No matter what the adventurers and mercenaries in the tavern thought, the kings and lords of every nation seemed to have always taken this prophecy seriously.
Juan also said that Duke Alma seemed particularly concerned with the prophecy and had even explicitly ordered that any intelligence related to the Child of Prophecy be delivered to him.
Li Ang could understand the mentality of the current ruling class—if the so-called prophecy was true, it meant the continent would be reshuffled, and the current kings and lords probably would not meet good ends...
And if the prophecy was false, it still needed to be watched closely, lest another ambitious schemer stir up trouble under the name of the Child of Prophecy.
To the ruling class, even the slightest stir was political.
"So, your organization thinks this bounty might be connected to the prophecy?"
Li Ang more or less understood the reason now.
"...No, not just that... It seems that the last Princess of the Old Pendor Kingdom over a hundred years ago had black hair and black eyes—and supposedly, she fled the Pande Continent when the kingdom fell. Of course, that's only our guess..."
Juan gestured as he explained haltingly.
That guess was fairly plausible.
If it was connected to the Old Pendor royal family, along with Madigan's Prophecy, then the bounty and pursuit made sense.
All the current kingdoms on the Pande Continent had been built upon the corpse of the Old Pendor Kingdom, especially the Lionheart Kingdom.
They would certainly spare no effort in wiping out any possible descendants of the Old Pendor royal family.
A dangerous "banner" that could shake the foundations of their rule could only be killed by mistake, never spared.
Lyon Griffin's parents—the knight who refused to mention the name of his order, and the noblewoman who never spoke of her past—might really have had some connection to Old Pendor blood.
But Li Ang did not actually care about that—no one from the Celestial Dynasty would care about such things.
To Li Ang, claims about bloodlines were rather boring. After all, if people of the Celestial Dynasty seriously traced their ancestry, practically every one of them could trace it back to some great emperor or true legendary hero.
Any one of those ancestors would have been enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with gods.
Compared to prophecies and bloodlines, Li Ang cared more about those unnatural forces—every legend related to the Child of Prophecy seemed to be accompanied by something strange.
For example, the cicada-shed human skin he had seen with his own eyes.
"You just said it might also be related to the Bloody Plague?"
Li Ang continued pressing for answers.
Juan nodded somewhat hesitantly. "The Kingdom of Pendor collapsed because of the Red Death. Everyone on the continent knows that... Some say it was brought by the Noldo Elves. But strangely enough, people with black hair and black eyes never catch the Red Death! So... But that was the speculation of others in the organization. I only heard them mention it."
Bloody Plague was the official name of the Red Death. It had another name as well—the Bloody Calamity.
Li Ang guessed it was an extremely virulent infectious disease, probably similar to the plague. It was said that at least half the people on the Pande Continent had died from the Red Death a hundred and fifty years ago.
And even now, the disease remained incurable.
Such a terrifying infectious disease would naturally be given a mystical veneer in this era. In all kinds of legends, it was connected to devils and foreign species like the Noldo Elves.
Sarah beside him nodded as well. "Compared to the cities in the center of the continent, far fewer people in the Duchy of Dexia caught the Red Death... I never noticed before, but now that he mentions it, that really does seem to be the case. Are people with black hair and black eyes protected by the gods?"
Li Ang finally put away the hammer in his hand.
He understood why this body had been hunted.
But his mood grew heavier—this was a reason that was almost impossible to resolve.
Different races really did have different resistance to certain diseases. Combined with different environments, sanitation, and habits, it was possible for some people not to catch certain infectious diseases. That seemed perfectly normal to Li Ang.
But in this ignorant Middle Ages, in an era when most doctors were hardly any different from butchers, people would only judge things by superficial characteristics and then assign them special mystical meanings.
Such as bloodlines, fate, gods, or demons.
And no matter which one it was, it was an ingrained belief that could not be resolved.
At the thought that he might have to bear such pursuit for the rest of his life, Li Ang lost the desire to speak. He ignored Juan, who was looking at him pleadingly from the ground, and turned toward the battlefield, which had already quieted down.
But before he had gone far, the pleading and screams from behind startled him.
When he looked back, Sarah had ended Juan's life with her sword!
Sarah wiped her longsword expressionlessly as she caught up with him. Killing a defenseless man seemed to be no crime in her eyes.
Li Ang frowned deeply. "Sarah, why did you kill him?"
This time, Sarah did not wear her signature smile. Instead, she spoke calmly and seriously. "My lord, in your eyes, he was probably just a pitiful captive... But during my time in Lion City alone, as far as I personally knew, he had violated at least a dozen girls... Scum like that should not be allowed to remain in this world. And, my lord, the Crimson Brotherhood would show you no mercy either."
Li Ang covered his face and let out a long breath.
This cold, ruthless "vixen" was the real Sarah.
Without a vicious heart, how could she have traveled alone across this dangerous continent for so long?
"You're right, Sarah. But what I mean is, we could have sold him as a slave... This pretty boy looked decent, and he was a noble too. He should have been worth quite a bit..."
Li Ang looked utterly heartbroken—he did not care whether that old pervert lived or died, but he had been a captive. He had been money...
What a waste!
Sarah looked at Li Ang in astonishment, her expression clearly the sort one used when looking at creatures with intelligence below the human average.
"My lord, you were actually planning to sell a member of the Crimson Brotherhood... to the Crimson Brotherhood's slave traders?"
Hiss...
Right!
Most slave traders were members of the Crimson Brotherhood...
This was completely different from the game—in the game, any prisoner of war could be sold to the slave trader in a tavern, and slave traders accepted anyone. But how could reality be so convenient?
Inertial thinking really got people killed...
Juan was a minor leader of the Crimson Brotherhood in Lion City. He might even have had some notoriety. If Li Ang had really sold him back to a Crimson Brotherhood slave trader, that would not have been some clever stunt—it would have been suicide...
"Well... Sarah, I mean, Juan was the person in charge of this camp... I originally had many brilliant schemes I could have used..."
Li Ang covered his forehead awkwardly, finding an excuse to hide his idiotic display.
"But, my lord, you never intended to occupy this camp... I refuse to believe you would stay here and directly face Grand Duke Alma's wrath... Or are you planning to head north to the grasslands and challenge the Jatu army alone?"
Sarah saw right through this lord who was desperately trying to save face.
Before you continue