Chapter 17: Day 17

“Hey, hey, wake up.”

The girl said, poking the unconscious bandit leader.

But the unconscious bandit leader had no intention of waking up no matter how much she called or poked him.

Although it was a rather small camp, there were still dozens of buildings.

Searching through all those buildings one by one would be a waste of time.

So the girl clicked her tongue and unfolded the steel fan.

The moment it unfolded with a snap!, she named it the ‘Black Wind Fan’.

“Wake up.”

The girl swung it at the unconscious bandit leader without hesitation.

With a fluttering sound, a black wind rose along the trajectory of the swung Black Wind Fan.

It was the moment that black wind brushed past the leader’s left hand.

Flash!

“Aaaaaaaagh-!”

As soon as the black wind passed by, the leader’s eyes flashed open and he screamed terribly.

The leader’s left hand that the black wind had passed by.

It was decaying and melting.

First, the skin melted away.

Then, tumors swelled up in various places on the flesh and burst, causing the skin to melt away.

Again, tendons and nerves decayed and subsided.

Finally, holes pierced the white bones, turning them into a handful of dust.

The time it took for that process was only about 3 seconds.

Meanwhile, the leader, who had lost his left hand in an instant, was constantly screaming ‘Aaaaaaaagh!’.

“Be quiet.”

Smack-.

The girl’s hand moved like lightning and slapped the screaming leader’s cheek.

The bandit leader, who was in a panic, screaming at the decaying left hand, was belatedly alerted to the sound.

Slap! With the sound, another pain that penetrated his mind made him barely recognize the girl’s existence.

A girl in black clothes, with black hair and black eyes like the abyss.

As the leader looked down at the girl looking down at him, he momentarily forgot the pain and thought, ‘What?’.

Then he saw that the girl’s right hand was holding the steel fan that the monster who had forcibly contracted with him used to carry.

“Hic-!”

The leader hiccuped without realizing it.

At that sound, the girl’s brow furrowed slightly, and the leader, who was constantly hiccuping, desperately suppressed the hiccups that were trying to come out and said carefully.

“D, do you need something from me?”

The leader’s eyes, asking the girl, reflected the terrible sight of his subordinates groaning in pain and crawling on the ground like worms.

Why were his subordinates lying on the ground in such a state?

While he was unconscious, did the monster in the guise of a girl smash all their limbs?

No, no.

It wasn’t.

His subordinates were in that state even before he fainted.

He fainted because he couldn’t overcome the fear that surged the moment he saw his subordinates with their limbs completely smashed, crawling on the ground like worms, and the monster standing among them.

The moment he thought that far.

Throb-!

‘Ugh!’

The leader groaned inwardly at the terrible pain from the place where his left hand had decayed and melted away.

As expected, this one in front of him was also a monster, not a human, just like that one.

The only difference was that the previous monster was wearing the guise of a young man.

The current monster was wearing the guise of a girl.

Meanwhile, the girl smiled at the leader who was forcing himself to endure the pain and reading her mood.

“You know the owner of this fan, right?”

“Y, yes, of course.”

The leader answered quickly to the girl’s question.

The fear that he might suffer something if he hesitated even a little led the leader to a reaction speed close to the limit of an ordinary person.

“Then there must be a building that that idiot used somewhere in this camp?”

“T, that’s….”

At the repeated question, the leader’s expression momentarily contorted in embarrassment.

At that, the girl’s brow furrowed again as if uncomfortable.

“N, no! There was no building that that bastard used in this camp!”

“None?”

“T, that’s right! None!”

Tsk.

The girl clicked her tongue at the leader’s desperate cry.

She thought it would be hidden somewhere in the camp since he wouldn’t have revealed it openly.

But it didn’t exist at all.

If she had just started searching on her own, she would have wasted her time.

Well, still.

‘It’s not like there’s no way.’

The bandit leader clearly said there was none ‘inside’ this camp.

That meant that somewhere outside the camp, there must be a building that that idiot used.

So.

“Guide me.”

“Y, yes? W, what…?”

“Guide me to the building that that idiot used.”

Chwaak-.

As the girl said that and unfolded the Black Wind Fan again, the pain from the decayed, melted, and now completely disappeared left hand became even more intense, and the leader got up from his seat in fright.

“I, I’ll guide you!”

The girl gestured at the leader’s cry.

Following the girl’s gesture, the leader passed by his squirming subordinates on the ground, went outside the camp.

