Chapter 13: Hey Kid, You’re Still Too Young～

“Creating trouble… the protagonist?”

This kind of personally flavored expression was something Zeng Zhuang could only listen to and half-understand, but Miss Vilyric had no intention of elaborating, giving his shoulder another pat instead.

“Everyone else, step back a bit except for him.”

“Wait a minute, Miss Vilyric, could it be that you’re also… like those two adults?”

“Oh come on, stop rambling! It’s almost that ghost hour, and if anything goes wrong because you delayed me, I won’t take responsibility.”

The girl waved her hand impatiently, sending a light, energetic force that pushed the still suspicious Villager aside.

Although Vilyric understood her sudden appearance and the validity of Zeng Zhuang’s doubts, she wasn’t planning to explain slowly.

The rough man, Zeng Zhuang, however, seemed completely confused about everything. He scratched his head, bewildered, and asked without any defense.

“Miss Fairy, is something wrong with me?”

“I already told you, I’m not a fairy… If you must say, you can call me ‘Priestess.'”

Priestess Vilyric shook her head and smiled.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious. Hmm… using your local terms, it’s probably similar to being ‘possessed,’ but this ‘possession’ is more advanced and subtle, so it doesn’t usually show, even you yourself might not know.”

“Uh…”

Seeing him still nodding in half-understanding, Vilyric didn’t mind. She took out her long, ornate “Eternal Staff · Heart of the World” and gently placed it on Zeng Zhuang’s shoulder.

Opening her cherry lips slightly.

“Holy Light, shine.”

Golden light fell like a veil from the tip of the holy staff, seeping into this ordinary villager in his forties.

One second, two seconds, three seconds…

“…?”

Just as Zeng Zhuang was puzzled by the unchanged scene, the other villagers who were forced to retreat also showed confused expressions.

Suddenly, a change occurred.

“Ahhhhhhh!!!!”

It was like experiencing the torture of being scorched by raging fire, or boiling water splashed onto the skin; a certain sickly green mist fled desperately from Zeng Zhuang’s body, screaming in a series of wails!

“Finally willing to come out, huh?”

With a slight mocking laugh from the black-haired girl, the weird green mist escaped the range of light completely, transforming into a shape resembling a humanoid silhouette, letting out a hoarse and furious scream like a crow’s caw!

“Who are you! What is this power! How could you break my Misty Veil technique?!”

Returning the priestess staff and indicating there was no remaining value… cough, having successfully eliminated the safety hazard, Zeng Zhuang retreated behind and stepped forward voluntarily.

“I’ll give you some face, but to be honest, such a possession technique isn’t impressive at all… I mean, you wouldn’t think I just randomly picked someone out to bump into Zeng Zhuang, right?”

“That kind of alien presence, so uncharacteristic of him, I can sense it from far away up in the sky. Speaking of which, these days, any random Tom, Dick, or Harry can claim to be the real deal and slap some magic title on themselves, right?”

The green mist evidently didn’t expect the Priestess to be so sharp-tongued. After a few sentences, it became enraged and twisted, unable to retort with anything substantial, resorting to just firing back mindless insults.

“You little brat, how dare you speak so arrogantly!”

“Oh? Is it really arrogance? I’ve already figured out your plan, which is why I chose to lay everything bare.”

An increasingly pleasant smile emerged at the corners of the black-haired girl’s lips as she looked up at the seven stars, whose brightness was only growing.

“Your ritual sacrifice should need to be performed at a specific time and place to succeed, right? Otherwise, there’d be no need to seek out opportunities and sneak into Zeng Zhuang’s body while he walks alone in the wilderness, using him for cover to stay hidden all this time.”

“Though you’re just a small fry, if you merely wanted to deal with such an ordinary little village, you should have had more convenient methods.”

She propped her chin on one hand, pretending to think.

“Let me see… Your overall plan likely involved tampering with the villagers’ food or water, planting something like a seed of dark energy within them, planning to trigger it all at year-end when the earth’s dark energy surges, to change quantity into a quality transformation, ultimately creating some sort of special effect.”

“It seems you’ve prepared for a long time. During this period, you’ve been secretly adjusting the dark energy levels in each villager to prevent any anomalies from appearing early, or from them realizing something was off, causing unexpected disturbances and missing this crucial night of the millennia.”

“But a wise person can still make mistakes; I guess you couldn’t monitor Zeng Village and Zeng Zhuang regularly. So, around year-end, as the dark energy gradually began gathering, the dark energy within that Zeng Er Gouzi unexpectedly exploded ahead of your scheduled time, causing the so-called ‘Dog Demon’ chaos.”

“And this incident just happened to run into Zeng Zhuang.”

“Once you realized things were amiss, to cover up the true reason behind the series of coincidences, you had to secretly remove the exorcism talisman from Zeng Er Gouzi’s door, creating a false appearance of external invasion.”

“But Zeng Zhuang’s scuffle and shouting attracted a few other villagers; with one thread pulled, the whole thing moves. In their struggle with Zeng Er Gouzi, the seedlings of dark energy within them were likewise influenced by the same leaking malevolent energy and subsequently erupted.”

“Recognizing your plan is facing continuous setbacks has you worried, and my sudden appearance and easy exorcism of the evil energy makes you even more vigilant.”

“Well, it suits me just fine. I wanted to see what you’re really up to, so to avoid further provocation, I simply left the village in response to Zeng Xianzhi’s concerns, leaving you space to work your magic.”

“Sure enough, just as I stepped out, you took some measures to get Zeng Xianzhi to notice the abnormalities in those villagers.”

“To ensure the smooth hosting of the festival, he had to temporarily drug-control these few people, locking them in a room, probably planning to seek help in Yangyuan City after tonight.”

Vilyric turned her gaze to the Villager, who was still stunned, and smiled slightly.

“Is that so?”

“Uh… That’s exactly it…”

After confirming her guesses from Zeng Xianzhi, the Priestess casually glanced at the sky again and then looked back at the humanoid mist hovering not far away.

—Revealing eight pure white teeth and a polite yet mocking curve at the lips.

“At that time, night had already fallen. For you to ensure those few who could freely act weren’t at the festival, aka the designated ritual site, you synchronized the dark energy explosions with the crowd here, and especially detached from Zeng Zhuang’s body to sneakily remove the exorcism talisman from Zeng’s door, then quietly followed after Zeng Xianzhi to return and hide.”

“You might think you’ve been really discreet, but unfortunately, this process of coming out and going back… has been seen clearly by me~”

At this point, even the most stubborn guy would find it hard to deceive himself any longer.

The sickly green mist visibly trembled a few times, perhaps feeling some shakiness and disbelief at the almost exact depiction by the black-haired girl.

But then, it quickly regained its composure.

“You little girl, are you from the Yin Yang Agency?”

“The Yin Yang Agency, huh…”

That name didn’t surprise Vilyric, as she’d heard a similar title from those two mysterious women earlier. In other words, this green mist’s guess was somewhat accurate in a sense—it just had the wrong target.

Of course, Priestess Vilyric wouldn’t be kind enough to enlighten her enemy.

The White Robed Girl raised her sacred and elongated priestess staff, pointing it at the eerie green mist.

“Guess what~”

“You’re asking for death!”

   

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