Task: Witch! Hunt the witch!

Requester: Herny, a farmer

Quest rank: C-rank

Rewards: 80 Large Copper Coins.

Description: The moment I witnessed that monster... I knew something was wrong, since she came, the village has been cursed, people have been dying and... mutating?! No no no...they weren't dying... they seemed to be.... controlled? Like, they were doing things they would never do, they were like beasts!

And from time to time, they villagers would puke blood, I did as well but, since I quickly realized the danger, I ran away...

Once I was two kilometers away, I was free from the curse, please, save my village!

Zoan's POV

"So... You two also took the quest for the witch hunt?" Zoan said to the four armed half-human and the mixed blood drow elf.

"Pleased to meet you, my name is Herst," the former farmer orc greeted.

Nero's POV

"Nice to meet you Herst. I'm Nero, and I did accept the witch hunting quest", Nero introduced himself to the farmer and the adventurer.

Zinc's POV

"Zinc here. I'm a doctor but I can hold my own." The dwelf replied as he brought out Arsenic. "You don't mind if I bring my pet, do you?"

Zoan's POV

"No problem here," Zoan replied. "Let's get this straight first: Do you think that -from the quest's description alone- the witch is real and evil, and that it's not some drunken man's prank?"

Zinc's POV

"I don't know, I've heard of poison that powerful from my master though. Is it really a curse? I'm skeptic. I think it might be a powerful poison or a disease of some sort. That's why I decided to take up on this quest. But then again, whether it be curse or poison, I'm positive there's someone behind all of this." Zinc explained his reasoning.

Nero's POV

"Regardless of the cause, those villager need our help", Nero replied before pointing towards Herny, "He's said that there is a range to the spell and he just ran away. I think he would still be affected if he was poisoned."

He finally directed his attention towards Herny," Are you still puking blood and showing other signs of illness?"

Zoan's POV

Herny trembled, not wanting to remember what had happened on the village. But he mustered up his will and shakily said: "N-No, ever since I got far away from my village, my symptoms have ceased... but the fear... the fear doesn't go away...!" He then continued to tremble, seemingly unapproachable for the moment.

"Alright then. The guy said to me earlier that the village is west from Nagrand. Just half a day's travel by horse. I'll go rent the horses," Zoan said before he left the group temporarily.

Nero's POV

The five of them, including Herny and Herst, left the city on horseback. Nero was surprised that his horse was able to move in relative comfort with him and his equipment on its back. They traveled west through the planes and were able to reach the farmlands just as noon had passed.

As they were not sure of what to expect when they did reach the village, they stopped to have their mid day meal a few miles away.

Zoan's POV

After eating a whole animal meat raw, Zoan offered himself up to scout the village first, while Herst followed him. After entering the 2 kilometer (1.25 miles) range, Zoan asked for Herst to do a check up. "Nothing has happened as far as I can see, sir." Herst replied. Zoan then assumes that he wouldn't get cursed unless he comes into contact with the witch. ...surprisingly, up to that very day, Zoan has never realized that he was cursed. ...even though the report from his previous quest said that he was.

Anyhow, the nomad and the orc continued to approach the village, and as they finally stood before the entrance, Zoan saw them: They were zombies. He could be wrong, but what he had seen were definitely thin creatures with pale skin, eyes completely white, walking rigidly with dried blood covering the area near their mouth. Herst took a step back, while Zoan approaches a woman and said: "Hello. Are you fine, miss?"

The woman did not respond amicably however, and instead dashes at the nomad. With instantaneous responses, Zoan swung his club vertically, aiming towards the woman's temple, and killed her. He then ordered Herst: "Go back to the others, and call them here. It appears that this village is a lost case. I'll start exterminating them."

Zinc's POV

“Come over here Henry. I’m gonna give you a quick check up.” Zinc replied as he pulled out a needle.

