried straw and wood fluff as padding, then use branches as a framework to set the shape.
Only then can a dragon’s nest be both warm and sturdy.
Aislin clicked her tongue. This slime managed to refresh her understanding again and again. She was, after all, the Elven Queen. Even if she didn’t know everything under the sun, she could at least be called well-traveled and knowledgeable.
Yet in front of this slime, she felt like a country bumpkin from some remote backwater.
The two of them continued forward together for a while. Suddenly, the torchlight illuminated an “elven corpse” lying on the ground.
“Elder Sen!”
Aislin’s pupils shrank. She hurried forward and crouched in front of the elf lying on the floor, reaching out to test his breathing.
There was no breath at all. Cold as ice, so cold that it made her jerk her hand back sharply. After a long moment—
Aislin drew the symbol of the Moon Goddess over her chest with her finger, clasped her hands together, and prayed softly,
“O Moon Goddess who watches over us, please cleanse today’s dust with Your heavenly dew, forgive my negligence at the threshold of words...”
Vieya held the torch at the side, her lips pressed tightly together.
A life that had been vivid and living just half an hour ago was now a cold, rigid corpse on the floor.
This gate-guarding high elf was at the eighth rank. There was no way that the shackled prisoner could have killed this elf in such a short time.
Then where did the problem lie?
“...May the stars of the night proclaim Your faithfulness, may the migratory birds of dawn awaken new hope... let us rest in the tent of salvation, awaiting that more beautiful dawn of resurrection.”
As the prayer ended, the elf’s corpse actually turned into specks of pale-green light that seeped into the ground. After a quarter of an hour, only a gray, hooded long robe remained on the floor.
“Hah.”
After finishing the prayer, Aislin slowly stood up and let out a breath, saying softly, “Let’s go. I must find out the cause of what happened here.”
Soon, they arrived at the cell where the prisoner was held. Yet everything inside was exactly the same as when they had left, without the slightest change.
The prisoner was still covered head to toe in stone armor, pinned in place and unable to move.
Faintly, the prisoner let out a laugh.
“Speak. What happened here?!”
Aislin was furious. Veins bulged on her right hand as it clenched the sword hilt. She looked like a tiger suppressing its rage, one spark of anger away from tearing the prisoner in the cell to shreds.
“Where did the other elven guard go?”
“......”
The prisoner remained silent, like a stone, exactly the same as during interrogation.
“You had accomplices sneak in, didn’t you?” Aislin growled, suppressing her fury. “How did they get in? Morning? Noon? Or afternoon?”
“They mixed in among those holy paladins and came in with them, then started acting while the human bishop was talking to me. Isn’t that right?”
“Heh heh.”
The prisoner laughed twice and finally raised his head. Through the slit in the stone helmet, he looked at Aislin. His pitch-black eyes were utterly indifferent, his smile not reaching his eyes as he said,
“Congratulations, Your Majesty the Queen, you guessed correctly. But he didn’t sneak in with the paladin order. The way he got in... why don’t you take another guess?”
Aislin fell silent for a moment. Then she suddenly raised her sword and, through the steel bars of the cell, thrust toward his heart with lightning speed.
Shua!
At that very instant, an arrow shot out of the darkness. With a clang, it knocked aside the thrust aimed at the prisoner’s heart, causing the blade to stab into his left shoulder instead.
In the blink of an eye—
Aislin saw that Vieya’s figure had vanished. The torch was thrown into the air, frozen in place.
Boom!
The next second, Vieya reappeared, a corpse clutched in her hand.
“Heh heh, worthy of the Holy Sword’s wielder...”
The prisoner in the cell let out a low laugh. Yet in that tone, Aislin somehow heard a trace of bleak despair.
Like a desperate wild horse with no road ahead. As everyone knows, wild horses are creatures born to race across vast plains. Once they set foot on their journey, they never turn back—until a chasm appears before them that they can never cross in their entire lives. Carrying despair, they leap, hoping to cross that impossible gap, only to shatter themselves against reality.
Aislin thought it was just her imagination, but in the next instant she realized it wasn’t.
The prisoner suddenly threw his head back and bared his teeth, biting open something. A bright, glittering object flashed between his teeth, shining like a star.
“Poison!” Vieya spoke up immediately.
Aislin, being the closest, moved at once to stop him—but it was already too late.
The prisoner easily bit through the sugar coating that wrapped the powdered drug. After entering his mouth, this specially prepared poison caused his body to dehydrate and wither at an inconceivable speed, until he became a dried skeleton, leaving behind not the slightest trace of life.
“Tsk.”
Seeing this, Vieya tossed aside the corpse she had been holding. After a moment of silence, she said, “They infiltrated this time just to silence him. There’s a kind of truth serum in the Church. According to legend, it’s an essence extracted by the God of Light from the faith of fanatics, able to make all heretics convert to the God of Light... I guess they were afraid of that.”
“Little Vieya, you really know a lot... Humans are truly impressive. They caused such a huge commotion just to deliver a single poison pill to a companion so he could kill himself.”
Aislin’s voice sounded tired. She took a couple of steps, then suddenly stopped and gave Vieya a strained smile.
“I’ll take care of the aftermath here. On the Church’s side, I’ll sort this out from start to finish, write it up properly, and notify them... In any case, let’s go back up first. As for visiting your aunt, I’ll bring you another day.”
“This little elf is still too young. If it were her mom handling this, there wouldn’t be so many problems. She needs tempering, needs tempering...”
The dragon egg said, its tone a bit wistful.
After that, the elves who received the message from above also rushed down. In a corner of the dungeon, they found the other gate-guarding elf. He was severely injured, but at least his life had been spared.
At the same time, the elves began repairing and reinforcing the damaged dungeon.
After returning to the surface, Vieya was a bit worried about Aislin’s condition, so she bought some honey sticks that Aislin liked and went to visit her.
“Oh my, this is the first time you’ve brought me a gift.”
Aislin, who was bent over her desk writing about the prisoner’s suicide incident, looked up in surprise. Seeing the little slime carrying gifts, she felt both happy and helpless.
“Are you worried about how I’m doing? Don’t worry, I’ll recover very soon. Mm... honey sticks are just as delicious as ever. They really make me want to eat a few more.”
Seeing that Aislin seemed mostly fine and had recovered more than half her energy after eating a few honey sticks, Vieya didn’t stay long.
She gave a few reminders along {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} the lines of “before your mom wakes up, make sure you take care of yourself first,” then turned around and returned to the slime cottage.
The streets were still peaceful. The elves went about their business as usual.
Most elves knew nothing about what had happened in the dungeon. They only thought some structure hadn’t been properly repaired and collapsed. Instead, they were more curious about the paladin order that had come and gone, which also proved that the infiltrators had come solely to deliver that suicide pill.
“A bunch of lunatics. They don’t understand enjoying life at all.”
Back in the slime cottage, Vieya lay on a reclining chair with a book, called the maid over to massage her shoulders, then called her daughter over to feed her fruit, shameless to an impressive degree.
Jasmine peeled grapes while feeding her beloved mom. At the same time, her gaze couldn’t help but drift to the book her mom was reading.
The Incubation of Egg-Type Creatures and Postnatal Assistance
Jasmine frowned.
What kind of messed-up book was this?
