Chương 129

Grid led the way out of the Winston town square, already grumbling under his breath. He hated travelling. Travelling meant wasting precious time. In his head, Grid was constantly calculating how much gold he was losing per hour by not standing in front of his anvil.

"Every step is a lost copper. Every mile is a lost silver," Grid muttered, kicking a loose pebble. Suddenly, Grid stopped in his tracks. He turned around and looked at the three men following him. Grid frowned.

"Wait a second. Reidan is in the middle of the western desert. Winston is all the way over here. You guys just appeared in a massive flash of blue light... Did you use a scroll to mass-teleport all the way here?" Mumud offered a polite nod.

"I cast the spell myself. It was the most efficient way to travel." Grid's eyes instantly lit up. His profit-driven mindset immediately took over. Mass teleportation was an incredibly high-tier spell that required astronomical amounts of mana. If this guy could just throw it around casually, then this whole trip could be shortened to zero seconds.

"Perfect!" Grid clapped his hands together, his grumpy attitude vanishing.

"Then just mass-teleport us directly into the Vatican! We can skip the walking, grab my shield, force the Pope to give me a divine blessing, and be done before dinner. I won't even charge you a travel fee!"

"I cannot do that," Mumud flatly refused. Grid's smile dropped. He crossed his arms and glared.

"Why not? Rudra said you're a genius magician! Don't tell me you don't have enough mana."

"My mana is fine," Mumud said calmly, unfazed by Grid's temper.

"The problem is my body. My soul is still essentially an undead Lich. This physical flesh you see right now was generated by Lord Rudra's dish." Grid blinked. He slowly turned his head to stare at Rudra.

"You... you cooked a guy a body?"

"It was a really high-rated dish," Rudra shrugged, completely missing the absurdity of the statement. Grid felt a headache coming on. Mumud continued his explanation, bringing Grid back to reality.

"Because this flesh is artificial, it is still extremely weak. It is not fully synchronized with my soul yet. The Vatican is the absolute center of the Rebecca Church. It is shrouded in the most intense, concentrated divine power on the continent." The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Grid tapped his foot.

"So, what happens if you go in?"

"If I teleport directly into the center of that holy energy, the sudden shock will instantly burn away this fragile flesh," Mumud said, his tone entirely serious.

"My true undead nature will be completely exposed. The holy aura will deal massive, potentially fatal damage to my soul before I can even cast a single defensive spell." Grid groaned loudly. As much as he wanted to use Mumud as free labor, dragging a burning, dying Lich into the middle of the enemy base sounded like a terrible idea. It would just make the fight harder for him, and Grid hated doing extra work.

"Fine, fine," Grid waved his hand dismissively.

"I guess we have to walk. But you better not slow me down." The legendary quartet finally left the gates of Winston and stepped onto the dirt road leading toward the holy territory. As they walked, Piaro occasionally paused to inspect the soil by the side of the road, nodding approvingly at the moisture of the dirt. Grid just rolled his eyes, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that the continent's strongest swordsman cared more about weeds than weapons.

Meanwhile, Mumud pulled out a small leather notebook from his robes. He began writing frantically, his eyes darting back and forth as he muttered under his breath. Faint sparks of blue mana flickered around his fingertips.

"What is he doing now?" Grid asked, looking over his shoulder.

"I am calculating a continuous masking field," Mumud answered without looking up from his notebook.

"By taking the flow of my natural mana core and flipping it backward, I can create a barrier that pushes away the holy aura of the Vatican. It requires maintaining a very strict balance between my artificial flesh's health and the dark energy of my soul. It will basically trick the divine alarms into registering me as a normal human with a slightly weird mana pool." Grid stared at the silver-haired magician. His eyes glazed over. A sharp, throbbing pain started to pound right behind his forehead.

Grid hated studying, and he absolutely hated complex theories.

"Ugh, my brain hurts," Grid grumbled, rubbing his temples.

"What is he even talking about? Flipping cores? Dark energy balance? Speak plain Korean!" Rudra let out a laugh and stepped up beside Grid, casually resting his bone staff on his shoulder.

"Don't overthink it, Grid," Rudra said, dumbing it down perfectly for the blacksmith.

"He's just nerfing his own aggro so the priests don't instantly attack him." Grid's eyes widened in realization. The headache vanished instantly.

"Oh! Nerfing his aggro!" Grid nodded enthusiastically, understanding the gaming terminology.

"Why didn't he just say that in the first place? That makes perfect sense. Good job, magic guy. Keep your aggro low so they target me and I can smash them."

"Indeed," Mumud sighed softly, closing his notebook. With the plan settled and the translation complete, the four of them continued their march down the dusty road, heading straight for the center of the continent's largest religion.