Chapter 99: The Missing Princess 4

Agnes.

She was originally a soul of darkness created by witches to serve them for their personal needs.

Amongst those servants, Agnes stood out the most and had gained her master Kriemhild’s greatest favor.

But one day…

Kriemhild sealed Agnes within a puppet without informing her in advance to lend her to the Witch Cult.

However, since Agnes could take advantage of her own powers, Kriemhild restrained Agnes into 3 stages.

The first stage only allowed her to observe her surroundings and move around.

The second stage allowed her to use a few dark spells to protect her master.

The third stage gave her full control of her powers.

The restraint level could only be modified by Kriemhild or other witches. Until today, Agnes was sometimes set in the 2nd stage but never the 3rd, as her current master Amy was far too skilled to need her help.

“That’s why I’m just floating here in a daze. I’m not much of a help to my new master.”

With Kriemhild’s death, Agnes’ restriction level was reduced to the 1st stage.

Although she could ask other witches to change her stage, Amy was far too busy to go talk to the witches for such a goal.

There was nobody who paid attention to Agnes.

“Amy… where…”

“Probably on the 2nd underground floor. She’s trying to summon the demonic beast Behemoth.”

Behemoth.

Woohyuk was greatly surprised by that word.

‘She’s trying to summon a legendary rank demonic beast?’

While it was one rank lower than the Leviathan, the Behemoth was also a demonic beast with immense strength.

If it wreaked havoc, it could raze a small nation to the ground without a building left standing.

However, the current problem was that the Witch Cult could gain such a powerful beast.

‘I’m certain that the Behemoth was summoned in a different region in the past.’

Woohyuk guessed that his arrival in the Izuna Kingdom had changed a lot of the future.

Princess Lizbeth’s kidnapping probably hadn’t happened either in the past.

While Woohyuk was feeling slightly nervous, Agnes roared in laughter.

“Kihihi! Don’t worry too much. The Behemoth won’t eat you. Oh, except maybe for right after the summoning ritual ends.”

It was impossible for humans to tame and control starving demonic beasts.

All of the summoners of the Witch Cult would die once the summoning ritual ends, except for Amy.

Woohyuk was already aware of this truth due to his past experiences.

‘No matter what happens, I need to stop them before the ritual is completed.’

It wasn’t because he wanted to protect and save the believer of the Witch Cult, but rather that it would be difficult for him to face a legendary rank demonic beast.

Not only that, but he also had to rescue Princess Lizbeth.

‘Alright. Now I know what to do from here on out.’

According to Agnes’ information, the underground structure was the same as the version in Woohyuk’s memory.

The first underground floor was Lucas’ chimera research lab.

The second floor was where the summoning ritual and Amy were located.

The third underground floor was where Princess Lizbeth was imprisoned.

So the best course of action was to reach the lowest floor first and going up the stairs.

Since he had some business to attend to on each floor, visiting each floor in the reverse order was the fastest solution.

“Me… go… down…”

“What? If you get captured by Lucas, he’ll experiment on you. You might even die, you know?”

“Precious person… imprisoned… must save…”

Woohyuk babbled vaguely as he was acting like a dumb orc.

It would be fine as long as she understood the intent behind his words.

“So, you’re going to the 1st underground floor?”

“Unknown… must… go…”

“There’s only the princess on the 3rd floor and the Witch Cult on the 2nd floor. So your friend must be on the first underground floor. Hm… Alright. I’ll turn a blind eye to this since I understand your situation. Thankfully, Amy isn’t checking on me right now.”

Success.

When Woohyuk began to rush down the stairs, Agnes spoke to him and he halted his steps.

“Ah, Urkheim. There’s something I forgot to say.”

“What… is it.”

“Take this with you.”

Agnes took out a purple gem from her chest and threw it to Woohyuk.

Grab.

The gemstone drew an arc and landed on Woohyuk’s palms.

“Gem…”

“Use it when you’re in danger. You do know how to read item descriptions, right?”

[Agnes’ Dark Crystal]

Type: Consumable

Effect: Immunity against all effects of witch stigmas for 1 hour when infused with mana. Can also see hidden witch stigmas.

‘Immunity against all effects…’

In other words, nobody would be able to imprint a witch stigma on him, nor would he be affected by external witch stigmas around him.

He could also not be detected and monitored by witch stigmas in the area.

With Agne’s Dark Crystal, he could descend to the 3rd floor without getting disturbed by anyone or anything.

Woohyuk was surprised by this unexpected gift and bowed towards Agnes.

“Thank you… Agnes…”

“If you return alive, tell me some more interesting stories. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Agnes was waving her hands in the air.

Woohyuk turned his back to the disappointed girl and continued down the stairs.

‘I’ve wasted quite a bit of time.’

He may have gained a lot of vital information from his conversation with her, but time was tight and he had to move fast.

Woohyuk infused mana into the Banshee’s Cloak as well as his new item, Agnes’ Dark Crystal.

Boom~

The sound of compressed air expanding resounded and a purple cloud swirled around Woohyuk’s body.

‘There are witch stigmas on every corner.’

Once he descended to the bottom of the spiral staircase and reached the tunnels on the first underground floor, Woohyuk began to notice witch stigmas imprinted on walls.

He predicted that he would have a harder time when escaping from the bottom floors.

As Woohyuk walked down the tunnels, a certain man’s laughter echoed.

“Hahahahaha!”

It was Lucas.

It appeared that one of his experiments had succeeded.

