Chapter 78

Ed ran out of town, holding Aron and Diego by his sides.  Aron heard that Maya was the sixth when she introduced herself. So he presumed her to be the sixth finger. 

Now, with only two fingers removed, they didn’t know who was coming, but they couldn’t walk back.  Ed, who moved while stepping on the branches so as not to leave a trace as much as possible, dropped them off and caught his breath when he reached the valley they had crossed. 

It wasn’t easy for Ed to go alone with the two of them, but it was terrible for the two of them who came by his sides.

Seeing the two of them lying on their backs side by side vomiting, Ed scooped up water from the valley and drank it, holding his breath. 

Aron vomited for a while, and after that, he lay down on the floor and asked Ed. 

“Where are you going?”  

“I’d like to ask, where do you want me to take you?” 

Aron pondered for a moment before answering Ed’s words.  

“The safest place would be Bondan, but it’s a long way from here to there.”

Aron turned his head to look at Ed. Ed accepted the gaze as he stood, and he smiled and spoke.  

“You say you’re with my sister?”  

“How did it happen?”  

“Then take me to my sister. She must have worried a lot, so I want to see her face.” 

Ed nodded meekly at his words.  

“Yeah. Let’s meet her first and then plan our next move.”

“How far do we have to go?” said Ed, sitting next to Aron, looking up at the sky.  

“You will have to ride a horse and run for five days without a break before you can fly,” Ed said, then hung the arrow on the string and fired it without turning his head.  

A monster that came out to the waterside of the valley was shot by an arrow in his head and he collapsed.  

“Is it a monster?”

“If you don’t stop by the village, you’ll get tired of seeing it.” 

At Ed’s words, Aron looked at Ed’s back. What kind of life does this man lead?  

A man whose daily routine is not only to hunt demons but to get tired of seeing them and to kill them.  

Aron, wanting to know more about him as he is with his younger sister, decided to take a closer look at him in the future.

Two men and women stared at it in front of Maya’s corpse.  

“It’s smashed properly.”  

“I’ve known her ever since she was flirting,” the woman replied as she searched through Maya’s body.  

“The Blood stone is gone.” 

As she said that the man raised his head and looked at the dead.  

All the weapons must have been retrieved, but seeing the wounds on the foreheads of the corpses, it was as if it had been hit by an arrow.

“None of the Paladines use a bow.”

The woman pulled out a dagger in front of Maya’s corpse and cut her palm. Then, as she squeezed out the blood, the blood dripped down on Maya’s corpse. Then she wondered as the blood mixed with Maya’s blood, and she immediately got up.

It was reminiscent of a single fox, the blood-red fox sniffling and waving its tail before revealing itself.

The woman smiled and said, “I found it. But, the distance is considerable. I’ll miss them if I’m wrong. “

The man nodded his head and said, “Let’s burn this place down and chase them right away.” 

The two of them quickly set fire to the entire village and started running out of the village.  Seeing the bloody fox running on the branches, the men and women began to follow it.  

“Does it only go up trees?”  

“I think so,” she answered as she smiled.

“But since Maya is dead, am I the sixth?”  

“It will be possible only after finding and killing the person who killed Maya and recovering Aron.”  

“Leave it to me,” she said, smiling broadly, accelerating her speed further.  

The man solidified her impression by matching her stride. 

As she obtained the Blood stone, her power grew significantly. Even though she had become stronger than before, Maya died horribly. It means that the opponent is strong. However, she thought that there was no way that she would be defeated because she and Sharin, the seventh, were together.

Paladine Malcolm and Paladine Alon sighed as they looked at the burned town.  

“Looks late.”  

“I don’t think these were sacrificed either?” 

They were all set on fire, but seeing that the bodies were still in good condition, it didn’t seem like they had been sacrificed.  

“Still, I think it was sacrificed? It’s horribly dead.”

At Alon’s words, as he looked at the shattered corpse, Malcolm shook his head.  

“The cut is too clean to be considered a sacrifice. It looks like it was cut by a very talented person?” 

Alon looked at the cut section and nodded.  

“Those who can use swordsmanship are monitored with the eyes of Astron, so this must have been borrowed from the power of the equipment.”  

“There is a possibility that.”

Malcolm got up and turned his head.  

And as he got up from his seat he said:  “It seems that the distance has gone by about a day.” 

A mercenary specially hired for this job was a man named Falcon who was good at tracking.  

“Is it possible to miss?” said Falcon, pulling a map out of his arms and unfolding it.

“We’re going to have to block this place. We’ll block this place and we’ll chase after them,” Malcolm frowned slightly at those words.  

“If you see John, you can’t stop him with any force. It can only increase damage, so just watch it. Trying to stop him with force can cause more damage.” 

