Slaughter X Tragic Saintess

In the Village, the villagers continued to live their lives in an orderly fashion.

The funeral that morning did not have any impact on their lives.

Since they weren't very familiar with the village, Kevin and Gowen followed Men Qi and Buhara as they wandered around the Village.

It must be said that Men Qi has a friendly personality and easily gets along with the villagers.

Along the way, many villagers greeted Men Qi warmly, and some children ran over when they saw Xiahara, chatting and laughing with him for quite a while before running away.

In just one week, Men Qi and Xiahara got along very well with the Village.

"This is it. I've been learning knife skills from Uncle Heng these past two days."

The group arrived at a typical village courtyard.

A little boy with a missing tooth opened the door, saw Men Qi and the others, grinned at Buhaci, and then welcomed them inside.

"I just saw your friends come back over there. I thought you weren't coming today," a woman said with a smile as she came down from the house.

"Training and learning can't be abandoned halfway," Men Qi replied with a smile.

The woman smiled and nodded, pointed to the back of the yard, and then went about her business.

The group arrived at the backyard, and upon stepping inside, it felt as if they had entered another space.

A chilly, frosty aura wafted over, and a massive ice pillar, three meters tall, stood at the edge of the courtyard. Surrounding the ice pillar were rows of racks, laden with all sorts of meat, seemingly from different creatures.

In another corner of the courtyard was an open-air slaughtering platform. Water from the nearby stream was drawn onto the platform via a waterwheel and pipes, the rushing water washing the blood into the grooves below before flowing back into the river.

Clearly, this Uncle Heng was the Village's butcher. Their place was located downstream from the Village, near the river.

At that moment, the burly man dressed as a butcher conjured a butcher's knife out of thin air, revealing himself to Materialization Type Nen ability.

He then made a clenching motion with his other hand, producing another knife with a different shape.

Using both hands, a large piece of unknown meat in front of him was quickly dissected, and different parts and bones were swiftly separated and arranged in categories.

"Oh, you've arrived. These two must be the other guests?"

Men Qi smiled and introduced the two to each other.

"This Uncle Heng's knife skills are among the best in the Village," Men Qi introduced.

Upon hearing this, Uncle Heng laughed heartily, but said modestly, "Not at all, I'm just a little bit better than the others."

Well, that's a rather limited level of modesty.

"So, you two young men, do you also want to learn?" Uncle Heng asked, his eyes fixed intently on Kevin and Gowen.

Kevin chuckled awkwardly and waved his hand. "I was just curious and came to take a look. I'm neither Gourmet Hunter nor a chef."

Uncle Heng looked Kevin up and down, then said, "No, no, young man, butchering and butchering is a complex art. Even if you didn't come for the cooking, you must be here for the animals around you. Without excellent butchering skills, you can't properly handle your spoils."

Upon hearing this, Kevin paused for a moment, and after a brief thought, he had to admit that the other person made a valid point.

His technique for extracting materials from various organisms certainly needs improvement; in a sense, it is essentially a slaughtering technique, and it would be very worthwhile to learn it.

"Okay, if you don't mind the trouble." And so, Kevin and Gowen inexplicably started learning.

It must be said that Uncle Heng's butchering skills are truly impressive.

Various seemingly complex ingredients are precisely cut apart in his hands, depending on the type of knife used.

His cutting movements were entirely based on the growth structure of the organisms, both smooth and beautiful, and he operated exactly according to the requirements of the Village chefs for the ingredients.

Sometimes, a large piece of unknown meat has to go through dozens of different cutting processes, breaking it down into completely different parts, even separating the fascia, skin, and layers of flesh.

"Where did all these ingredients come from?"

Gowen asked curiously.

Having witnessed the power of the Curse, they were genuinely curious about how the villagers managed to obtain so many ingredients.

Moreover, judging from the appearance of these ingredients, they didn't seem to have been transported from outside; rather, they looked like they had hunted them themselves.

Regarding this, Xiahara was clearly aware of it, and he explained from the side, "I had doubts before, but later I learned that it was obtained by using Curse."

"After witnessing the Curse's effects, I roughly understood that they would use the Curse's attraction to lure creatures to the Boundary, then hunt them, drag them back to the Village, and break them down into food."

Upon hearing this explanation and thinking about it carefully, it does seem to make sense.

After all, this Village is not lacking in military support.

"Fatty, are there really balloon boats outside that can carry people in the sky?" Uncle Heng's son suddenly appeared and asked with a face full of curiosity.

