Chapter 247: Mother, Daughter
Chapter 247: Mother, Daughter
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"You are Master Hope, right? Meeting you is fortuitous. I'm Vidomina's mother, Harllotte."
The woman, whose very appearance was a test to a man's self-discipline, bowed slightly towards Baiyi. Her viper-like graceful body even managed to turn an innocent action like this bow into a weapon of fatal attraction; Baiyi just could not take pull eyes off her.
Judging by her appearance only, the Duchess may not be any different from the ladies around Baiyi, who each possessed their own distinguished style of beauty. However, none of the little girls around him would be able to replicate the bewitching and seducing qualities that this woman possessed. Even the older girls he had met, such as Undine and Aya, could not compare to the Duchess' mature countenance as a woman who had had lovers.
'This woman would mark the end of a man's control over himself! She's even more beautiful than women who have been supplemented with dark arts and sorcery on Earth! If one even knew her title and position in society — as well as her daughter who had greatly inherited her mother's look, albeit with an additional air of innocence — I'm pretty sure that after the Duke's departure, there would be many who would jump at the opportunity to take over the family, right? Well, probably for oyakodon 1 or whatnot.'
Baiyi had lost control over his deviant fantasies, and just as he was about to continue reviewing the immortal attraction which the Duke's woman possessed, he felt an intense gaze burning through his neck in the Void.
He cleared his throat, stood up from his chair and declared, "Nice to meet you too, milady. I am Hope, Vidomina's mentor."
"I hope that you, the fabled savior of worlds, can save my husband and my family…" the Duchess said and turned to look at the sleeping Duke.
Her expression was wrought with anguish and grief, with an expression which gave sorrow a newfound beauty.
"My apologies, but I would need more time," Baiyi replied earnestly. The curse was proving itself to be even more perplexing than every situation and case scenario which the Voidwalkers had come up with yesterday; no one had any lead as to what they were even facing.
"I understand. If it's alright with you, Master Hope could stay here for a while. I have already prepared a room for you," the pained expression that would have pierced even the hardest of hearts faded from the Duchess's face as she uttered an irresistible offer.
Baiyi wanted to decline it, seeing as he still had to take care of a lot more kiddies at home, but Duchess Harllotte seem to have seen right through him. She gently placed her hand on Vidomina's shoulders and said, "You're Vidomina's mentor — a man respected and revered by all. Please, accept our gift so that we may return you the appropriate amount of favors."
Baiyi froze. Then, after a pause, without agreeing or declining outright, he said, "Please allow me more time to search for clues, okay?"
"I see. Do what you must. Please allow me to talk to my daughter. If you need anything, just give the orders to the maids." The Duchess turned and held her daughter's hand in hers. Vidomina waved gently at her mentor before happily leaning her body into her mother's side, and the pair of lilies left.
Baiyi stared at their silhouettes. "You got her looks, and you will even surpass her voluptuous body one day; however, you're still a child at heart, huh?"
He turned to look at the slumbering Duke. "Aren't you a lucky man?" Baiyi sighed.
After a little contemplation, he turned to the two maids in the room who had been standing there silently all along. "If you may, can you tell me about Lady Harllotte?"
The maids stared at each other, with similar startled expressions. They had not expected their Lady's charm to rub off on this legendary Great Sage, even when he was just a Soul Armature!
They did not dismiss his inquiry, however. They answered, but their stories were just normal accounts of the daily lives of the Duke and Duchess, how much they had loved each other, and how faithful the Duchess is to the Duke, despite his days being numbered…
No scathing expose, and no scandalous secrets. The image of the Duchess became more and more vivid; she was the perfect embodiment of pure-hearted female, a gentle and beautiful wife, a compassionate and soft mother, and a generous and kind woman to serve. As the maids recounted stories of the Duchess, their eyes shone brightly, and they seemed mesmerized. They earnestly love and admire the Duchess, who they had painted as an avatar of the Goddess of Hearth, effectively making them fangirls.
