Chapter 65 Ignore it
A finger was placed on his lips to stop him from saying anything more. The man, adjusting his top hat with one hand, sighed upon hearing this: "It's all in the past... Just be a good adventurer."
Talos flung his hand away, looking on in astonishment as if he were examining a remarkably foolish man.
"Do you think I wanted to get involved? From the moment I received that envelope, I was already part of some big shot's chessboard..."
"..."
After a long silence, the man in black finally lowered his head, patted his shoulder, and said reassuringly, "I will help you. At least this matter shouldn't involve innocent people..."
Talos clenched his fist, sighed, and finally chose to turn and leave.
In the lake,
The girl's earlier words seemed to have touched a nerve, and the beast was immediately terrified, pressing its head even closer: "Impossible! How can this be protected by divine power—"
"Shh..." The words stopped abruptly as the girl put her index finger to her lips and whispered a sigh.
"The so-called divine protection is nothing more than the blood spilled when that rat was beheaded!" The girl's voice was sweet and gentle, yet it was also filled with a hint of mockery.
Its eyes darted around violently, its face filled with astonishment, and it vehemently denied it, saying, "How could this be—"
Interrupting it again, the girl raised her voice a notch and struck the beast's forehead directly: "You were able to conceive thanks to the nutrients from that rat's head."
"Who exactly are you...?" Its eyes narrowed dangerously as it stared intently at the girl.
"Me? I guess I'd say I'm a loyal fan of Victoria..." The girl pursed her lips and chuckled, clutching the swan egg in her hand.
"Hehe... You'd better make plans soon."
As the echo faded, the girl's figure vanished, leaving behind only a strange beast with an incredulous expression.
"Glug..."
Slowly closing its eyes, the beast's massive body sank back to the bottom of the lake, tossing and turning as it pondered the girl's words.
"I...we...should we...?"
A soldier staggered and looked at the wounded Aiden, seemingly seeking some comfort from the veteran.
"Start the cleanup..." Without hesitation, Aiden quickly gave the order to the thousands of people on site.
"How long will this take?!" The soldier, whose head was covered in bandages, opened his mouth as if to say something but then stopped.
With a helpless sigh, Aiden rolled his eyes at him: "It's better than dying here, isn't it?"
The disheveled soldier seemed to have noticed something. He rubbed his face and got up from the ground: "Hey? Where's Talos? Wasn't he just..."
Taking a deep breath, Aiden's expression shifted between light and shadow. Suppressing his dejected mood, he patted the soldier on the shoulder:
"He's an adventurer, so his mission has obviously failed. Our escort mission has failed too. Let's finish this quickly and get going..."
Upon receiving the order, the thousands of guards of Magellan's caravan quickly mobilized their magical powers and began clearing away the surrounding corpses.
With the help of many people, a large number of corpses were quickly burned, and some of the less damaged carriages were also repaired.
The charred equipment and flags scattered all over the ground were gathered together and then burned.
The cleanup operation continued for several more days and nights, and finally, this small area near the lake was cleaned up...
The soldier, his head covered in bandages, suddenly went limp and collapsed to the ground: "Ah... I'm really exhausted. I can't even light a cigarette for myself!"
His complaints hadn't lasted long when the dust-covered soldier yelled again, "How come there's another fingernail?! What the hell is this...?"
"Who just got their nails done? A grown man doing this?"
Following his gaze, everyone saw a small, bloodsucking red fingernail appearing on the edge of the lake.
But this fingernail has an unusual aura that neither fire nor ice can destroy it.
He plopped down on the ground, waved his hand, and looked at the burly soldier: "Go...go and burn him. I really have no magic left!"
"Lazybones...!"
Twisting his neck, the burly soldier quickly stepped forward, a blue flame flashing in his hand. He bent down and burned the fingernail with all his might.
"Whoosh..."
After a long while, the soldier's face was covered in cold sweat, and his eyes blinked strangely: "What's going on? My fire, a seventh-level mage, can't even burn him? What should I do?"
The others, refusing to believe it, rushed forward and intensified their firepower. Even when the flames turned purple, the fingernail remained completely still.
"What's going on? How come we couldn't even hurt a fingernail?" The burly man was dumbfounded as he scratched his itchy forehead.
To everyone's surprise, a new complaint arose behind them: "Does anyone still have magic? We really can't burn it anymore, and there's still a corpse here..."
"..." Aiden swallowed silently, then weakly propped himself up with the shovel.
The side effects of excessive magic consumption were making him unable to stand, but he still forced himself to pick up a shovel and dig a hole under the tree.
"Ignore him, just bury him." He waved for them to move the body over, and then pointed to the fingernail.
"Crack... Crack..."
"flutter…"
The body was thrown into the pit, followed by the blood-red fingernail. As the soil filled in, the surrounding area was finally clean.
The burly soldier was a bit confused. He leaned closer to Aiden and asked, "This fingernail is so strange, are we really just going to leave it alone?"
"Whose fingernails are red? Like the manicures those aristocratic ladies get?"
Everyone fell silent for a moment…
"Ignore it!"
"Let's go, I can't stand this godforsaken place anymore!" Before Aiden could even speak, the disheveled soldier scrambled to his feet and jumped onto the carriage.
His words were quickly echoed by soldiers whose heads were covered in bandages:
"Think about it yourself, how many of those teams that were surrounding us were stronger than us? They were probably killed by that monster just now."
"Alright…" Frowning, the burly soldier stamped his foot, tamping the soil down before nodding.
"puff…"
"Uh... ah..."
The group quickly left the area, and at the same time, a pair of pale hands emerged from the mud…