Iridescent Spirit - Chapter 52 Reason To Die

“What?” Jae asked Iris. In return, the dryad smiled without a word.

BOOOOM!

A last blast near the dome caused it to collapse into a pile of rubble.

Jae gazed at the crumpled structure before frowning. In the chaos, they had forgotten to recover the magic crystals for Alexis. But, could they not simply dig the crystals out from the ruins?

“Iris! We have to find the others!” Jae was concerned about whether or not his companions were alright.

In return, she smiled, “They should be fine. Shall we take a walk?”

“…not now, Iris. Really,” Jae replied while shaking his head.

“As you like,” Iris held a single light pink flower. Oleander.

Nonchalantly raising a poisonous flower, Iris set it behind Jae’s ear.

“Make sure to be careful,” Iris responded.

“Okay?” Jae replied as Iris’s amber eyes gazed into his own.

Iris and Jae dashed around the collapsed dome. At a distance, he noticed that they had recovered the brain from the demon.

Sighing at the captured demon, Jae felt his efforts at helping the northerners were useless. Without stopping, he navigated around the crowd.

“Jae!” A lizard girl charged at the boy. Avoiding her tackle, Jae glanced at those behind her.

At some point, Scarlett’s group had reunited with Wendy’s. However, Jade and Clara were missing.

“Do you know where Philip is?” Lucy, a member of the Church of Unity, inquired Jae.

“We got separated a while ago. The last time I saw him was in the auction’s backstage,” he replied.

“Philip is quite strong ya know, so I’m not that worried,” Lucy grinned while eyeing Jae, “On the other hand, you’re not bad in appearance. If only you were ten, no, six years older, then I would have aimed for you.”

Half of Jae’s mask was cracked, exposing parts of his face.

“Don’t ogle at Jae! The only ones who could do that are me or Iris!” Scarlett yelled.

“No, no. No one should be looking at me strangely,” he knocked onto Scarlett’s head using his mace. Since he was currently a dryad, he immediately grew flowers onto the exposed part of his face.

“What happened to you girls?” Jae asked. Melody explained how many cultists were killed or captured. Currently, there were only two cultists left roaming around the city.

“Seeing how you all are safe, you girls should leave the city quickly,” Jae ordered.

“How about you?” Melody inquired.

“I’ll go search for Bridget and then meet you girls outside the city up north,” Jae stated while twirling his mace.

“Oh! I’ll come too!” Scarlett declared. Right next to Scarlett, Natalie’s eyes seemed to convey that she wished to search for Bridget as well.

“No,” Jae rejected as he turned to Melody, “Do you have enough magic?”

“I just have an hour before I’m out.”

“Good enough. Melody, come with me. Two people should be enough to find Bridget and the rest. The fewer people, the less of a burden Melody would have to hide our forms away from the masked men,” Jae explained.

“B-but!” Natalie started.

“I’ll like really come along with you to find Philip along the way. Don’t worry little girl, this older sister will keep them safe,” Lucy patted Natalie’s head, “Not sure why you’re on the run, but I can guess that you have some bad blood with the south demon lord.”

“Fine, let’s go.”

——

“Why are you still chasing me?” Bridget cried out while scrambling away on her legs.

“Monster, you dare support the corrupted demons!” The paladin who chased after Jae earlier was currently pursuing Bridget. To humans and those who believed in the Church of the Three Goddesses’ religion, arachnids were considered monsters.

In the human kingdoms, arachnids were treated as monsters in widespread fairy tales. It was not surprising for them to be abhorred as adult arachnids would leave their children to fend off for themselves after giving birth to them.

In order for the children to survive, they would hide in homes and live off of people’s food until they could return to the arachnid’s homeland and join the sisterhood.

Due to this, humans know that if something was missing in their house, then an arachnid was stalking within their home. And, this led to the false tale that arachnids were monsters or corrupted beastmen who would steal people’s children and eat them.

On sight, the human knights would slay arachnids and related insect women species.

Bolting forward, the paladin swung his sword at Bridget. With her flexible body, she twisted forward to avoid being cut at the waist.

“Don’t underestimate an ace runner!” Bridget channeled her mana through her legs and sprinted forward.

