Chapter 99 - The Missing Princess 4 (2/2)

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.