‘Wait for me a bit more, Lucas.’

Woohyuk had to capture him at the last moment.

As he reached the end of the tunnel, Woohyuk found another spiral staircase.

‘I hope there won’t be another puppet like Agnes waiting for me inside.’

Although Amy would be unable to see him due to his immunity to witch stigmas, the puppet still could.

The Banshee’s Cloak’s grade was lower than the appraisal magic of souls of darkness.

Therefore, if another puppet was located in this staircase, a battle would be inevitable, as there was no reason for an orc to go down to the 2nd and 3rd underground floors.

Woohyuk walked down the steps with a nervous look.

And soon enough…

“What is an orc doing here?”

He came face to face with a red-haired male puppet.

‘Dammit…’

It appeared that a soul of darkness was placed on each stairs connecting each floor.

Woohyuk leaped instead of answering and split the puppet in half at a speed it couldn’t react to.

“Urgh…”

The puppet made a pained expression before falling flat on the stairs.

‘Fortunately, he was weaker than Agnes.’

Since he had defeated it at such a rapid speed, it wouldn’t have had time to report to Amy.

Woohyuk sighed deeply and continued his infiltration.

“Kyaaaaaaa!”

“Spare me! Please!”

When he reached the 2nd floor, Woohyuk heard the screaming pleas of male and female voices.

They were somewhat familiar voices.

Woohyuk carefully stepped forward to investigate.

‘It’s an open space.’

Unlike the 1st floor, the 2nd one was large enough to hold large-scale gatherings.

There were people wearing black robes gathered in a circle. They were members of the Witch Cult.

And at the center of the circle were one young man and women tied up as they were getting offered as sacrifices for the demonic beast Behemoth.

‘They’re the people from the Pitbull Clan.’

The ones who were with him on the Campbell ship as he crossed the sea.

He remembered the man as Jacob and the woman as Agatha.

Unfortunately, the current Woohyuk had no means to save them.

“Pl, please don’t do this! Please have mercy on…”

Slit!

Jacob’s head disappeared as he begged on his knees. A thud was heard a few seconds later as a blood fountain spurted in the middle of the circle. Drops of red liquid dripped down Amy’s large scythe as she looked down on the corpse.

The Witch Cultists were overjoyed by the red fountain and they all began to dance.

‘No matter how many times I see this, it’s as distasteful as ever.’

Although Woohyuk had killed countless people during his past 40 years, he had never reaped a life as a game nor for fun.

He had just kept on moving forward to achieve his grand goal of humanity’s salvation.

That was how Woohyuk could always brace himself and do the deed.

He was “different from them”.

‘I need to get to the next floor as fast as possible.’

Since the ritual was nearing its end, the demonic beast Behemoth would soon be summoned.

Woohyuk stuck his body as close as possible to the wall and concealed his presence as he made his way to the passage on the other side.

“I, I don’t want to die! Somebody save me!”

Agatha pleaded to the cultist surrounding her, but Amy’s scythe ended up turning her into an offering.

Slit!

A red puddle expanded on the floor once again.

‘What a shame. She was quite skillful.’

Agatha’s sense in magic was greater than average. She was quite the outstanding magician.

However, Woohyuk couldn’t put Princess Lizbeth at risk just to save her.

On the Eeth Continent, there were countless situations where one had to make a decision between two inevitable choices.

Woohyuk reached the spiral staircase and made his way down, before finding another puppet. This time, it was half-male half-female.

“Welcome, orc. You can enter as freely as you wish, but if you wish to exit, you’ll have to…”

Slash!

Grandia had cut the puppet in two even before it could finish its introduction.

‘I’m not in the mood to mess around.’

He didn’t know what it would say, but Woohyuk was in a bad mood.

Woohyuk arrived at the bottom floor and entered the gloomy passageway.

‘She must be in one of the rooms on this floor.’

Agnes had said that Princess Lizbeth was the only one on the 3rd floor.

That signified that if he entered the wrong room, he could accidentally activate traps.

Woohyuk pondered as he observed the doors on each side of the tunnel.

‘I can’t hear the princess’ voice at all.’

There was most probably a sound-nullifying spell in the room she was locked in.

Meanwhile, all the doors were made of the same shape and materials.

The witch stigmas were also imprinted at regular intervals and weren’t very helpful for his deduction.

‘At least I have an artifact that can help in these situations.’

The [Archeologist’s Golden Magnifying Glass].

It could reveal the properties of an object and show all hidden information about it, and therefore was very helpful when searching for clues.

Woohyuk used the golden magnifying glass to inspect every single door, when

‘Found it.’

He found a door slightly different than the others in a matter of minutes.

The door on the center of the tunnel’s right side had a curse spell enchanted on it.

‘I’ll die of a heart-attack the moment I try to open the door by force.’

It was a spell that gave shivers to Woohyuk, even though he had a high-resistance against darkness attribute magic.

He decided to erase the spell before entering the room.

Woohyuk focused his mind and put his hand on the handle.

Immediately…

Swirl.

The contour of the door began to release a dark energy and it was getting absorbed into Woohyuk’s hand.

He had converted the curse magic into demonic energy and was absorbing it.

“Phew…”

It was a technique he had used in the past when nullifying the traps in ancient historic ruins.

However, unlike the past where he used magic, this time he used demonic energy to negate the trap.

Creak.

He opened the door and found a brown-haired woman lying unconscious on the floor.

It was Princess Lizbeth.