“Uh.” Henry eyed the needle hesitantly. “What are you gonna do with that”

“No worries, just gonna test if you’re poisoned or not.”

“Poisoned? What are you talking about? I was cursed!”

“Just a precaution. It won’t hurt nor will it take too much time. What if you’re poisoned...and still are? Do you want to stay poisoned?”

“No! Oh, well...fine.”

Zinc poked the needle into the villager’s liver meridian and quickly pulled it out. Luckily, there was no change in color. With a smile, Zinc patted Henry’s back.

“All good. Fortunately, you aren’t poisoned. And probably the same goes with the villagers. I guess it really is a curse.”

Nero's POV

When Herst returned and informed them of Zoan's ongoing fight against the villagers, they decided to act immediately and join Zoan. They rushed towards the village entrance where they found Zoan holding off a hoard of twenty odd zombies all by himself. A significant amount of bodies lay on the floor, disfigured and bloodied.

Nero picked up his pace and jumped into the fray, sending the zombies flying about in all directions by swinging his spears. After an intense few minutes of mauling the zombies, they got a few moments of respite. This opportunity was used to catch their breath and come up with a plan.

"In theory, it should be possible to revert the villagers back to their original state. But, as we have just experienced, it is impossible to communicate with them as they are now and they simply don't stay down even when injured. I think we should sneak our way into the village and keep the casualties to a minimum", Nero expressed his thoughts.

"We are able to deal with the villagers comfortably. I think that it will be easier to sneak around if we split up. This way, we can also investigate the village quicker. Let's meet up over here in a couple of hours. If this place remains infested, we will meet up at the farms", he concluded.

Zoan's POV

"Understood," Zoan shortly replied before going alone, deeper towards the center of the village. Herst soon follows the nomad, unsheathing the iron sword that he recently got lended by Zoan.

On the way there, he had found more villagers but they were all scattered around, moving without any goal in particular. He ignores them and proceeded to "stealthily" move, but there were not much cover at the time and a villager saw Herst and rushed towards him. Zoan saw the villager and bashed his head before he manages to touch Herst.

"Thank you, sir." Herst said. It seemed a bit overprotective of Zoan, but at least his intention was good.

"Don't mind it. Rather, could you check me again?" the paranoid nomad asked. After a quick checkup, the orc gave his partner a surprised look.

"Sir... This is..." Herst hesitated. "Your hair... They've turned white!"

"What!?" Zoan shouted, forgetting that he was supposed to hide his position. His loud voice had attracted a many villagers, but after a few minutes of running the two managed to escape the horde by looping the horde around houses.

Nero's POV

After splitting up, Nero decided to move around the perimeter of the village in order to observe the situation from the outside. As he dodged confrontations, he noticed that the villagers were most sensitive to noise. They would turn their heads towards anything that made a sound and investigate what caused it without heeding anything else.

Nero used this knowledge to his advantage as he armed himself with stones and used them to create a diversion so that he could sneak around. Of course, his giant frame wasn't something that helped his cause hen being stealthy and he did have to fight quite a large number of foes in spite of his tactics.

As the fights grew more frequent, he found himself being ushered in towards the center of the village as he searched for a way to get free and compose himself. The villagers were getting much more stronger as well as more aggressive the deeper he went inside the village. As he ran through the narrow streets, throwing the stone to his left and right, he saw a large tree that was growing next to a wall and decided to climb it. With the chasing villagers clawing at the trunk, he jumped over the wall and found himself at a temple.

Zoan's POV

'How did this happen...?' Zoan asked himself. 'Was I cursed the moment I entered the village, or sometime else...?'

"Herst, check me up again. Is my hair still white? How do I look? Do I look older?" Zoan asked his partner. "Sir, only a small part of your hair has turned partially white. Only your left side has turned white, and I do not see any differences to your physical age. It seems that only your hair was affected."

'Well then, at least I won't die of age any time soon. That's a start. However, I still wonder how this happened. Did the witch found us and cursed me?'

