Chapter 421 – On the Scar.

If there is anything in the world that is dirtiest, it must also be the cleanest.

– Kurleung!

The woman covered her ears and shuddered at her resounding thunder. I can’t even count how many times this has been struck by lightning. She shuddered in her fear as she squeezed her body between the pieces of furniture in her wagon.

I’ve been waiting for two days for the thunderstorm to stop, but the lightning continues to strike the ground without stopping. She couldn’t count how many times she had seen lightning like that since she came here.

Maybe it was a natural story. Because this was the place where the lightning dragon Regin, who was said to appear very rarely even in history, descended.

‘I didn’t come to a place like this.’

Even her carriage, which had been protecting her, was damaged, and she regretted it as she felt the water running down her wall wet her clothes.

“The new Cloud Zone is very interesting, isn’t it?”

Originally, the woman was a researcher dispatched from Paciphenia to investigate and study the environment that suddenly changed when Bingryong Otter and Lightning Dragon Regin descended.

“However, locals say it’s best not to even think about approaching it because there are intermittent lightning storms.”

After hearing her words, the knight spoke with concern and seemed to be discouraging the woman, but she frowned and looked at him.

“Who asked for your opinion?”

Hearing the sharp voice, he shut his mouth as if he couldn’t help it.

“Because I’m fully considering what you’re worried about. If you don’t know, shut up.”

He was a knight who had come to assist a woman sent to investigate the environment.

“It’s a great harvest to have a new cloud zone in the place where the lightning dragon descended!”

For a moment, she was offended by his words, but when she remembered the story she had heard of her here, she felt better again.

“You wouldn’t know what an important discovery you’ve just made, with a muscle-filled brain.”
“No.”
“What is it not? You mean you can report to the home country on my behalf now?”
“No.”

Even the woman knew that his words meant little more than they were literal. Nonetheless, she was nervous about the long forced march and the environment where it was difficult to wash herself.

“It’s okay. Is there anyone who can guide you there?”

Still, the discovery was more important than that now, so she asked.

“I’m sorry, but no one came forward to guide me.”
“Nonsense! Didn’t the Adventurer’s Guild even have it?”
“It wasn’t, but…”
“Then what do we do? We should have hired them sooner!”

She asked her knight why he didn’t submit the request, but he shook her head.

“The amount they were asking for was too high.”
“How long has it been?”
“Only the advance payment was 40 iron coins.”
“Are you crazy?”

If it was 40 iron coins, it was an amount that was a few gold coins in a tolerable country.

“I tried to negotiate a price, but they all declined.”
“Really! It’s enough to lie that you’re from a foreign country! I’m sure it’s a concoction.”

The woman mentally tried to organize the remaining budget if they were hired, but she was also unable.

“It must be difficult to hire people.”

In order to return to the home country after the investigation, food and supplies must be procured again, but if such a large consumption is made, the supplies that can be procured will be in short supply.

“Then what do you plan to do?”
“How do we do it? Let’s go by ourselves.”
“I think it would be better to hire a local, but…”
“Don’t talk nonsense. You don’t want to go back to your country?”

After hearing her words, the knight shuts her mouth again. She must have at least known that he, too, would not be able to go back if he hired a local at such a high price. No matter how great a discovery she made, it meant nothing if she could not return home.

‘If I can’t go back, I can’t even dream of being an alchemist.’

She also came to investigate the environment that had changed in the aftermath of the Dragon King’s descent, but the important thing for her was the qualifications that she could gain from that achievement. After all, she was still an apprentice under the alchemist’s teaching.

‘I must be recognized as an alchemist.’

After all, she was an alchemist too, but she was not recognized as a proper alchemist in Parsiphenia. She did just that by sending her out as her investigator now.

Ordinary countries value alchemists very much, and often do not allow them to leave the country, and even if they do, she sends out a large group of people as an escort that doubles as a guard. But what about her now?

“Anyway, he must be doing his job properly, right?”
“It’s just protecting the wagon, so there shouldn’t be any big problems.”

Unfortunately, only two other knights, including him in front of him, followed the woman. Because of this, there are only two wagons, including wagons. Even escorting the Apprentice Alchemist was an excessively small number.

