Because of the old Fencewood Campaign, the Black Dragon Territory still harbored a sizable population of mercenaries.
They were not accepted into the army, had no legal status or proper employment, and most survived by turning to banditry or taking dirty jobs for the wealthy and powerful.
The Black Fang mercenary company that Li Wen had once encountered was exactly that sort of group.
But what kind of mercenary band would dare to slaughter an entire village or town?
Were the lord’s private army and the kingdom’s soldiers mere decorations?
“All the bodies were taken away, weren’t they?”
Li Wen’s expression was grim.
In the realm of occultism, corpses were a consumable resource—especially those of intelligent beings.
They could be used in a wide variety of rituals and sacrifices, in the brewing of spells and potions, or even as fodder for monsters.
For a band of illegal mercenaries to commit such a massacre within the orderly borders of the kingdom and take every body with them—Li Wen simply could not believe it wasn’t under the orders of a transcendent figure.
Perhaps behind them was a necromancer walking the Path of Death, one who needed vast numbers of corpses to craft undead abominations—or to feed swarms of ghouls.
But whoever or whatever stood behind them, Li Wen had already decided she would not let them go unpunished.
A thousand thoughts swirled through her mind.
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her expression had returned to calm.
“Do you have any other family?
Or any nearby village or town?”
She had decided to get Maki to safety first, before going after the mercenaries.
According to Maki, the nearest town was called Black Sand, less than half a day’s travel from here.
Sir Wilson, lord of the Black Dragon Territory, ruled over seven towns in total—Ark Town and Black Sand among them.
Li Wen took some time to escort Maki safely to Black Sand.
Before parting, she discreetly slipped the girl some money—enough for her to live comfortably there for quite a while and find a decent job.
As for whether this delay might let the Kingdom Inspectorate’s investigators catch up to her, Li Wen wasn’t particularly concerned.
Ark Town was far too remote.
From the time news reached the Sunlit Church in the big cities, to the church pressuring the Inspectorate into action, to the investigators finally arriving in Ark Town—at least ten days would pass.
And even if the investigators did find her, she would not be afraid.
She’d dealt with them before—she simply didn’t want to waste precious time on them.
After all, she only had one year in her playing state.
Once that year passed, the great cross-world migration would begin, and every player would lose the ability to resurrect or gain experience.
She needed to maximize her gains before then.
Leaving Black Sand, Li Wen pondered how to track down the mercenaries.
Like a wraith in the corner’s shadow, the goblin-fairy Marsha appeared, grinning.
“If you knew how to use Whisper of the Dead, you could call on wandering souls to guide you.”
Li Wen was suspicious of her motives.
If Marsha had saved Maki out of sheer mischief, then what reason did she have to stay here now?
“Shouldn’t you be watching over the Fairy Market?”
Li Wen asked bluntly.
The goblin-fairy chuckled without answering, tossing a bag toward her.
Li Wen caught it.
It was slick and cold to the touch, as though stitched from a corpse’s skin.
This was… a fairy’s treasure pouch?
Legend had it that every fairy possessed a unique treasure pouch to store the trinkets they found or stole.
Like a magic bag, but with a vastly greater capacity—and far more precious.
Goblin-fairies’ pouches, it was said, were entire self-contained worlds.
Such claims were surely exaggerated, but they spoke to the pouch’s power.
Why was the goblin-fairy giving it to her?
“The Fairy Market is inside.”
Li Wen blinked, then understood.
So Marsha had stuffed the entire market into the pouch?
“That knight burned the whole ruin to ash,” Marsha said.
So that was it.
Li Wen nodded in realization.
The Fairy Market existed only because of the alchemist’s laboratory.
With the lab destroyed, the market naturally had no reason to remain.
But why had Moriah done such a thing?
No—thinking about it, he must have traveled all the way from Ganan for exactly this purpose.
And the goblin-fairy?
Had she deliberately allowed the Temple’s firstborn son to act so?
Or perhaps she had intended it from the start.
Li Wen thought of the potion in the gnome’s possession.
The recipe for Lesser Ghost Solution had long been lost, and its short shelf life meant it must have been brewed recently.
The gnome, Trotus, clearly lacked the skill to make it himself.
It could only have come from someone else.
In the entire Fairy Market—or indeed the whole Black Dragon Territory—only the goblin-fairy before her could have brewed such a long-lost potion.
The same logic applied to the Shadowfall Elixir.
Marsha had crafted those rare, precious potions, placed them in the laboratory, and allowed Trotus to use them as bait to lure the greedy—so their flesh and blood could be used to cultivate creations of the Great Blood.
If Li Wen had not intervened, Moriah would eventually have sought the goblin-fairy for the route into the underground ruin.
She would not have told him outright, but would have hinted that someone in the market knew.
Moriah would have found that person—Trotus.
Recognizing the Shadowfall Elixir, Moriah would certainly have identified the Ghost Solution as well.
If he had even a modicum of wit, he would have grasped the situation.
From there, events would have mirrored Li Wen’s own experience—Moriah killing Trotus, who sought to use the Great Blood for his schemes, destroying the alchemist’s lab, erasing all traces of the master’s work, and taking the Great Blood with him.
As for the connections between the goblin-fairy and the gnome, between Moriah and the goblin-fairy, between the Temple or the secret church and the alchemist—that was beyond Li Wen’s knowledge.
Having pieced it together, Li Wen looked again at the pouch in her hand, a new thought forming.
Perhaps Marsha had orchestrated everything just to have a legitimate excuse to pack the vast Fairy Market into this pouch.
“Come on.
Time waits for no one.”
Leaving those words behind, Marsha’s figure melted into the darkness, shrinking until she became an ugly, pitch-black raven.
She looked almost identical to the prophetic raven Li Wen had seen during her initiation as a witch’s apprentice.