Volume 6, Chapter 22 – Intrusion, Destruction, and a Bath

“What are you all staring at? Seize her!”

A man who seemed to be the leader shouted. The paladins who had rushed into the room came to their senses one by one. Two relatively slender paladins launched the first attack, thrusting at Yisi from both sides.

[Light-Speed Slash]!

The name sounded very intimidating, but it was merely a thin golden film applied to the surface of the longsword, making it tougher, a principle similar to the magic of [Magic Blade].

Against human opponents, it’s better not to use skills like [Dust of Annihilation].

Her purpose was to warn Pope Julius, and it had nothing to do with the paladins under his command.

But since it was a warning, she had to at least hit him where it hurt.

The Gungnir in her hand swept out, deflecting all the paladins’ thrusts. Then, Yisi searched for the words ‘puppet’ and ‘golem’ on the Omniscient Map. Soon, she found what she was looking for.

There were less than ten of them, with levels ranging from 40 to 50. The two stone statues she had just destroyed were of the highest specification.

Although she didn’t know how much these stone statues meant to the church, judging from the average strength of the continent, destroying all of them would definitely be enough to make the Pope’s heart ache for a long time. This was exactly what she wanted. Even if she didn’t give the Blessing of Mistilteinn to the Pope, he would still launch an attack on the two monarchies after accumulating enough power, and then challenge the Blood Clan. What she was doing now was infinitely close to a tooth extraction operation, only the reason was that Julius had ignored her warning and attacked her. If she hadn’t had enough strength, her legs would have been cut off by the puppet golem in the first strike.

[Short-Distance Teleportation]

Under the dumbfounded gazes of all the knights, Yisi disappeared from the room that had been destroyed by the puppet golems.

She then reappeared in another dim and winding corridor. Compared to the other parts of the underground facility, this corridor seemed exceptionally cramped, barely wide enough for one person to pass. Although Yisi could walk with her head held high, it was because of her shorter stature. A normal paladin would have to remove their armor and stoop to enter. If it were a claustrophobic person, in this dark and extremely narrow place—especially with a ninety-degree turn every few steps, and the pitch-black end looking as if some beast could jump out at any moment—they would surely be driven mad.

It must have been designed this way to prevent intrusion.

According to the Omniscient Map, the place where the puppets were stored was at the end of this corridor. Due to the huge commotion at the other end of the underground facility, all the paladins in the entire underground facility were on the move. Even from a great distance, Yisi could hear the shouts and urgent calls of the paladins.

Ignoring the noise in her ears, Yisi quieted her voice and, after walking a few steps, gradually came to a stop.

The Omniscient Map showed a living creature five meters ahead.

But Yisi saw nothing.

Her excellent vampiric night vision could ensure that she could see her surroundings clearly even in complete darkness. But this time, even when Yisi tried to open her eyes wide, the cramped space was still empty. There were no signs of caves or secret passages on the ochre-colored walls and ceiling.

Could it be invisibility or illusion magic?

But whether it was invisibility or illusion, both were considered quite high-level magic in this world. It was hard to believe that such a person would be willing to stay in a narrow corridor.

Just as Yisi was thinking about whether to force her way through, not caring if she alerted the paladins outside, her cat ears suddenly caught a certain sound.

The sound of a heart beating, and a steady breathing like that of someone asleep.

Subconsciously, Yisi pricked up her ears—in fact, her cat ears really did stand up, twitching slightly, catching the heart-wrenching sound. Finally, Yisi locked her gaze on the wall to the front and left. Although she couldn’t see it with her eyes, her keen hearing in her [Third Form Awakening] could detect that something was clinging to the wall.

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It seems the cat ears on my head are not just for show. I’ve been treating them as decorations all this time.

Extending her left hand forward, Yisi aimed her palm at the left wall.

[Spatial Lock].

Then, she stepped forward with her right foot and pulled ‘that thing’ clinging tightly to the wall down.

It was both human and not human. It was only a meter tall, with a small, thin body and long, slender arms. Its untrimmed, sharp nails were reminiscent of a goblin-like demi-human. According to the Omniscient Map, its race was called ‘Loser’.

The reason she couldn’t see it before was because it had used a chameleon-like mimicry skill to change its color to match the surrounding walls and then clung tightly to them. The indentation on the wall, just the size of its body, showed that its presence here was not accidental. It was clear that this corridor had been designed with its existence in mind from the beginning.

