An Aura Farmer's Guide to Another World
Chapter 60: The truth

Chapter 60: The truth

’Clop-clop.’

The fight was over; we won and lost at the same time. Joseph was dead, so was Joséphine, and Lady Beatrice.

Cupcake and I rode in a carriage drawn by two horses. Behind us, Lucy and Evelyn followed in another.

’Creakkkkk!’

The gates of Château de Cerises (Cherry Castle) creaked open. Beyond the château’s outer walls, we found ourselves facing an additional wall crafted entirely from cherry trees.

"Blood Art Technique: Inverted Square."

A 3×3×3 meter cube took shape, extending from my spot at the rear of our carriage to the one trailing behind.

Evelyn lay across the carriage seats, her head nestled in Lucy’s lap. Lucy gently twirled a strand of her hair as Evelyn remained still, unconscious.

They seem peaceful.

By the time the fight ended, Lucy’s fire had already consumed the bodies of Lady Beatrice and Joséphine.

’Clop-clop.’

We moved along a broadway lined with cherry trees, their blossoms guiding us toward the mansion’s entrance.

"Wait a minute."

My eyes settled on a cherry tree beyond the glass, but just for a second, it looked like a ladder stood there instead.

Then it struck me—the image didn’t come through my ocean eyes, but from my third.

With my eyes shut, I tuned into the vision granted by the cube. That’s when I noticed it: each fifth cherry tree concealed a ladder, reaching into an underground tunnel.

"Could you please drop me off?" I asked the driver.

The carriage came to a halt. Cupcake placed her hand on my thigh. "Where are you going?" she asked, her voice low.

I slid her hand away. "My body’s too hot. I need air—figured the cherry trees could lend me some."

"We’re thirty feet from the mansion. What good will that meager distance do you?"

’Click.’

I opened the door and stepped out. "Relax. I’ll catch up in a moment."

"Get back inside," Cupcake demanded. "We have important things to discuss once we’re in the mansion."

’Slam.’

I shut the door behind me. "Just a minute," I said, meeting Cupcake’s eyes. Then I turned away, curiosity already pulling me forward.

My sword swayed at my waist as I walked, hands in my pockets, beneath the watchful bloom of cherry trees.

A breeze swept past, scattering cherry blossoms around me. One clung to my hair—I plucked it free without thinking.

Lady Beatrice is gone. What good could a ladder, stuck inside a cherry tree, possibly do at this point? My mind was a mess.

’Knock-knock.’

I tapped each tree as I walked until one sounded hollow. I circled it slowly, searching for an entrance, but found none.

I stepped off the walkway and into the cherry garden, where trees stretched in every direction, growing wild, without pattern.

I opened my third eye and swept the grove. Most ladders hidden inside the trees led nowhere; dead ends, likely booby-trapped.

I activated the imaginary eye within each tree, peering downward through bark and root into the tunnel below.

"Found you."

After wandering without direction, I found it; a tree with a hatch waiting at the bottom of its ladder.

’Knock-knock.’

I knocked on the cherry tree, and it was hollow inside. I circled it, my hands touching it as I searched for an entrance, but there was none.

I drew my sword and drove it into the tree. The blade sank deep until it struck metal, ringing against a hidden tube.

I drove my blade into different points until it pierced through, revealing the ladder. Then, gauging in the ladder’s direction, I carved a small rectangle, cutting away the wood that hid the entrance.

’Thud-thud.’

I squeezed through the narrow gap and gripped the metal ladder. Step by step, I descended until a hatch met me two meters down.

I wrestled the hatch open in the darkness. The moment it cracked, warm orange light flooded upward, tightening my brow.

The ladder descended through the hatch, and I followed it into the basement hidden beneath the surface.

The moment my feet touched the floor, my world was shattered, my heart, and my soul.

The scene before me could’ve been torn from a sci-fi thriller: a bio lab developed by a mad scientist hidden from the world.

I turned slowly on the same axis, my boots silent on the floor. All around me, naked women hovered midair, weightless, suspended, unreal.

The women floated in green fluid, each suspended in a glass tube. One of them wasn’t fully human, her body was half person half catfish.

The lab felt stitched from fever dreams. A cat with a human face blinked slowly behind the glass. A spider swayed beside it, crowned with the head of a woman, hair flowing like silk in the fluid.

Among the tubes were ordinary women; no tails, no mutations. Just them, still and silent.

They saw me and pounded on the glass, mouthing silent pleas. But then the bluish fluid filled their cylinders, and their bodies began to shift, twisting, warping, becoming something else.

