Volume 3 Chapter 118-3 The Decline Of Silverwooloo I
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”────”
The woman’s dog ears twitched, probing Kian’s heartbeat.
Serena finally looked up and said, “Mother, Kian is my comrade.”
”What does this mean?”
Serena’s mother—indeed, Mrs. Colinna—stood up and looked around at the faces. Behind Kian, the Wolfmen warriors began to stir, and their leader raised his hand with a small smile, as if saying, “This is getting interesting.”
”Hello, Colinna.”
”Sven… How did you know this place? What is Barghest doing?”
”We came to rescue you from that Barghest.”
”What? I don’t need rescuing. I am here of my own will. Please, everyone, leave here now──”
”Hey! It’s the leader! The kids from Silverwooloo are here too!”
Voices rose from the warriors crouching in the shadow of the black Roses hedge.
”W-What is this!?”
”Everyone’s half turned to stone!”
”There’s something drawn with blood, like a magic circle!”
”Don’t touch it!”
Mrs. Colinna screamed.
”Leave there immediately, you brats!”
”Hey, hey, Ms. Colinna. We aren’t doing anything.”
Kian stepped closer to the Roses hedge and once again confirmed the sight of several people trapped by thorn-covered vines at the base of the large tree.
All of them were Wolfmen.
From elderly to young children.
There were overwhelmingly more children.
Their lower bodies had turned to Black Onyx, and they were fixed in place on the magic circle, staring downward.
Were they unconscious──?
No, some of them had turned into mummies, drained of life and perished.
”Please step back! Right now! Do not touch the circle!”
Mrs. Colinna gave sharp instructions to the warriors. She pushed Kian, who was peeking through the hedge, back, and Sarah, who had been standing next to him, grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away from the large tree.
Starting with Kian, and even Rean, who is usually calm, no words could be uttered at the grotesque object seated in the center of the square.
”M-mother? What, what is this supposed to mean?”
After a long silence, the first to speak was Serena.
She widened her light blue eyes and stared intently at the large old man trapped under the big tree.
”Father──”
”……”
Mrs. Colinna listened to her daughter’s trembling voice and seemed unable to refuse any longer.
She took out some magic tool from her pocket, looked once more toward Serena, and then put the magic tool back into her pocket.
She looked around at Kian and the others in turn, then calmly opened her mouth.
”Please do not speak of what you saw here to anyone. ──Serena, I’m sorry.”
”Mother, what exactly is going on?”
”I will tell everything. So please, go beyond that barrier and do not approach Glen and the others. I beg of you.”
The madam bowed deeply toward Kian and Sarah.
Kian and Sarah exchanged glances, then turned back to the madam and nodded once.
* * *
The group moved to the corner of the square where the madam had been sleeping.
Around the sleeping bag she used, there were stacked buckets filled with water and wooden boxes containing food.
The madam was likely about the same age as Barghest, or a little younger, but sitting cross-legged in the sleeping bag made her look incredibly aged.
Kian and the others sat in a fan shape around the madam, lowering their waists.
”This happened about three months ago. My son, Ozeas Silverwooloo, was brutally murdered by some unknown person.”
The madam simply spoke those words and then let out a deep, tired sigh.
”Ozeas, to be exact, is not my son. He was Harriette’s child──Glen’s first wife. The first person to find Ozeas torn to pieces was Harriette herself, apart from Serena, who had collapsed with him. Harriette loved Ozeas deeply and held a near-reverent admiration for him. Because of witnessing her son’s brutal death, she seemed to have lost her mind somewhere inside.”
The madam continued.
”This is something Harriette confessed herself. Harriette received a record from Tersea, who had been assisting Barghest, about our ancestor’s adventure to a vampire ancient ruins in search of a potion that could resurrect the dead.”
”Tersea? That gloomy woman was the Head shaman?”
”Hey, shut up.”
The Wolfman leader who was sitting next to Kian, gave his companion a light jab.
The madam made a difficult face before nodding.
”That’s right. It was the law of the pack for a woman to serve her husband and protect the house. However, Tersea──As everyone knows, her betrothed kept dying one after another as if cursed, and in the end, there was no one left to marry. She had no house to protect. She must have been spending the time she should have used for her family on magical research under Barghest.”
”Serena, do you know Tersea?”
”Just her face and voice. And the clothes she usually wears. I’ve never played with her, and she’s always holed up in the pavilion and never comes out, so I don’t know her very well.”
”Everyone, let’s just listen to the continuation of Mrs. Colinna’s story.”
Sarah prompted, and madam Colinna began to speak again.
”Harriette and Tersea were both followers of Ozeas. Ozeas treated even Tersea, who had no one to talk to, without discrimination. They collaborated to decipher their ancestor’s records and found the method to summon the ‘spirit of the Black Onyx’ that could grant any wish within them.”
”────”
Rean let out a small sigh.
Several people looked at him, but Rean quickly feigned calm.
The madam continued her story.
”Harriette and Tersea gathered the warriors of Silverwooloo who worshipped Ozeas, convinced them, and set off for this ancient temple to summon the spirit of the Black Onyx. ────Together with the sacrifices that would be offered during the summoning.”
”Surely not────”
”The wife and her children other than myself were put to sleep, and then they were carried to this temple on a rare insect monster that Ozeas obtained from Azrael. During the funeral period, the warriors drank themselves into drunkenness, and Glen and I shared a bed that night. The reason I wasn’t taken away was by chance. The reason Serena wasn’t taken away──”
”was because I was receiving treatment for poison inflicted by the ‘Death Sword User’ at the Barghest lodge.”
”That’s right.”
”It’s unimaginable that Grandma Harriette would do something like that…”
”Harriette did not get along well with Glen. Glen preferred young females over his wife who had been with him for many years. Still, Harriette had Ozeas. If he became the next leader, I could live within the herd as the mother of the leader──. But because Ozeas died, everything really disappeared, didn’t it?”
”It’s not nothing. If everyone lived together happily, that would have been fine.”
Colinna smiled at Serena and then looked up at the ceiling of the temple.
”Harriette apparently summoned a spirit of Black Onyx here. The summon was successful. A dark-skinned man with black eyes appeared within the summoning circle. The man understood Harriette’s situation to some extent and presented her with a way to ‘restore’ Ozeas’s body.”
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply