The Boss King actually disguised himself as a novice village chief?!
Chapter 185 - 171 Morena’s Scabbard

Chapter 185: Chapter 171 Morena’s Scabbard

The moderately sized Tomorrow’s Magic School hardly had an atmosphere of learning; it wasn’t a school at all, just a repository for the knowledge treasures a book thief had hoarded.

Morena discovered that the situation at Tomorrow’s Magic School was somewhat different from what Dome had described, but she didn’t care—they were merely cooperating with each other, each taking what they needed.

They could also betray each other at critical times without harboring any resentment or hatred.

Perhaps this was the tacit understanding between the "rational" and the "wise."

The establishment of Crying Town was an accident; Morena, while listening to stories of "Molly’s Scabbard" from her sister, had inadvertently come to Soul Valley with a group of people.

There were not many of them, just huddling together for warmth.

But one day, Morena’s sister acquired great power, became a powerful witch, and naturally was chosen as the leader, becoming the town mayor of Crying Town.

Under Morena’s sister’s leadership, they built walls to fend off monsters and patched up dilapidated houses to shield against the bitter cold. Everything progressed towards something better—even Morena became a witch with her sister’s help.

Her talent for concocting Magic Potions was quite good. While her sister led the development of Crying Town, Morena used Magic Potions to help the townsfolk endure long nights of severe illness, striving for that last gasp of survival.

Everything should have been moving toward improvement.

Yet one day, Morena noticed her sister acting strangely; she began to shun contact with the outside world as though something was influencing her, and she often spent nights listening to some whispering entity.

Time and again, Morena, hiding in corners, saw her sister kneeling on the ground, responding to the entity’s commands, repeatedly assuring and waiting for something to come, questioning, talking to herself, praying.

The gods had disappeared—this was a consensus reached by the whole world.

Only the Mad Wise Ones, Heretic Cultists, Redeemers, Saints of Rites, and the like—essentially all the madmen—would listen to the word of gods.

This state didn’t last long each day, and Morena noticed that her sister had never realized what was happening. Whenever she asked her sister whom she had been talking to, her sister would look bewildered and tell Morena to stop joking.

But Morena knew that her sister had changed, or rather, her soul had been contaminated by something.

Her way of doing things had completely altered, so had her life—it seemed to have become wholly about living for someone else. This filled Morena with such fear on many nights that she curled up into a ball, too terrified to even breathe.

If one’s thoughts are completely twisted and one loses oneself, is a person still the same even if their soul and body haven’t changed?

Morena remembered "Molly’s Scabbard," her favorite story. Brave Molly, in search of freedom, found the scabbard for that treasured sword and drove it into her father’s chest, a father who cared nothing for her happiness and only wished to sell her for a good price.

So for her sister’s freedom, Morena, on one clear morning, took a sword to her sister’s room. She gripped the Longsword in both hands as she pierced her sister’s chest, blood splattering on her face, scalding hot.

Now she had found the scabbard.

A scabbard that could grant her sister freedom, and belonged to Morena.

It was a pity that until the end, her sister never awoke from the state of contamination.

Morena replaced her sister and became the town mayor of Crying Town.

People didn’t know what had happened; they thought the sister had died practicing magic. They were merely terrified, most of them blind and cowardly.

And Morena had never been fond of these residents who lived in shelter but knew nothing.

Overhearing conversations countless times, Morena roughly understood that her sister was waiting for someone predicted to come to Crying Town, whether because of a prophecy or something else. In any case, something was bound to arrive.

To welcome the person from the "prophecy," Morena delved into studying magic. She became somewhat mad, but madness at times was a tonic for delving into magic.

Gradually, she took a path she couldn’t have imagined, extracting people’s consciousness and souls as if the land itself was guiding her on what to do.

When Morena came to her senses, the entire population of Crying Town had become vacant, clumsy, and unthinking under her influence.

No one would be contaminated anymore.

Next, she would continue waiting.

And when that group of strangely dressed people appeared, Morena knew very clearly... it was them!

The terrible entity that polluted her sister’s mind had made her sister wait for them.

Morena chose to accept these people; she observed them, slowly trying to discover what was special about them.

She found that these people talked in a bizarre manner, would suddenly disappear when sleeping, felt no pain, and would resurrect in some corner of Crying Town after death.

This also meant she couldn’t trap them, torture them, or even kill them.

Morena could only suppress this group of people with all her might; she was helpless against someone who would not die, trying not to let them be dissatisfied but also not too powerful.

Just wait a little longer, drag it out, and maybe there would be a way.

Morena felt powerless.

These undying beings had no reverence for the powerful; she even dared not present herself before them because she had found these people to be obsessively fixated on "killing monsters."

Until one day, an old man came to Crying Town, claiming to be Dome.

Dome also noticed the peculiarities of the undead; he first clarified his identity to Morena - he came from Leon City, where the City Lord was powerful and seemed to have received some prophecy, instructing his subordinates to go to various places without specifying what was needed, but it was vague and unexplained.

Upon seeing the undead, Dome was certain that what the Lord desired were the Undead.

However, those details didn’t matter anymore, as Dome had no intentions of handing over the treasured Undead to Lord Leon; he himself had no fondness for prophecies.

Dome asked Morena if she was interested in the Undead.

These beings who could not die were like a gift sent from heaven, which could help him grasp more knowledge more quickly.

Morena’s thirst for knowledge was not great; she only wanted to know who had brought these things, and then she wanted to cut off that thing’s head... if it had one.

The two struck a deal promptly, and with her time spent observing and researching the Undead, Morena helped Dome concoct a recruitment flyer for a school of magic.

She had heard from her sister’s stories that some magic schools recruited in this manner.

They indeed succeeded in luring the Undead into Tomorrow’s School of Magic.

Now Dome was using the Undead for various kinds of research.

Morena also picked up magic; her research into souls was deepening.

But the unsettling unknown always arrives, and a ghostly spy that Morena had left in Crying Town as a substitute for her own eyes saw some uninvited guests.

According to Dome, those people should be from the Old Nobility forces, who, it’s said, had been driven mad after the Ring of Magic had shattered, no different from Calamity, yet stronger than Calamity due to the Ring of Magic.

The fact that the newcomers rode Catastrophe Warhorses also verified their identity.

So, Morena chose to manipulate one of the weak-willed amongst them; she was successful in controlling the person, but also failed, only managing to keep them barely in check, unable to progress further.

And now Morena must hurry to find Dome, because just moments ago, while standing at the window, she saw a muscular Golden General wielding a huge metal plate, splitting open the gates of the castle.

From the Catastrophe Warhorse ridden by the newcomer, it seemed likely that they were from the same faction as the Old Nobility forces trapped by Morena.

In this castle, they had dozens of Undead, along with one to two hundred inhabitants of Crying Town, as well as two wizards - herself and Dome.

Yet the opposing side had only three people.

Trouble had come, but it shouldn’t be a big problem; she remained calm.