Preparing to Enter the City

After rescuing the remaining villagers, Isa confirmed with Aunt Elsa that she too had seen a woman before she lost her memory.

Her description was mostly the same as Kold’s.

She couldn’t recall the face clearly, but the silver anklet that swayed with light on the woman’s leg had left a deep impression on Aunt Elsa.

This intelligence gathered from the villagers was enough for Isa.

Even if she stayed with them any longer, she wouldn’t get any more useful information.

When the knights in the city see their comrades have not returned, they will surely send people to search in the direction they went missing.

It’s only a matter of time before their deaths are discovered.

For Isa, she had rescued the villagers mostly to understand from their own mouths why they had reported her.

She had no obligation to continue protecting them.

If anything, she was the victim of this reporting incident.

If Her Highness Su Ran hadn’t appeared, Isa might have already become a pile of fertilizer in Noda Forest.

Thus, after questioning Aunt Elsa about the black-robed woman, Isa turned and threw herself back into Noda Forest, her figure quickly disappearing among the trees.

Feeling the complete shutdown of his bodily functions, Kold, who had been sinking in a world of pain, breathed a sigh of relief.

He fell into a cold, dark chaos.

It was the end point of all life—death.

However, just as Kold thought he was getting used to this drowning sense of suffocation…

The next moment, control of his limbs returned to him.

Kold groggily woke up.

The first thing that entered his vision was a piercing sunlight, and he tried to raise a hand to block it.

Gradually, his vision began to return, and Kold saw the azure sky.

“Did I go to heaven?”

Kold sat up, but was startled by a clattering sound around him.

“Are you all dead too? Didn’t you escape those knights?”

Looking over, he saw the familiar faces of the villagers.

Every one of them was looking at him with a horrified expression.

Someone even dropped the plate they were holding.

The sound he had just heard was from that falling plate.

“Kold’s come back as a revenant!”

Facing the somewhat horrified villagers, Kold spent a great deal of effort explaining to them the fact that he was, in fact, still alive.

Seeing the horrified gazes of the villagers directed at Kold, Isa, sitting on a treetop, showed a rare, mischievous smile.

She casually plucked an apple hanging from a branch and took a bite.

The potion she had given Kold was a derivative of her anesthetic potion.

A few days of sun exposure would be enough for its effects to disappear.

If the villagers hadn’t done as she said and had simply buried Kold in the ground, then they couldn’t blame her.

Isa had given him a chance to survive; whether he could seize it was Kold’s and the villagers’ own problem.

For the past few days, Isa hadn’t set out for Laita City.

Instead, she had stayed near Noda Forest, finding a place to camp where she could see the village.

There were more magical beasts here than deeper inside the forest.

Since she had dealt with the knights escorting the villagers, she had gradually seen some soldiers exploring in this direction over the past two days.

Isa had tossed them all to the side of the road with anesthetic potions.

She had shown mercy to these ordinary soldiers and had not killed them all.

If she killed too many at once, it could easily cause the remaining knights to bow to fierce public pressure and come for revenge.

Simply giving a warning and letting them retreat in the face of difficulty was enough.

With Kold’s awakening, the villagers’ migration was gradually coming to an end.

Isa no longer needed to keep watch around the village.

It was time for her to continue on to her destination: Laita City.

This time, her purpose in heading to Laita City was no longer to see the escorted villagers, but to take a carriage to other places.

She had heard that in places beyond the Church’s jurisdiction, there was a paradise built by witches.

Isa believed that Her Highness Su Ran would like that place.

When the sky was stained orange-red, Isa, who had been traveling for the better part of the day, finally saw a black line belonging to Laita City.

The city walls, built from neatly-edged stone bricks, stood majestically.

Posts were manned at intervals of about fifty paces.

The sturdy city wall could withstand the impact of a beast tide.

This was the most important concern of the first lord of Laita City.

He had hoped to continuously reinforce the walls to protect his people from the scourge of beast tides.

But now, his descendants merely maintained this wall.

As for the work of reinforcing it, it had never been carried out.

Outside the city walls, a long line of returning mercenaries and merchants preparing to enter the city had formed.

If they missed the time when the city gates were open, they could only find an empty spot nearby to rest for the night and wait until the gates reopened tomorrow to enter.

Lately, there were always rumors about a beast tide, and the magical beasts in Noda Forest were clearly restless.

No one was willing to make do outside the city after dark.

Who knew, they might go to sleep and never wake up again.

The cloaked Isa did not stand out in this crowd of returning people, as many mercenaries also wore a cloak over their armor.

Whether it was to prevent enemies from seeing their defenses or to confuse them about the direction of an attack, outsiders did not pay much attention to the cloaked Isa.

However, the chestnut hair peeking out from under her hood exposed her female identity, attracting whistles from many boorish mercenaries.

To avoid any extra trouble, Isa treated these taunts as wind by her ear, choosing neither to acknowledge nor to respond.

If it were anywhere else, Isa would have definitely forced a bottle of anesthetic potion down their throats and sent them on their way with her sword.

Aside from the whistles, these mercenaries outside Laita City did not dare to do anything too excessive.

After ignoring them, Isa took a rare moment to survey Laita City, a city she had only visited a few times.

The two knights guarding the city gate, their silver-white armor indicated they were not part of the city lord’s motley army, but true Church knights.

Upon seeing the knights, vigilance immediately rose in Isa’s heart.

She had never seen well-equipped Church knights personally guarding a gate before.

There were already people lining up behind Isa.

With the sky growing dark, no one would suddenly abandon the queue.

If Isa wanted to slip away, she would definitely attract the attention of the Church knights.

The only thing she could do now was to follow the crowd and act according to the situation.

Normally, entering the city did not require a Holy Stone test.

To be on the safe side, Isa’s hand under her cloak had already taken out both anesthetic and smoke potions from her ring.

If the knights showed even a hint of suspicion, Isa would immediately smash the vials and escape in the ensuing chaos.

Still, Isa was confident she could escape from the pursuit of two knights.

Amidst her anxiety, Isa soon approached the city entrance guarded by the Church knights.