Iridescent Spirit - Chapter 56 Garden Of Ash

On a carriage towed by a two-headed llama were a group of eleven. One figure was distinctively taller than the rest while the rest exposed their non-human aspects.

“Was I was captured by the demon lord’s minions or what? I see several monsters and even a demon in your group. Isn’t it about for me to get an explanation?” Allen Loynd scrutinized the children.

After leaving the city of Rukpten, the children had stopped by a small town in order to restock their supplies and purchase a carriage. During their brief stop, Allen had chanced upon Nora and discovered everyone’s real races.

The children glanced at Jade before she nodded.

“We’re not allied with anyone, but you can say that we have a grudge against Sazroth,” Jae spoke, “Other than that, I guess we’re just a bunch of kids that grouped up with a common goal and a single bond.”

None of the children could trust the auction master who stole from millions and did not discriminate on race, age or gender. No matter how weak or powerful, they were subjective to being stolen by Allen.

Allen considered on running from the children while in the city, however, the moment he tried moving out, Nora noticed and told everyone. Now, the children would alternate in surveilling the man twenty-four seven.

As a result, Jae was not willing to tell anything important about the children to the auction master. While their races were revealed, they still wore a white mask over their faces.

But, this did not include Bridget, who lost her mask and is currently wearing a paper bag over her head, and Jae, whose mask was partially broken.

“But, why are children from different races banning up with monsters?” Allen narrowed his eyes.

Jae answered, “Is there any reason for us not to?”

“…not particularly. I’ve seen monster tamers and hunters journey around with their monster companions, however, none of them were as intelligent as that pink slime right here,” Allen inspected the pink blob.

Instead of joining the conversation, Nora was practicing on manipulating her body into complex shapes. With her amorphic constitution, Nora was able to morph into a pink bunny or a dog. However, she still moved as slow as a snail in terms of speed.

“Nora~, so cute~,” Wendy cuddled the blob while the two-headed horse neighed.

“Yes, yes~. You are cute as well~,” Wendy spoke to the horse.

“Well, you can say that all of us are a tad bit special,” Jae looked toward the towering mountains in the distance, “So, the alchemist is in the town of Poinen, right? Are you for sure that he could fix a crystal golem as long as we provide enough magic crystals and mana?”

“Yeah, but you will have to negotiate with him,” Allen sighed, “The old coot isn’t really a cooperative one if I say so myself. The chances are that you will have to do a request for him in return.”

“Are there any other alchemists nearby that fit the criteria?” Jade asked.

“No. I mean, what do you expect? We’re in Alkbeastia, a country led by beastmen who cannot use a single magic spell properly, not to mention study alchemy,” Allen took out a book from his bag.

When Allen tried to flee, he was able to unbind the vines that bound him using his power of stealing. He basically stole a part of the vine, causing the vines to undo themselves.

After learning about Allen’s power from Nora, who observed the action from the beginning to the end, the children decided that there was no point of restricting Allen’s movements with more rope.

Therefore, they resorted to their current situation of watching over the man. During the way out of the town, Allen had somehow stolen several items including books, bags, and wallets before anyone could blink.

“Why?” Melody joined the conversation.

“Don’t you know that in order to learn or utilize alchemy, one must be able to manipulate mana well, have a sizable capacity, and the correct attribute. Most beastmen do not have unique attributes like those that alchemists require,” Allen explained while flipping through the book, “Therefore, at most, you will find several lower-tiered human alchemists wandering the country for training. But I highly doubt that any would be able to craft a meticulous crystal golem.”

“So, supposing your acquaintance cannot help us, we would need to head to the human empire, correct?” Jade questioned.

“Well, yeah. Other than humans, the elves would be next in line when it comes to alchemy. However, I doubt they would be willing to construct a monster.”

“Poinen should be here,” Clara pointed to a city on the map they bought. Moving over to take a look, the children discovered that Poinen was right next to the closed off entrance to the dwarven mountain ranges.

“How many days do you think it would take us?” Jae asked.

“Around a week, but be sure to avoid the Motionless Lake unless you want to be killed by ghosts. It should be the nearest body of water on that map,” Allen yawned while skimming through several paragraphs. It turned out the random book he snatched for fun was a romance about a domineering man and a Mary Sue. Boring.

Jae checked the map once again and found the area.

“Well, I’m taking a nap. Don’t worry about me running away until we reach Poinen.” Allen mentioned as he laid down on his side.

“Weird man,” Scarlett commented. She was currently preoccupied with holding the reins to the horse and driving the carriage.

After pestering the rest of the group, she was allowed to deal with the horse. Except, the horse did not require a driver for Wendy could give it commands directly.

“What are we going to do after Alexis is fixed?” Bridget asked.

Jae pondered for a moment. While they all fullheartedly wished for revenge against Sazroth, they still needed a vast amount of strength to execute the revenge. No matter what, they would force the demon lord to face retribution and prevent any more victims of his inhumane experiments.

In order to do that, they must defeat the rest of the cultists. Since the last cultist somehow managed to run from them, there was a high probability that Sazroth had an inkling about their location and the fact that they were still alive.

At this rate, they would not be surprised if the demon lord would send more powerful minions after them in order to retrive their bodies for more experiments. After all, according to what Jae had overheard back in Belkchroma, they were one of the few successful experiments out of a hundred.

If not, then the cultists might kill them for targeting their companion’s lives.

Jae shook his head, the probability of the latter happening was far too low considering the lack of loyalty the cultists had for each other.

“Look over there!” Scarlett yelled out.

Jae peeked his head out the carriage. Instead of the view of plain dirt and gravel that he had been observing for the past few days, he witnessed a stunning garden constructed from ash. Swirling patterns were made on the ash surfaces. Behind the garden was a black three-story pagoda seemingly devoid of any lifeforms whatsoever.

“Where are we?” Jae frowned while checking back on the map, “We should be on a clear trail towards Poinen from Ilusin.”

“Scarlett,” Jae called out to the girl, however, she did not reply.

“Scarlett! Did you make a wrong turn somewhere?” Jae shouted, but she did not move. In fact, everyone around him was asleep.

“Eh? Just a second ago, they were all still awake and doing their own things.”

The carriage ran over an uneven slope as Jae rolled over.

“Scarlett! Wake up! Stop the carriage!” Jae screamed. Crawling toward the lizard girl, he tried to pry the reins away from Scarlett.

“Let go!” The reins tore into two as Jae pulled the two headed horses back.

Instead of stopping, they began to sprint forward. The carriage bumped up and down the rugged paths, through the ash gardern. As the beautiful patterns were destroyed, the rope connecting from the horse to the carriage was likewise ripped.

With the reins in hand, Jae was dragged by the horse like a kite in the air for a few seconds before plummetting into the ground.

And, the last thing Jae had seen was a grey orb piercing into his body.
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