Hearing this, Xiahara smiled and nodded, "Yes, those are called Airship. They come in different sizes, the biggest one is bigger than the entire Village."

"Bigger than the whole Village!" the boy exclaimed in surprise, his eyes sparkling with curiosity and longing.

"Wow, I wish I could see it with my own eyes." His tone was full of longing; although he was still a boy, he clearly already knew his fate of not being able to leave the Village.

He leaned back on the stool and suddenly asked, "You're really amazing, aren't you? Do you think if I train hard, I can grow up and go out into the world and defeat all those guys who want to eat me? That way I can be free." As he spoke, he clenched his fist and waved it a couple of times.

The boy looked to be about eleven or twelve years old, and he already showed signs of Nen ability, clearly having learned [Ten] at a young age.

Hearing this, Xiahara was somewhat troubled.

Theoretically speaking, this is certainly possible.

But he knew in his heart that achieving this was easier said than done. The creatures in the Secret Realm were indeed dangerous. Under normal circumstances, as long as one did not provoke them, going around them would generally not be a problem, so this Secret Realm was relatively safe.

However, if the situation is completely different if it attracts creatures to attack for some reason.

Just look at the situation outside the village today. The old man had only walked less than a kilometer when he attracted a large number of creatures, whose "desire" for the villagers was obvious.

Moreover, the farther away from the Village and the longer one stays away, the stronger and more numerous the creatures attracted.

As the saying goes, two fists can't beat four hands, let alone when facing all sorts of creatures, including some treacherous and cunning ones that survive on toxins.

In this situation, no matter how strong an individual is, it is difficult to leave the Village.

Unless a force is willing to provide an escort, and that force is prepared to suffer casualties.

Furthermore, no one knows if the Curse will still exist once they leave the Secret Realm. If the Curse is still in effect, then they will be subject to attacks from surrounding creatures for the rest of their lives—what difference is there between that and death?

There was no freedom to speak of, only endless suffering.

Even if one or two people could meet the conditions and possess extraordinary abilities, it would be meaningless in the face of the Curse suffered by the entire Village.

"Hmm, it looks like it's not going to work," the boy muttered to himself.

In the backyard, the sounds of chopping meat and hacking continued incessantly, seemingly never ceasing.

The following afternoon, Kevin went to the Library again. After exchanging a few brief pleasantries with his mother-in-law, he immersed himself in reading.

For him, the documents here, dating back two hundred years, are invaluable treasures that he must study carefully.

He not only wanted to read it all, but also planned to collect all the necessary information.

If all else fails, he can always pay a villager to make a copy and take it out. He believes that as long as the reward is generous enough, some villagers will definitely be willing to help.

Before this, it didn't affect Kevin's continued reading. The village's population wasn't large, but there were quite a few villagers coming and going in the Library, browsing or borrowing books from time to time.

After all, being confined to this Village, there are limited things to do for entertainment.

Kevin was flipping through a book, slightly raised his head and looked towards the door. He saw a woman dressed as a maid walk in. Her clothes were exactly the same as Bianluoke's sister's.

Honestly, this maid outfit looks like it was copied straight from a manga, and it clashes completely with the overall style of the Village.

It's unbelievable that someone would dress like that here. Are they cosplaying?

But this doesn't look like a real maid's outfit at all; real maids wouldn't dress like this.

The maid went straight to the comic book section.

"... Just as I suspected." Kevin's guess was confirmed.

The maid picked up a few comic books and prepared to borrow them from her mother-in-law.

"These same few books again? Haven't you borrowed them several times already?" Kevin wasn't deliberately eavesdropping; his mother-in-law was hard of hearing and spoke very loudly.

The maid said helplessly, "No new books were delivered this time; we'll have to wait until next year."

"Sigh." The mother-in-law sighed softly.

Kevin refocused his attention on the book in his hands. He didn't leave the Library until dusk.

Back at the hotel, Men Qi and the others had already returned.

Upon seeing Kevin, Men Qi rushed over excitedly, saying, "Great news! This is really good news for you!"

"Good news?"

Men Qi nodded excitedly.

She's so excited, could it really be something amazing?

"The Village's food supplies are almost gone, so we might organize a large-scale hunt soon. It's nearing the end of the year, and the Festival feast will require a lot of food."

Upon hearing this, Kevin immediately realized that this was indeed a good thing.

