Chapter 154 - Good News Bad News
"Moriyana? I don't know where she is. I thought she would come here with Belladona and Ray," using false names, Haruki answered Asuka's query.
"Then where is she?" She asked while the rest of the group tended to the sick elves.
Watching over Asuka's shoulder, Haruki watched as Laura poured small amounts of holy water into the mouths of her companions. And the very next moment, a shroud of dark mist lifted from their bodies and left the elves limp and seemingly lifeless.
"It worked, the curse has subsided!" Turning to face Freya, Laura exclaimed all excited.
Nodding back at her, Haruki brought his attention back to Asuka.
"Give me a second, I'll contact her with a demon spy, she had one planted on her just you guys," agreeing to his suggestion, Asuka turned around to help the others tend to the elves.
After watching her join the others in healing what injuries were left after the purging of the curse, Haruki walked out of the room and headed toward the tattered balcony. There standing lonesome, he closed his eyes shut and began seeing through the eyes of the demonic spy attached to Moriyana.
"What is she doing?" Attached to her legs, the spy showed him a pool of blood under Moriyana's feet.
"Haruki?" Bemused by the voice, Moriyana replied even though she couldn't see him. "Oh fuck, it's the spy, right?"
Lifting her leg a little to the side, she clutched onto the spy and brought it closer to her face. Struggling to free itself from Moriyana's grasp the creature tried to fly away by flapping its wings but after receiving a brief kiss, its intentions melted like butter in her palms.
"Where the hell are you? And whose blood is on the ground?" Haruki asked, sounding somewhat impatient.
"I'm working, okay? Just in a different manner than the rest," her ambiguous reply didn't clear much.
"Tell me then, what the hell are you up to?" With that said, Moriyana began explaining everything that she'd done so far, and how she was trying to track down all the crime so they could easily take over the cities when that time comes.
"Come back when you're done, and don't take too long," Haruki advised, once the explanation was all done.
"Worried about me, huh? Ahaha, that's cute," hearing her laugh, Haruki opened his eyes back up.
Returning to the room, he quickly walked up to the injured elves and scanned their bodies with his eyes to notice all the impairments. Both of the women were injured by the arms and their hands were covered in a cast to help them recover. The male elf on the other hand had cast all over him, clearly a sign that he was the vanguard of the party.
"Their ears," noticing the same scar over their ears, Haruki ran his hand gently over one of the females.
"We cut them off when we were young," walking up to him, Laura began explaining the situation. "You already saw how we get treated by other humans, so I doubt I need to elaborate on why we did it."
Listening from the back, Margarette and Riley came forward on the mention of the topic as well. As for the healers, they were all too tired to even move a single foot.
"We read a story about a giant and a hero fighting over this kingdom's land, do you know anything about it, Miss?" Asking her that question, Riley wanted to first hear her part before telling her what they'd found at the library.
Visibly surprised that they didn't already know about the tale, Laura squinted her eyes at the duo. However, washing the frown off of her face, she decided to give them a brief rundown of what she knew.
"It's another legend, like the Library of Heroes, and from what I've read, while the emperor was still fighting over most of Atlas, his army to Lamenia was whittled down by a colony of giants, but the last survivor, an elf, managed to kill the last standing giant," her version of the tale slightly differed from what they'd read back at the local libraries.
"Are you sure it was an elf?" Over Margarette's question, Laura instantly seemed offended by it.
Her brows pushed together, she glared up at Freya's wife in anger. However, as Freya moved between them Laura quickly realized what she was doing and stopped.
"Sorry, I-I'm just tired of people correcting that story all the time," her words confirmed Margarette's and Riley's suspicion.
Moving into Laura's view, Margarette offered her a warm smile.
"We know there was something wrong with the story, thanks for confirming we were right to suspect the hero to be an elf," upon hearing that from Margarette, Laura's eyes brightened up and she looked back at her with gleaming eyes.
"Really, you believe me?" She asked.
"We do," taking a brief pause, Margarette added. "And after that visit to the library, we can't trust anyone but the elves to help us."
'If the records are all faulty and contain human supremacy propaganda, we have no choice but to rely on the elves to help us.' Thankful that he'd already convinced Laura, Haruki felt somewhat more confident about finding the place than before.
Letting out a nervous laugh from the praise, Laura scratched the back of her witch's hat and said.
"I've heard only elves can find the place, so I guess you're all lucky, ahaha," although still hoping to get more gold to treat her friends and get them better armor, Laura decided not to bring that up to not ruin the genuine moment.
Now that everyone was caught up with everything, they all decided to leave Laura's companions to rest while they got something to eat for themselves. While making his way out of the nursery, Haruki tried putting up all the clues they'd found so far, but even then one thing was clear.
'There's no way we can figure this out just yet.' Grounding himself in reality, he decided to let Laura work on finding the clues, and in the meantime, he and his servants will try and get in touch with the local royalty in hopes of gaining access to their archives.
"Shin, can you hear me?" Stopping him in his tracks to a hired carriage, Haruki heard Roselia's voice ringing up in his ears. "We have a problem, a really bad problem."
'What kind of problem would Rose contact me for?' The very fact she had to approach him through a demon spy instead of dealing with the problem herself, was enough of a reason to make him rush right back to the castle.
Having already boarded the carriage, his servants as well as Laura looked at him bewildered. His hand rested over his temple, let the servants know that he was hearing something or someone in his head again.
"Miss Freya, are you okay?" Asked Laura, not knowing what was happening.
"What's the problem, Rose?" Haruki whispered, his head hung low.
A moment of silence followed Haruki's question, but soon after as an explosion was heard, Rose finally replies in a rushed tone.
"It's the demon fucking lord of wra-" The abrupt disconnect from her voice, had Haruki's skin crawling with fear and worry.
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