In the village, the villagers were still living their lives in an orderly manner. The funeral that morning had not affected the trajectory of their lives. Since they were not very familiar with this village, Kevin and Gawain followed Menchi and Buhara, wandering around the village.
It must be said that Menchi had a gentle personality and easily blended in with the villagers. Along the way, many villagers enthusiastically greeted Menchi, and some children, seeing Buhara, also ran over, surrounding him, chatting and laughing, and followed for quite a while before running off. In just one week, Menchi and Buhara had gotten along very well with the villagers.
"This is it. These past two days, I've been learning knife skills from Uncle Heng." Everyone arrived in front of an ordinary village courtyard. A little boy with a missing tooth opened the door, saw Menchi and the others, grinned at Buhara, and welcomed them in.
"Just now over there, I saw your friends came back. I thought you weren't coming today," a woman came down from the house and said with a smile.
"Training and learning cannot be given up halfway," Menchi replied with a smile. The woman smiled and nodded, pointed toward the back of the courtyard, and then went about her business.
The group came to the backyard, and as soon as they stepped in, it was as if they had entered another space. A chilling aura assailed them. A giant ice pillar, three meters high, stood at the edge of the courtyard. Surrounding the ice pillar were rows of racks, hung with various types of meat, which seemed to come from different creatures. In another corner of the courtyard was an open-air slaughtering platform. Water from the nearby stream was led to the platform via a waterwheel and pipes. The water flowed loudly, washing the blood into the groove below, eventually returning to the river. Clearly, this Uncle Heng was the village butcher. The place where they lived was located downstream, by the river.
At this time, the burly man dressed in a butcher's outfit had a slaughtering knife appear out of thin air in his hand, which was a Materialization System Nen ability. He clenched his other hand, and another tool with a different shape appeared. Using both hands, a large piece of unknown meat in front of him was quickly disassembled—different parts and bones were rapidly separated and placed in categories.
"Oh, you're here. Are these the other guests?" Menchi smiled and introduced them to each other.
"Uncle Heng's knife skills are among the best in the village," Menchi introduced. Hearing this, Uncle Heng laughed heartily, but humbly said, "Oh, no, no—I'm just a little bit stronger than others." Well, the degree of humility was really limited.
"So, two young men, do you also want to learn?" Uncle Heng stared at Kevin and Gawain with bright eyes and asked.
Kevin smiled awkwardly and waved his hand. "I'm just curious and came to take a look. I'm not a Gourmet Hunter or a chef."
Uncle Heng sized Kevin up and down, then said, "No, no, young man—butchering and cutting is great knowledge. Even if you're not here for cooking skills, you must be here for the animals around. Without exquisite butchering techniques, you can't properly handle your spoils."
Hearing this, Kevin was stunned for a moment. After a little thought, he had to admit that the other party was right. His technique for obtaining materials from various creatures indeed needed improvement. In a sense, this essentially belonged to butchering techniques, and it was very necessary to learn.
"Okay, if it's not too much trouble for you." Just like that, Kevin and Gawain inexplicably started learning.
It must be said that Uncle Heng's butchering technique was truly amazing. Various seemingly complex ingredients were precisely separated in his hands as he switched between different tools. His cutting movements were completely based on the biological growth structure, both smooth and aesthetically pleasing, and entirely carried out according to the requirements of the village chefs for ingredients. Sometimes, a large piece of unknown meat had to go through dozens of different cutting procedures, being disassembled into completely different parts, and even the layers between fascia, skin, and flesh could be separated.
"Where do all these ingredients come from?" Gawain asked curiously. After all, they had witnessed the power of the curse and were really curious how the villagers obtained so many ingredients. Moreover, looking at the appearance of these ingredients, they didn't seem to be transported from the outside, but rather hunted by themselves.
Regarding this, Buhara obviously knew something. He explained from the side, "I was also confused about this before, and later I learned that it's obtained by utilizing the curse."
"After seeing how the curse manifests, I probably understood. They use the attraction of the curse to lure some creatures to the boundary, then hunt them, drag them back to the village, and break them down into food." Hearing this explanation, and thinking carefully, it seemed to be indeed the case. After all, this village did not lack military protection.