Large-scale hunting means a large number of creatures will be caught, especially since this is Secret Realm, surrounded by all sorts of strange creatures. These creatures not only have delicious meat, but also possess powerful characteristics.

Moreover, only powerful and aggressive creatures are usually attracted to this area. This means Kevin can obtain a lot of materials from this hunt.

After all, not every creature is edible, and not every part of every creature is suitable for consumption. Since it is a large-scale hunt, the scale of the hunt must be considerable.

With so many Nen user mobilized together, Kevin won't even need to lift a finger; he can just stay behind and provide the funds for acquisitions.

He could even communicate with the Village Chief in advance to arrange for the hunting of more of the creatures he needed, and he would be responsible for purchasing them.

Moreover, he only wants the best parts, which, although delicious, are usually not plentiful and probably not what the Village urgently needs.

The Village needs plenty of edible parts to cook into delicious dishes.

If Kevin could offer enough money, he believed the Village wouldn't refuse.

"That's really good news. When does it start?" Kevin planned to call back to raise some funds.

"About a week later."

A week is enough.

He didn't plan to go out this week anyway, so he used the documents in the Library to plan his next goals, continued to study slaughtering techniques, and then tried to make the medicine.

The potion production has hit a bottleneck. There's a problem with the choice of Fusion Agent for the two new materials. The Fusion Agent Kevin has on hand cannot properly fuse the two materials, so he needs to find new compatible materials.

Kevin quickly returned to his orderly life.

He has already notified his family by phone to prepare the funds and that they can transfer the money at any time to make the purchase.

In addition, he explained his needs to the Village Chief agreed almost without hesitation. Clearly, the Village did need outside funding.

With everything arranged, all that was left was to wait patiently. Kevin spent a lot of time in the Library every day.

However, an interesting person seems to have arrived at the Library.

Just as Kevin was engrossed in reading, a slight commotion arose in the Library.

He looked up and saw an unexpected figure in the doorway —the Saintess he had seen at the funeral that day. She was being pushed in by Bianluoke's sister, sitting in a wheelchair.

Upon seeing this, Kevin realized that the Saintess was crippled in both legs.

Moreover, her outfit today was very modern, wearing a beige long dress with a sunflower badge pinned to her waist.

Her simple attire made her less glamorous at the funeral, but more pure and possessing a poignant beauty inherent in being in a wheelchair.

"Melusina, what brings you out here, girl?"

The old woman seemed somewhat surprised to see the Saintess appear in the Library. She quickly stepped out from behind the counter and took the Saintess's hand.

"I wanted to come see you, Grandma," Melusina said, a playful smile on her face, revealing a youthful innocence.

She looked to be about the same age as Men Qi.

"You silly girl," the mother-in-law scolded playfully, but her smile was so wide it almost disappeared into slits. She held Melusina's hand tightly, clearly very happy.

Then the mother-in-law said with a smile, "You didn't just come to see this old woman, did you? Alright, I won't bother you any longer. Go and get any books you want to read."

Melusina chuckled twice and, propelled by the maid behind her, arrived at the bookshelf, where modern literary books were stored.

Seeing this, the old woman who had returned to the counter was somewhat puzzled. "When did this girl start liking these kinds of books?"

Then Kevin saw the snake coiled around the Saintess again, the same snake that had lifted her up that day.

It remained "hidden," appearing to be a pet kept by the Saintess.

This snake seemed to have extremely keen senses. After Kevin observed it for a while, it keenly noticed his gaze, tilted its head slightly in Kevin's direction, and flicked its tongue.

Noticing her pet's actions, Melusina seemed startled and turned to look in the direction the snake was facing, where she saw Kevin.

Melusina smiled gently and smiled warmly at Kevin, nodding slightly in a very polite manner.

Kevin was taken aback by the sudden reaction, but he nodded politely in response before turning his attention back to his book.

Saintess Wen stared at Kevin for a couple of seconds before turning her head away.

After an unknown amount of time, with the sound of a wheelchair rolling, the Saintess was pushed away from the Library. Before leaving, one could still hear her saying goodbye to her mother-in-law.

The moment she stepped out of the Library, the Saintess's dignified demeanor vanished without a trace.

She hurriedly grabbed the sleeve of the maid behind her.

"How was it? Was there anything wrong with my performance just now? Did it seem strange?"

"Probably not, just like it says in the book."

"Really? That's good."

Melusina's expression appeared very cheerful.