Free Web NovelChapter 458: Chapter 458: Adina 11
"Where’s Dumont?" Tan You held the wooden club horizontally in front of her and whispered to the Beauty System.
The Beauty System was keeping a close eye on Dumont’s position. "He’s still almost a thousand meters away from you, Host."
"A thousand meters, huh?" Tan You nodded slightly. ’I see. It won’t be that easy for this wave of low-rank Magic Beasts to kill me right away.’
At that thought, Tan You and the First Rank Magic Beast, a Violent Tooth Rat, sprang into action from the tall grass. Rats were known to move in packs, and even though these were the lowest-rank Violent Tooth Rats that an ordinary person could handle, the body of Adina that Tan You now inhabited was inherently frail. Although Tan You had made a conscious effort to train over the past month, she had only become slightly healthier and was still far from reaching the physical level of a normal person.
Tan You sidestepped slightly, quickly leaping onto a large bluestone by the road and dodging a Violent Tooth Rat that was pouncing right at her. In the moonlight, the Violent Tooth Rat was about the size of an adult rabbit, and its teeth seemed to gleam with a cold light.
After dodging the Violent Tooth Rat, Tan You brought her wooden club down on its head, instantly smashing it to a pulp. Perhaps it was the scent of blood, but the already restless swarm of Violent Tooth Rats grew even more frenzied. They surged toward Tan You like a tidal wave.
Tan You shook her aching arm and muttered, "That skull was surprisingly tough."
Despite her words, Tan You didn’t dare to relax in the slightest. ’I absolutely can’t afford to get bitten here,’ she thought. ’Who knows what kinds of viruses these Magic Beasts carry? Back in my world, you’d need a vaccine after a cat or dog bite, but this world doesn’t even have those.’
’Then again, they do have Priests here, but I’ve never actually seen one, so I can’t really count on that.’ Pressing her lips together, Tan You shook off these messy thoughts. She remained in a half-crouch on the bluestone, her wooden club rising and falling again and again.
The whole scene felt a bit like playing Whac-A-Mole. Of course, these "moles" were a far cry from the ones in the game; they were quite dangerous.
After struggling to kill a dozen or so Violent Tooth Rats, Tan You felt her arm grow so heavy she could no longer lift the club. In her ear, she heard the Beauty System’s countdown: "Just one hundred meters left..."
Tan You took a deep breath. "I see it. This truly is a wondrous world of Magic."
She could already see the enormous eye floating in mid-air. Tan You wasn’t a complete novice when it came to Magic anymore; she knew this eye was a type of spell used for reconnaissance and to detect danger.
The thought of imminent reinforcements gave Tan You a renewed surge of energy. But just then, perhaps frustrated by their prolonged, unsuccessful assault, or perhaps angered at losing so many of their own without being able to take down a single, small creature, the rat swarm began to stir restlessly again.
A powerfully built Violent Tooth Rat with a glossy coat suddenly shot out from the side. Its leaping ability was far superior to the others. It was so close that Tan You could smell the foul stench from its snout.
Just as its jaws were about to close on her face, Tan You suddenly raised her hand, jamming the wooden club firmly into the Violent Tooth Rat’s gaping mouth.
To keep the Violent Tooth Rat from biting through the club, Tan You kept shoving it deeper, preventing the creature from closing its jaws. Unfortunately, she had misjudged the situation. The Violent Tooth Rat was in mid-air, and all of her attention was focused on fending off this head-on assault.
She had forgotten she was standing on the bluestone, which had an uneven surface. Tan You lost her balance and toppled off the stone. The ground below was a teeming mass of Violent Tooth Rats. If she were to fall into the swarm...
Tan You could even see the excited gleam in the rats’ eyes. She gritted her teeth, feeling closer to death than she ever had before.
Just a second before Tan You plunged into the swarm, a rope of Water Element Magic snaked around her waist. One moment she was falling into the rats’ maws; the next, she was pulled to safety.
Such a dramatic turn of events would have been too much for an ordinary person. But Tan You was not, after all, a real child. The moment she knew she was saved, she flicked her wrists, and the Violent Tooth Rat impaled on her club was sent flying.
Tan You even heard a sound like a melon being smashed.
"I don’t think that Violent Tooth Rat made it, either," Tan You remarked, still having the presence of mind to chat with the Beauty System.
The Beauty System cried out, "Host, you were almost killed..."
"What are you crying for? I’m still alive, aren’t I?" Tan You raised an eyebrow. "As long as I survive today, there’ll be a time to settle the score later."
Hiding the cold glint in her eyes, Tan You turned to the Water Element Mage who had intervened. "Thank you for saving me, sir. Once I return home, I will have my father formally thank you."
The Water Element Mage glanced at Tan You, then at Dumont, whose expression was so grim he looked like he was about to drip water. The Mage wisely kept his mouth shut.
Dumont looked at Tan You, who was as filthy as a mud-caked monkey. "Why are you out here all by yourself?"
This piqued Tan You’s interest. "My sister said she was bringing me to visit the Karina family today. We were at the Karina estate this morning. In the afternoon, Karina said the estate was boring and mentioned a beautiful valley nearby."
Dumont frowned, his heart sinking with a sense of dread. "And your sister, Lilith?"
’What a scumbag father,’ Tan You thought. ’He doesn’t care about the younger daughter standing right in front of him. His bias is just ridiculous.’
"My sister left with everyone else. I waited in the valley for a long, long time, but no one came to get me. So I just started walking in a random direction, and who knew I’d run into..." Tan You didn’t even have to pretend to be miserable; she truly was. Anyone looking at her would have called her a pitiful sight.
Dumont’s expression shifted rapidly. He wasn’t a fool; on the contrary, he was very intelligent. It was precisely because of his intelligence that he was unwilling to admit that his third daughter could be such a malicious person. But now the truth was laid bare before him. Could he really pretend not to see it?
"ACHOO!" Tan You suddenly sneezed, and a shiver ran through her entire body. ’With Adina’s weak constitution, after walking in the cold wind for so long... don’t tell me I’ve caught a cold?’
As if on cue, Tan You sneezed several more times in a row.
One of Dumont’s knights suggested in a low voice, "Family Head, Miss Adina is unwell. We should hurry back and have a Priest take a look at her."
Dumont snapped back to reality. He looked at Tan You shivering in place, looking especially pitiful now. He felt an impulse to embrace her, but when he saw how filthy she was, he hesitated.
Tan You saw the hesitation in his eyes and couldn’t help but smile sardonically. ’So this is it,’ she thought. ’The entire Edmonds family is rotten to the core.’
’A true father, no matter how wretched his child might look, would never recoil in disgust as long as he possessed even a shred of paternal love. He would only blame himself, lamenting that he hadn’t taken better care of his own child.’
