Chương 229: Big Success, Great Trip

"I am ba–back" Once everything was set and done, I pressed the silver pendant and soon found myself back in the exact same spot I was in when Kyrtian decided that it would be a good idea to lock himself with me, where no one would hear him scream. The container was safely kept inside my chest, hidden beneath my clothes–Everything was going great.

"Is he dead?"

"Alrea–ready digested""That's a bit of a shame, Kyrtian was foolish, but he held some interesting knowledge… Well, he unfortunately sought his own death. Since my sister and I have nothing to do here anymore, we will be leaving" Denaiel and Halini had seemingly stuck around to see the outcome of my bout with the necromancer, while Lopst had already left. Apparently, he hadn't doubted that Kyrtian would end up as a corpse–Calling it 'holy intuition'.

Regardless, I walked up to Red Snow and his sister, casually extended my hands over to them, which they interpreted as me reaching for a handshake… Earlier, I had already planted my new and shiny curse upon the tall bunny fellow. No one had noticed it at all, so I boldly went ahead and placed it upon them as well. It was successful. Neither of them noticed a thing–I suppose it was the perk of a curse that wasn't truly harmful. After all, it only showed its true effect once the bearer was already dead.

The fact that even powerful individuals like them couldn't sense it at all was a great sign for the future. If I had to guess, this curse could only be detected by those practising curse slinging to a high level, or beings much stronger than I was. In any case… This little handshake ensured that if those two were to be felled, then their souls would belong to me, which could be very big. At least, it would be once I fully figured out how to use the Mindscape equipment.

"By the w–way, would you be so ki–kind as to carry me out–out?" … It probably looked a bit ridiculous since I had such a wide frame and was taller than him, but Denaiel had no issues carrying me out of the underground space. This only spoke to how powerful this guy was. I was definitely physically powerful and much heavier than most humanoids of my size, but he could easily lift me with what Nara told me was a rather small amount of mana augmentation. Having his soul could definitely be useful…

Once I can use the Furnace and Press to their fullest extent, I could be able to craft some truly impressive spirits, at least. Quickly enough, I was back to being only in the company of my little sisters–Well, Coco was inside of my shadow, but I hadn't called upon him at all. I didn't find any good occasions to release him. I could have gone against the feline, but I didn't want to reveal the coyote to the one watching through its eyes at the time. Anyway…

Apparently, there were some more people headed to this place, as for some reason, the Blood-Cursed Tree was a real hot commodity right at the time I showed up. Unfortunately for those late to the party, they ran into the missionary and the flaming siblings along the way. The poor bastards had been reduced to distant memories, and those who survived noticed the massacre and smartly concluded that the tree had already been dealt with anyway, so they left.

So I settled down near the pit and began drawing the negativity in the air toward me, steadily absorbing it. Since I had realised that feasting on large quantities could lead me to blank out, I was more careful this time and kept the draining weak. This was easier said than done, however, as though the negative energy and emotions had a mind of their own, they seemed to naturally converge onto me after a while, as though they were seeking to be devoured.

I had to constantly reduce how strongly I was pulling onto it all as the environment threw itself into my maw. The more I interacted with the Northern Wildlands, the stranger it became. My 'food' always seemed somewhat magnetised to me in a way, but this was absolutely exaggerated. I eventually had to stop, as even while doing the bare minimum, a real flood was flowing toward me. I repeated the cycle several times, at least, when I put a stop to it all, things would somewhat 'reset' after a while.

I suppose ambient energy had a bad memory or something like that. Even after hours of this, I didn't seem to have put even a single dent in the reserves of this place. Whenever I drained some, it would be instantly replaced, and the overall levels of concentration did not seem to go down in the least. I do not believe it was being actively replaced. It was more like…

The air was already so saturated that it could only contain so much at a time, while the ground contained far more than it released as space freed itself above. Is the source somewhere underground, perhaps? I couldn't really track down an origin point, so I simply decided to keep absorbing as I looked around.

Until I felt a slight pulse–It was what I felt when at least one of my ghostly little sisters was asking to be let out of the Mindscape, since there was no danger around, I obliged, and saw Poppy materialise in front of me.

"Loo–Looking cute as–as–as usual" Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Big Sis… I can feel something… Far away… This way" Poppy pointed deeper into the Northern Wildlands. The oldest of my little sisters was an exemplary Vengeful Spirit, her abilities more closely tied to her nature as a phantom than to her personality. I suppose it was also a testament to her personality in some way, though… In any case, when it came to ghost stuff, she was more aware and sensitive.

"There is… A large concentration of…" She hesitated on what word to use, seemingly not quite certain of what it was that she was sensing exactly.

