Angor watched the kids coming on bloody steps with a strange look.
Both Vonman and Guina had bloodstains on their bodies. Even now, Vonman’s big backpack was dripping more blood onto the ground.
“What’s—”
Angor saw the kids’ determined look and decided not to complain.
“... Five more minutes. Get yourselves washed. And do something about... those.”
Vonman nodded and went to the river nearby.
After some cleaning, Vonman unbuttoned his pack and revealed its content—whole skins removed from Chaira and Aarni’s bodies.
Angor silently watched Vonman rinsing the human skins carefully.
Everything took a turn for the worse when Guina made that suggestion. The kids wanted to keep their dead partners with them, and since they didn’t have a good way to carry corpses, they skinned Chaira and Aarni instead.
It was Guina who came up with the idea.
“*Slurp* I’ll make them into dolls, so they can be with us forever...”
Those words should only exist in a thriller movie. Yet Guina didn’t look bothered at all when she said that.
Ugh. And I thought Vonman was the bigger trouble, Angor thought to himself. Maybe all puppet users love to do that?
“Okay, we’ll get a move on.” Angor saw the children finishing their work. But he suddenly remembered something. “Actually, I have another thing to do before leaving. Now tell me, where is this ‘Kuza’ you’ve been talking about?”
...
There was a castle located in the forest some distance away from Winter Tide City. The structure was not big, but it had everything that befitted a haunted manor. Broken walls, messy brambles with purple thorns...
“This is Kuza’s place?” Angor floated closer and carefully checked the building.
Vonman nodded while sitting on Gondola.
Vonman described Kuza as an old and evil woman who knew many ways of torturing people. This woman was the culprit who took Aarni’s tongue and Guina’s arms and legs.
Angor didn’t know who she was, but he was sure this woman had some sort of connection with Ghoul Whisperer because it was Ghoul Whisperer who sent Guina to Kuza.
Angor wanted to pay Kuza a visit because he didn’t want to leave anyone from the Centipede Guild wandering around the Old Earth.
A quick spirit scan told him the entire place was empty apart from dust and debris. Whoever lived here had abandoned it.
He found a set of small footprints on the carpet at the front entrance.
“Those are mine,” Vonman said from the boat.
“You came here before?”
“Yeah, when I escaped from Moonwater City, I tried to talk to Kuza and tell her what happened to Ghoul Whisperer.” Vonman lowered his head in embarrassment. “Guina was with her, so I’ll have to come anyway.
“But I didn’t find her. There was only Guina sunk inside some green water, and her limbs were already gone. Then she told me Aarni was here too. He lost his tongue. I rescued them and escaped.”
Angor sent his spirit below the floor and found a basement with several incubation pods and discarded human body parts.
The place looked like a lab for transplanting bloodline or organs, which wasn’t a rare thing in the wizarding world. But most of the tools were mortal standards. The parts seemed to be taken from mortals as well.
Just like Ghoul Whisperer, Kuza probably was also a rogue apprentice who didn’t have access to proper resources.
Angor heard noises coming from behind and saw Vonman and Guina curiously inspecting a plastinated human head. Telling from their whispers, it was a civil official from Winter Tide City.
Angor wasn’t interested in who the victim was, but he was getting very concerned about how these kids could be so fearless.
“Can you find what you lost in this room?” Angor asked the girl.
“No...” Guina shook her head in Vonman’s arms. “Kuza fed them to the wolf.”
“You saw her do that?!”
“*Slurp* Yes, sir. That animal must be her pet or something.”
Angor didn’t believe the young girl could do well when seeing her own flesh eaten by a beast. The incident must have left mental trauma.
This explained Guina’s strange and somewhat creepy character.
There was no point staying since Kuza wasn’t here. After finding some clues that might tell him who Kuza was, Angor left the castle.
Kuza wasn’t a member of the guild. She came from a small wizard clan, which meant Angor had no reason to go after her.
“*Slurp* I’ll come back and find her someday...” Guina snickered creepily.
...
When arriving at Padt Manor, Angor placed Vonman and Guina in an independent house away from the manor castle, just in case. People would get unsettled if they saw Guina. Worse, if the human skins were somehow exposed in public sight.
It would be Head Maid Mana who delivered food for the children.
Tulu was also informed of the new arrivals since they would be schoolmates of the same year.
With these settled, Angor went to talk to Thewis.
“You’re leaving?” Thewis stood up from his seat and gave Angor an inquiring look.
“Yes. I really need to get back to Brute Cavern and look for a way to heal Jon.”
“Who are you going to ask exactly?”
“I’ll think about it after getting there and handling the new recruits over.”
Eureka looked their way as if she wanted to say something, but she looked away again when seeing Thewis shaking his head to her.
“Alright, I hope you can keep Jon alive as well.” Thewis nodded. “He’s an irreplaceable specimen after all. I have something to tell you before you leave. Listen carefully.”
Angor nodded and waited for Thewis to continue, as politely as he could.
“First and foremost, do not tell anyone about me or Eureka. I don’t think you have a reason to do that though.”
Angor nodded again. Even if Thewis weren’t Leon’s teacher, he would not unnecessarily sell these “fugitives” out—he didn’t get paid for it anyway.
“Secondly, I want your help with buying potions. Look for something we can use when you’re back at the Fey Continent.”
“I’ll try, but no promises. You know the wizarding world is kinda in an uproar, sir.”
“Finally, do you have an answer to my other request yet?”
When they discussed the Crimson Crown in Thewis’ “private dimension”, Thewis tried to find ways to remove the Bloodline Retrack magic array from the crown so that Goman King couldn’t keep tracking them down. However, doing so could damage or even destroy the crown, as Angor explained.
Thewis thought of another plan, which was to use the magic array to find the other end of the connection.
Angor did not clarify whether this was possible back then. He said he needed some time to think about it. Apparently, Thewis would like to get the answer before Angor left.
“There is a way to extract info from the bloodline used in constructing the magic array,” said Angor.
“We can get the bloodline used on the crown?” Thewis smirked. If they could get their hands on someone’s full bloodline, apart from remotely tracking the owner of it, they might even kill the target by using a deadly curse.
“I said info of the bloodline. Not the bloodline itself, Mister Thewis.”
“I see. Can we use the info to locate who we’re looking for then?”