In the end, one of the maids added, "The only time I have seen milady livid was the time she rejected the advance of Lord Marquess. That was the first time, in more than 20 years of my time here, that I saw milady angry…"
There was no doubt that this was a warning to Baiyi to refrain from getting any funny ideas about the Duchess. However, the Fifth Walker did not feel he needed to remind the maid that many people surely would have been jealous to the Duke, so they would have sought to take advantage of his wife, seeing as the Duke himself was battling for his life, but the Duchess had not given any of them the slightest possible chance.
'Alright, she's too perfect,' Baiyi thought.
After signaling to the maids that he had understood their words, he went back to thinking hard.
Suddenly, from deep within the Void, he heard a shrill, sarcastic voice saying, "Tsk tsk, would you look at that? Great Messiah, Great Sage Master Hope, thinking hard and pooling his soul into his current task, huh? The rewards are too sweet to resist, right? A soft sniff of her skin… or you could do even better and kiss both the mother and daughter, right?" The Assassin remarked mockingly.
"Hmph!" a chilly, scornful sneer that could freeze Baiyi right from the core rang out in the void.
"What kind of person do you all take me as? Do I look like someone who would take advantage of people who are vulnerable? Hmm? I'm just trying to help my student!" Baiyi leaped in to defend himself—not from the Assassin's, but the other person who sneered.
"Just you watch out…" the Warrior replied in her ethereal-like voice, then returned to silence.
'Watch out? Watch out for what? Hey, don't leave me hanging!'
He redirected his focus back to his task.
By the time Vidomina returned to his side to invite him over for lunch, Baiyi still had not figured out anything concrete. He examined the Duke's body again and then set up his new and improved Curse Monitoring Formation.
The formation was first invented by the Church to monitor and prevent any sorts of hexes and jinxes, with the additional ability to track the caster themselves. Seeing as they always battled the forces of wickedness, the Church's knowledge in such areas were certainly reliable. After applying suggestions for improvements from the two Walkers who were muted earlier, the formation abandoned its original effect of providing shielding from the curse, and in return, it gained an exponentially-enhanced accuracy and sensitivity.
Baiyi even had to use some of the materials he had saved from his other expeditions. For example, about the Angelic Feather he turned into a protective necklace and gave to Laeticia, well — he had to ask for that back, even though he was the one who had gifted it. After he used it, the rare material was no more; the previously crystal clear feather had darkened completely due to corruption.
An Angelic Feather was hard to come by. Laeticia loved the necklace so much, she never wore them, and instead, she kept them in her pocket. Of course, when Laeticia heard that the necklace would be crucial to saving Vidomina's father, the kind-hearted and generous girl gave it up immediately.
To ensure that his new formation worked normally, Baiyi had to clear the room of the spells and formations which the previous physicians installed — Curse repellant, healing theurgical talisman, whatever those junks were.
Baiyi knew that these formations had been helping the Duke live on.
In other words, now that he had removed them, he had even less time to solve the mystery before the Duke died on him.
Yet, with all these risks and the utilization of rare items, the effect of the new formation was still too far below Baiyi's expectation. The only thing this showed was that the Duke was thoroughly afflicted with the curse and was about to die. Baiyi could not even trace the source or the caster, and this really puzzled him. Without knowing the source, he could not even devise the way to break the curse.
Baiyi's plan was to have the formation work as planned so that it would point towards a certain area in the direction of the Abyss — where the caster had cast the spell. Then, when the source was found, the Devil Walker could deduce whose area that was, what kind of powers the demon possessed and devise ways to counter its curse.
But the glyphs that were supposed to show the caster's location did not have a single reaction. No source — no trace.
The Fifth Walker was starting to become desperate. He lowered his ego and poked the Fourth Walker's consciousness — despite considering him nothing more than a fake and a fraud. However, perhaps he may have some insights...
