Chapter 99 - The Missing Princess 4 (1/2)
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.
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.’