’Thud-thud.’

Footsteps echoed through the lab. I shifted into a battle stance, blade low. "Who’s there?" I called out.

From the dim heart of the lab, Lady Beatrice stepped forward; Lily and Joséphine flanking her like shadows stitched to her will.

I stepped back. "This can’t be...."

I stepped back. "You’re dead. I watched it happen. You died in my hands."

Lady Beatrice smiled and glanced my way. Without a word, she began to split, one self remaining still, the other unraveling into Joséphine.

"This can’t be," I said, staring hard. "How are there two of you?"

Beatrice snapped her fingers. In an instant, the clones vanished like illusions never meant to hold shape.

Beatrice moved closer, her eyes locked on mine. I didn’t flinch, my blade was already drawn, aimed at her heart.

Her voice didn’t rise, it didn’t need to. "Of all people in this world, Demon King, I’m the last person you should let die."

Hold on. When she called me a Demon King the first time we met, she wasn’t just messing around, she actually knew my true identity as his reincarnation. The system wanted me to kill her. Was it because she knew who I really was, or was there another reason entirely?

"You broke my trust," I said, voice low. I slid the sword back into its sheath and stepped closer.

Her smile didn’t fade as I reached out, gripping her throat. "Because of you, lives were shattered. And still... you keep playing god underground."

Beatrice lifted her chin, hands resting gently on mine. The orange lanterns were highlighting her form.

"You watched Joseph turn into a monster didn’t you."

"What does that have to do with any of this?"

Her gaze shifted, finger pointing to a tube. Inside, a woman floated motionless. "Look," Beatrice murmured.

The hiss of injection reached my ears as I turned. Blue fluid flowed into the chamber. Her body spasmed and reshaped.

In moments, a human-faced insect stared back.

"Since the Great Plague, a deadly disease swept across the globe, decimating the population from ten billion to one. The infection consumed mana reserves, and when a person’s mana dropped to zero, they transformed into monsters; a process known as mana paralysis. But those who willfully overused their own mana, knowing the risk and embracing the abyss, faced a different fate. Their transformation was called mana reversion."

I released Lady Beatrice and turned fully toward the bug cylinder. "What happened to that girl?" I asked, pointing.

Lady Beatrice touched the cylinder gently. "This one was infected," she said, glancing at me. "I did all I could—but mana paralysis took her."

I stepped beside her, staring into the tank. "Does the queen know about this research?" I asked.

Beatrice chuckled, casting a glance over her shoulder. "You weren’t sent to guard me," she said softly. "You were sent to watch. The queen thought the lowest-ranked of the House of Sinners would keep me from raising my guard."

Lady Beatrice turned, striding toward Lily and Joséphine. "We don’t have much time," she said. "Prepare everything."

"Wait!" I called out, voice low but firm. "What makes you think I won’t tell the queen what I saw and that you’re still breathing?"

Joséphine flicked her gaze toward me, then to the sword at her waist. Lily, meanwhile, kept walking deeper into the lab.

Beatrice slipped a folded page into my palm, its surface covered with rows of numbers. "Mana paralysis isn’t a disease," she said quietly. "That’s the lie they chose. The truth is older and worse."

Beatrice turned her back to me and walked away. "Only I know what you are—the Demon King reborn. And I alone can help you see this world for what it is. That paper holds a radio frequency known only to me. Listen to it from time to time. I’ll reach out."

"Wait.." I called out to her.

"Look at me," Joséphine called. I met her gaze.

Behind her, Lily stepped back into view, the weight of a box filled with scattered papers in her arms.

"I am also a succubus, a high-ranking one at that," Joséphine said.

’Snap!’

Josephine snapped her fingers. A red circle laced with runes bloomed across the lab floor, bathing everything in a faint crimson glow.

’Pop!’

In a flash of red light, Joséphine vanished, taking Beatrice and Lily with her.

"Shit!"

A pipe burst above me, spewing fluid across the lab. It spread fast, then thickened, hardening layer by layer into stone.

I scrambled up the ladder, the rising fluid close behind. As I emerged through the tunnel carved in the cherry tree, I rolled clear, just in time to watch the liquid surge upward and harden, sealing the entrance shut.

Walking out of the cherry garden, my thoughts were unstable, and I started to connect some of the dots.

On our way to Silver Bell, I saw scores of abandoned cities and monsters roaming around the wasteland. Could it be that the disease was spread in these abandoned cities, turning the inhabitants into monsters? If the disease indeed is unnatural, as Lady Beatrice suggested, what evil force could be responsible for it?

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