More men would have followed the woman, but alas, the same apprentices laughed at her studies. It was like asking if our country’s work is more urgent, so we need to pay attention to what happened in other countries.

Because of this, she couldn’t control her anger and suddenly made up and submitted her own research plan. Even from above, she thought it necessary to investigate the place where the dragon king descended and the country that was destroyed or changed because of it, so she accepted it.

However, it was assumed that the reason why the budget and manpower supported by this amount was small was because she was not as interested in it as above, and her alchemists submitted her plan directly without reporting to them first.

“When I go back to my country, I’ll put down the nose of all the bitches who ignored me.”

The woman remembered the images of those who laughed at her and gnashed her teeth. If the Cloud Zone was really created by Regin, it would be a discovery that would require revision of history books.

In addition to this, this place was also somewhat close to the place where Otter descended, so if she could investigate there, she would surely be recognized as an alchemist.

“Even if it’s dangerous, I have no intention of going to the place where the lightning strikes, so I just go.”
“…All right.”

She reluctantly agreed with him too. For the same reason, she had no intention of doing anything risky. It was enough for her to find out the environment inside, even if she didn’t go to the lightning strike.

However, she never expected that the lightning that had been driving from afar would come closer and closer to where they were. No matter how brilliant knights and Hill Disbinis were, they couldn’t escape death from the falling lightning, and she was safe because she was inside the sturdy carriage.

– Growl

However, just holding on like this was now the limit. The food had already run out, and even if I went out, it was almost certain that I would die from being struck by lightning that struck endlessly around me. Most of all, even though I wanted to drink water, I already knew that the water in Parz is salty salt water, so I wondered if I would have no choice but to dry up.

“…The sound?”

Suddenly, the woman noticed that the constant sound of lightning outside her had stopped. She approaches a nearby window and when she looks out, she sees an acrid smell stinging her nose under a dark cloud, but no lightning strikes.

I looked up at the sky, just in case, but there wasn’t even a single flash of light, not even the black clouds. She wondered if it would be all right to go out like this, but she had no other choice, so she had no choice but to step out of her carriage.

– Slap
“Ugh?!”

As soon as her feet touched the water, she felt a tingling sensation and the electricity running through her body made the hairs on her body stand on end. If you dip your feet in the water again, the feeling of the water coming up to your ankles is strangely warm.

“Did the lightning boil the water…”

Looking a little further, I can see white salt floating here and there.

-Quarreung!

I was curious about that look, but that was for a while. The sound of thunder from behind startled her, lest the lightning strike this way again.

Since the land is submerged in shallow water, all traces of it have disappeared in two days. So she had no choice but to start running, guessing in the direction her carriage was going and in the opposite direction from her. You never know when that thundercloud will spread this way again and lightning will strike like rain.

“Whoops, whoops!”

But it was very difficult for her to go back the way the carriage had come in her bare feet. Alas, even in shallow water, the surging water flows and the soft ground continues to hold her ankles, so she gets tired faster.

“Whoop whoop.”

Still, she was able to walk away without giving up because the appearance of the cloud, which brightened little by little as time passed, let her know that she was not going the wrong way.

She continued to move forward, feeling welcome even in the water that was gradually getting colder, but at that moment, her foot in her water was covered with a strange, creepy feeling.

“Ah?”

She had something the woman had forgotten under the protection of her sturdy chariot and her knights. It was none other than that in the waters of Parzu, monsters that were small in size but could not be ignored were teeming with them.

“Sir, I hate it!!”

Recalling the fact, albeit belatedly, she tried to shake off the grip on her ankles, but it was too late.

-Slap!
“Hee!?”

The slippery touch soon traveled down her legs and wrapped around her thighs. If you look down at her, you can see pasitillas swarming around her, dripping a sticky, transparent liquid from the bright red head resembling a male organ.

“Go away! Go away!”

She struggles to shake it off, but the more she does, the faster the pacitillas climb her body. Her body froze at the sight of one of them thrusting her head between her own legs and the feel of it sweeping the crack.