"...anyways, I feel as if nothing has changed inside me, and I don't puke blood either, so I assume that I am still safe for now. Let's hurry and continue the witch hunt." Herst responded his employer by giving a nod, and the two continued to explore the village until they found a certain adventurer near a temple.

"Isn't that... Four Arms?" Zoan whispered, and proceeded to walk towards Nero.

Nero's POV

Nero saw Zoan and Herst approaching him and gestured that the villagers were nearby. Once they came within earshot of each other, Nero whispered the obvious," I think this place has the strongest villagers. But more importantly, what happened to your hair?"

Zoan's POV

"Good question. Either I am cursed by the witch, or someone else has cursed me. Either way, it doesn't seem to affect me for the time being," Zoan carefully explained.

"Either way, this place is where the strongest enemies are?" Zoan said as he turns his head towards the temple. "If so, then I want to attack it now. Fighting in a group is better but... now that I think about it, where is that Mixed Blood anyways?"

Zinc's POV

After the party decided to split up, Zinc decided to make a possible medicine that could at least lessen the effects of the curse. Kind of like manually countering the effects of the curse through physical and/or emotional changes. He knew, from the quest description, that the affected villagers would puke up a lot of blood. And, judging from the side-effects Zoan experienced, those who were cursed also had their hair turn partially white...maybe all white if Zoan had stayed in the curse's range any longer.

Medically speaking, puking up a lot of blood came from damage to the internal organs, particularly in the lungs. Hair turning white was also a sign of extreme stress. As for sensitivity to sounds, people who suffer from headaches were known to be very sensitive and focused on sounds and noises. Combining all these symptoms, Zinc's initial guess was that the curse was similar to having a blood clot lodge within the lungs since this sort of disease could also cause anxiety and headaches.

Because he doesn't know much about curses, the doctor wondered whether a curse can travel via air and spread through breathing. Nevertheless, now that he had deduced what disease was similar to the curse, Zinc decided to conduct a few experiments before concocting the perfect medicine to alleviate the effects of the curse. For that purpose, Zinc decided to capture an affected villager.

After capturing an affected villager and tying her up, Zinc conducted a preliminary checkup on the zombie. The zombie had pale eyes and pale skin. The zombie had a few other symptoms upon closer checkup but overall, she seemed healthy. All these symptoms confirmed his theory about the blood clot. After experimenting, the doctor started pondering on what materials or herbs to use to solve this issue.

On the top of his head, Zinc could name a few herbs that could help lessen the effects of such symptoms and have anticoagulant properties. There's tumeric which was the number one leading herb for thinning blood and preventing clots. But such an expensive material can only be foraged in the east. Even if this village was located in the east, Zinc didn't think the villagers had the money to afford the expensive spice. So, the dwelf thought about other less expensive items. Surely, the villagers would at least have some of them in stock.

"Hmm, if my memory serves me correctly, ginger and garlic are both good herbs for blood thinning. Not to mention, the natural healing properties of ginger can also reduce migraines. The spiciness of peppers have been known to increase blood circulation and sunflower seeds help boost immunity." Zinc mused as he listed a few key ingredients. "All of these can be used to make food. Why don't I make an herbal soup?"

Quickly, Zinc searched the houses that had been cleared out of zombies by Nero, Herst, and Zoan. In a couple of minutes, the doctor was able to find all the necessary items. Although he couldn't find any sunflower seeds, he was able to find safflower oil. Safflower oil was similar to sunflower oil and can be used as a suitable alternative. In addition, Zinc was able to find a vat of clean water he could use for cooking.

Zinc brought out his iron pot and began boiling some water over an open fire. While the water boiled, he quickly crushed the ingredients with a mortar and pestle. Then, the doctor dumped the crushed bits and pieces of herbs and stirred the mixture until a faint fragrance emitted from the pot. As the aroma increased, Zinc continued to stir until finally, a light-brown and thin soup was made. Zinc poured out some of the herbal soup into a couple of small rotect jars - each holding about a mouthful of soup - to preserve their taste and aroma.

