Chapter 47: What's so cruel or not about obtaining medicine amidst the turmoil? ...
When Catherine woke up, she felt as if she had slept for a very long time, and she felt very refreshed. She stretched and slowly opened her eyes, but was startled by her surroundings.
The lush greenery made her wonder if she was still fully awake. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again… but nothing had changed.
"Little girl~ You're finally awake! I've been waiting for you for so long."
A witch's distinctive, seductive voice came from beside her. Catherine turned her head and saw that she was walking towards her.
Behind her stood a towering, solid wood cabinet. Looking through its glass, one could see that each compartment was filled with countless potion bottles. Some of these bottles were overflowing with various potions, while others were empty.
Beside the cabinet stood a giant tree, its vines spreading out and covering the entire cave. The lush greenery that Catherine had seen when she opened her eyes was part of it. The longer one's gaze lingered on this giant tree, the stronger the feeling became—this giant tree, like a dodder vine, was quietly absorbing the nutrients from this cave.
Everything inside the cave is bound to the vines of this tree. But its size is so large that there's no need to worry about whether it can bear such a heavy weight.
"here it is……"
"Hehe, this is my lab~" The witch raised her arms and twirled around like a young girl. "Isn't it beautiful!"
Catherine nodded in agreement.
Seeing Catherine's reaction, the witch happily ran over and hugged her: "You have good taste, little girl. That's why I like you so much!"
The witch hugged Catherine, her hands roaming restlessly over her back. For a moment, Catherine felt as if she had become a rag doll, the kind little girl loves.
After the witch released her grip, Catherine finally asked about her body: "What happened to me before?"
"I promised to help you become stronger~ The spider eggs are hatching, and your body is being mutated." The witch brushed a stray strand of hair from her forehead. "Right now, you're just about to pass through the first stage, and your body is strengthening towards the next stage."
“However, the timing is not quite right yet—actually, it is not impossible to force the hatching with magic, but your body will most likely not be able to withstand it, so I have temporarily suppressed it for you.”
The witch lightly jumped down, walked to the wooden cabinet, and then pointed her finger, and a bottle of potion flew into her hand: "It will mature on its own later. Drink this potion."
The witch chuckled, but Catherine shuddered at her words.
The idea that her own body had become a spider's hatchery was incredibly bizarre. Even though the witch said it wouldn't do her any harm.
After Catherine finished the potion, she noticed the witch had suddenly fallen silent. The witch stared at her intently for a long time, until Catherine felt uneasy, before finally speaking softly, "Now, you're practically one of us."
"You should know about the 'witch', right?"
The witch's voice, unusually, was devoid of laughter, sounding only dangerous.
Catherine instinctively wanted to deny it, but when she met the witch's eyes, she realized that it would be foolish to lie to an almost omniscient witch.
Catherine nodded, but then shook her head: "I didn't see it with my own eyes. I was too young then, just entering the Vatican, and didn't dare to break the rules too much..."
In slums, people have no opportunity to study. Women and children, being the lowest class, have even less of this opportunity.
So after entering the Papacy and learning that she could read books in the public library without limit for a period of time each day, Catherine became extremely eager to learn for a long time.
She learned about the witch from one of the books.
Previously, witches were everywhere in the city of Verandel. But that was a long, long time ago... Back then, magic wasn't something only nobles could learn; talented commoners could also use magic to heal and make a living.
One lineage of commoner women was discovered to possess extraordinary magical talent, exhibiting a natural and exceptional sensitivity to magical elements. Many of them eventually became powerful and immortal witches.
But ever since the Papacy decreed that only archbishops had the right to learn magic, the witches in the city vanished almost instantly. Some say they were secretly arrested and killed by the Papacy, while others say they entered the Papacy as nuns and were no longer allowed to use magic.
Catherine was once a nun in the Papacy, and she knew better than the common people outside about the fate of witches.
The book records that without exception, they were all secretly captured by the Vatican through traps, and then trapped in formations where they bled continuously day after day until they died.
The witch's blood is a top-grade potion, and those nobles have been coveting it for a long time.
The book was simply placed casually in a corner of the public library, freely accessible to everyone in the Papacy. This implied that the Papacy never considered their capture of witches to be any kind of secret.
After all, in the eyes of the higher-ranking nobles, witches were nothing more than an expensive magic potion.
What's so cruel or uncruel about retrieving medicine?
