Chapter 169
Oliver was worried that if she was left alone, Nadia’s mental state might turn into something worse.
Just the image of his mother, Ophelia, was enough to shake him.
Ophelia had long abandoned her human psyche and had adopted an inhume mentality, as far as he knew.
He could not let a little girl like Nadia become something like that.
Of course, preventing that from happening was still a far-fetched idea. He knew he wasn’t capable enough to stop Ophelia from tampering with Nadia right now.
But planting some seeds of humanity in her mind was still better than nothing. The future was unpredictable, after all.
It changed continuously.
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He soon returned to his room and took out the potions he had stored in his mind space.
He then started drinking them one by one to temper his espera and refine it further.
“I am almost out of potions now. Apart from a few healing potions, I don’t have anything left,” he thought.
Oliver had been continuously stocking his supplies by exchanging pills and potions with others in exchange for food.
Of course, his rations had long run out of stock, but thanks to Sigfor, he could sustain.
Sigfor had told them to cook for themselves if they wanted to eat something, but since the old man didn’t know how to cook despite being as old as a tree, he would eat with Oliver.
Not to mention the fact that he rarely felt hungry and didn’t mind living without food, unlike them.
Oliver had a functioning kitchen in his area along with the fresh ingredients Sigfor had brought to use or eat raw to be specific.
Initially, Sigfor intended for them to consume raw fruits and vegetables to sate their hunger, however, how could the posh clan heirs be able to live such a life?
They were used to delicate, full-course meals every day. There was no way that they could sustain a raw diet every day.
But everyone knew that Oliver could cook, so no matter how it was, all the chores automatically fell to him.
Thus, he took on the role of being the group’s cook—their personal chef.
However, since he couldn’t do it for free, he would charge them something in return for meals every day since they ate the food he would make.
It worked well for some months, but now they were also running out of potions and pills to trade. After all, even if they might have stocked for themselves, who would have expected that it would be shared with Oliver in the end?
Anything else that remained in their storage artifacts was too precious to be traded for mere food.
So even Oliver was helpless and just cooked for them occasionally without asking anything in return. No matter how mature they thought and acted, in the end, they were still kids.
Also, they were his friends, right?
Right…?
“Do I really consider them as my friends?” Oliver thought as he lay on his bed, staring at the wooden ceiling, lost in thought.
He never really considered them as friends if he had to say it honestly, at most, he considered them as useful human resources that could help out humanity in the future war against demons.
He helped Nadia in order for her to become stronger than she could as she was in the novel.
So, was it right for him to call them his friends.
“Haah… it’s too complex, I will think about it later.”
He yawned and closed his eyes, he was going to sleep for some time.
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“We are ready, leader.”
“Have you located the barrier’s weak spot?”
“Yes, we have found it, and it should now be easy to infiltrate.”
“Well done.”
Outside, far from the mountain hall, stood a man dressed in pitch-black robes. He was standing idle, talking to his subordinates. He was none other than the leader of the heretic group who had come to retrieve the egg of the disaster beast.
He was behind the group, preparing a killer array to engage Sigfor, whose presence he had faintly felt. To further confirm his suspicions about the expert inside the mountain hall, he had his subordinates check on it discreetly over the weeks.
Being so close to the barrier, there was no way any of them would miss sensing the presence of such an entity. They were all carrying stealth artifacts they had received from the sect—even a Rank-3 expert might not be able to sense their presence!
“Alright then, the moment I attack the barrier and draw out the experts, you will infiltrate the hall and get the egg of the disaster beast. Remember, either you succeed or don’t come back,” he said in a chilling voice. There was a momentary silence on the other side of the phone before a voice responded.
“Yes, leader!”
He put the communicator down and looked in front of him. On the ground just next to his feet was a large runic array pulsing with a very dark aura. It was suffocating to look at, and all sorts of extremely complex runes were etched onto its surface. There was an occasional flash of bloody red light in the various runes, indicating its deadly nature.
No doubt this was an extremely dangerous array. Just the amount of aura gathering near it was terrifyingly huge. Even he, who was as strong as a Rank-3 exorcist, had to wait for weeks to prepare the array and supply it with the necessary aura.
“From my observations, the expert exorcist inside should also be Rank-3, but just in case, I prepared this array if they turn out to be more powerful than expected. As long as they are not a Rank-4 exorcist, they will definitely be wounded badly,” the man spoke sinisterly as his eyes gleamed with black aura.
He was able to observe the massive barrier surrounding the whole mountain. “Whoever cast this barrier is definitely a high-level expert in array formations,” he thought as he looked at the barrier deeply from outside.