The dwelf swallowed his own portion and shivered at the spiciness. It was a bit too spicy but the effects were the same. He could immediately feel his body warm up as his blood pumped and circulated throughout his body. He fed some to the tied up villager and the doctor could see her skin reddened and her behavior becoming more docile. It seemed to be working.

Zinc packed up the rest of the soup and headed towards the temple. Along the way, he administered the herbal soup to all straggling zombies he had encountered. Like the female villager, these zombies also became docile after consuming the soup. Soon, Zinc arrived at the temple where he encountered his party.

"I made some herbal soup and it seemed to lessen the effects of the curse. Try some!" Zinc called out as he brought out three rotect jars and handed them to Zoan, Herst, and Nero.

Zoan's POV

Zoan ate the soup in a hurry, and resisted the spiciness with moderate ease. Although some tingling feeling remains on his tongue, it was edible to say the least. Some meat might have been nice, but it was not time, nor the place to eat food without caution.

Zoan then asks Herst to see whether his hair has returned back to brown, but it was of no avail. The color remain to stick on the nomad's head.

"Sir Zoan, perhaps it takes some time to return? Sir Zinc's medicine has effectively pacified the enraged villagers, so it is definitely working for sure. However none of the villagers seem to have white hair caused by the curse... which makes me conclude that your illness might have been from something else!" Herst said, attempting to liven up his employer's mood.

"Pay no heed to it then. I don't feel any headache nor any urge to vomit blood. Your medicine works, Doc." Zoan then smiled at the Dwelf, before returning to put on his serious face. "Now then, let's get straight to the problem: The temple. Four Arms here said that the strongest villagers are in there. We want to cure them, but they won't do that without retaliation. Plus, there is no telling what the witch might do to us in the meantime."

Zoan then paused, as to ensure that he is not going too fast in explaining his idea. "So I have a plan: I distract the villagers, Doc helps me suppressing the villagers, and while the witch is focusing on killing and cursing us, Four Arms kills the witch. How about it?"

Zinc's POV

"Okay. I'm down with this plan. I can try to attack the acupressure points in their legs and arms to temporarily cripple them, providing me enough time to feed them the soup. But, just in case, should we devise a plan B?" Zinc nodded after some thought.

Zinc continued after a momentary pause. "If the witch uses another powerful spell or curse, we might not be able to cope with that. If this does happen, we may need outside help. There are two possible options. I can have Arsenic secretly poison the witch but there are some risk of failure. Another option, I have with me some homemade wolf lures. I can use one to draw in nearby wolves and attack the witch. But these frenzied wolves might attack the villagers. What do you guys say? Got anything to add? Or a new plan to propose?"

Nero's POV

" It would be great if you guys were able to draw the witch outside. If that doesn't happen, I'll take my chance and go inside the temple", Nero agreed with the strategy brought up by Zoan and then turned to Zinc. "We should use the wolves as a last resort. And unfortunately, we need you to help the villagers outside the temple. That means I'll have Arsenic accompany me to the fight."

Zoan's POV

"Alright. Let's do this."

Zoan walked towards the entrance of the temple and opened the big double doors. Inside, there were many villagers, but they were different. They did not walk aimlessly, but instead sat down, kneeling at the pews.

At the center, there was a statue made of wood, presenting a figure of a female humanoid with wings of a bat as wide as her own height. The wings were folded, as to distribute balance of the statue. Next to the winged statue lies broken stone fragments of what is presumed to be Ophelia's statue.

"O lost sheep, have you come to pray?"

A voice was heard. In front of the winged statue, there is a sole figure, kneeling with both knees touching the ground. It was the witch. She wore a black dress, tattered in some places.

"No. I have come to kill you." Zoan said stoic voice.

