The witch in seclusion

The Tarnished did not linger over the headless Demigod's remains. These Demigods were all Marika's children, which made him their elder by family standing. Naturally, he ought to let them rest in peace.

He jumped down from the enormous creature. A short distance ahead stood another church: the Fourth Church of Marika. Its name alone marked it as one of the principal churches dedicated to Marika, and one of the earliest to be established.

Here, the Tarnished obtained his second sacred Crystal Tear. More tears did not offer much additional benefit, but something this precious was worth taking. Perhaps he would find another use for it someday.

The Tarnished opened his map. By now, he had explored most of the Weeping Peninsula. He could not claim to have covered every inch, but he had visited almost everywhere that interested him. There was still one place that bothered him, though.

It lay south of where he had found Trina's lily, judging by the map. A troubling sense of danger drifted faintly from that place, utterly frenzied and fiercely hot.

"Looks like quite a few new powers have sprung up in the Lands Between since I left." Time in the Lands Between was chaotic to begin with, so he had no idea how long it had been since the Tarnished were exiled. But he knew one thing: even during his campaigning days, all manner of factions had been stirring throughout the Lands Between.

Before he could learn much about those factions, Marika had banished them from the Lands Between. The Tarnished fought in the fog and died in the fog, until Grace summoned him back.

Still, his instincts told him to stay away from that place steeped in frenzy. Better not to invite trouble. He would ask around before deciding what to do.

"Time to head back to Limgrave, then." Counting the passing days and nights, roughly ten days must have gone by. He recalled the information he had obtained from Kale: the Flask of Wondrous Physick at the Third Church, and someone hiding in a set of ruins.

The Tarnished decided to return to Limgrave and investigate. Grace was pointing toward Limgrave as well, so there had to be something waiting there.

He therefore teleported from the newly activated Site of Grace at the Fourth Church. It was his first time traveling between Sites of Grace since returning to the Lands Between. His destination was the first one he had encountered: the Stranded Graveyard.

With a thought, an invisible bridge formed between the two Sites of Grace. The Tarnished's body dissolved into golden motes and slipped into Grace. In the blink of an eye, he reached his destination.

"Looks like there's no problem. Teleportation works normally, too." He clapped his hands and glanced at the Imp Statue beside him. Now that he had a key, he could explore this place. But judging by its scale, it was enormous and would take quite some time to search. That could wait. Finding the Flask of Wondrous Physick came first.

He was fairly familiar with Limgrave's geography. As far as he knew, the Waypoint Ruins lay to the right of the Stranded Graveyard, above the road leading to the Weeping Peninsula.

And reaching that place seemed to require passing through Agheel Lake.

"A flying dragon, huh." Flying creatures really were troublesome. He did have a ranged option in the Hand Ballista, but it was only a basic one. It worked well enough against ordinary soldiers, but it was nowhere near powerful enough to pierce dragon scales or wing membranes.

"No point overthinking it. I'll head to the Waypoint Ruins first." Without further hesitation, the Tarnished set off.

While passing through Agheel Lake, the Tarnished found his path blocked by an enormous crab. It stood a full two meters taller than him, its terrifying pincers opening and closing with sharp clicks.

What a mad age. Even the crabs are bigger than people. I wonder how the meat tastes. As he pondered that, the giant crab turned sideways and hammered its claws against the ground like heavy mauls, throwing up enough water to obscure his vision.

But a crab was still a crab. Despite its size, it was hardly a formidable fighter, merely flailing about with the brute strength its enormous body afforded it. The Tarnished was not distracted by the spray. He charged straight through it and, guided by instinct alone, severed both claws. Then his curved sword plunged into the crab's soft belly.

The giant crab immediately foamed at the mouth. Its massive body crashed down, its limbs twitching briefly before falling still.

"What's this?" Amid the foam the crab had spat out before dying lay an arm. The severed hand still gripped a long blade: an Uchigatana from the eastern Land of Reeds.

"This... got eaten by a crab?" The Tarnished inspected the Uchigatana. Its blade was thin and light, yet undeniably sharp. It seemed to have been swallowed moments after being drawn.

The East had a special offensive technique called Unsheathe. It was a devastating form of attack: the blade was sheathed, then drawn with lightning speed to subdue an enemy. The technique sought to kill in a single strike.

"Unsheathe... I know that one, too." The Tarnished picked up the Uchigatana.

He sheathed the blade, using his hand as the scabbard, then drew. A terrifying slash split the lake water ahead in two, as though severing its flow.

"Not bad. Haven't gotten rusty." An old man in the Expeditionary Army had taught him Unsheathe back then. That man had devoted his entire life to becoming a master swordsman, and his beloved blade had cut down countless people. Its name was-

[Rivers of Blood]

"Ah, that crab distracted me before I knew it." The Tarnished tucked the Uchigatana at his waist, slung his curved sword behind his back, and continued toward the Waypoint Ruins.

As he approached his destination, the Tarnished suddenly noticed green pollen drifting everywhere.

"This pollen's poisonous..." The Tarnished tore off a strip of ragged cloth and covered his nose and mouth to avoid inhaling it. Drawing closer to the ruins, he discovered the culprit spreading the pollen.

It was an enormous pink flower, surrounded by numerous smaller specimens of its kind. These flowers were called Miranda, and they attacked and ate people. Stranger still, mature Miranda flowers could release pillars of light like descending angels.