"... Ghostly matter" She settled on something not very descriptive, but being that she was very familiar with other spirits, it meant that she wasn't sensing a bunch of spectres, or one big ghost. At least, not a kind she had ever encountered before.

"It became more active after… You devoured a lot of… Negativity""I s–see. Thank you for the in–infor–mation, Poppy" I patted her head for a little bit. The intel she gave me interested me greatly, but it seemed like what she was sensing was much deeper into the Northern Wildlands than I was currently willing to go. The outskirts of the territory were calm enough. The stronger creatures did not like going here, as it was where adventurers and the like would hunt.

Even if the average person here wasn't impressively strong, anything powerful spotted here would be basically signing their death warrant. It didn't matter if a beast or monster was strong. It would come down when dozens or even hundreds of people attacked it all at once. Such was the main point of sapients sticking together. We could take on far more powerful threats as a group than alone. … All that to say, the deeper I went in, the more dangerous and unpredictable things would get.

Not to say that literally every creature would be stronger deeper in, this wasn't one of those freaking dungeons, but the odds of running into more powerful entities were much higher, and the density of creatures around would also increase significantly. If I were going deeper, I would do so not while carrying a container filled with something I need to complete a mission. I didn't want to fail. How else was I going to convince Leou to give me access to more of her fluff?

I will be allowed to touch the base of her tail eventually, I know I will. I can't tell if you are baiting me or not… You'll learn to tell the difference eventually, Darling. Why don't we go check on how Mister Bunny is doing with all of his girlfriends? Oh, I can't wait to see how it went! I shifted into my knightly form and made my way back through the border. Normally, the point of extraction should be obvious, or so Leou had told me… And indeed, I noticed a giant winged beast in the distance.

Judging by what it was carrying on its back, it seemed like Leou had a business meeting here. Which wasn't actually that odd, places near the border with the Northern Wildlands were pretty big trading hubs. First, I went to the place where I had first met the rabbitfolk. I did not see him, but I spotted the catfolk standing outside. It seemed like her injury had recovered just fine since I had last seen her, probably thanks to healing magic.

"Oh, Miss Knight!" The feline basically pounced at me, wrapping her arms around me as if I were her father coming back from war.

"The others and I can not thank you enough. You were absolutely right!" Nice. Nice I wrote a few words down, asking her where the others were, and the catfolk's smile went wry.

"Well… You see… After receiving your advice, we conspired and decided to act as if we had lost a bunch of coins during the fight with the Wildfolks, you see? So… You know, that we could convince him to only pay for a single room for all of us?" Now that's some juicy information. I motioned for her to keep going.

"You must have noticed, but he is quite oblivious, so he didn't realise what we were really after–Until night fell, of course. We all felt very emboldened, you know and huh… We might have gotten carried away a bit" This is incredible"Long story short, we had several noise complaints, we broke the bed–And I mean shattered it–And… We might have been a little too enthusiastic, and perhaps slightly hurt his… Huh… Well, this whole area with concussive force, you know?"

"Good thing is he isn't holding it against us and doesn't seem to be against the whole thing, bad thing is that we won't be adventuring for a while. The others are with him at a local physician, healing magic heals the damage, but it will take a little while before the remnant pain goes away" This is great, we really did some great matchmaking there, didn't we? Absolute success! I convinced the catfolk to take me to the others so that I could see the result with my own two eyes, and it was glorious.

Mister Bunny will be very busy with four girlfriends to take care of… I would have loved to mark them with my new curse, but in my knightess form, I couldn't cast curses at all. So I could only admire the results of my work before leaving. I transformed back into my 'Base Form' inside an alley and headed toward the giant beast, and quickly found Leou negotiating with a young-looking pigfolk.

He wasn't nearly as fat as I would have expected him to be, especially since he was a lot more beast than folk, with his face being completely that of a pig, just far more expressive. I guess Leou and this guy knew each other somewhat, as she was quite nice about the negotiations… I've seen her argue a few times about prices, and she was usually way more vicious.

"I understand why my mother said I should learn from you, Miss Leou… You negotiate like a devil""Don't worry, it only seems difficult now because you lack experience. You did great for your age. The business of your parents is in good hands with you" Poor piggy, he doesn't realise that she was holding back on him the entire time. He's lucky she played nice. I suppose it is best to be like this when you want to maintain cordial trading relations, though.

Leou wanted a stable network, not quick money by robbing people silly. While waiting for whatever deals to be finalised, I simply waited for her by the giant beast. Mmh… I guess I could check on a certain someone in the meantime…