Chapter 296: 296. Curse to the Forest
The silent glare of the villagers was very oppressive to Mut.
Because he knew his life and fortune depended entirely on the villagers.
In this village, he was the village elder. Outside the village, or if the villagers didn’t recognize him, he was just a useless old man.
Reputation and prestige are precious and fragile things that he cannot afford to lose.
But at the same time... should he really say it?
The village elder’s eyes wavered, mixed with panic and hesitation.
This kind of intimidation brought about by Lann’s speaking skills stretched his nerves to the breaking point.
Before re-entering the village, Lann wrapped himself in the cloak he had shed in battle once again.
Now, he felt it was the right time.
Yakxi Rune.
The pale white magical glow bloomed on Lann’s left hand, but because his left hand was covered by the cloak, no one noticed the light in the current agitated state.
According to Mentos’ mental quantitative analysis, Mut was about to be driven to a mental breakdown, just meeting the standard for the Yakxi Rune to exert significant mental control.
Lann didn’t want the elder to be momentarily distracted or to have his attention diverted.
He wanted Mut to speak the truth.
So, in the next moment, the previously shrinking village elder under the crowd’s glare suddenly became expressionless.
The villagers were initially puzzled, but then this strange emotion was overshadowed by Mut’s description.
"It wasn’t my fault! It was that woman... that woman deserved it!"
Mut mumbled in a daze.
The surrounding villagers, momentarily stunned, looked around in surprise and then tentatively spoke to the elder, "Old Mut, what... what are you talking about?"
"I said, that woman deserved it! Why did she come to our village with her hair loose? A woman who doesn’t cover her head is either a slut or a whore! She obviously wanted to seduce men!"
"I slept with her, and I strangled her, but it’s not my fault! It’s not! Who told her to look so good? With such a big chest? And not cover her head?"
At this point, Mut, seemingly activated by the Yakxi Rune, started with an emotionless expression that later turned into a chilling fanaticism as he confessed his secret.
He fervently believed he was blameless.
"That woman was not decent! She came to our village and headed straight for that green-skinned bitch’s forest, praying as she walked! She prayed to those green-skinned bitches’ gods and trees! Prayed that these demons would punish our Baron Ham!"
"I was saving the baron!"
The onlooking villagers were dumbfounded, and those who had been crowding towards Mut in an intimidating posture began to subconsciously retreat.
This only made the village elder’s frenzied and angry expression more apparent.
Lann, with his arms crossed, listened to the thoughts drawn out by the magic seal, nodding with a complex expression.
"You said that woman cursed the baron in Brokilon Forest... what did she do?"
"She... she said the baron farted in bed, and didn’t even wash after finishing..."
"That’s at most a complaint, doesn’t your wife complain about you?"
"Yes, but she also said the baron wanted to make her his lover but couldn’t marry her, only allowing her to be a rich mistress. She agreed, but that woman still clasped her hands and muttered to the forest, saying, ’If this is how it is, then men are less reliable than the cormorants on the lake.’ And then..."
"And then what happened?"
The Demon Hunter realized the key to the curse and the demon spirit was emerging, and he began to press further.
Mut, even in his hypnotic state, couldn’t hide his fear, which confirmed the hunter’s suspicion.
"Then... then... that damned forest responded to her!"
Suddenly, an icy cold wind swept through the village slowly.
All the villagers shivered involuntarily.
"An old, very old voice, too old to distinguish male from female, chuckled and said the woman’s wish was granted."
"Even the woman was terrified; she turned and ran! Ran towards our village! She wanted to lure that filth to us, so of course, I stopped her!"
At this point, the Demon Hunter could roughly imagine what happened next.
The young man’s tone was calm and indifferent, as if recounting a common family dispute seen on the roadside.
"You went to stop her, and physical entanglement led to desire with her large, soft body, and then you took off your pants and killed her... how did you deal with the body?"
"I didn’t deal with it..." Mut’s tone was like a dream talk.
"It was the forest, the forest came alive, extending a vine at least fifty meters long! It dragged the woman’s body inside!"
In the forest... Lann looked towards the distant, dense, somewhat ominous forest.
To completely banish the day demon spirit, bones and emotional tokens were needed.
"Did the woman leave anything behind?"
Lann navigated through the crowd to the village elder’s side and asked.
In a daze, Mut pulled out a handkerchief from his arms. Lann recognized it at first glance... it was the same style as the one Fist Knight’s sister had.
Men always buy several sets when purchasing gifts.
"Got it." Lann snatched the handkerchief and turned to walk out of the village.
Mut, snapping out of his Yakxi Rune-induced trance, remembered nothing of what happened in between.
In just a brief moment, the villagers had surrounded him, looking at him with horror-struck eyes.
The village elder, bewildered and frantic, could only retreat into his house in a panic, slamming and locking the door behind him.
He felt that this small village, where he had lived for decades, had become somewhat unfamiliar to him.
Meanwhile, Lann did not return to the field where the day demon spirit was. He passed the village boundary straight to the nearby large forest.
In the dense and eerie forest, the rustling of leaves could be faintly heard.
An arrow with pheasant tail feathers whizzed through the air in an arc and thudded six meters into a tree trunk next to Lann.
This was the tree spirits’ warning.
Decades ago, when relations with humans were less tense, they would shoot three warning arrows, taking lives with the fourth.
But nowadays, if the warned person made any tiny move, they’d aim for the body by the second arrow.
The Demon Hunter halted, extending his hands from beneath the cloak to show he meant no harm.
"Ladies, can we converse in Common? My Ancient Tongue isn’t great."
"Whizz, thud," the second arrow stuck into a tree trunk three meters beside Lann.
A series of harsh feminine voices echoed through the woods. That was the Ancient Tongue, which Lann wasn’t just ’not great at,’ he hadn’t learned it at all.
Yet the Demon Hunter seemed unaffected, spreading his hands as he continued speaking to himself.
"I know you can understand, after all, in the past decade or so, you’ve taken in more human girls than you’ve birthed yourselves, right?"
"I’m here to deal with that day demon spirit in the field, it’s close to the human village, and close to you as well."
As Lann spoke, he suddenly swiped his outstretched hands through the air beside him. When the blur from the swift motion cleared, his hand was gripping an arrow with pheasant tail feathers.
"Demon spirits are not part of nature and the forest, you need to rid them too, let’s help each other out."
The forest suddenly fell silent, the spirits perhaps contemplating Lann’s words or his dexterous interception of the arrow.