“The church is really hiding something.”

To go so far as to collude with them, violating the church’s ‘humanity-first’ rule. There might be a lot more that I don’t know.

“Well, it has nothing to do with me.”

By the time Yisi left the corridor, she had captured at least five identical demi-human creatures along the way. Although Yisi had tried to communicate with them, no matter which one it was, the moment she released the [Spatial Lock], it would immediately pounce on her, ready to bite her neck. Even with the language-translating pendant, communication was impossible. These demi-human creatures, like monsters, lacked a complete language system and reason.

“It feels like I’m watching a horror movie.”

“Who?”

Just as Yisi stepped into a rather large space, a sharp voice suddenly rang in her ear.

A line of knights in armor, their figures different from humans, formed a semicircle, surrounding Yisi.

“Hoh, this time it’s the sturdy bodied ones.”

Like the emaciated creatures outside, these knights, who were over two meters tall, were also all ‘Losers’. Even though they were covered in armor, a strong, bestial stench still assaulted her nostrils.

“She is not an approved person. Kill her.”

“Haaaah!”

A huge knight’s lance thrust towards Yisi. Even without the swift speed of a charge, the momentum, accompanied by the sound of the wind, was still very frightening.

“Seven of them in total.”

Although every time she saw a new creature, she would think about tasting their blood, she really had no interest in these things called ‘Losers’. Just the stench they emitted from their bodies made her stomach churn.

[Mana Shield · Chain]

The transparent barrier that suddenly appeared in front of Yisi made the knight’s lance explode with a loud bang. The lances in the hands of the seven paladins—perhaps the ‘holy’ description should be omitted—shattered like firecrackers. It wasn’t that the [Mana Shield] destroyed the weapons that came into contact with it, but that the lances in the knights’ hands were too fragile to withstand the force reflected back. Even the church was not wealthy enough to forge a three-meter-long knight’s lance out of pure steel. Of course, even if they had one, an ordinary warrior would not be able to lift it with one hand.

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While the knights were still dazed from their weapons being destroyed, Yisi struck the faces of the two knights on the left with the shaft of her spear, then used [Spatial Lock] to lock the movements of three other knights.

However, the remaining two knights, instead of retreating because of Yisi’s strength, charged towards her with an even more fearless attitude. A nauseating squirming sound came from their bodies beneath their armor. Even though Yisi couldn’t see their faces under their helmets, she could guess what kind of expressions they had on now.

A ferocious, crazed look.

Even their voices had become monster-like.

WRYYYYYYYY—!

There’s a familiar feeling.

It’s Augustin.

Yisi lowered Gungnir and aimed her palm at the two tall knights who were rushing up to embrace her.

[Light Bullet]

With the speed of a cannonball, a fist-sized golden ball of light shot straight into the faces of the two knights. As if hit on the back of the head with a pneumatic hammer, the two knights immediately lost their balance and staggered to the side. Although they struggled to get up from the ground, their limbs were disobedient and unable to exert any force.

Yisi used the tip of Gungnir to flick off the paladin’s helmet.

Underneath was a human face covered in dark red markings. Just like Augustin’s appearance when he faced Edith, these dark red markings squirmed disgustingly on his face as if they had a life of their own. The paladin’s body was like a leather ball being inflated, his skin swelling at an abnormal rate, his muscles almost transparent, and the bulging blood vessels looking as if they could burst at any moment.

“It’s almost the same as with Augustin back then…”

These knights now had the strength of about level thirty. Unfortunately, the price was that they would never be able to lift a weapon again, nor could they engage in heavy physical labor. Augustin was an example of this. Before he was exiled by Andrea, his body had aged to that of a seventy-year-old man.

“It seems Augustin didn’t lie to Andrea. The medicine is indeed from the church. Well, I guess this is a case of a dying man’s words being true.”

Without wasting too much time on the paladins, Yisi walked straight to the end of the hall. Here, there were seven puppet golems of various shapes. Unlike the two level 60 puppets she had destroyed, the joints of these puppets were not inlaid with magic crystals. When she walked up to them, they did not move at all. In other words, they lacked the battery to start them up and were now just inanimate objects.

And besides the puppet golems, Yisi also discovered something else.

“Uwah… so this is a warehouse. No wonder it’s so heavily guarded.”