The witch chuckled, taken by surprise at the answer the stranger gave to her. "I see... So it is that time already..."

"Yes. Any last words?"

"Yes... Get him!" the witch shouted, ordering the villagers. Without any delay, all villagers stood up, turned their bodies towards the nomad at the same time, and began to scream at him.

Zoan then ran as fast as he could towards the west, where the streets were wider than the others. He had assumed that this was probably the place for merchants to put down their carriages and trade with the villagers, but it was not the time to think about it.

Nero's POV

Nero sat on top the tree next to the temple grounds, waiting for a signal. The wait wasn't too long as he heard a commotion within the temple which quickly moved away from him. After waiting for a few moments, Nero decided to enter the grounds and move towards the temple itself. He saw that the doors were open and a woman was standing in front of the statue.

The witch looked like she hadn't expected his appearance and took a step back before chanting a spell. Nero acted quickly and threw his spear at her, but it was blocked by a black translucent barrier. The barrier shattered upon impact, but it had done its job by dispersing all the force of the spear, causing it to fall harmlessly on the floor. Not even a moment later, the witch waved her arm and sent a dark slash straight towards Nero, not even stopping her ongoing chant. The slash was powerful and Nero didn't find the time to dodge it. He lifted his shield up and felt the impact through his body, leaving his shield wielding hand feeling a little numb.

It was well known that magicians shouldn't be given space to dictate a fight. Nero decided to close down the chanting witch as she continued with her chanting. As the distance between the two shrunk, Nero had to block a couple of slashes that had come flying at his face as well as his foot. The witch finally finished her chant and smiled in triumph but then froze in fear as Nero jumped forward in order to close the distance. He had finally reached striking distance and swung his spear down at her head with his entire body weight behind the hit. The swing was blocked by the appearance of another dark barrier which managed to stop his spear completely but crumpled upon impact. He was stuck in an awkward position at the moment but recovered quickly by kicking her right in the stomach before she could do anything. The witch had no more defense against his attacks and she flew a few meters backwards before collapsing into the floor. Arsenic, who had been hanging on to Nero's back, dropped down on the floor and went to hide behind the statue.

"ARGHHH", the witch screamed in agony as Nero slowly approached her. But then, he felt something change. He threw up into his arms and saw blood. His eyes widened as he realized that she had cursed him just like the villagers. He had become unable to move as he kept on throwing up blood on the floor.

In the meantime, the witch had somewhat recovered from the bone shattering kick and had crawled away to a safe distance. Her expression was one that was filled with pain and fury as she declared with all her might, "You could have become my servant, but now you shall die."

She undid one of her necklaces and broke it, causing all the beads fall onto the floor. Immediately, Nero felt himself becoming weaker as his cursed blood, that was on the floor, started to emit a red energy that flew into her. The witch had regained some of the color that her face had lost. She stood up slowly and it could be seen that her injuries were being healed.

Nero grimaced as he had finally stopped vomiting blood. It looked like the witch had stopped the curse and had used it to power herself up. He got back into a battle stance as he got ready to fight. But then, something happened that made him feel dread. An enormous quantity of blood energy came flying from outside the temple. The witch absorbed it all and her skin turned into a shade of red.

Zinc's POV

Seeing Zoan rush out into the streets while being chased by a horde of zombies, Zinc quickly jumped into action. With so many enemies, the doctor did not have enough needles for all of them. Instead, he decided to use his trained fingers. Since he was aiming for spinal nerves in the zombies' bodies with deeper effects but not enough to cause permanent damage, Zinc decided to only use his forefingers and his middle fingers.

The doctor performed the necessary warmup and gestures before bringing his fists up to eye level. Then, he slowly extended his forefingers and his middle fingers. With a sharp gaze at the zombies, Zinc charged towards their backs. Moving in from behind, the dwelf had an advantage of surprise. Zinc jabbed the first zombie on the neck and on the midsection of the zombie's back, causing a sharp numbing sensation to the zombie's limbs and brief paralysis. While the zombie leaned back, Zinc shoved some soup into the affected villager's mouth.