Alon nodded his head and beckoned. The monk who was there took out a rolled-up letter, wrote down Malcolm’s words, opened the cage, took the hawk outside, put the letter in a barrel tied to his ankle, and sent it away.

Turning to the Falcon Malcolm said,

“Then let’s go.” 

Crossel seemed to have great intelligence despite not being active in bright light.  

As a result, when he came to rescue Aron, he moved without meeting any possible people, rather than stopping by every village.

As a result, in three days, the party became like beggars.

However, Aron was feeling a bit light-hearted. He was still smiling while helping Diego groom the bird Ed had caught.  

Ed looked at him like that and asked.  

“Why do you look so happy?” 

Replied Aaron, looking up at the sky.  

“I would say that I have attained enlightenment? It’s because I realized that everything flows according to Astron’s will and his order.”

Diego frowned at those words.  “If we moved on horseback, we could have joined by now. Besides, it seems like my back is going to break because of running around his side.”  

“Brother Diego. Even if I had a recovery spell….” 

“Are you crazy?”  

Aron bit his lips when Diego yelled at him. Diego took one shot of Aaron like that, and then pulled out the feather of the bird that Ed had caught. Aron quickly smiled again and spoke to Diego. Diego was not happy, but the two got along well, so Ed decided not to care anymore.

It is said that Nefsael’s ability is great, but is it because there are too many dead monsters in Ed’s hands?  These days, the number of monsters that come to visit has been decreasing.  

At this point, he was worried that the seeds of the monsters in the kingdom of Travia would dry out. 

Ed roughly calculated the distance while the two of them prepared their meal.  He didn’t ride a horse, but Ed was traveling with the two of them, so even though the speed itself was not much different from running on a horse, he didn’t follow the road, so he was worried.

Still, at this rate, it seemed that he would be able to meet Arin within three days at the latest.  

“Let’s stay strong. It seems like we can meet Arin in three days or so.”

At that, Diego stopped murmuring, and Aron was smiling as if everything was okay.  

Then, Jerry, whom Diego had summoned, sniffed his nose and looked up.  

Jerry was summoned by him for detection, so he reacted if he sensed something.  

When Ed turned around, Diego nodded his head.  

“Something with demonic powers is approaching,” Ed sighed briefly.  

They were preparing a meal and making a fire in a small empty lot with their back to the cave. But now, they decided to prepare for the battle when they heard that the enemy was close.

“Once we’re inside. How far do you think they’ll be?” said Diego, closing his eyes for a moment and then opening them.  

“Judging by the speed with which they’re approaching, I think they’ll get here in three minutes.”  

“That’s enough. Let’s go in. We’ll have dinner after the battle.” Aron approached Ed like that and gave him a blessing.

“May the glory of Astron be with you always.” 

When he first met Aron, he thought that he’s not any different from him. Indeed, Arin continued to enhance her divine power by killing demons, but Aron did not have a chance to do so.  

However, seeing that he is using his blessings now, he seemed different from when he was rescued. He said he realized something, so maybe that’s why?  Upon receiving his blessing, Ed smiled as he felt his body lighten up.  “This is enough. Go inside.”  

“Thank you, then.”

After confirming that Aron had gone inside, Ed realized that he did not have time to prepare a trap and quietly prepared only arrows.  

As he was still about to wait, a bloody fox appeared. And after that, a man and a woman appeared. When they saw Ed standing still, they got down on the vacant lot.  Normally, he would have put an arrow in their head first, but now he thought he’d talk a little bit.  

“Which fingers are you?” 

The man opened his mouth to Ed’s question.

“The fourth and seventh. But are you a demon hunter by any chance?” 

Ed nodded meekly.  

Seeing that, the woman smiled.  

“You killed Maya?” 

Ed nodded his head again, and he smiled brightly at the woman. 

Since she is a woman in a dog costume, he thought that her smile suits her well. 

“Thanks to you now I’ll be the sixth.” 

“The fifth died too. You can’t go up to the fifth?  “

The woman shook her head at that.  

“It doesn’t mean that you can go up whenever there’s an empty seat. You have to set up a ball. But if you set up a ball that kills you, it’s probably possible.” 

It was noticeable when the fifth was killed, but Crossel isn’t just targeting Arin and Aron.  

“Then how could the great demon you worshiped have survived?”  

“Who is it? The devil we served is dead?”

As Ed concentrated on the woman’s words, the man raised his hand to interrupt her.  

Realizing that the conversation was over, Ed fired two arrows.  

Kak!  

A blood curtain appeared in front of them, blocking the arrow.  

Both the man and the woman smiled and turned around in horror at the arrow that had pierced the bloody membrane. The woman had an arrow stuck in her forehead. The man had turned his head to avoid that, but his ear fell off.  

“You’re not someone to die easily.”

Noticing that the woman was alive, Ed’s arrows flew towards the enemies in a line.