Upon returning to Isol City, Shilo and Lintis parted ways with Marcus. Since Marcus was the primary contractor for this request, the follow-up procedures were naturally not Shilo’s responsibility to handle.
In addition to that, Marcus needed to arrange for men to head out as soon as possible to retrieve that useless priest. It was only when they were nearing the city gates that they had remembered such a person even existed. This caused Lintis’s impression of him to drop even further; at the very least, those three words, ‘utterly unreliable,’ were now firmly engraved in her mind.
Regardless, everything else was Marcus’s problem now. The two of them managed to return to the farm just before the sun dipped below the horizon. Xiaobai, who had been lying on the steps of the wooden house, immediately scampered over, excitedly circling around the two of them.
Lintis was delighted, crouching down to rub the dog’s head vigorously with a satisfied smile. After a long moment, she stood up with some reluctance and blinked at Shilo.
“Mr. Shilo, I remembered something!” After seeing Shilo look over, she continued, “Didn’t you say that as long as I accompanied you on the mission, you’d grant me one request?”
Shilo raised an eyebrow. Looking at the smile playing on the Saint’s lips, he felt as if she were about to say something outrageous, yet he did not deny the deal.
“Mm… there was such a thing. Has the Lady Saint already decided on a request?”
Upon hearing this, the Saint hummed triumphantly, and Shilo could not help but focus his entire attention on her.
Seeing his nervous expression, Lintis giggled. “Alright, alright~ Don’t be so tense~”
“I’m not some kind of demon. Mr. Shilo, it’ll be enough if you just play with Xiaobai for a while in my place. I feel like he must be bored to death.”
“Well… I was originally going to do it myself, but…” Lintis covered her mouth and yawned, stretching her limbs as she spoke. “The lovely Lady Lintis is already tired~”
“So, I’ll leave it to you, energetic Mr. Knight~”
Before Shilo could object, she turned and walked toward the wooden house of her own accord. Xiaobai seemed to realize his playmate had changed; he panted with his tongue out and rested his chin on Shilo’s leg, looking extremely expectant.
Shilo was somewhat surprised. He had expected a much more difficult request and hadn’t thought it would be this simple. He watched the Saint’s retreating figure, feeling slightly dazed.
‘Talk about being energetic, Lady Saint, you’re the one who’s actually the most lively,’ Shilo grumbled under his breath.
Then, he turned his attention to his “mission” and fell into a solemn silence.
‘Play with a dog… how do you even do that?’
He lifted his head, wanting to call out to the Saint, but he saw that she had just entered the house. Left with no choice, Shilo shook his head and looked back at Xiaobai. For a moment, man and dog stared at one another in silence. They looked at each other with wide eyes, both seemingly able to feel the confusion in the other’s gaze.
***
On the other side of things, after Lintis returned to the wooden house, she first went to her room to grab a change of clothes. Then, she sneaked into Mr. Shilo’s room and, after a bit of searching, found a well-maintained small knife. She carried it along with her clothes into the bathroom.
Slowly unbuttoning her clothes, her priestess robes slid to the floor, revealing the perfect body usually hidden beneath the fabric. But now, that originally pure and flawless body featured a very prominent “stain,” adding a touch of wickedness to her saintly aura.
Staring at the disgusting fleshy tumor on her right arm, Lintis’s brow furrowed slightly. This was the corruption she had absorbed from the girl who fell from the Golem; it had simply all transferred to her body now.
Her holy power had no way of bypassing the corruption to heal the girl directly. If she had attempted direct treatment, the pain caused by purging the corruption was not something that girl, weakened as she was, could have endured. Therefore… she had no choice but to let the corruption infect her, then use her holy power to preserve the girl’s life.
As for the price… it was this lump of flesh on her arm.
“Honestly… it’s so disgusting…” Lintis pouted.
The tumor hung heavy on her arm, feeling bloated and dullly painful; any movement caused it to pull at her skin. None of that was truly important, however. The main issue was that the tumor would actually move. That piercing sensation of a foreign object made her feel as though insects were crawling back and forth inside her arm, and it nauseated her. That was why she had sent Mr. Shilo away the moment she arrived, so she could find a way to deal with it.
She gripped the knife she had found earlier, took a deep breath, and brought the blade down toward the tumor.
*Clang.* The knife slipped from her hand and clattered onto the floor.
Immediately following that was a heavy *thud* as Lintis’s knees slammed into the ground, her face contorting with pain. She braced herself against the floor with both hands, struggling to steady her body. Her platinum-blonde hair fell loosely around her as large drops of cold sweat poured down, leaving her in a pathetic state.
the tumor she had sliced off convulsed a few times on the floor before dissolving into a cloud of black smoke. The wound on her arm left by the knife continued to bleed. The blood was black and viscous, resembling oil, and it soon stained everything around Lintis. A pungent, metallic smell of iron rushed straight to her head.
But Lintis had no time to deal with any of that. The pain of having a piece of flesh hacked off nearly caused her to faint, and she had to take deep, gasping breaths just to remain conscious.
After a long while, her breathing gradually steadied. Looking at the disastrous scene around her, she was lost in thought, her face covered in tears and sweat. Afterward, she used the washbasin to pull herself up and turned on the showerhead to wash away the blood, opening the window to let the metallic scent dissipate.
Once everything was finished, she looked at her arm and fell silent. Although most of the tumorous corruption had been removed, a small amount still clung to her arm. After hesitating for a long time, she eventually gave up on the idea of continuing to cut her own flesh.
“It hurts…” Lintis whispered to herself aggrievedly.
Half an hour later…
Shilo finished his task of playing with Xiaobai and carried the half-dead dog back into the wooden house. He planned to wash up and then prepare dinner, but he caught a glimpse of a white figure out of the corner of his eye.
The Saint was lying on the sofa, rolling back and forth out of boredom. Every time she was about to roll off, she would come to an abrupt halt. Seeing him return, the Saint looked over with a brilliant smile.
“Good work, Mr. Shilo.”
The moment their eyes met, Shilo froze for a second. Then, he instinctively looked away and walked toward the bathroom without turning back, only responding right before he entered.
“Lady Saint, you… also worked hard…”
Seeing his somewhat flustered appearance, Lintis tilted her head.
‘I didn’t even do anything? Why is Mr. Shilo being shy again?’
‘How strange… could he be thinking about something perverted?’
‘Mm… very suspicious…’
The wait was truly long. Lintis, who had intended to wait for dinner, felt her eyelids growing heavy, and her consciousness soon drifted into chaos.