All sorts of armor, works of art carved from crystal, a pure white divine staff made of freshwater coral, a western-style sword pieced together from pure dragon bones, and in addition, a mountain of unnamed ornaments. Yisi even found a crude-looking musket among them—though it was magically powered.

“If this were a game, this would definitely be a place that must be noted in the walkthrough. The treasure hidden in the boss room or something. If I’m not mistaken, these should all be things dug up from the ruins.”

If this were a game, as long as her inventory wasn’t full, she would definitely not leave even a single gold coin behind and would take everything in the room. But this was the real world. It was better for her not to be a robber and only take what was useful to her and could also serve as a warning.

From the mountain of relics, she dug out two translation pendants—the items that made up the small mountain were mostly translation pendants. The Pope’s immediate agreement was clearly taking advantage of her. Yisi then stored all seven puppet golems in her inventory. It wasn’t that these golems were useful to her; she stored them just to teach the Pope a lesson. After doing all this, Yisi straightened her messy skirt and silver pigtails, jumped down from the small mountain of treasures, and prepared to leave the warehouse.

Clack.

She kicked something.

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“Hmm?”

Subconsciously lowering her head, a fist-sized green crystal came into view. Unlike the irregular polyhedral shape of any other magic crystal, this crystal had clearly been polished by hand, its shape a smooth and round sphere.

“A processed magic crystal…”

Bending down to pick it up, Yisi injected a trace of magic power into the magic crystal to investigate its magic content.

Generally speaking, the shape of a magic crystal is determined when it is dug up, and it is very difficult to process. Firstly, there are very few things harder than a magic crystal. Secondly, it is very easy to break the crystal when processing it, either causing the magic power within to dissipate, turning it into a common stone, or using too much force and detonating the internal magic power, turning everything around it into fragments.

Although Yisi had never tried to process a magic crystal, she was sure that even if she were to process such a large piece of magic crystal, she would definitely fail a few times. It was just too difficult to polish it into a smooth sphere.

“The person who made this is definitely not ordinary… Wait, there’s almost no magic power left inside? No wonder the church threw it on the ground. Its value is about the same as scrap.”

A magic crystal with no magic power has no value. If it wasn’t something dug up from the ruins, Yisi would even suspect that the church had already thrown this crystal away as trash.

“Well, the fact that there’s still a trace of magic power left means it wasn’t a problem during the processing, but that too much magic power was extracted during use, causing the internal magic power to be depleted. I’ll take it as a collector’s item for now. Maybe I can get a glimpse of the technological level of the ancient times.”

Before storing it in her inventory, Yisi scanned the crystal once with [God’s Eye]. The only information fed back to Yisi was the name of the crystal: 『Trino 10042 Type Dedicated Power Source』.

One could tell at a glance that it was the power source for a certain puppet golem. Thinking that she was not the only transmigrator in this other world, Yisi couldn’t help but smile. From this naming convention, one could tell that the person who made the crystal was definitely from a mechanical civilization, just like her. It was a pity that after the passage of time, the other person’s name had disappeared in the long river of history, leaving only this one crystal. Otherwise, she might have had the opportunity to chat with the other person for a while.

“Let’s go,” letting out a soft breath, Yisi waved her hand in the direction of the Pope on the Omniscient Map with a relaxed expression, “Thank you for the pendant. As for the agreed-upon transaction, this is the payment.”

Placing two bottles of 『Blessing of Mistilteinn · Lowest Grade』 on the ground, Yisi used teleportation magic to flash to the sky above the temple. It was at this moment that a huge red ball gathered on top of the Tower of Alexia, which had already turned red. Yisi’s skin tingled, and she had the feeling that she was being targeted by a sniper rifle.

“Hey, hey… I’ve only been in this world for less than half a year, and I have to take an attack from the Tower of Alexia twice? Give me a break.”

Although she could block it, the feeling of being used as a target was really not very good. The Pope had probably locked onto the sky with the Tower of Alexia long ago, and would launch an attack immediately once an enemy appeared.

As expected, a beam of light flashing with the color of death shot towards Yisi. Yisi blocked it with [Sacred Barrier]. Amidst a series of explosions, countless smoke and dust scattered in all directions. However, it seemed that the Tower of Alexia had noticed that Yisi had not died from this. A red light gathered again at the top of the tower, and this time the red light had turned into a creepy dark red.

