Chapter 329: Spoils of War

"Haa..."

As the last glimmer in Fular’s eyes faded, Liya suddenly let go, rolled off her, and her chest was still heaving up and down.

She looked at her hands stained red with blood, pursed her lips, and tried hard not to cry.

Killed again...

So hateful.

She really hadn’t wanted to.

But... but there was no helping it. In that situation just now, if she hadn’t acted, Muen would have been in danger.

She could only do that, right?

Speaking of Muen...

Liya suddenly lifted her head—and ran right into a dumbstruck, stupid face.

The two stared at each other.

Looking at Muen’s stupefied expression, Liya’s little heart jumped into her throat. For some reason she suddenly felt ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) very nervous.

"N-no... it’s not what you think."

Liya waved her little hands hard and stammered in a hurry:

"I-I’m not the type who likes ambushes and stabbing people, I... I just..."

"Pretty amazing."

Right then, Muen finally came back to himself. He looked at the unblinking corpse of Fular on the ground, rubbed his waist for no reason, and then praised:

"Liya beat Barton on her own? Even though you’re not good at fighting at all."

Liya beating Barton was honestly a bit beyond Muen’s expectations.

After all, even in the original book, as a Saintess, Liya was excellent in all respects, but her frontal combat ability lacking—that was a hard-set setting.

But for the girl to show up here now, either she’d escaped from Barton, or she’d defeated Barton.

Since Barton hadn’t chased up by now, it could only be the latter.

And judging by how skillfully the girl had just crept up and delivered a one-stab kill... Barton’s end might have been a bit miserable.

Amen...

Muen couldn’t help starting to pray.

"As expected of Liya."

Watching the girl who, for some reason, seemed to be staring dazedly at him, Muen praised again:

"I originally thought you’d only be able to shake him off. I didn’t expect you to actually defeat him outright—far beyond my expectations. That’s truly impressive."

His tone was still gentle, his smile bright.

There was no extra meaning to be heard in the words; it felt only like the instinctive concern and praise of a gentle person.

But Liya just stared dumbly at Muen’s face for a long while, as if dazzled by that smile.

Then she lowered her head.

And looked at Fular, who still could not close her eyes in death.

Her little hand made an empty grasp.

As if searching for that feeling from just now.

Mm.

The corner of Liya’s mouth curled slightly.

It seemed...

It wasn’t as hateful as she’d thought.

"...Hm?"

Catching the girl’s profile out of the corner of his eye—and noticing that ambiguous little smile at her lips—Muen felt a sudden inexplicable jolt.

Wait—don’t tell me a few casual compliments from me just awakened some new trait in the girl?

Surely... not.

"Ah, right."

With no time to dwell on it, Muen suddenly asked a bit tensely:

"Um... Liya, you didn’t see anything just now, did you?"

"See what?"

Liya, whose mood had gradually calmed, looked up in puzzlement and said:

"What exactly do you mean?"

"Just... mm, a certain thing on me just now?"

"Something on Muen?"

Liya thought for a moment, then shook her head:

"Nope. When I came over I only saw this person casting magic, so I hid my presence and snuck up. Over on your side... I didn’t pay attention."

"That so?"

Muen let out a breath.

"Good, then."

Too close.

In that instant just now, there had been no time to deploy the Alchemy Domain again, so his Crimson Flame had been exposed with no concealment whatsoever.

With others, it might be possible to fudge an explanation. But Liya was the future Saintess of the Life Church. If she found out he had ties to an Evil God, forget his prior preparations for staying alive—Ariel might not even need to lift a finger; Liya would carry out heavenly justice on the spot and cut down this heretic who endangered the world.

Good thing she hadn’t.

"But... I still have to thank you properly, Liya. You really saved me this time," Muen said with a smile.

"I-it was nothing."

A faint blush rose on Liya’s cheeks:

"Haven’t you saved me many times, too?"

"That’s different. Before, I was the one dragging you down, so of course I had to take responsibility. But this time you truly, tangibly saved me."

Muen crouched and started rifling through Fular, speaking offhand:

"Just now, I really thought I was done for. I’ll have to think hard about how to repay you later."

"..."

Liya ducked her little head, scuffing the ground with her toe, a bit bashful.

Her little hands slipped stealthily behind her back.

And made another empty grasp.

...

"What are you doing?"

Liya looked curiously at Muen, who was squatting and busy with something. He was pawing all over Fular right now, looking for all the world like someone with that kind of kink who could be hauled off by the Empire’s law enforcers and locked up till he died of old age—a pervert.

"Obviously, it’s the delightful loot-collecting phase!"

Muen’s eyes lit up. He rubbed his hands, excited:

"After you clear a dungeon, isn’t this the part everyone looks forward to most?"

