Finding the Way

A cold wind blew.

Li Lin strolled across the frozen wilderness, gazing at the dried meat in his hand with a complicated expression. Although he had already dealt with every problem that might harm him during his transmigration, he was not an omniscient, omnipotent god. There was one thing he had failed to anticipate.

He had run out of food.

Though he had not exactly been pampered, Li Lin had been a great mage in his previous life. What delicacies had he not eaten? Even after reincarnating on Earth, he had found the orphanage's meals somewhat monotonous but distinctive in their own way. Once he grew up, he had enjoyed everything from Chinese and Western cuisine to that strange barbecue called "KFC." For someone who had never worried about food in either life, the mercenaries' plain air-dried meat was rather hard to swallow-especially when he recalled that the bundle had been taken from a corpse. That made him lose his appetite altogether.

Had he known, he should have brought more convenience food before returning here. Even potato chips and instant noodles would have been fine.

Though he regretted it somewhat, Li Lin did not dwell on it. After all, he could no longer return to the world where he had spent eighteen years recovering, and it would be foolish to keep longing for everything there. Angela, on the other hand, seemed very excited. Li Lin believed that was largely because of the Morning Wind Continent's enormous moon, which was clearly visible on the horizon even during the day. Against the blue sky and white clouds, it looked more like a building far off on the horizon. To Li Lin, the sight had once been so familiar that there was almost nothing remarkable about it. He had only changed his mind after discovering that the moon on Earth was no bigger than a coin.

The strange life-forms known as vampires seemed to have some connection to the moon. As a former great mage, Li Lin was naturally interested, but he had found no useful information.

"Stop playing."

Li Lin looked away from the fire lizard before him. The giant lizard was as tall as a person and could breathe fire, making it a tyrant of the wilderness. Its impenetrable scales and fiery breath, comparable to a fireball spell, were enough to give a small party of well-equipped adventurers a great deal of trouble. In fact, when the fire lizard had first encountered the two humans in the wilderness, it had seen them as a windfall and excitedly attacked them with a blast of fire. But that had also brought disaster upon it. Now the poor creature had a broken leg and a blinded eye, and could only crouch trembling before Angela as if it had encountered a dragon. One could hardly blame Angela. Who told it to have six legs and four eyes and breathe fire besides?

"We still have a long way to go. From what I can tell, the place we teleported to was probably the Magic Empire's border fortress in the Star Scar Wasteland. It won't be easy to reach an inhabited place from here. Besides, this kind of magical beast doesn't taste good."

"Yes, Master."

Angela stood up with a faint, innocent smile. At the same time, a crisp cracking sound came from beneath her small, lovely hand. The fire lizard, its skull shattered, did not even have time to howl before it became a pitiful corpse. Without another glance at the beast she had just killed, the little girl wiped the foul blood from her hands with a handkerchief and skipped along behind Li Lin.

Innocent, elegant, cruel.

Li Lin had no particular comment on Angela's behavior. In any case, she was his contracted magical pet, and she was useful in every respect. That was enough.

Every respect.

"Master, why is this place called the Star Scar Wasteland?"

"Legend has it that a star fell here a long time ago."

As he answered Angela's question, Li Lin pointed to the sunken trail beneath their feet, which was several hundred meters wide and stretched almost as far as the eye could see.

"It left a mark like this everywhere it passed, and finally exploded deep in the wilderness. After that, this wilderness came to be called the Star Scar Wasteland."

Li Lin was not only answering Angela's question; he was also looking back on his own past. Memories gradually buried beneath the dust of passing years slowly grew clear again as he revisited them.

"This used to be the Magic Empire's border. We once..."

Li Lin stopped there. Although Angela looked at him with obvious puzzlement, he said nothing more and waved a hand.

"That's all in the past... By the way, that thing with four little wings you're holding is called a feathered serpent. It's highly venomous. One bite can kill."

"I think it's quite cute."

Angela's crimson eyes could barely contain her interest as she gazed at the little snake coiled around her hand like a fascinating toy. Its body was pure white, and it had two pairs of small, adorable wings. At a glance, the cute little creature looked more like a noblewoman's pet. It was precisely this harmless appearance that had lured so many victims.