"Annoying." The Tarnished clicked his tongue. These flowers were not immobile, just exceedingly slow. He could see them creeping toward him at a pace slower than a snail's.

The Tarnished had no desire to waste time tangling with them. He instantly drew the Uchigatana at his waist, its keen edge cutting through both the already crumbling ruins before him and the cluster of Miranda flowers.

In an instant, only the largest Miranda remained.

Enraged, the giant Miranda twisted its roots, and dense pillars of light erupted from the ground. But it moved far too slowly. Before the light appeared, the Tarnished had already reached it and cut it in half with a single stroke.

Having swiftly dealt with that minor interruption, the Tarnished began searching for the person said to be hiding in the ruins.

"They're pretty good at hiding." The Waypoint Ruins were not particularly complicated, but the broken, collapsed stonework easily blocked his view and concealed blind spots. His earlier slash had only made matters worse.

At last, a tiny flicker of fire drew his attention. Beneath the torch was a hidden passage. "Ah, so here it is."

The Tarnished followed the stairs underground, only to find a mad Pumpkin Head ahead, like the one he had seen at Castle Morne.

"Huh? Don't tell me you're the one hiding in these ruins." The Tarnished was at a loss for words.

"Aaaaargh!" The Pumpkin Head let out the same beastlike roar as the one at Castle Morne, though he did not attack the Tarnished as that one had.

"..." The Tarnished watched as the Pumpkin Head roared at him once, then resumed smashing his head against the ground.

"Oh...? Someone actually found this place." In a room filled with glintstone crystals, a woman wearing a glintstone headpiece sounded faintly surprised. Judging by the sounds outside, someone seemed to have gotten into a confrontation with the Pumpkin Head guarding the door.

"How interesting." She had stayed here so long that she seemed to have forgotten what a little excitement felt like. Every day, she simply buried herself in studying the sorcery she longed for.

"Aaaaargh!" The woman knew that roar well. It was the loathsome sound that had been disrupting her concentration these past several days.

"I didn't expect to find this kind of soldier here, too. The Lands Between are still mostly full of lunatics, then." The other voice was rich and resonant, carrying an easy, flippant confidence.

For a few seconds, everything seemed to stand still. With nothing else to do, the woman kept listening to the sounds beyond the door. Sure enough, the two finally began to fight.

"A frenzied Pumpkin Head is quite strong... I wonder whether this visitor can match him. I'd certainly be grateful if he could rid me of that noise..." There was a playful note in the woman's refined voice.

To her astonishment, however, barely five seconds passed between the start of the clash and its end. The sounds of combat stopped abruptly, replaced by the man's casual voice.

"Boring. You're no better than the one at Castle Morne."

"He's that strong...? He seems to be coming this way."

After taking the first sacred Crystal Tear, the Tarnished's body had fully recovered. Even without the power of runes, his wealth of combat experience and physical strength alone made these brutes no match for him.

He approached the iron door ahead and extended his senses.

"Ah, just as I thought. I knew that mad soldier couldn't be the one hiding here." Sensing someone beyond the door, the Tarnished immediately pushed it upward. The aura of glintstone washed over his face. Inside stood a woman whose graceful figure could not be hidden even by her loose robes. Unfortunately, the mask she wore concealed her true face.

"Oh... how unusual. I truly never expected anyone to find this place." The woman's composed, refined voice held a trace of surprise.

"You're a sorcerer, aren't you?" The Tarnished could tell at a glance that the woman before him was merely a false projection, likely formed from her consciousness or through some kind of sorcery.

"That's right. My name is Sellen. Now, Tarnished, what brings you all the way to this secluded place?"

"You seem to be a very powerful sorcerer..."

"You can tell? I have indeed been called a prodigy." Sellen gave a soft laugh, making no attempt to hide it.

"..." The Tarnished stared intently at Sellen, seemingly considering something. His gaze made her uneasy. What... does this man have some ulterior motive? Has he come to dispose of me?

"I want to learn sorcery from you."

"...How interesting." Sellen froze briefly, then chuckled. "You may not know who I am. I'm a witch burdened with grave sins, banished from the Academy of Raya Lucaria. Are you sure you want me as your teacher?"

"The Academy of Raya Lucaria? What a coincidence. I don't get along with them, either." The Tarnished's lips curled into a smile. He did not seem bothered in the slightest.

"You really are a strange man."

"It's nothing much. Most of the people I've met from the Academy of Raya Lucaria simply weren't very likable."

"..." Sellen fell silent.

"Let me ask you once more. Are you certain you want to learn sorcery from a witch expelled by the Academy?"

"I'll investigate whether you truly bear such grave sins myself. Until then, I'll keep learning sorcery from you. Once I accept you as my teacher, I won't change my mind."

"Even if it turns out you really are guilty of terrible things, the debt I owe you will cancel that out, and I won't do anything to you. How does that sound? I'm not about to repay kindness with betrayal."

"..." Beneath her headpiece, Sellen's eyes widened, glittering like a star-filled sky.

"Hehe... very well. I'll take you on. You're my first apprentice... and you'll be my last."

"I'm not one for a gentle approach. My teaching is very strict." Sellen rested a hand against her chin and gave a clear, bright laugh.

"I couldn't ask for more." The Tarnished offered her a formal bow as his teacher, smiling as well.