Chapter 277: Chapter 277. Mysterious Departure
Myne who was too close and unprepared for Alban's sudden attack, was instantly hit by it, and his entire body covered in the blue flame in a matter of seconds.
"Ahhhhhh!!!!"
"Shut the f*ck up, you damn brat. Do you want to make me deaf or something? Do you want to deafen me, screaming like a banshee with a cracked voice? For my old ears' sake, just open your damn eyes."
Myne, who thought he was going to burn to death while holding his head, started screaming out of his lungs. If it were a normal town with living people, many would lose their sleep upon hearing Myne's horrific scream.
Confused and cautious, Myne cracked open an eye. The sapphire flame still danced around him, yet it felt strangely comforting, not scorching. He looked down at his body, expecting charred flesh and blackened bones, but instead saw the wounds he'd inflicted on himself to deceive Albna fading – mending under the caress of the fire.
"What the hell is going on?!" Myne asked with his mouth wide open in astonishment as he looked at himself and then at Alban.
Alban scoffed, a tiny blue flame dancing on his palm like a captured butterfly. "Ignorant child," he chided, his voice laced with disdain. "Do you truly believe fire's only purpose is destruction? You short-sighted mortals can never grasp the true beauty of such a magnificent force."
Alban waved his hand, the flame vanishing with a soft pop. "Fire is far more than just a tool for burning. It can craft and create, cook and comfort, illuminate the darkest corners and guide us through perilous paths. These are mere whispers of its true potential, its raw power.
Only a true scholar of the arcane or a wizard, one who has delved deep into the heart of fire, can unlock its hidden marvels. And healing is but one of its many secrets."
Alban's words hung heavy in the air, a subtle shift in his tone hinting at a hidden wisdom far beyond Myne's comprehension. The fire that surrounded him no longer seemed like a weapon of destruction, but a force of life, a secret waiting to be unravelled.
And at that moment, beneath the flickering sky and the watchful gaze of Alban, a spark of curiosity ignited within Myne, yearning to unravel the mysteries that danced in the embers of the fire, but Alban's next words poured cold water on his yearning to unravel mysteries bring him back to reality.
"Fire," Alban rasped, his gravelly voice tinged with a strange mix of awe and melancholy, "Can be both a harbinger of destruction and a weaver of life, depending on the hand that wields it." He paused, his gaze flickering over Myne's face, a flicker that ignited a spark of irritation in Myne's chest. "But I see you're no scholar, no mage, to grasp the subtleties I speak of. So be it.
There's no need to discuss it any further. I'm going back to the hideout to prepare a place for your wife. You can decide how to bring her down yourself."
Saying this, Alban patted his butt to remove dust and walked toward the cabin with a gloomy face.
"What does he mean by seeing me? Do I look like an idiot to him? Wait a minute, did he indirectly insult me, and I couldn't understand it? F*ck! Cunning old bastard..." Then, his gaze fell to the cumbersome bundle lying at his feet, and a groan escaped his lips. "And do I really have to carry this thing back to the hideout on my back?"
Then, with a heavy sigh, he took out a rope from his inventory, broke two small pieces from it, and tied Demonic Velvet's hands and legs so that even if she suddenly woke up, she couldn't attack immediately.
"You are a genius, Myne. Only an idiot would think of you as an idiot," Myne patted his own shoulder proudly and put a wooden rod between Demonic Velvet's legs and arms rope, lifting her from the middle like a handbag.
"But before going back to the hideout, let's finish the business which was interrupted by this idiot for which I came out in the first place," Myne said, dropping the unconscious Demonic Velvet on the ground like a broken toy. He quickly ran toward a big tree while unzipping his pants.
...
After attending nature's call, Myne, while carrying the unconscious Demonic Velvet, quickly entered the hideout and saw Alban busily running left and right in the research hall, placing random stuff around the middle table, which now had iron chains on all corners.
"Lay her on the table," Alban rasped, gesturing towards the makeshift gurney seeing Myne. "Bind her hands and feet with those iron chains. Then, inject those vials - the gold one first, then the green - into her stomach." Alban pointed at the first table on which two glass syringes filled with shimmering liquids were placed in the middle.
Myne obediently followed Alban's orders, even though he had never used a syringe before and had no idea where to inject the needles.
However, considering that the life and death of the other party had nothing to do with him, and having already turned into a demon she might not feel anything, he casually stabbed the syringes into Demonic Velvet's stomach and injected whatever substances Alban had filled them with.
"Done," he mumbled, wiping his clammy hands on his trousers. "But is there any way to..." His voice cracked, a tear betraying his forced nonchalance. "Is there any way to bring her back? To make her..." He couldn't finish the question, the words choking in his throat. If Aisha was here she might start clapping watching Myne oscar level performance.
