“Are you really the Hero?”
The floodwaters were surging.
Beside Jon, the girl with misty-blue hair asked suspiciously once again.
It was the seventh time she had repeated this question.
“Yes,” Jon said helplessly.
“Miss Io, you have already asked many times.”
Fortunately, Io seemed to finally believe him.
She nodded blankly.
But before she could stay quiet for even a moment, she became a curious child again.
“Did you really kill Demon King Rhea?”
“Yes.”
Jon nodded.
He tried to circulate his magic once more, but perhaps because he had overexerted himself earlier, his mana flow was still obstructed and had not recovered.
“Did Demon King Rhea die a miserable death?” Io asked.
“Very miserable. I crushed his bones and scattered his ashes. I guarantee he will not be resurrected,” Jon answered immediately.
“Heh…”
For the first time, Io showed a hint of a smile.
It was a twisted and complex expression; though her eyes were curved in a smile, tears streamed down her face like a spring.
“Are you… alright?” Jon was caught off guard by her tears.
“It’s nothing.”
Io wiped her tears and sniffed with her small, upturned nose.
She lowered her head, her voice slightly raspy.
“I’m just… a little too happy.”
“Do you hate Demon King Rhea that much?” Jon asked softly.
“Heh… the nobles deserve to die, and the demons are even worse — a pack of animals.”
Io grabbed a Blue Pupu from the ground and — squelch — thrust it onto a branch with force.
The Pupu trembled violently, squirming and letting out a guji-guji sound that resembled a mournful cry.
She held the Blue Pupu over the fire to roast it.
Before long, it was dried out, leaving only a shriveled layer of gelatinous substance.
Io handed it to Jon.
“Want a taste?”
Jon stared blankly.
For some reason, he thought of Lily.
His throat tightened, and a sudden wave of nausea and disgust washed over him.
He shook his head hurriedly.
“I knew a grand Lord Hero like you wouldn’t be used to eating this.”
Io took a bite and chewed with great effort, as if it were exceptionally sticky.
She said unclearly, “Actually, it’s edible. At least it’s filling. Though it has no nutrition and you still feel weak after eating it, it at least keeps your stomach from burning.”
“Is this all you’ve been eating these past few days?” Jon felt a pang of conflict in his heart.
“To be precise, we’ve been racking our brains just to stay alive since four or five months ago.”
Io’s tone was nonchalant, but Jon could hear the deep-seated hatred hidden beneath that indifference.
“On the day the demons invaded… a group of Terror Demons broke into our village. They looted everything they saw and killed everyone they met. To protect my mother and me, my father fought a 3-meter-tall Terror Demon.”
“He must have been scared out of his mind — Terror Demons love to taste fear, so they wouldn’t even kill him right away. My father always had a soft personality and was henpecked. If the neighbors took a bit of our land, he wouldn’t dare say a word in protest. It was always my mother shouting in the streets.”
“But he still lunged forward. He lunged at it alone… He was so silly.”
A misty veil of water appeared in the depths of Io’s eyes.
Jon lowered his head to add wood to the fire, his movements very slow.
He asked with a heavy tone, “What happened next? Did the imperial soldiers not come to save you?”
“Heh, imperial soldiers?”
Io glanced at Jon with a look full of meaning.
She looked down with a contemptuous smile.
“Two months ago… a group of noble retainers broke into our village. They looted everything they saw and killed everyone they met…”
“Why?” Jon stood up in shock.
Io shrugged, her casual demeanor hiding a numbness she had long grown accustomed to.
“Tax evasion. The officer said we didn’t give grain to the nearby garrison, causing them to fight the demons on empty stomachs. He called us rebellious subjects and demon collaborators. But we didn’t even have food for ourselves anymore.”
“It’s all because of those corrupt officials and soldier thugs…”
Jon’s face turned ashen.
He became even more determined to return to the Imperial Capital to clear out these pests.
“Corrupt officials? Soldier thugs?
Ha… alright, I didn’t expect the Lord Hero to be so naive.”
Io showed a clear expression of disappointment.
“Is something wrong?” Jon was confused.
“I don’t want to talk too much with you. I’m afraid your image in my heart will become filthy.”
Io finally finished the skewer of roasted Pupu, eating with the difficulty of someone with bad teeth trying to chew rubber.
Even so, she ate with great relish.
She wiped her hands clean with wild grass and stood up, looking back at Jon with a complicated gaze.
“Lord Hero, let us part ways here. We don’t belong to the same world. You have your glorious future, and I must go find my own way to survive.”
“Your magic…”
Jon started to say, then hesitated.
“Self-taught,” Io said indifferently.
“After the soldiers plundered the village, my mother and I were sold. I was sold to a scoundrel noble. In the bedroom he prepared to assault me, there was a magic book he forgot to put away… I looked at it for a while and suddenly knew how to use it. Then I launched a sneak attack and killed him.”
Io suddenly laughed, but it was a cold, chilling laugh.
“Look at that, Lord Hero. If it weren’t for that coincidence, I would never have known I had the talent for magic. How many commoners like me are buried in the dust throughout the world?”
“Are we really stupider and more useless than them?”
“If that day ever comes… I definitely won’t hoard what I know. I want to share magic so that every commoner in the world can learn it. I want to create a world where everyone can learn magic.”
Io fantasized happily, even though she herself felt it was like a dream.
Jon was also moved by that beautiful vision.
He drifted in thought for a moment before a problem occurred to him.
“What about mana crystals? If it truly comes to that, there won’t be enough mana crystals to go around, right?”
Io shook her head.
“I’ve never used mana crystals.”
“Never?”
Jon couldn’t help but feel shocked and amazed.
‘Unexpectedly… there is someone who can become a Mage without using external mana.’
He didn’t even know how to praise her.
‘Perhaps she is simply an unparalleled genius.’
But then again, mana was a mental power.
This kind of power was strongly linked to personal will, and it indeed had an unpredictable side.
For example, there were often cases on the battlefield where someone would charge forward while shouting about friendship and bonds, only to have a sudden breakthrough and win.
“I understand.”
Jon pulled out a small pouch of mana crystals from his armor, which he used for temporary replenishment, and handed it to Io.
“Can you do me a favor? I want to hire you.”
Io suddenly became alert.
“Hire me? To do what?”
“Help me save people,” Jon said seriously.
Io hesitated for a while but finally accepted the mana crystals.
However, she muttered, “You gave this for nothing. We would have saved them even without these. In this whole world, only we commoners truly care for each other.”
“Take it as an incentive to work a little harder.”
Jon smiled gratifiedly, the gloom on his brow finally easing slightly.
‘A Water Mage’s role is simply too great in a situation like this. Unlike me, who can only kill.’
Io raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she swallowed her words and remained silent.
She weighed the mana crystals in her hand.
Instead of absorbing them immediately, she carefully tucked them into her inner garments.
“Puck has been with me for a long time.”
She showed a very faint smile.
“I promised to teach him magic. It will be much easier with mana crystals.”
Jon smiled too.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a massive roar and the sound of an impact swept in from afar, filling their ears.
Jon and Io both looked toward the source of the noise.
In the distance, the Grey-Yellow Mountains, which had always been hidden in the dark curtain of rain and had lain dormant like a sleeping beast for countless years… had collapsed.
The natural reservoir formed by the mountain peaks burst its banks.
The mountainsides crumbled, triggering a massive landslide.
The mudflow swept up broken timber, mud, and boulders, pouring headlong into the surging white waves of the flood.
The floodwaters, now more violent and rapid, were like fierce ghosts tearing through a gate as they surged toward them.
damn this world is so corrupted it not even funny