The Church of the God of Life and Reincarnation was the next destination Astraea planned to take Luo En to.
Although she didn’t know why Viscount Adrian had driven her out, the little elf felt that the Church of the God of Life and Reincarnation, which specialized in various curses, would surely have a way to solve the problem on her body.
Would they? Probably?
Unlike the God of Wisdom and Strategy, the God of Life and Reincarnation clearly loved all living beings in the world. As a result, the followers of the God of Life and Reincarnation were filled with various demi-humans and lower-class humans. The God of Life and Reincarnation did not consider them a disgrace, and these poor souls struggling on the edge of survival regarded Him as their salvation.
There were even some who simultaneously believed in the All-Father and the God of Life and Reincarnation.
Of course, this also meant that the cash-strapped Church of the God of Life and Reincarnation had no proper headquarters. Their archbishop was an underground physician who permanently resided at the entrance to a sewer in Port Tills. Ordinary people would never find that place.
But the well-connected little elf happened to know that archbishop.
So, after leaving Viscount Adrian’s estate, Astraea led Luo En into a small alley off the main street of Port Tills.
Under Luo En’s bewildered gaze, the little elf lifted a heavy manhole cover and revealed a dark, deep passageway that reeked of filth.
“Through here, we can reach the church of the God of Life and Reincarnation,” the little elf said, wrinkling her small nose.
Luo En looked at her in horror. “There? Here? No! Absolutely not! This is an insult to my dignity as a noble! By the All-Father… even if I died right here, I, Luo En Ilwan Logan, would never set foot in that filthy place!”
The squire gesticulated wildly. Having to stay with those demi-humans and beggars earlier had already been bad enough. Now the little elf wanted to take him into a place so vile that he felt his noble status would be irrevocably tarnished.
Well, it wasn’t as if the little elf had ever really treated him like a proper knight anyway.
And indeed, just as Luo En thought, she had no patience for his nonsense. Without a word, she reached out and grabbed his collar. The squire felt an enormous force yank him into the foul, terrifying passage.
For the first time, Luo En felt unclean.
What he didn’t know was that as an elf, whose senses were far sharper than a human’s, Astraea was suffering even more. If for Luo En the smell was like passing a latrine, for her it was like swimming in one.
Yet she kept her expression unchanged as she pulled him along, not even faltering in her grip.
The little elf didn’t want to waste any time. She wanted out of this damned sewer as soon as possible!
Her pace grew faster and faster until she was almost running. Luo En, subjected to such rough treatment, nearly vomited his breakfast.
Then he thought about what that vomit would look like, which made him even more nauseous. In the end, he held it in. He was a knight—even if just a squire—and he felt that if he lacked this much endurance, he couldn’t call himself a knight.
In truth, he simply didn’t want to lose face in front of the little elf.
Under her relentless pace, she finally dragged him to the end of the sewer—a sea outfall on the coast.
This was a platform on a cliff face, located right next to the Royal High Seas Fleet’s base, but separated by the cliff so neither side could see the other.
The familiar sea breeze dispelled the foul stench clinging to the little elf. The fresh, salty air made her gasp greedily, like a desert traveler finding water. Her enhanced senses, which had made the stench unbearable, now made the clean air doubly precious. She didn’t even care about her appearance at that moment.
When Luo En smelled the fresh air, he noticed someone the elf had missed.
“Oh, welcome, my friend. You always look so miserable.”
Luo En saw a middle-aged man in a brown robe speaking to the still-gasping elf. Instead of human ears, he had a pair of deer ears, and two small bumps protruded from his head. He looked somewhat odd—clearly a demi-human.
“Cough, ha…” Astraea let out a breath and finally steadied herself, but a lingering nausea remained. Her nose, still sharp despite the sewer ordeal, could still pick up faint traces of the stench.
But it was much better than before. Annoyed at her inconvenient body, she glared at the middle-aged demi-human. “Who knows what perverse tastes you have, you damned stag, to set up your base in a place like this.”
“Hah, you have no idea about the plight of us demi-humans. If I didn’t hide here, should I just set up a stall out on the street? Those useless officials would throw me in jail just for offending their eyes!”