"You there?"
"No, fuck you!" the Oracle replied with one of his preconceived memory, finally one of the few times that he speaks like a normal person.
In the end, the almighty, all-powerful, spectacular-amazing-uncanny Fifth Walker squatted before the formation, feeling helpless, without any idea on how to defeat one small curse. His student beside him, who had been calling him to have his meal found him so unresponsive, so she had to shake his shoulders to rouse him.
"Mentor, would you take a rest? Mom's waiting for you in the dining hall, too," Vidomina said.
'Why do people always assume that Soul Armatures can eat?' Baiyi thought helplessly.
Nevertheless, he had no idea on how to fix this curse, so maybe he could talk to the beau and retrieve more clues.
After having that thought, Baiyi stood up again, and just as he was about to leave, Vidomina's eyes turned towards the new formation. "Mentor, what is this? I don't get it, but it looks powerful!"
"I'll teach you that when I get the chance," Baiyi said, monitoring the changes in the formation, when Vidomina crept closer to it. He nodded knowingly, and then out of habit, he patted her head. "Alright, let's not keep your mom waiting."
When they had both sat down at the table, the Duchess asked immediately, "Master Hope, any progress?"
"Yea, a little."
"Just as they had said, Master Hope of the legends!" A smile of relief radiated from her beautiful face.
Vidomina, too, happily chimed in, "My mentor is the best!"
Baiyi did not have the heart to tell her that the Voidwalkers were already started hatching an escape plan, because, well — they had removed all of the life-extending systems installed for the Duke, which may how sped up the time the Duke would die, making the situation even more painful. In the future, the student would probably approach him later on as the avatar of vengeance, right?
'Please don't let that happen!'
Baiyi did not even look at the food they were served. He was occupied with asking them more questions — questions he had asked the Duke previously — and to his dismay, the answers he got were no different from the Duke's.
Since Vidomina's brothers were not around, the dinner party were sitting on a smaller, cozier table. The distance between him and the attractive Duchess became smaller than expected, and he could perceive her; not just the smell of her equally enchanting perfume, but also her powerful aura.
The maids from before had also told Baiyi that the Duchess was not just some random, common woman; she was also a capable fighter.
"Lady Duchess, may I ask? Your power level...?"
She chuckled, feeling a little embarrassed. "Quite unremarkable, actually. Before my marriage, I was at the Legendary-level, but now, without practice, as well as the curse's effect, I think I have regressed a lot more."
"My most sincere pity," Baiyi replied casually.
He examined her face again. She had no wrinkles and still appeared young and beautiful. She could even call herself Vidomina's sister, and no one would bat an eye. He heard from the maid that she was about to be 60 years old. Can someone really look so good at this age 2 ?
Powerful people could fight the corrosion of time on their appearance because of their cultivation. However, as someone gets older, could their face stayed completely untainted, even by a single mark of time? Well, men would still be influenced by age, but Baiyi could not tell for women…
He poked the Scholar in the Void and asked, "With her innate strength, is this possible?"
"What troubles you, hmm? Did the possibility of her sudden, exponential succumb to age — especially after you take her hands in a nuptial ceremony — scare you, hmmmmm?" Even the Scholar was not being kind in her words.
"Hey, now, don't get defensive. I'm being serious."
"What a dull mystery you forced me to crack. Think! She is a woman who was gifted with exceptional wiles and charm at birth, and gifted with wealth and resources at marriage; Frugality was never necessary! She could easily obtain, for instance, crushed behemoth bones to combat her wrinkles. You may also remember that she no longer needs to fight, so she could spend all her surplus mana and time in banishing even the first hint of age or unsavory facial flaw."
She paused and then added, "When I was at the tender age of 60, my appearance would fool many to consider Mia as my senior instead!"
'Oh man, an old woman trying to fight a young girl in beauty? Gosh, no wonder you can't get into a relationship…' Baiyi thought.