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Chapter 16: Serious Face

“Hah, quite bold. What, do you even want to parasitize me?”

Miss Vilyric chuckled lightly, not dodging or flinching, letting that strange creature bite her hand.

Yet, under the light golden glow covering the hand of the Priestess, which cut off any blood flow, the monster’s seemingly sharp mouthparts couldn’t pierce even a tiny bit, instead breaking apart inch by inch, letting out a shriek that could be considered mental pollution!

“Squeak squeak squeak squeak!!!”

“Geez, it’s a bit noisy… Hey, be quiet! Wait, can this thing even understand human speech…?”

Considering there might be a language barrier, Vilyric decided to use a more physical method—gently pinching the sides without sharp spikes and applying a bit of pressure.

The creature immediately deformed like modeling clay.

With its mouthparts firmly clamped, it couldn’t make any noise.

“Seems this method works well. What was that saying? Violence isn’t omnipotent, but without violence, nothing can be done. It’s definitely spot on. Now then…”

Vilyric really wanted to uproot this thing from the girl adventurer and study it slowly, but looking at it, it was probably stuck in the girl’s body like tree roots. Yanking it out would probably create a rather beautiful mess.

Though even if she died, the Priestess could use revival magic to bring her back, such miraculous or forbidden magic considered a miracle by ordinary people was best used sparingly.

With a casual healing spell, she aimed at the creature’s heart, where blood was gushing out after it was forcibly extracted. If it didn’t stabilize soon, she’d probably be dead.

Though the wound on the heart was quickly mended by Vilyric, the root-like remnants still lingered within the girl’s body.

Speaking of which, in this situation, if she were to treat without shortcuts like revival magic, how should one proceed?

This was actually Vilyric’s first encounter with such a bizarre situation, but she quickly thought of surgical procedures used to remove tumors back on the Blue Star.

“Leila.”

“Miss Vilyric, what do you command?”

The black-haired girl pointed at the mass of vines extending from the spherical parasite, connecting it to the girl with a deadpan expression.

“Cut all of these.”

“Eh? Uh, okay, got it.”

Though startled by the seemingly violent action, Vilyric’s words held immense authority for her, and the Winged Woman immediately drew her spare melee dagger, swiftly slicing through the very limited gap between the spherical being and the girl.

Swish.

These tiny veins weren’t as hard as their extremities, and the blue-quality dagger easily severed all of them.

“Ugh…”

The grotesque sphere thrashed wildly and tried to scream, but it could only emit sounds as faint as a buzzing mosquito, thanks to Vilyric’s grip squishing it almost out of shape.

Moreover, those severed roots didn’t splatter monster blood; instead, thick and plentiful 【Disaster】 gushed out from the cut ends!

This gray gas was different from the previous ones—not only was its color darker, but it also seemed to possess some sort of intelligence, immediately lunging toward Leila’s face!

“Ugh!”

The Winged Woman was taken by surprise, instinctively wanting to dodge, but a splendid holy staff was faster, blocking the gray mist before Leila, creating a small golden barrier.

As both made contact, the gem at the top of the staff emitted a dazzling light, extending the barrier and enclosing the gray mist, producing sizzling sounds upon contact.

The purification process lasted about a few seconds, and once Vilyric dispelled the gray mist and lowered her 【Eternal Staff: Heart of the World】, she glanced at the bizarre parasite she was still gripping.

It had deflated completely like a deflated ball.

Those severed vines, along with the girl adventurer’s surface spikes and extra arms, quickly withered into rotten gray particles, leaving only the girl’s rapidly weakening form behind.

“Miss Vilyric, that was just now…”

Leila looked a bit shaken, while the Priestess merely gave her a reassuring look before discarding the now-virtually useless object and looking back at the girl lying on the ground.

This adventurer’s vitality was nearly drained. If she remained in the parasitic state, she could survive a bit longer, even becoming stronger, but once freed, she’d die at an alarming rate.

However, this wasn’t a challenge for Vilyric.

It was just a situation of low blood while added on with a state of extreme weakness and rapidly depleting HP.

After casting a standard healing spell, the Priestess added a 【Slow Heal】 before clapping her hands and standing up.

There was nothing more to worry about here; compared to such trivial treatment, she was more concerned about what she had just witnessed.

It seemed the spherical malignant parasite wasn’t the true form of 【Disaster】; the real source was likely that particularly dark gray mist.

Starting with a cluster of 【Disaster】 and, through transformation, continuously generating more 【Disaster】.

Everything else was merely extensions created for manipulation and to absorb nutrients and energy from the host after that thing had parasitized a human body.

Otherwise, Vilyric found it hard to imagine how something so intricately lathed throughout a human body could have formed in such a short time.

But if its original form was a gas flow, that would explain a lot.

And this thing had just tried to parasitize Leila, clearly indicating a certain level of intelligence—at the very least a survival instinct.

In other words, that mist was a sort of living creature.

Vilyric turned her head, glancing at the group of people pinned to the ground like frogs by the Little Dragon Daughter’s dragon pressure, and the unfortunate souls in priestly garb who were caught in the crossfire when they entered the room.

“Alright, Xiao Guang.”

Upon hearing this, the Giant Dragon let out a cold snort and retracted her spread pressure.

The people looked around at each other, drenched in sweat as they slowly got back up, seemingly confused about the current situation.

“Miss Vilyric, your companion is truly…”

Edgar, the leader of the priests and head of the Anilo City Adventurer’s Guild, walked over to Vilyric with a complex expression. As a Half-beast Tiger-Man with some beast lineage, his instincts regarding strong enemies and crises were sharper.

Earlier, aside from pure energy pressure, the spiritual pressure exerted by this blonde girl was even greater, as if a terrifying giant dragon stood before them, capable of crushing all of them effortlessly.

But there hadn’t been any reports of pureblood dragons roaming around for a long time, and a small place like the Kweii Kingdom likely wouldn’t have one. So, Edgar could only conclude that this blonde girl possessed some kind of “aura” ability, and a particularly powerful one at that.

Vilyric raised a hand, signaling to discuss matters later.

“Now isn’t the time for idle talk; I also need to research… treat the two infected over there. Just leave this to me. If there’s nothing else, Edgar, perhaps you should go deal with the chaos outside. You should have seen that my companion is helping too, right?”

After a brief instruction, without waiting for a response, Vilyric moved forward toward another adventurer who had been subdued by Leila and sealed by her own hand.

Some things still required further confirmation.

From all indications, this gray gas known as 【Disaster】 was related—if not entirely— to her current target, 【Southern Disaster Phantom Cloud】.

“…”

Edgar did not follow the Priestess’s instructions, heading outside to clean up, nor did he obstruct her actions, only asking the priests to start purifying the remnants of 【Disaster】.

He silently followed Vilyric afterward.

Seeing him like this, Vilyric didn’t say anything more.

Just watching was fine.

Meanwhile, Awen and the others hurried to check on the condition of the female adventurer Vilyric had just healed.

Next, Vilyric used a similar method to extract a similarly bizarre parasite from the heart area of the second man, though she was slightly disdainful of him, directly retrieving the surgical tools she had prepared back in the City of Courage from her backpack, cutting open the chest to fetch it.

After all, as long as they didn’t die, the rest didn’t matter!