"Fat brother, are there really balloon ships outside that can carry people and fly in the sky?" Uncle Heng's son came over at some point and asked with a face full of curiosity. Hearing this, Buhara smiled and nodded. "Yes, they are called airships. They vary in size, and the largest ones are bigger than the entire village."
"Bigger than the entire village!" The boy exclaimed in surprise, his eyes twinkling with curiosity and longing. "Wow, I wish I could see it with my own eyes." His tone was full of yearning. Though he was still a young man, he clearly already knew his fate of being unable to leave the village. He leaned on the stool and suddenly asked, "You're very strong, aren't you? If I train hard and grow up, do you think I can walk out and defeat those guys who want to eat me? That way I can be free." Saying this, he even clenched his fist and waved it twice.
This young man looked about eleven or twelve years old, and there were already traces of Nen ability on him, obviously having learned "En" early on. Hearing this, Buhara was a little troubled. Theoretically, this was certainly possible. But he knew in his heart—how easy was it to achieve this? The creatures in the Secret Realm were indeed dangerous. Under normal circumstances, as long as you didn't provoke them actively and walked around them, there would generally be no problem, so this Secret Realm was relatively safe. But if creatures were attracted to attack for some reason, the situation would be completely different.
Just look at the situation outside the village today. The old man walked less than a kilometer and attracted a large number of creatures. The 'desire' of these creatures for the villagers was obvious. Moreover, the farther from the village and the longer the stay outside, the more powerful and numerous the attracted creatures would be. As the saying goes, two fists are no match for four hands, not to mention facing various creatures, including many insidious, cunning, and toxin-dependent ones. In this situation, no matter how strong one's personal ability was, it would be difficult to leave the village. Unless a troop was willing to escort them, and that troop would have to be prepared to suffer casualties.
Furthermore, no one knew if the curse would still exist after leaving the Secret Realm. If the curse was still effective, then they would be attacked by surrounding creatures for the rest of their lives. How was this different from death? There was no freedom at all, only endless pain. Taking a step back, even if one or two people could meet the conditions and were indeed extraordinarily strong, it would be meaningless for the curse suffered by the entire village's population.
"Hmm, it seems impossible," the young man muttered to himself. And in the backyard, the sound of chopping and hacking meat continued, seemingly without stopping.
The next afternoon, Kevin came to the library again. After a brief exchange with the old lady, he immersed himself in reading. For him, the documents from two hundred years ago here were rare treasures and had to be carefully studied. He not only wanted to read them all but also planned to collect all the necessary information. If absolutely necessary, he could just pay some money and ask the villagers to help copy a set to take out. He believed that as long as the reward was generous enough, some villagers would definitely be willing to help.
Before that, it didn't affect Kevin's continued reading. The total population of the village was not large, but there were quite a few villagers coming and going in the library, with people entering and leaving from time to time, browsing or borrowing books. After all, being confined in this village, the things available for entertainment were limited.
Kevin, who was flipping through a book, raised his head slightly and looked toward the entrance, where he saw a woman in a maid outfit walk in. Her attire was exactly the same as Bian Locke's sister's. To be honest, this maid outfit looked like it was copied directly from a manga, completely out of place with the overall style of the village. It was hard to imagine that someone here would dress like this. Were they cosplaying? But this didn't look like a real maid's outfit at all; real maids wouldn't dress like this. This maid walked directly to the manga section.
"...As expected." Kevin confirmed his guess.
The maid picked up a few manga books and prepared to go to the old lady to borrow them.
"These books again? Haven't you borrowed them several times already?" It wasn't that Kevin was deliberately eavesdropping, but the old lady was a bit hard of hearing and spoke very loudly.
The maid girl said helplessly, "No new books were delivered by the outside transport this time, and the next time will be next year."
"Ah," the old lady sighed softly. Kevin withdrew his attention and continued to focus on the book in his hand. He didn't leave the library until dusk.
Back at the inn, Menchi and the others had also returned. Seeing Kevin, Menchi rushed over excitedly, saying, "There's good news—it's great news for you."
"Good news?" Menchi nodded excitedly. Seeing her so excited, could it really be something great?
"The village's ingredients are almost used up. A large-scale hunt might be organized in a while. Because it's close to the end of the year, the festival feast requires a lot of ingredients." Hearing this, Kevin immediately realized that this was indeed good news.