All this happened in a matter of seconds...and before a minute was up, Zinc had calmed down about thirty zombies. The doctor wiped away some sweat that glimmered on his forehead as he look towards Zoan who was still being chased by a large number of zombies. Luckily, the zombies were more focused on the barbarian and did not notice Zinc even after knocking down all those zombies from behind. The doctor was telepathically connected to his "son" Arsenic and from Arsenic, he could tell that Nero was having a hard time with the witch in the temple.

"We need to hurry." Zinc muttered as he continued disabling more zombies.

Zoan's POV

After having run a nice couple of minutes through the big street, Zoan paced himself into a jogging speed. Halfway through, he had noticed that there were less and less villagers chasing him. Now there were none.

Herst then came out of nowhere, providing Zoan his water pouch. The nomad didn't break much of a sweat, but a drink after being chased by cursed villager-cum-zombies is always nice to have. Even if it lasted less than 10 minutes.

As he looks at his partner Zinc, he noticed that the Dwelf had an uneasy look while facing towards the temple. Just when he was about to approach him, some red mist had emerged from the knocked-out villagers. As the three of them maintain their wariness, the mist proceeded to flow back towards the temple.

"...so it has come to this after all, huh?" When he accepted the quest, he knew he was going to kill people. In fact, he even knew that he had already killed some innocent villagers whom he could have saved, but didn't.

Still, there is always something in his heart that aches when he encounteres enemies whom he can talk to. This has been the case since he was a child. Since before he had been taken into the tribe. It was a something which had even made him hire Herst.

...unfortunately, such thoughts are not the time Zoan to think about. Not caring what happened to Herst and Zinc, Zoan rushed their way towards the temple. It was then when Zoan encountered the witch a second time. While the witch has clearly had some past, she is causing mayhem towards the village and towards one of his newest partners. Damage of property and assault; it appears that negotiation won't work on her anymore.

"How unfortunate," Zoan grunted, and launched himself towards the witch. A black translucent barrier had yet appeared again. Responding to it, Zoan raised his stone club up and swung it down, breaking the barrier.

Without losing momentum, Zoan tackles the witch and carries her body along with him. The witch was taken by surprise, and pummeled the nomad's back multiple times while saying "Let! Me! Go!" And he did... but simply not after smashing her body towards the temple's wall.

Nero's POV

Zoan had made his appearance at a crucial time. Nero had been struggling to keep up with the witch after she had powered up. His shield was barely held together and was chipped away at multiple places with small cracks appearing wherever he had blocked an attack. Her frequency of slashes had also increased by a lot as Nero couldn't rely on his shield to keep all of them from him. He had some mild cuts on his right arms as well as on both his feet, causing him to slowly bleed and lose blood.

He would have died a long time ago had it not been for Arsenic, Zinc's centipede. Arsenic had managed go around the room and poison the witch from behind and hide before she could figure out what had happened. The result was a green patch of skin on her left calf that had continued to spread as the fight progressed. While this poison was really weakening her, it didn't look like it would be enough to keep a weakened Nero alive.

When Zoan arrived and attacked the witch, Nero finally got a chance to take a break from defending. He rose from his crouched position and limped over to the witch who was using her magic to heal herself. But it looked like she was quickly running out of the external blood energy. Her previously reddish skin was now really pale with a greenish tinge. Nero lifted his spear and swung it down with great force. A barrier formed for the umpteenth time as it tried to block the strike. But it wasn't enough as the spear broke through the barrier and shattered it in an instant before continuing on its path and piercing the witch right through her chest.The witch must have realized that her time was up and her eyes had a distant look. She spoke her last words, "May our Lady... open the eyes of the heathens."