"Hehe~ But I'm still alive..." The witch's eerie laughter interrupted Catherine's memories. She stared into the unknown distance, her eyes unfocused and complex. "I'm still alive."
Catherine couldn't tell what the witch was thinking from her expression, but she guessed that she must hate the Papacy to the core.
They had been away from the cave in Tarasco for a long time, and worried that the others would be concerned, Catherine subtly suggested that she wanted to go back.
The witch abruptly withdrew her gaze and turned to look at Catherine. That first glance always made Catherine feel as if she were being watched by a venomous snake.
"Hehe~ It's time to go back... Little Spider is probably worried and wants to search for you all over Devil Forest."
Catherine's heart pounded from the witch's gaze. So much so that when the witch finished speaking, she hadn't even reacted and remained silent.
The witch remained unchanged, lightly tapping her fingertips to bind Catherine with vines, and the two headed together towards the cave in Tarasco.
For the rest of the journey, the witch remained silent. Ever since Catherine finished recounting her past as a 'witch,' she seemed lost in her own world. At this moment, she transformed back into that mysterious and dangerous witch.
The witch's vines moved with incredible speed, and in the blink of an eye, they had arrived at the entrance to Tarasco's cave.
Catherine could see from afar that the giant alien spider was standing in front of the cave, seemingly waiting for them.
As soon as the vines loosened, Catherine happily ran towards him.
Tarasco bent down and easily pulled Catherine, who was running towards him, into his arms. After lifting her onto his back armor, he glared fiercely at the witch where Catherine couldn't see him.
Although he could sense the witch's power, he was not afraid to fight her.
If he can't even protect Catherine, how can he still have the face to live in Devil's Forest?
However, the witch mercilessly exposed her: "Hehehe, little spider~ Why are you glaring at me like that? I just borrowed your female companion for a little while, why are you being so fierce..."
Upon hearing this, Tarasco bared his teeth fiercely, and it looked like he was about to charge forward at any moment. Catherine immediately tightened her grip on his waist.
"I'm fine, Tarasco... The witch is helping me."
There's no need for a fight; it's obvious that Tarasco is no match for the witch. Why bother going up there and getting beaten up for nothing?
Upon hearing Catherine's words, Tarasco slowly retracted his teeth.
The witch chuckled, seemingly quite looking forward to his actions.
Seeing that although there was still an undercurrent of tension between the two, at least they were at peace on the surface, Catherine straightened up and looked at Tarasco.
"Have your injuries healed?"
A flicker of panic crossed Tarasco's eyes, but his expression remained perfectly normal: "Yes, much better."
The witch let out a sneer from the side, and Tarasco, hearing it, bared his teeth at her again.
Catherine covered her forehead. These two are still not done...
Before they knew it, it was noon. Benson and the others took the meat the witch had given them and went to cook lunch. The witch was tired of roasted meat, so she found them a pot and told them to make stew today. Benson and Lucas naturally had no objections, after all... overwhelming force could suppress any dissent.
The pot was placed over the fire to boil, and before long, the water inside began to bubble and steam, the heat carrying the aroma, turning into white mist that rose up.
The witch leaned down from the vines, gently fanning them with her hand, a satisfied expression on her face. She glanced at the two people beside her, offering a rare, albeit not-so-praise-, compliment: "Not too stupid."
Catherine sat to the side, propping her head up with her hand, watching with some boredom as she waited for the meat inside to cook completely. Suddenly, she saw the pot shake slightly.
At first, she thought the water in the pot was boiling, which was causing the pot to shake. But the pot didn't stop shaking; instead, it shook more and more violently.
Then, the shaking traveled underground...
The ground began to shake, and the smallest animals in the Devil's Forest, with their keenest instincts, scattered and fled first. A flock of birds flew out of the forest, panicked and trying to escape the area. Panic instantly gripped the entire Devil's Forest.
The witch raised her hand to press down on the wobbling iron pot, then lazily looked around.
Her skin was pressed directly against the scorching hot metal, but the heat, which would have severely burned a human, seemed to have no effect on her; in fact, her skin didn't even appear to turn red.
Before the vast dense forest, the dust kicked up by fleeing animals mingled with the slight mist, making them even harder to see with the naked eye.
Just minutes after the witch looked in that direction, a group of magical beasts suddenly sprang out from among them, each with bloodshot eyes, and charged toward them.
He looked exactly the same as Tarasco had during his previous manic episodes.
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