Yet under Angela's gaze, the sinister and terrifying magical beast lay obediently coiled in her palm, showing no intention of going any further. The beast seemed to understand perfectly well that what stood before it was no easy meal, but a monster that held its life in her hands.

Then Angela stopped walking.

"What did you find?"

Li Lin asked casually. He had long known that vampires possessed keen senses almost comparable to those of elves.

"A man and a woman panting, and it doesn't sound like courtship."

"In a place like this, that would be a little too unromantic."

Li Lin looked around and made a decision.

"Let's go take a look."

The wasteland was dangerous.

Kaerwensen dodged the slimy tentacle waving before him and swung his longsword, forcing the monster back. He spared a glance at the girl beside him. Her long golden hair shone in the sunlight, and her well-trained movements made her look at ease even as she fought the skeleton soldiers. Bathed in the sacred light of her longsword, she looked inviolable... She was the strongest knight among them, but even she seemed to be struggling against the threat before them.

"Master, what is that?"

Angela asked curiously from atop a ruined tower. Li Lin turned his gaze to the thing locked in combat with the two paladins. It was so thin that it was nothing but bones, held together solely by the power of magic.

"That's a lich. There's nothing strange about that."

With Li Lin's discernment, he could easily tell what level the lich was at. He could even understand the cause of the fight without asking. Liches were the product and result of human mages pursuing the path to immortality. Judging by the dense aura of undeath around this one, it had clearly not been a lich for long. As a rule, the higher a lich's level, the fainter the aura of death around it, indicating that its skill in controlling necromantic power was increasing. A lich like this one, whose necromantic aura filled the air as soon as a fight began, was clearly still an amateur. And judging by the fact that it had summoned zombies with flesh still on their bones rather than true undead warriors to attack the paladins, one could probably guess that it had killed innocents in its haste to increase its power, and the paladins had caught it. Though liches like this were relatively high-ranking among undead creatures, high rank was always relative. Before Li Lin, a creature like this was so lowly as to be beneath notice. Besides, mortals naturally went through a period of weakness after becoming liches, and this one had been cornered outside by two paladins in broad daylight... It would probably have a hard time surviving.

"I meant the female one."

Angela's finger pointed unmistakably at the girl fighting below.

"She has an aura that makes me very uncomfortable. May I kill her?"

"That's a paladin."

Li Lin lowered his voice and frowned.

"Be careful, Angela. They're completely different from what we encountered in that world. The paladins here are very skilled at destroying undead and nonhuman creatures. Even you probably couldn't withstand a strike from her holy light."

In his previous life, Li Lin had not been fond of paladins, but he had not hated them either. During the Magic Empire's time, powerful arcane mages had all sorts of connections with many gods. In fact, the gods were far less aloof than people claimed. They too had various wants and needs, and their followers generally could not fulfill them. Such tasks sometimes had to be entrusted to arcane mages. The gods even made deals with arcane mages on occasion, sometimes sending those they had chosen to wield and command divine power to serve as the mages' guards or lovers in return. These included paladins, priests, and saintesses. In his previous life, Li Lin had experienced this himself, making the artifacts those gods needed and then enjoying the services of the saintesses they sent. Sometimes, even those lofty gods did not mind using their followers' bodies to descend into the mortal world and enjoy carnal pleasures with arcane mages.

Even gods needed to relax.

That was what a certain goddess had once told Li Lin.

But seeing paladins now did not put Li Lin at ease. Although several gods had secretly helped him carry out his plan when the Magic Empire was destroyed and his soul transmigrated, he did not quite trust the group who had played deaf and dumb and remained neutral ever since the empire's crisis began. Moreover, Li Lin was almost certain that the gods must have had something to do with the Magic Empire's destruction.

Until he got to the bottom of things, he would not readily deal with any organization connected to the gods again.

After watching carefully for a while, Li Lin saw the design on the long shield in the female paladin's left hand.

It was a rising sun above a lake that reflected its light.

The Goddess of Dawn?