Furthermore, the girl called him ‘idiot’, and moved towards the building where the ‘monster in the guise of a young man’ who once forced an unfair contract on him resided.

“H, here it is.”

A place not far from the camp.

The place where the bandit leader, who was sweating profusely but still diligently traversing the mountain range, arrived was a huge cliff.

A cliff with a slope close to 90 degrees, where ordinary people wouldn’t even dare to climb.

The problem was, the place the leader guided to was not a ‘building’, not even a shadow of it.

It was a place with only cliffs and cliffs. And more cliffs.

The leader, who was forced to be a guide, closed his eyes tightly.

He had seen that monster disappear here from time to time, so he guided her with a glimmer of hope, but…

‘I’m dead.’

There was no building, not even a cave to enter, and the leader thought he was a dead man.

But.

“Hmm.”

The girl’s reaction when she arrived in front of the cliff was strange.

The girl was scanning the cliff with a strange light in her narrowed eyes.

How long had the girl been scanning the cliff like that?

That tense time passed….

“You can go.”

“Y, yes?”

“Go.”

At the leader’s question, the girl frowned as if annoyed and flicked the Black Wind Fan.

The leader’s eyes widened as if he didn’t expect to survive, and then he ran away as if fleeing.

Meanwhile, the girl who was left alone.

“Such a useless act.”

She muttered that while looking at the cliff, then flicked her fingers without hesitation.

Six Flicking Fingers Sword Art, Modified.

Twelve Demonic Fingers Sword Art.

From the flicked fingers, twelve black sword lights penetrated various parts of the cliff.

So smoothly.

The twelve sword lights penetrated without any resistance.

The moment the twelve sword lights penetrated a certain part of the cliff, the girl felt something hard being chipped away.

At that moment, the illusion that covered the cliff was lifted, and a huge cave entrance, large enough for even a huge beast to enter, appeared.

“Found it.”

A thick Demonic Qi was slowly seeping out from the entrance of the cave.

However, it was not ordinary Demonic Qi.

It was Demonic Qi mixed with a deadly poison made from rotten corpses.

Ordinary people would melt just by approaching it.

Even Qi Condensation stage cultivators wouldn’t be able to approach it easily. Only Foundation Establishment stage cultivators could resist it to some extent. It was such a deadly Demonic Qi.

The girl walked towards the cave where such Demonic Qi was seeping out without hesitation.

It’s full of Demonic Qi mixed with deadly corpse poison?

So what?

For the girl, who cultivated the Demonic Art, an environment like the cave in front of her was an excellent source of nourishment.

Although she was somewhat dissatisfied that it was mixed with the impurity of corpse poison, if used well, it could be a useful material.

So, with a confident gait, the girl entered the cave, and what unfolded before her eyes was.

“What a mess.”

A large space deep inside the cave.

In the center of it, there was a huge jar, and around the jar, rotten corpses were strewn all over the place.

Regardless of age or gender, corpses that were left in a state of advanced decay.

There were over 60 of them, and it seemed that they were using the corpses of vagrants who lived hidden in various parts of the Central Mountain Range.

Perhaps the traces of the battle she felt a few days ago were also to procure corpses using the bandits.

One question arose.

“They were clearly trying to make something.”

The girl muttered, scanning the jar. And the corpses.

Decaying.

Rotten and falling apart.

Melting.

Over 60.

Corpses of humans regardless of age or gender.

The terrible sight would have been enough to make even the most battle-hardened person look away and gag, but it didn’t evoke any emotion in the girl.

What the girl felt now was just curiosity.

What the hell did that idiot go through all this trouble to make?

At first glance, it seemed to be for refining a treasure.

But on second thought, it also seemed like he put in this effort to make an elixir…

“That’s?”

The girl’s eyes, which had been looking around for a long time, lit up.

At the end of the cave.

There, another concealment formation was located.

A concealment formation made using a total of twenty-four spirit stones, double the twelve spirit stones used to cover the entrance of the cave.

When she poked it, she felt a considerable repulsive force, so it seemed that something quite important was hidden.

“Let’s open it up.”

The girl grinned and flicked her fingers.

Six Flicking Fingers Sword Art, Modified.

Split, Twelve Demonic Fingers Sword Art.

The twelve black sword lights created by flicking her fingers split and created a total of twenty-four black sword lights that flew through the air.

They shattered the twenty-four spirit stones.

As the spirit stones that supplied spiritual energy were shattered, the concealment formation lost its power and faded away.

And what appeared in the place where the concealment formation disappeared was three books.