Chapter 206: Chapter 204: The Elf Maiden Impersonating Royalty

"Mmm..."

The pale light of dawn shone on Elina’s face, and she slowly opened her eyes.

Soon after, the demonic qi pollution rampaging inside her body immediately made her suffer.

"Damn heretics, they actually ambushed me... it hurts so much!"

She suddenly realized something.

"Wait, this isn’t outside the city—where is this?"

She hurriedly looked around and found herself in an inn.

There was a table by the bed, with some specially mixed scroll ink on it, along with several discarded scrolls piled carelessly to the side.

Beside the bed, a magic puppet was opening the curtains, letting the sunlight in.

"You... where’s the person?"

Elina glanced at the magic puppet, then looked elsewhere but didn’t see the mage controlling it.

At that moment, the magic puppet spoke.

"Please don’t move. Do not use magic power, in case it gets polluted. Wait a moment, I’ll return soon to treat you."

Because Rose would occasionally control the puppet herself, Hilia added a voice module when upgrading it, so the puppet could make sounds.

Of course, it could only produce a mechanical voice—it still couldn’t directly transmit Rose’s voice through the puppet’s vocal cords.

There wasn’t any guild that specialized in researching human-like speech for magic puppets; perhaps only people with special hobbies would study that sort of thing.

Or perhaps the Magic Puppet Guild, which worked on autonomous puppets, would specialize in it.

Hearing the puppet’s voice, Elina felt the pollution stirring with her movements and chose to obediently lie down.

But not long after, she began to feel uncomfortable all over—she couldn’t bear it even with the pain from the pollution.

After hesitating, she asked, "Hello, can I take a bath?"

Rose nodded: "You can."

Elina looked and saw her bundle right beside her. She carefully checked the wardrobe in the room, confirmed it only contained women’s clothes, then took out a nightgown from her bag and began undressing in front of the puppet.

But as she was about to take off her underwear, she glanced at the magic puppet and felt a bit weird inside.

Even though the puppet’s owner seemed to be a girl... what if it was a boy who liked crossdressing?

She hesitated, then ultimately didn’t remove her underwear; instead, she took clean underwear and her nightgown and entered the bathroom.

The sound of splashing water came from the bathroom, and a moment later, Elina walked out wearing a blue nightgown, shook out her golden hair, and looked refreshed.

Rose sensed that the turbulence of pollution inside her had actually stabilized a little, just because she took a bath.

At least, it wouldn’t keep tormenting her all the time now.

Elina lay back down on the bed, turned her head toward Rose, and greeted, "Hello, my name is Elina. Thank you for saving me. May I know your name?"

Rose glanced at a certain part of her, then made the magic puppet speak: "Evil God Ross."

The smile vanished from Elina’s face.

Rose added, "Just kidding—Hilia."

Elina let out a sigh of relief, "Please don’t joke like that, Miss Hilia."

Rose asked, "Are you of the Elf Royal Family?"

Elina shook her head quickly, "No!"

"Really?" Rose glanced at the dress she had tossed aside. "Then why do you have the royal family’s insignia?"

Elina’s eyes flickered. In a low voice, she said, "You saved my life, so I’ll tell you—actually, I borrowed my friend’s clothes."

"Oh?" Rose looked interested. "You borrowed your friend’s clothes? So your friend is with the Elf Royal Family? You’re disguising yourself as Elf Royal Family to come to the human kingdoms. What are you trying to do?"

"Um... May I not say?"

"Of course. Only share if you wish."

Rose never forced people to reveal their secret business.

"Thank you for understanding! By the way, when will you be back? If you take too long, I’ll have to leave first, I have urgent matters."

While Elina was speaking, she suddenly noticed a polyhedron crystal stone not far away, and her eyes lit up.

"I’ll be back in a few minutes. If you remain like this and don’t get purified soon, your magic power will gradually be polluted, and you’ll end up like those heretics—your mind won’t stay normal," Rose said, pretending not to notice what she was eyeing.

Elina glanced at the pure magic crystal again, then reluctantly looked away and swallowed, apparently struggling with something.

After hearing Rose’s words, she blanked out for a second, "The pollution is that severe?"

Rose nodded: "That was set up by a Tier Four Mage. The fact you, a Tier Two Mage, survived on the spot is already quite lucky."

"Actually, it’s fine... I can go ask the High Priest at the Divine Hall for help, so there’s no need to trouble you, Miss Hilia."

"Divine Hall services aren’t cheap, you know."

"I know, but I heard there’s a town not far from the Star Spirit Tree whose Divine Hall offers purification for free. I can just go there."

Rose could tell she was lying—after all, the pollution stabilized right after she took a bath.

He pretended not to notice and smiled, "Is that Divine Hall called the Star Dust Divine Hall?"

Elina shook her head, "I’m not really sure... I’ll find out when I get there."

Rose said, "Then you could ask around—see what connection Hilia has with the Star Dust Divine Hall."

Elina froze, surprised, "Wait, don’t tell me... Miss Hilia, you’re the High Priest of the Star Dust Divine Hall?"

Rose didn’t answer, and changed the subject: "Just wait here for now."

"Alright then."

...

City Lord’s Castle.

This thousand-year-old castle—the main building had now been damaged, but fortunately, the castle is made up of interconnected structures, not just a single one.

It was the core structure that contained the array which was damaged; the rest was intact.

For generations, the City Lords of Southern Border City had imagined scenarios for the castle’s destruction—wars, natural disasters, old age and disrepair.

They’d even considered the array being damaged, but normally, damage to the array wouldn’t shake the entire structure of the castle.

Puniel had never imagined that, without war, without age or disaster, if the array suffered catastrophic destruction, the castle and the Divine Hall would both be ruined together.

This wasn’t destroying the array—it was blowing up the array’s backup power source.

Leading Hilia and Vanessa into the castle, Puniel kept sighing, heartbroken.

A thousand-year-old castle, destroyed in his generation—he’d no face left for his ancestors.

Now, the only thing left was to rush the rebuilding and try to recover what was lost.

"If I’d known, I’d never have let them into the city," Puniel regretted deeply.

Vanessa asked, "So, Lord Puniel, why did the heretics invade Southern Border City?"

Puniel replied, "Didn’t you capture a Tier Four heretic? After we got the news, we sent people to search the Star Spirit Forbidden Land, and in the ruins of a suspected heretic base you destroyed, we found a pure magic crystal."

"That magic crystal had the heretics’ mark on it, so we decided to hold an underground auction to lure the heretics here and catch them all in one net."

"After a thorough investigation, we confirmed they’d come, so we set a trap. At first it went smoothly—they sent two Tier Four Mages, and with things under our control. But then, out of nowhere, came a third Tier Four Mage—the ’Magic Puppet Man’—someone not in our intelligence, and this completely disrupted our plan."

Puniel sighed gloomily.

"What happened later, you already know."

Beside him, Hilia lowered her head guiltily.