‘So, did I gain more from taking the initiative to kiss this girl, or did she gain more?’
Truth kept pondering this question.
Perhaps both parties felt like they had come out on top.
She had successfully kissed an older girl, and the older girl had successfully been kissed by the Saintess.
‘But something feels a bit off…’
Truth felt like something was missing.
Looking at the expectant look in Annabelle’s eyes beneath her, Truth fell into thought.
She realized she didn’t have that slightly excited and expectant feeling she had when kissing Suna.
Instead, she just felt like she was taking a small advantage.
It was like how no one would order takeout without using a coupon.
Taking advantage of a situation was human nature, but takeout where you could use large coupons usually didn’t taste that good.
Just as Truth was about to close her eyes and try this dull kiss, she saw a flash of joy in Annabelle’s eyes.
‘Wait, joy?’
Truth suddenly realized that Annabelle was probably the first person who felt so much joy while being pinned down by her.
From the time she had transmigrated until now—from Suna, Gadelia, and Cat to Ariel—everyone was so scared they barely dared to breathe when they saw her, let alone meet her gaze.
If Truth told them to bark like dogs, they could only swallow their pride, kneel on the ground, and bark twice.
If Truth wanted to kiss them, they would close their eyes, open their mouths, and stick out their tongues with ten thousand levels of reluctance.
They wouldn’t enjoy it as much as Annabelle was.
It left Truth with no sense of conquest at all…
‘That’s right, I almost forgot. The sense of conquest!’
Only then did Truth realize that kissing Annabelle was like two people playing around.
It lacked that sense of conquest.
It was a case of “tasteless to eat, but a waste to discard.”
‘I kind of don’t want to kiss her anymore. What should I do?’
‘But since I’ve already reached this step… Forget it. Just consider it unlocking the “First Kiss with an Older Girl” achievement.’
Thus, Truth continued her move to kiss her.
However, just as their two rosy lips were about to meet, a pair of powerful hands grabbed Truth from behind once more, dragging her off Annabelle.
“Huh?”
Annabelle instinctively looked up to see what was happening.
In the next second, the muddy sole of Tia’s shoe flew straight toward her face!
Oof!
Annabelle let out a cry of pain.
This was the first time in her life someone had stepped on her face.
She was about to cover her face and question her angrily, but her heart immediately quailed when she saw Tia’s murderous expression.
“You hooligan! Shameless! Despicable, perverted lolicon! To think I was actually worried about you!”
Tia held Truth in her left arm while unleashing a verbal assault on Annabelle with her right hand.
She hadn’t expected Annabelle to be so shameless.
She had only looked away from Truth for a few minutes, and something had almost happened again!
Annabelle gave an awkward smile, spreading her hands as she argued, “What are you thinking? The Saintess was just helping me with my injuries. Everyone saw it. How could I take advantage of the Saintess in public? Right, everyone?”
The Priests nodded repeatedly in agreement.
That’s right, that’s right. Our Commander is definitely not a shameless, despicable, perverted lolicon!
“Birds of a feather!”
Tia gritted her teeth and replied as she looked at Annabelle’s rosy complexion.
The woman didn’t look sick at all; she was practically bursting with life.
So, she had been faking an illness to trick Truth into coming over?
“What happened?”
Kavier also came running in.
He had just seen Tia give Annabelle a kick without hesitation at the entrance.
He thought Priests were supposed to be very united.
Why were these two fighting as soon as they met?
Seeing Kavier’s arrival, Annabelle hurriedly tried to smooth things over.
She knew this guy could talk directly to the Goddess, and he reported everything regarding the Saintess.
If her actions were reported to the Goddess…
Then, Annabelle signaled Tia with her eyes to set aside their conflict and deal with Kavier first.
After all, the Goddess also hated infighting among Priests.
As a High Priest, Tia certainly wouldn’t want to be punished by the Goddess either.
Tia understood the signal, but she continued to point at Annabelle and shouted to Kavier, “This person wanted to take advantage of the Saintess! I’m going to report this to the Goddess!”
……
Half an hour later, inside the Rift Valley not far from the First Aid Station, a Demon Hunter Squad was cleaning up demon corpses.
“Reg, look. This is a Dark Demon. They are all offspring of that 9th Rank Great Demon. You’ll be dealing with them often in the future. And this one is a Blight Demon, and this one is a Shadow Demon…”
A gray-haired old man pointed at the demon corpses on the ground and introduced them one by one.
He was the Captain of this squad, and Reg was a rookie Demon Hunter who had just been shoved into the squad yesterday.
“Let me ask you, if a low-rank Shadow Demon stays hidden in the shadows, what method should you use to make it reveal itself?”
“Use Holy Illumination Magic or try to locate it with a Demon Hunting Compass,” Reg replied.
During this time, he had been studying theoretical knowledge.
Only now did he have the chance to come into contact with demons.
Reg had thought he would fight a hard battle against the demons once the Demon-Hunting Campaign began.
However, Kavier wouldn’t let him participate in the first wave of ambushes.
He was only called to clean up the battlefield after the fight ended, supposedly for his safety.
“That Apprentice Hero Mark of yours doesn’t have the Goddess’s blessing. Don’t think you can just go on a rampage because you were chosen as an Apprentice Hero. I once led an Apprentice Hero who thought he was a God-chosen and didn’t need to fear any opponent. He went to take on three demons by himself during a battle. In the end, we only managed to recover one of his arms.”
That was how Kavier explained it.
Next, the old Captain had Reg identify several more types of demons.
Reg was able to accurately name all of them, but unfortunately, he still hadn’t encountered the type he was interested in.
“Captain, are there no traces of Blood Demons in this entire demon gathering point?”
Right in the center of the Rift Valley sat a fairly large Demon Town.
Although it looked like a cluster of dilapidated houses from the outside, there were hardly any living facilities inside.
According to the Demon Hunters, the demons were just trying to mimic the lifestyle of Humans.
It was said that the higher the rank of the demon, the more they resembled Humans.
“Mentioning Blood Demons again? You’re a strange fellow. Why? Were you bullied by a Blood Demon before?” the old Captain asked curiously.
He noticed that Reg had been mentioning Blood Demons from time to time ever since he joined the squad.
Blood Demons were a very Rare type of demon.
Often, there was only one Blood Demon for every 1,000 demons.
Furthermore, the movements of Blood Demons were extremely mysterious.
Even now, Humans’ understanding of them was less than one-tenth.
There was a constant debate among Demon Hunters about whether Shadow Demons or Blood Demons were the most powerful Assassin-type demons.
Currently, most people leaned toward Shadow Demons because they had directly fought against Demon Hunters and were well-documented.
On the other hand, there were no such records for Blood Demons, so the Demon Hunters’ understanding of the former was much deeper.
“No, I’m just curious. I simply want to see what a liquid-state demon looks like.”
Reg flatly denied that he had been bullied by a Blood Demon.
“Then you’re looking in the wrong place. Some scholars guess that Blood Demons like to travel alone, so they likely won’t appear here. You should give up on that idea. Instead of searching for a Blood Demon that you might only encounter a few times in your life, you’re better off looking at the Saintess, whom you might only meet once in a lifetime.”
The old Captain pointed at Truth, who had just entered the Rift Valley not far away.