Just like the protagonists in stories—after a fierce, life-and-death battle with the enemy, you collect enough loot off the corpse to fund your next upgrade. Just thinking about it is enough to spike your dopamine.

But soon Muen was disappointed.

"Why so poor?"

He looked with disgust at the stuff in his hands.

Aside from a single spatial ring that looked a bit pricey, there were only a few trinkets of such low quality they were fit only to decorate door panels in the ducal estate.

The wand at the side he’d already tossed—he had no use for it, and... its quality was low, too.

"That’s it?"

Muen said helplessly:

"How’s a guy supposed to feel good with this?"

Fighting a boss for ages only for it to drop some worthless inorganic trash—this would absolutely get a game review bombed as garbage.

In the end, all his hopes could only rest on that spatial ring.

After a thought, Muen drew Elizabeth.

Though brute-forcing it would likely damage whatever was inside, this was the only way.

That kind of “A certain Dragon has a thought and the spiritual imprint in the ring gets erased” you see in novels absolutely did not exist on these spatial magitech devices crafted by special magic and alchemy.

Without the specific release frequency for the magic, it was like a lock without a key—only a hard crack would work. And even “hard crack” was difficult. His Lockpicking LV8 did nothing at all here.

Luckily for Elizabeth, it was no trouble at all.

With a sweep of the blade, the hardened magitech device shattered in an instant.

Its contents burst out like heavenly maidens scattering blossoms, then fluttered down—burying Muen.

"Muen..."

Liya’s voice came in a faint chill:

"Th-this is what you call loot?"

"..."

After a short silence, Muen yanked away the thin scrap of fabric covering his face.

Mm. Purple, with lace. Taste-wise it fell far short of Senior’s, but still more than enough to get a man’s imagination going.

Feeling the girl’s gaze like she was looking at scum, Muen’s mouth twitched.

Fuck—he’d forgotten there’d definitely be underwear among the personal effects inside.

"Ahem."

Muen pulsed his aura and blasted the surrounding items away, coughing dryly:

"You misunderstand. I’m not interested in that kind of thing."

"...Really?"

The girl’s distrustful eyes swept over him.

Thinking of a certain previous matter, Muen’s guilty conscience forced him to change the subject:

"A-anyway, if there’s anything Liya likes, just take it. Consider it a bit of compensation for the things you lost before."

With that, Muen practically fled as he turned away to rummage on the ground again. But after digging for ages he still didn’t see anything worth taking. He could only mutter “Novels really are full of lies,” pick up a fairly pure magic crystal, and start restoring his mana.

Liya blinked, and at last her gaze left Muen and swept over the scattered items.

Unlike Muen’s disdain, she quickly found quite a few valuable things.

Precisely wrought magitech devices, scrolls dense with mana, monster cores of no low purity...

"It’s nowhere near as bad as he says."

After all, this was the stash of a bona fide Fourth-Rank mage—more than enough to make many people green with envy. In fact, in terms of richness, it already made Liya regret a little that she hadn’t stripped Barton’s spatial magitech device too.

Don’t tell me...

Liya stole a glance at Muen’s profile.

He’d said it on purpose again, hadn’t he.

The girl started letting her thoughts run wild again.

In the end she said nothing, silently pocketing some things that would be very useful to her.

"Hm? A book?"

Suddenly, Liya’s eyes lit up. She picked up an extremely inconspicuous black book from the ground.

The book had no title—only the faint outline of a woman’s alluring figure traced on the cover.

A mage’s archive... could it be a tome recording some rare magic?

The book-loving girl got a little excited at once. Forgetting everything else, she opened it right there.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Snap.

The girl slammed the book shut, her pretty face scarlet.

"W-what is this?"

Why were the words and illustrations in this book so explicit?

And there were even various so-called “techniques.” That kind of thing—wasn’t that the sort of thing that was basically instinct?

"H-how could..."

How could there be such a shameless book.

Thinking of the face-flushing, heart-thumping content she’d just seen—and thinking again of that strip of fabric from earlier that didn’t cover anything at all—Liya spat inwardly with force. As expected, this mage wasn’t any good person.

B-but...

Liya snuck another glance at Muen, confirmed he was still focused on restoring mana and hadn’t noticed this side, and let out a long breath.

Then.

Liya looked left and right.

Once she made sure that at a time like this, no one would notice her little movements—

As if driven by a ghost—

She secretly tucked the book into her bosom.

"I—I’m only doing it to find a safe place later to destroy it..."

The girl’s cheeks were still rosy as she clenched a determined little fist and muttered to herself:

"Right, only to destroy it..."

"I definitely won’t read it!"

"Absolutely won’t!"