Alyon, who was not particularly surprised by the suggestion from his partner, put a hand on his chin and began to speak. "Actually, solving this without using the resource we have might be the most sensible thing."
Amidst the astonished gazes of the crowd around her, Nafız shouted loudly. "Only that beanpole is useful to us; the rest of you can leave when evening falls!" When she showed the people living in the dungeon a way to save their lives, the crowd suddenly fell silent. Nafızsmiled, thinking people are the same everywhere. When her parents died, the people they had helped previously also turned their backs on them. Thinking, 'faithlessness is ingrained in human nature,' that nothing changes even in this third life, a weak shriek tore the silence.
"No, I won't leave Uncle Gulag alone!" The owner of these words was none other than Jashua, who was clinging to the skinny man's legs and weeping. The courage displayed by the child pulled the astonished crowd back to reality, and they began forming a barrier in front of Gulag. While Alyon looked at her, beaming with delight, Nafız pulled the small child out of the crowd with her whip.
The poor child, struggling to breathe while his throat was choked by the whip, was fighting with his mouth wide open. Nafız sent a walnut-sized medicinal pellet she retrieved from her ring's storage directly down the struggling child's throat into his stomach. The poor child writhed wildly on the ground, feeling as if a volcano had erupted in his stomach, while Nafız pinned him down by stepping on his waist with one foot.
The people, losing control of themselves due to what they saw, charged toward Nafız. They couldn't remain silent about this torment being inflicted on a small child; even death would be a more honorable act. When the blood-red whip cracked in front of them, a foot-deep pit formed at their feet. As the group momentarily paused in the face of this incoming attack, Nafız began to speak.
"How fortunate that you are not people devoid of honor; you forced me to use a very valuable item." When Nafız finished speaking, looking at the child writhing and screaming on the ground, Alyon called out to her: "If your current sect leader saw what you just did, I'm sure he'd spit blood!"
The sight of Alyon bursting into loud laughter and the child struggling on the ground was like a dark comedy film. On top of all this absurdity, Nafız addressed the crowd with fiery eyes. "This child now belongs to me. If anyone among you tries to harm the child or tells anyone what happened today, I guarantee that no one who knows your name will be left alive!"
Following the harsh threats, Alyon smashed a man-sized rock with a single punch and said, "Gulag aside, everyone return to your places; no one will die in the dungeon today." Although the dungeon residents didn't trust this pair, whose actions and words changed every minute, they had no choice but to do as they were told. Gulag, walking with trembling steps toward the orc couple, was pondering what had befallen them.
After a while, he calmed down and said, "My Lord, do what you must to me, but please don't kill the people in the dungeon." "We're past that, old man; tell me how you planned to stop Godfrey." Nafız tried to shake Gulag, who was still affected by the events, back to his senses with her words.
"Mighty warriors, thanks to my many years of work, I have come very close to creating a serum that will take over the City Lord's being." Alyon, whose attention was focused on the words of the gray-robed man, said, "I want a little more detail."
"My Lord, once this serum, prepared using the cruel Godfrey's blood and my own, is injected into his veins, he will be forced to obey my commands, like pack members obeying an alpha beast. My only missing piece is the blood of a fully sentient creature. If I get my hands on it, I can be one hundred percent certain of success."
Killing one tyrant only meant another tyrant would come and rule the city. Standing closest to evil to achieve the greatest benefit for good was the only reason Gulag endured this life full of suffering. While the puppet on stage seemed to govern the city, Gulag had worked hard to take control by standing in the shadows.
"What do you say, Nafız, it looks like we'll have to change our plan again!" Alyon started laughing to himself when he realized this would be the third time they had to change their plan since they set off. Nafız looked sideways at the grinning, big-headed orc beside her and tossed a vial of blood to Gulag.
"How soon can you finish the serum, you old fool?" Gulag, looking at the glass vial in his hand with disbelieving eyes, answered excitedly. "If I start now, I'm sure I can have it ready by the next sunrise."
As the sound of Gulag's footsteps faded while he ran toward his laboratory without finishing his sentence, Alyon whispered. "Nafız, why did you feed the child that medicine? First you created a blood warrior, and then this incident; are you trying to expose us?"
Nafız looked at Alyon for a long time, then began to speak calmly. "Hey, you big-headed fool! Didn't you learn anything from the memories you inherited? Why do you think our Masters were left alone in a cave when they died?" Alyon stared blankly at her, having been met with a question instead of an answer, while Nafız continued.
"Didn't the tribe on one side and the sect on the other sacrifice both our Masters to ensure their own survival? Everything will be different this time; we will gather people who will fight for you and me. My view, my actions, will always be in this direction. What do you think?"
Alyon, throwing his war hammer onto his back upon hearing her words, walked toward one of the hollows in the dungeon without saying anything. Nafız, looking after Alyon, thought, "No matter how smart he is, he is an orc after all; did I put too much pressure on him?"
Nafız, standing at the entrance of the hollow where Jashua and his family lived, watched the crowd gathered around the child, then shouted when she saw they hadn't left after a while. "Everyone except his family move away from here." The couple, who began trembling with fear as she approached them, calmed down in the face of Nafız's gentle gaze.
"You don't need to worry; I will give you some information on very important matters." Nafız explained the changes the child would undergo and the characteristics they would need to conceal, one by one. While leaving various technique books, she strictly warned them not to tell anyone what happened.
"My Lord, we are just simple villagers. We are seeing the shapes and writings on the papers for the first time; how will Jashua understand them?" The father, leafing through the books in his hand, spoke hurriedly before Nafız could leave the hollow. Nafız, continuing to walk, said without turning around, "When he wakes up, you will understand everything."
While Mora's father was one of the continent's greatest artisans, her mother, whom she lost during birth, was a highly proficient alchemist. Mora, burning with longing for her mother, clung tightly to this profession, which she considered her mother's legacy, from childhood. The entire sect knew very well that she specialized in poison because it suited her combat style. Wounding her opponent once in training and tournament matches was enough to declare the result. She had only just celebrated her thirteenth birthday when she gained the title of poison genius. What no one knew was that Mora, who drew attention in this direction, was actually intensely studying the sect's secret recipes. Thanks to her mother's secret journal, which she found when she was ten, a brand new world, hidden like a secret, had opened before her.
In the sect she was born into, the blood of ancestors and high-ranking disciples was collected before burial and preserved in special containers upon their death. These blood samples, stored in a forbidden area of the Holy Blood Sect, were used to pass on the legacy created through thousands of years of work to new generations. These legacy pills, given to the two best students of each generation, were the sole method by which the sect maintained its power. If the sect's ancestors were to know that Mora's prize, meant for the best of her time, was being used by a peasant child, they would do everything in their power to curse the lineage of the person responsible.
Nafız, lost in the memories of her Master, came to the middle of the empty courtyard. As the long and exciting day gave way to night, she muttered to herself before succumbing to exhaustion. "Ah, Mora, ah!"