"Listen, brat, I didn't want to give you false hope, but hope for a full reversal and returning to normal as she was before being processed by this demon is slim to none. This 'demonic process' runs too deep to separate them without harming each other. However, I have a method I can try for my own amusement, but everything else depends on her fate."
Alban sighed heavily, placing a wooden box on the floor. From it, he extracted a curious assortment of tools: a slender metal pen with a needle-sharp tip, a palm-sized vial of shimmering silver liquid, and a flint and tinder kit.
With practised ease, Alban conjured a dancing blue flame in his palm and used it to heat the needle until it glowed like a molten amber. Then, he dipped it into the silvery liquid and began etching intricate symbols like runes on Demonic Velvet's skin, muttering arcane syllables under his breath.
Myne, curious about what Alban was doing, wanted to ask, but seeing him fully concentrated, he held back his curiosity and decided to take a shower and change clothes while Alban doing his work.
...
"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Where the hell are you going so suddenly?" Myne with a towel knotted around his waist, just come out from the shower room and was dumbfounded to see Alban holding a big backpack, wearing new clothes, and pacing near the staircase as if waiting for someone.
"Oh, you are finally out. Look, kid, because of you and your wife, I literally forgot about a special thing that was very important for my next escape plan. Also, although I had written down some runes on your wife, which hopefully let her sleep for the next 20 or so days, and don't let that demon get out, you better keep a close eye on her."
"Once a day, ingest that energy scrum inside her so she won't die from starvation. And if she wakes up, then no matter what she says, don't believe and don't even think about releasing her; otherwise, it might be you lying on this table the next moment. At first, I wanted to do a ritual on her so I could bring that unknown entity inside your wife's body out.
But when I checked the storage room, I found that many of the core materials of the ritual were missing. I personally had to go out and search for them around the town."
"Now, before you ask why I am not taking you with me, first of all, you don't know what I need and where to find them.
Second, someone needs to look after your wife; otherwise, she might not die from that entity inside her, but she would definitely die if you don't feed her anything on time, as right now her body needs three times the energy compared to when she was normal because of having two souls inside her body."
"But how long are you going to stay outside? And even if you say so, there is no way I would let you take all the responsibility for my wife. I, as her husband, want to do something as well; otherwise, it would be a great shame on my dignity as husband. I can't let an unknown old geezer help me unconditionally for no reason; this is making me a bit suspicious.
You don't have any bad thoughts for my wife, right? Don't tell me you want to heal my wife and later, in the name of all the effort you put into saving her, you want to have sex with her. After all, this is your last wish," Myne said with a raised eyebrow, full of doubt.
"Listen, kid," Alban began, raising an eyebrow at Myne standing before him. "I really had no idea about your little wife. And even if I did, I wouldn't need to go through all this mess to bring her onto my bed if that were my intention. I could simply have killed you and forced her to do what I wanted. It's not like the two of you could do anything to stop me."
"As for my wish," Alban continued, "I think you've misunderstood it a bit. When I said I wanted to have sex before my death, I meant I wanted to have it with two crushes and a brothel girl whom I've loved once before coming. But due to her occupation, I never had the guts to confess. After all, who knows how many people have f*cked her on a daily basis?
What if, after marrying her, some idiot still secretly comes to my house to f*cked her... sigh. Anyway, do you understand now? I don't care about your little wife?"
"Now, stop wasting my time and give me one month's worth of food. I'm going on my treasure hunt," Alban declared impatiently, revealing his true intention for waiting for Myne until now.
"Sigh, fine, but please come back soon. I really don't want to face my wife again in her demonic form," Myne responded as he walked toward his temporary room. There, he quickly transferred most of the unimportant food supplies into a random storage bag. After coming out, he handed it to Alban, but not before taking his assurance that he would try his best to return soon.
"Fear not, brat. You may not even realize it before I come back," Alban said with a satisfied smile, taking the storage bag from Myne. After comforting him, he patted Myne on the shoulder and began to climb the staircase.
"I don't think it would this quick..." Myne mumbled watching Alban leave with a sad expression, slowly following him, like an unwilling wife wanted to stop her leaving husband while showing her unspeakable emotions to melt his stone heart.
In his hurry, Alban didn't give much thought to Myne following him. He hurriedly walked out of the cabin. Myne poked his head out after Alban closed the door, checking to see if he could stealthily follow him. To his disappointment, as he looked outside, he only saw a black flaming tail in the sky heading toward the direction where the mysterious tower mentioned by Alban supposedly resided.
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