The middle-aged demi-human grumbled back. He had long resented the discriminatory atmosphere against demi-humans in the kingdom, but he had no way to change it.
In fact, he felt that if the kingdom weren’t busy campaigning against the orcs, dwarves, elves, and a bunch of other races, they would already have purged demi-humans like him.
“Setting up here, your patients would probably die from infection before they even reach you,” the little elf retorted, though she knew he had no choice. She just couldn’t stand going through this ordeal every time. “But that’s not why I’m here today, Archbishop Aidan. I need a favor.”
“A favor? Why should I? For the longsword behind that young man with you?” The archbishop, Aidan, crossed his arms, leaning against the rock wall of the outfall, sizing up the silent Luo En.
“This young lad has soft skin, but some calluses on his hands. Who is he? Your little boyfriend?”
Aidan whistled teasingly, and the little elf immediately blushed.
Under the influence of some unknown presence, any mention of Luo En now triggered embarrassing thoughts in her mind… She couldn’t even tell whether these fantasies were her own or imposed by something else.
Seeing her flustered reaction, Aidan dropped his playful tone and looked seriously at Luo En.
He stepped forward and patted Luo En on the shoulder. “Kid, you’ve got promise. I have high hopes for you.”
“Huh?”
Luo En started to explain, but today, for some reason, he managed to read the room—as if he had passed an inspiration check with flying colors—and noticed that the little elf didn’t actually dislike the implication. So he decided to stay quiet, partly because the five voices in his head were giving him a headache, and he was happy to avoid thinking too much.
“Enough of this joking!” Astraea, her face still flushed, pulled Luo En behind her. When Aidan finally turned his attention back to her request, she pulled out the… souvenirs she had “borrowed” from Viscount Adrian’s estate from her pouch.
“Take these,” she said, stuffing the valuable items into Aidan’s hands. As he looked at her in confusion, she continued, “I need you to check Luo En and me. We think we’ve been cursed.”
“Cursed?”
Aidan pocketed the expensive-looking items without question—he had his own methods, and the church was always short on funds.
But her words puzzled him. As the archbishop of the God of Life and Reincarnation, he was very sensitive to curses, yet he sensed no curse on either of them.
Still, out of professional duty, he asked the little elf to hold out her hand.
After all, she had paid him far too much. He couldn’t just brush her off.
Astraea obediently extended her hand, and Aidan took it, just as Viscount Adrian had done earlier, channeling his mana to sense her condition.
“Holy crap!”
Aidan’s expression mirrored Adrian’s. He stared dumbfounded at the green glow emanating from the little elf. And Luo En beside her was even more astonishing—the multicolored light nearly blinded him.
Seeing Aidan’s stunned silence, the little elf thought he had encountered a problem. “What is it, Archbishop Aidan? Do you have any insight into the curse on Luo En and me?”
“Insight? Oh, I’ve got plenty of insight,” Aidan muttered.
If divine blessings could be considered a curse, then the little elf and Luo En were indeed cursed—severely. Something like ‘you two must be happy forever’ was as vicious as curses got.
“Oh, that’s great! I knew I could count on you, Archbishop Aidan!” The little elf suppressed her joy. She thought Viscount Adrian was indeed unskilled—Aidan could see it, but Adrian couldn’t. She had been right: nobles were useless.
“Can you remove the curse?” Luo En, hearing hope, stopped pretending to be a disconnected observer.
“Me? Remove it?”
Aidan looked back and forth between the little elf and Luo En, both staring at him with hopeful eyes.
Remove a divine blessing? Seriously? If he had that kind of power, would he still be hiding here?
No choice. He had already taken the money. He had to go through the motions.
The middle-aged demi-human closed his eyes and began silently chanting.
“Purification!”
A simple purification spell. Some said that advanced practitioners could directly purify curses with it.
“All done. Successful removal.”
Aidan nodded, his expression calm as he released the elf’s hand.
By the God of Life and Reincarnation, the little elf wouldn’t mind a little white lie, right?