Chapter 127 The Witch
After defeating the three powerful creatures, the group took a little break in the middle of the hall. They have just gone through an intense battle and at the moment, their energy seemed to have been drained.
Eva came to heal Viktor's shoulders, while Jessie and Viktor were both aware that they had to regain their energy from the drawback. Viktor's drawback from his [All Might] and Jessie's from that green injection.
In the midst of the drawback, both of them looked at each other. They knew that each of them was hiding something, but none was willing to speak about it.
On the other side, Eva was away to look after the unconscious young girl who was still sleeping soundly. Without a word, the princess only looked at her silently. Jessie, who was sitting near with her suddenly asked,
"So… what do you plan to do with the girl?" Jessie inquired in a curious but somehow anxious tone.
The two were well aware that Liza was the witch who the templars had been looking for and they needed to decide what they were going to do when they met the templars.
Silence filled the atmosphere among the two as if their head was being filled with confusing thoughts and questions. Viktor looked at the girl and started to ask, "Are they going to kill her? Really?"
Jessie, who was part of the templars said, "No, something worse." It could be heard from the way she spoke that she was actually worried as she was well aware of what the templars were going to do when they found the young girl.
"What's worse than death?" Viktor asked in confusion.
"They will brainwash her, use her as a weapon, then torture her slowly until death."
It appeared that Jessie was speaking out of the experience, which of course was not a pleasant experience for her to remember. It was such a nightmare to anybody, and Viktor did not wish to elicit any further information.
Viktor, of course, could quickly understand the situation. He naturally could relate to it so much as the Romanov family was no different to this cult in many ways.
He asks the question simply because he had a different point of view and boldly said,
"Anything is better than death."
For a split second, the girl was taken aback after she heard him saying so. She looked at him with a confused look as if she was waiting for him to explain. Viktor then continued to speak,
"No matter how bad it was, the only way we actually can pay back for it all is to live."
Once again, Jessie could only remain stunned hearing what Viktor had just said. This time, Jessie just noticed something from Viktor that she had never seen before. It appeared that both of them really were having a wound that cut deep within.
It was at this precise moment that the girl found to like Viktor even more.
Now that they were talking about the life of the young girl in front of them, Viktor came up with a decision and said,
"Although I don't want to get into trouble with the templars, I don't see any reason to give her to them."
Jessie quickly agreed and a decision was made, it was now the time for the two of them to quickly devise a plan of what to do when they meet the templars. After that, they also shared it with Eva.
Nevertheless, there was still a little concern that was bothering them. They were still afraid of the girl transforming into her terrifying form again and hurt them instead.
On second thought, this young girl had saved their life a moment ago, Hence, they were willing to risk it.
But first, when the little girl woke up, the three probed on the identity of the girl carefully while giving her sweet treats. They tended to dig for information from this young girl as much as they could.
From what the girl had said, they found that she had been living in the woods all her life.
Her full name was Vasiliza, but she like to be called Liza instead
"What about parents? Father? Mother?" Jessie asked the girl, causing her to be stunned for a second and then shook her head as a response.
This quickly made Eva said in empathy,
"Oh.. poor girl. If you want, you can be my family now."
The young girl looked at Eva while eating a bar of chocolate in her hand. Hearing Eva said that they could be family made her show a sincere smile and gestured with her finger pointing at the princess,
"Sister.. Eva.."
"Yes, very good, now Vikor here is my lover, he can be your family too and your protector. As for her, you can call her second sister Jessie," said Eva explaining everyone to the young girl.
"Sister…Jessie," Liza spoke slowly as she looked at Jessie with shining eyes.
"and this one… this is Gucci."
The little lemming, on the other hand, was afraid to be close to the girl.
"Don't worry Liza, he's a nice little rat," Eva casually said to assure the young girl wasn't afraid.
Three hours had passed and Viktor's drawback from the skill had been finally completed. After that, the four then stood up to continue their journey.
Just before they were about to leave, from a piece of Cerberus flesh that was previously frozen by Liza's skill, Viktor saw a glowing stone which made him exclaim in glee,
"Aahh is that!!"
Viktor quickly grabbed it and found one little red-colored stone.
"Aaah you are very lucky!" Said Jessie as she explained that one of the red stones was worth 100 of the yellow ones or 10.000 white ones.
Hearing this instantly made Viktor smile since this would mean that Viktor suddenly became rich again. Thankfully, his staunch effort a moment ago had paid off.
Jessie said that there were some groups of sky realm warriors who actually went around Abyss Pitt for the purpose of hunting these Cerberus. However, the normal drop rate of the red stone was about one stone from three different Abyss Pitts. They have to kill 9 Cerberus or more before finding one red spirit stone.
Hence, for the group to get it from their first Pitt was considered a fortune.
Viktor was smiling in glee as he heard this. In fact, he had personally killed the two other Cerberus with his own hand and absorbed the energy. This means that they actually just pulled a ten to one odds.
He quickly kept the red stone inside his alien ring with glee. The moment after, the group continued their journey.
The walk back to the entrance was not easy. It took them half a day and about another half a dozen fights before reaching it. In the end, they still managed to make it.
Viktor received a few more spirit stones as a result of the fights, as well as another spirit force increase.
[Spirit Forced 84 (92)]
The Cerberus battle really gave him a crazy boost in his spirit force. Viktor could feel that his body turned so much stronger than before, and he couldn't wait to return to the pillar to learn some spells.
Finally, they had arrived back at the entrance and climbed up the tunnel back to the entrance one by one.
It was already early in the morning as the first ray of fresh sunlight and the cool breeze of winter once again filled their bodies when they made it through the tunnel.
Liza appeared to be anxious. Noticing this, Eva immediately grabbed her shoulder, giving her the signal that she would be fine and nothing to worry about. Then, the group started to head toward the targeted pillars.
When they got near, the Djinn quickly spotted the templars and the rest of Viktor's companions outside of the alien construct. As planned, Liza stayed at a safe distance with Jessie, while Viktor and Eva made their way closer to the alien construct.
Barry was weeping when he saw Viktor safely return. Kosta, on the other hand, was concerned about looking for Jessie. Viktor then merely said,"I am sorry, Kosta, we lost her."
Hearing this made the kid distraught and it was heard by the templars.
"Don't worry kid, I am sure she's fine.. that bitch must have run away again," Elena said with a slightly unpleasant tone.
With it, the templars made the decision to leave back to the Vatikan with a failed mission. Before leaving, however, Viktor asked for his 10 yellow spirit stones reward and this only put more sour on Elena's face.
However, knight captain Landin was an honorable man, and he gave the yellow stones reward to Viktor before finally, they all left.
After all the templars had left, it was now the time for Jessie and Liza to come out from their hiding. Soon after that, Jessie immediately apologized to Kosta as he was so worried about her a moment ago.
"I am sorry, Kosta. We need it to feel genuine," she explained.
As for Liza, Viktor introduced this young girl as the new member of the group.
"Ok let's enter the pillar!"