A large-scale hunt meant a large number of creature carcasses. You know, this was in a Secret Realm, surrounded by all sorts of strange creatures. These creatures not only had delicious meat but also possessed powerful characteristics. Moreover, usually only powerful and aggressive creatures would be attracted. This meant that Kevin could gain a lot of materials from this hunt.
After all, not every creature was edible, and not every part of every creature was suitable for consumption. Since it was a large-scale hunt, the scale of the hunt would certainly not be small. With so many Nen users going out together, Kevin wouldn't even need to do much; he could just buy the carcasses afterward. He could even communicate with the village chief in advance and ask the chief to arrange for more of the creatures he needed to be hunted, and he would be responsible for buying them. Furthermore, he only wanted the essence parts. Though these essence parts were delicious, their quantity was usually not large, and they probably wouldn't be urgently needed by the village.
The village needed a large amount of edible parts to cook into delicious dishes. If Kevin could offer enough money, he believed the people in the village would not refuse.
"It is indeed good news. When will it start?" Kevin planned to call back and prepare a sum of money.
"About a week later." A week was enough time. He didn't plan to go out this week anyway. First, he would use the documents in the library to plan his subsequent goals, continue to learn butchering techniques, and then try to make the potion. Currently, potion making had hit a bottleneck. There was a problem with the choice of fusion agent for the two new materials. The fusion agents Kevin had on hand could not properly fuse the two materials. He needed to find new suitable materials.
Soon, Kevin resumed his orderly life. He had already notified his family by phone to prepare the funds, which could be transferred for purchase at any time. In addition, he also stated his needs to the village chief, who agreed with almost no hesitation. Clearly, the village indeed needed external funds. Everything was arranged, and all that was left was to wait patiently.
Kevin spent a lot of time in the library every day. However, there seemed to be an interesting person who had come to the library. Just as Kevin was immersed in reading, a slight commotion came from the library. He looked up and saw an unexpected figure at the entrance—the Saintess he had seen at the funeral that day. She was being pushed in by Bian Locke's sister, sitting in a wheelchair. Seeing this scene, Kevin realized that the Saintess was disabled in her legs.
Moreover, her attire today was very modern. She was wearing a long off-white dress with a sunflower badge pinned to her waist. The simple attire made her less alluring than she was at the funeral, adding more purity and a sense of tragic beauty inherent in sitting in a wheelchair.
"Melusine, why did you run out, my girl?" Seeing the Saintess appear in the library, the old lady seemed a little surprised, hurried out from behind the counter, and took the Saintess's hand.
"I wanted to come and see you, Grandma," Melusine said, showing a playful smile that added a bit of the innocence appropriate for her age. She looked to be about the same age as Menchi.
"You girl," the old lady chided, but her smile was so wide her eyes were almost slits. She held Melusine's hand and didn't let go, clearly very happy. Then the old lady smiled and said, "You didn't just come to see this old woman, did you? Alright, I won't bother you. Go get whatever books you want to read."
Melusine chuckled twice and, pushed by the maid behind her, came to the bookshelf, which was where modern literature books were stored. Watching this scene, the old lady who had returned to the counter was a little puzzled. "When did this girl start liking these kinds of books?"
At this moment, Kevin saw the snake wrapped around the Saintess again—the one that had lifted her up that day. It was still in its "In" state, and it looked like a pet raised by the Saintess. This snake's perception seemed extremely sharp. Kevin observed it for a while, and it keenly sensed his gaze. Its head tilted slightly toward Kevin's direction, and it flicked its tongue.
Sensing her pet's actions, Melusine seemed startled as well. She turned her head to look in the direction the snake was facing, and thus saw Kevin. Melusine's face showed a gentle and sunny smile. She nodded slightly at Kevin, appearing very polite. This sudden reaction made Kevin pause for a moment. He then politely nodded back, withdrew his gaze, and refocused his attention on his book.
The Saintess stared at Kevin for a couple of seconds before turning her head away. After some time, with the sound of the wheelchair rolling, the Saintess was pushed out of the library. Before leaving, her voice saying goodbye to the old lady could still be heard.
As soon as she walked out of the library, the dignified aura on the Saintess instantly disappeared without a trace. She quickly grabbed the sleeve of the maid behind her.
"How was it? Was my performance just now okay? Was it strange?"
"Probably not, just like it was written in the books."
"Really? That's good." Melusine's expression was very cheerful.
Patreon Seasay