“Is there no end to this… Tsk, I’ll send you a gift in return.”

Frowning, Yisi, with a childish sense of revenge, made a shooting gesture with her fingers and gave a gift in return to the Tower of Alexia, which was accumulating power.

“Be quiet for a while.”

An inconspicuous black light, under the cover of the night, pierced into the dark red sphere.

『Wild Spread』

A spell that breaks the balance between magical elements, causing them to lose order and collide randomly. The disordered elements, in turn, cause more ordered elements to become chaotic, creating an effect close to a chain reaction. It is a skill that can lead a huge amount of magic to self-destruct with very little magic input. If used on the Tower of Alexia, which was currently accumulating energy, it would be equivalent to detonating the magic power it had already accumulated.

In less than a tenth of a second, the dark red ball of light condensed on the Tower of Alexia bloomed.

A splendid and gorgeous firework.

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Although it was much weaker than the explosion of the Eye of Dusk, because Yisi was farther from the explosion site this time, she could clearly see the complete explosion effect. It was worth noting that Yisi had already set up a defensive barrier five hundred meters above the ground. In addition, the person controlling the Tower of Alexia had urgently activated protective measures, so no one was injured, and the Tower of Alexia was not destroyed. If one had to talk about losses, it would only be that the Tower of Alexia had to shut down for a period of time due to overload.

“Well, the explosion caused by magic power has no radiation effect, so there’s no need to worry about subsequent damage. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be able to see the residents’ various discussions about you. You brought this on yourselves. Although in the end, you’ll probably just gloss it over with various excuses.”

Pouting, feeling the heatwave rushing towards her, Yisi glanced at the Omniscient Map before leaving. The light dots in the central temple were in a mess. Yisi could hear the shouts from the street below with just her ears.

It’s time to make an exit.

Activating [Short-Distance Teleportation] again, Yisi returned to the inn. The pitch-black room was lit with a candle. Camilla had already changed her pajamas into a magic robe—she had probably seen the firelight just now and was planning to go to the temple to help her, as promised.

Honestly.

Both unsettling and heartwarming.

Yisi smiled wryly and walked behind Camilla, patting her on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’m back.”

“Ah!” Startled at first, Camilla turned her solemn face. After seeing Yisi, she gradually relaxed, and her expression finally turned to one of relief and joy. “Onee-sama, welcome home!”

“Camilla’s happiness is written all over her face. It’s a good thing I came back early, or Camilla would have done something foolish.”

“It’s because I promised Onee-sama…” Camilla averted her gaze under the candlelight, her golden hair dyed orange-red by the firelight. “I thought you couldn’t get away, so I…”

“Just as you can see,” Yisi couldn’t help but reach out and gently flick Camilla’s nose, then spread her arms and spun around in place, “I’m perfectly fine.”

“Your clothes and hair are messy.”

Camilla put on a dissatisfied look, but her ruby-like eyes betrayed her—she was actually very happy.

“I think I should go take a bath.”

“Do you need my help, Onee-sama? You still don’t know how to take care of your hair. Your hair is a priceless treasure. There are not many girls in the world whose hair is as beautiful as yours.”

Despite listing her reasons, Camilla habitually drooped her shoulders. As usual, Yisi would never agree to Camilla entering the bathroom with her, no matter what. The so-called futile struggle was exactly what Camilla looked like now.

However, today Yisi was different from before. She casually threw her cloak and mask to the side, untied her coat, and returned a smile to Camilla.

“Mmm—alright. My cute little sister has waited for me for so long. If I let her continue to be disappointed, my conscience will torment me all night. I mean, this is a reward for me.”

“…Eh?” Unable to react, Camilla blinked in confusion. But when she saw Yisi’s wry smile, her disappointed expression gradually brightened. As if she had rehearsed for a long time, she quickly took out a dazzlingly white bath towel and clothes from her storage magic. “Is Onee-sama going to take a bath now? Or later? I-I think I should prepare some flower petals and milk. Oh, and the temperature of the hot water should be—”

“There’s no need for so many preparations,” before Camilla could finish, Yisi made a shushing motion, signaling her to stop talking, “…having you is enough, Camilla.”

A blush appeared on her face. Embarrassed, Yisi lowered her head, took off her crystal shoes, and walked barefoot towards the door.