Nero pulled his spear out of her body, leaving a gaping wound. The wound started to heal for a little while before the magic gave up. Her body had now turned completely green and her breathing had stopped. The witch was finally dead and Nero sat on the floor of the temple and rested against the wall, falling asleep from exhaustion and blood loss.

Zinc's POV

While Zoan and Nero dealt with the witch inside the temple, Zinc stayed behind to take care of the villagers. Ever since the duo defeated the witch, the doctor could see noticeable changes to the cursed villagers' complexion and behavior. While the soup's effects wore off, Zinc applied some acupuncture to the affected nerves of each villager's spine as well as massaging the forefingers and the ring fingers to stimulate the nerves in their limbs. Soon, the villagers reverted back to normal and their injuries healed. By the time the first villager woke up, he was able to move his limbs.

Zoan's POV

Zoan went to check up on the villagers. One by one they regained their sanity, with some having their spirit broken upon realizing what they have done to other villagers, and realizing who they had lost. However the quest was about a witch hunt, and not consolation of the loss of life, love and friends.

"How is it Doc? Any side effects over?" Zoan asked.

Zinc's POV

"They're recovering. It'll take a few days but no worries, there's no side effects." Zinc answered Zoan's question.

The doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a dried stick of ginseng. "Here, take this. Though it won't bring back your hair color, it will at least stimulate your blood and activate hair growth. Once we get back, just stop by my shop in a week's time and I'll give you an acupuncture treatment free of charge."

After Zoan received the dried herb, Zinc also gestured for Nero to come over. The doctor also gave Nero a dried stick of ginseng. Since Nero had lost a lot of blood from the curse and from the fight, the ginseng will boost his body's circulation and promote healthy blood production. After treating everybody, Zinc stood up and received Arsenic from Nero. The quest should be completed now. All that was left were the formalities. Zinc walked towards Zoan and Nero and asked them what they were doing next.

Nero's POV

Nero did start feeling better after being treated by Zinc. He went over to the witch to search the greenish dead body as well as the temple. He found nothing on the witch herself apart from an enchanted ring which was glowing a faint red. After searching the temple, Nero found a few letters that the witch had received from someone. The contents of the letter were vague, but it showed that someone was aware of her doings and was helping her from the background. Apart from the the letters, he found some coins, but he decided to leave those to the temple which needed repairs.

Zinc's POV

While Nero was searching for loot, Zinc was searching for something else. He wondered that if there was any living organism that could have survived and adapted to the witch's curse. As Zinc looked about and overturned a few tables and stones, he was visibly disappointed at the lack of success. Just as he was about to give up, he caught a glimpse of movement. Focusing at the movement, Zinc realized that it came from a small, white worm.

Immediately, Zinc sent out Arsenic to try to intimidate and communicate with the white worm. As soon as Arsenic made contact with the white worm, the worm limped and became submissive. Zinc contained the worm in a small rotect jar and peered at the worm. Zinc glanced over at Arsenic for a translation as he asked the worm some questions.

"Can you hear me?"

"What are you going to do to me?" The worm replied through Arsenic.

"I won't hurt you. Why don't you follow me? Follow me and you will become great...that I guarantee."

"R-Really? Will you feed me blood?"

"Is that what you eat? Sure, I can do that."

"Deal!"

"How should I address you? Do you have a name?"

"No."

Zinc chuckled lightly. "Then, I'll call you Cerium or Ceri for short."

After Zinc pocketed Cerium, he left the temple to check on the villagers one last time.

Zoan's POV

Meanwhile, at the temple, "..." Zoan stared at the corpse of the witch. "I am going to take this back with me," he said as he lifts up the whole corpse.

Nero's POV

Nero showed the letters to his teammates as they left for the horses tied to the farmlands outside the village. Herny, who was waiting with the horses, was jumping up and down in joy as he learnt that most of the villagers had recovered and the curse had been lifted. He decided to see the adventurers off as they left for their return journey.