Li Lin frowned.

Originally, Li Lin had not intended to help either the lich or the paladins. As an arcane mage who had once been the strongest among mages, he had never held any prejudice against undead or nonhuman creatures-as could be seen from the fact that he took Angela everywhere with him. Frankly, most arcane mages were like Li Lin, people without principles or fixed allegiances. They could do business with the Goddess of Life or drink tea with the Undead Lord. So when he saw the forces representing two gods before him, Li Lin had no intention of intervening.

But after learning that these paladins were followers of the Goddess of Dawn, Li Lin had to change his mind. After all, he had once had a somewhat ambiguous relationship with the goddess. Although their relationship had been purely spiritual, he was quite fond of her.

"Angela, let's go take that skeleton apart."

After thinking it over, Li Lin made his decision.

Angela clearly did not think much of Li Lin's decision, but she quickly nodded and vanished. Li Lin then fixed his gaze on the lich and began chanting a mysterious, ancient magical incantation.

Everyone in the fight froze.

Both the lich and the paladins sensed the sudden appearance of a powerful, incomparable evil force. Its presence appeared so abruptly that even the lich, which had gained the upper hand, quickly recalled its summoned undead soldiers to guard its sides against any possible threat.

Being evil did not mean they would be on the same side.

"There!!"

The golden-haired paladin shouted sharply. Her longsword blazed with holy light as it whistled down through the empty air beside her, tracing a brilliant arc-then stopped.

"Be careful, woman."

Angela appeared there, two slender, delicate fingers of her right hand firmly catching the descending longsword that burned with sacred power. A trace of displeasure showed in her crimson eyes.

"I am not your enemy."

"Th-this is..."

The two paladins stared at the girl before them, momentarily struck dumb. They had never seen a being like her. She looked like a young girl, yet her body radiated an evil aura that could rival a demon king's. She was not undead, nor did she look in the least like a devil. She was a perfectly human girl. This left the two battle-hardened paladins at a loss for a moment. Only when Angela flicked her fingers and sent the heavy longsword flying did they seem to wake from a dream.

Without so much as another glance at them, Angela turned her gaze to the lich opposite her. Her eyes showed the innocence and cruelty of a child playing with bees, plucking off their wings one by one.

"A dried corpse incapable of reproduction? I hope you can bring me a little amusement."

"Die!"

The caustic, vicious, yet vivid comparison instantly succeeded in rousing the lich's fury. The flames representing his soul burned brighter with anger in his dark, hollow eye sockets. He extended both hands and thrust them forward, silently reciting a magical incantation. Soon, several bone spikes appeared in the air and shot toward Angela, who stood not far away. If they struck, the petite girl would surely be reduced to a bloody, mangled wreck.

But facing the bone spikes flying at her, Angela merely smiled innocently and snapped her fingers. Then she waved a hand, and at some point a lace and velvet folding fan had appeared in it. Angela opened the fan, swept it forward, and brought it down.

With that single motion through the air, the flying bone spikes shattered as if severed by invisible blades. After a crisp, grating sound, they turned back into the dust of death and drifted away, vanishing into the air. Even the skeleton guards on either side of the lich were not spared. The phantom blades cleaved them cleanly in two, destroying the last form these undead had left in the world.

"Is that all? Just as I thought. Since you're missing something down below, is the part above soft too?"

Angela drew back the velvet fan and snapped it shut, then held it before her mouth to conceal her smile. Her words remained as vicious and cutting as ever.

"Y-you... who exactly are you?"

The lich had not even sensed a fluctuation of magic before Angela destroyed his undead soldiers in an instant. He immediately set aside his anger and studied the girl cautiously, asking his question with care.

"Could you be..."

"I wouldn't mind telling you, but... you won't live long enough to hear the answer."

As Angela spoke, pure white energy blasted into the lich's body, easily tearing through his magical defenses. Before he could even react, he was reduced to ashes before the flames of pure magical power.

"All right."

Standing a short distance behind Angela, Li Lin clapped his hands and spoke to her as if he had done nothing at all.

"We're done here. Time to go."