Originally, Bridget was a sprinter, however, with her new body, her stamina was incomparable to her previous self. Furthermore, with a body crafted by the goddess of war, Ath, it was no surprise that Bridget could outrun a human knight even if it was just for a few seconds.

But as she bent down, her long hair was cut.

Disregarding her hair, she dashed into an alleyway. Throwing knives into the walls, she created a network of wires in hopes of stopping the paladin.

Nevertheless, the trained warrior hacked away at the wires at ease.

Running past a corner, Bridget spots a dead end. With desperation, she tossed a knife into the walls far above her and pulled herself up.

If there was anything that Bridget did not expect, it would be walking on walls.

Back when she and Jae were tied up in the arachnid incident, Bridget had not noticed how arachnids were as capable as spiders in moving up walls.

Scrambling up the building, she hurriedly reached the roof and glanced down.

Now that she was safe, she observed her surroundings. Kilometers away, the location that the dorm was originally at was missing the structure itself.

“Wait, aren’t they the cultist from the ‘Skull’?” At the dead end, she detected two masked men. One with an antelope mask, and the other, a penguin skull.

Burning feelings gripped at Bridget’s heart as she clenched onto a knife until her palms were numb.

Those people were the ones who cut her legs off.

The people who pulled out her eyes.

The ones who implanted the most despicable bug possible into her.

And, those who she would kill in a few minutes.

——

A single demoness scrambled through the rubble, hoping to find the magic crystals that were lost within. While she found several artifacts and books from the auction, any living thing that was supposed to still be backstage were missing.

“Found them,” a glitter flickered in the corner of Jade’s vision. Tracing the source, she discovered a pile of semi-transparent white crystals. she dug out the magic crystals and deposited them into her sack.

“Jade,” a stern voice sounded from behind the demoness.

Turning around, Jade noticed a girl with fierce emerald eyes and a pair of white wings, “Clara.”

“Do you require any aid?” Clara spoke out while pushing through the rubble with her scythe. Picking up several crystals, she handed the objects to Jade.

“Thank you,” Jade nodded as she continued to collect more crystals.

“How long are you going to avoid telling everyone?”

Jade paused for a moment before shaking her head, “I don’t know. But, I will tell them someday.”

“I still do not understand. Why did you have to drag all of us into your idea of suicide? Because of your mistake, we all died!”

Jade gritted her teeth. Her hands quivered as she nearly dropped a crystal.

Four years ago, the twelve had died because of an explosion. However, only Jade, Alexis, and Clara knew the truth of why anyone would bomb an amusement ride.

And that reason was due to Jade.

“I used to envy you for your talents. Your dedication to the Hargraves family. Your status. But now, I could only see a little girl floundering about haphazardly,” Clara’s emerald eyes fiercely glared at Jade’s sorry figure.

Jade turned toward Clara. With an expression filled with pain, she replied, “I never wanted people to expect things from me nor did I wish to be saved back in the village.”

“I am guilty of getting all of you killed and I will not run away from punishment. Once Alexis is cured, I will leave the group or perish,” Jade declared.

Clara slapped Jade’s face, “You! You do not understand anything, Jade Alethia Hargraves!”

“I did not bring this up to drive you away! I wish to learn the truth of why I must die and leave my family at the worst time possible. Perhaps by now, my entire family had been killed off and reincarnated,” Clara stepped back and pointed her scythe at Jade. The blade curved around the demon’s neck.

From afar, the scene appeared as if an angel of death was judging a lowly demon for her sins.

Jade opened her mouth to tell the unfortunate truth, however, before a single word flowed out, a man shouted in distress nearby.

“I leave for just one moment and look at what happened to my possessions!” A man shrieked.

Jade turned toward the man. With a plain appearance and large round spectacles, the man flipped through a thick book. Stopping his finger at a particular page, he wrote some notes before closing the book.

“Who are you?” He noticed Jade’s gaze.

Jade remained silent while Clara ignored the man’s presence.

“I said, who are you? Answer me or else,” the man narrowed his eyes at the sack within Jade’s hands.

“Wait a minute. Aren’t those my magic crystals? How dare you steal from my auction!”
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