VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 82: The old Classic
"Now as far as I know, " Belladonna continued, holding the wriggling leech in her hand, before placing it into one of her test tubes as a sample,
"Sin-Suckers don’t just live in random ponds. They aren’t really supposed to be on this plane at all, which is why they are a delicacy for the Hellions living here. Although there are probably farms that exist somewhere."
Saige finally rose to his feet, leaving his favourite pillow behind as he strolled over to Belladonna. He held out a glowing hand towards the creature in the tube, which squirmed and writhed in pain at just the hint of divine energy.
"Which means someone put them here on purpose to spread them." He concluded, to which the others nodded softly.
He narrowed his eyes, looking over the small lake until his eyes drifted up towards the small waterfall that fed the lake. His eyes narrowed more, before raising his eyebrows and tilting his head.
"You don’t think..." He muttered, glancing towards Belladonna who was sharing his apprehensive look.
"I mean it couldn’t be that simple, right? That would be way too obvious... Right?" Belladonna agreed as they shared the same mindset.
"It wouldn’t hurt to look. I’ve harvested all the good stuff from the deer. The meat might be rotten, but the silver is still just silver... I think. I might need you to purify it just in case."
"What about this?" Lilith called over as she crouched next to the patch of crystalline dirt. She knocked on it gently, which made a pleasant tink sound like a fairy sneezing, but didn’t show any sign of breaking.
"I looked over it, but it seems worthless. I can’t sense any mana from it, plus it won’t break. I mean you watched me wail on it for like five minutes while you were playing with your pets ears."
Belladonna replied with an exasperated look, to which Lilith simply laughed softly.
"Yeah well... I forgot. I was a little distracted."
Saige looked over with a frown before approaching the crystalline surface. He slowly crouched down, running his hand over the smooth surface. After just a few seconds of his gentlest touch, the crystal suddenly cracked.
The one crack turned into two, then ten and quickly spread across the entire surface. A second later, it shattered into a cloud of glittering dust that immediately swirled in the air.
The crystal dust raced towards Saige and flowed through the gaps on his robe. The fluffy cleric quickly pulled down his neckline, revealing his bare and smooth back - which made Lilith blush and let out a few excited giggles which in turn made Belladonna roll her eyes - as the crystal dust pushed itself into his skin.
When the dust cloud finally settled, Saige was left with a strange tattoo. It was a simple depiction of a wolf’s head chasing after the head of a rabbit, which in turn chased after the wolf, as they were represented in an Oroborus type cycle.
This was the symbol of the Beast Gods church, representing the eternal cycle of predator and prey. The Wolf devoured the meat of the rabbit, and when it died and fed the grass with its rotten flesh, it was the rabbit that feasted on that very grass.
The tattoo sparkled slightly, before Saige pulled up his robe and tightened them again.
"It says the Beast Lord has marked me as one of her blessed," Saige explained as he read the notification blinking in front of him.
"What does that mean? Is it a buff or something?"
"Honestly... I have no idea. That’s all it says, blessed. It doesn’t explain anything about it, just has a strange message that the Lord has their eye on me. "Saige read, before shrugging and turning to Belladonna.
"By the way. I developed that source thing you were talking about. But that was when I was using the fire rune, not right now. When I got the flood of energy it raised my devotion stat a lot and when it crossed 50 it just kinda... appeared."
Belladonna’s eye twitched slightly at his overly simple explanation, as the unfairness of the world was once more presented to her. Not only had this adorable little brat increased his main stat like it was nothing, from using her spell, but he had also unlocked his source ’just like that’
She had to restrain the urge to leap onto him and give him just a hint of the pain she went through to unlock the same thing. If she had to go through all of that, why the hell did she need to go through torture?!
Of course, If she knew the real reason then she probably would have been less annoyed, but since she didn’t all she could do was turn on her heels and walk towards the lake with a contained wrath and overwhelming envy that was purely her own, no Sin-sucker needed.
Ignoring the special treatment her brother was clearly receiving, the trio made their way around the lake, avoiding the water for obvious sin-sucker related reasons, and slowly approached the small waterfall that fed into it.
Belladonna gave a quick glance over her shoulder, nodding at the other two, before leaping into the waterfall and disappearing behind the curtain of flowing water.
After a few seconds, her hand stuck out of the water curtain, beckoning the others to join her. When they too jumped through, they found Belladonna standing casually with her arms crossed, next to a small cave entrance that was hidden behind the small waterfall.
Just big enough for one person to go through at a time.
"It really is a classic, isn’t it? Always check behind the waterfall."
They chuckled to themselves before arranging themselves into a marching formation. With the tunnel as tight as it was, single file was the only option. So as the tank, Lilith took the lead, who was then followed by Saige with Belladonna acting as the rear guard.
