Chapter 343 ‘Interrogating‘ Faerora I

"…Where's Lensa?"

"Dead. Shouldn't you be able to tell?"

The brown-haired elf nodded in affirmation, with a relieved sigh escaping her lips which didn't go unnoticed by Evan.

"Let's eat while we talk, shall we?"

Evan picked up his cutlery as he spoke, spinning the knife around his hands as he appreciated the visual appeal of the meal in front of him before digging in right after.

"Oh...I suppose introductions are in order, aren't they?

Our dear elven friend over here is Faerora, one of the Senior members of the organization behind the undead messing up the Duchy at the moment.

And this is one of the Church of Artemisia's Bishops; Amelie Harris."

He introduced the two ladies to each other as he cut up his food into bite sizes, before putting it into his mouth and nodding in satisfaction right after.

"This is good stuff."

The boy took a sip of his juice before turning towards Amelie and asking her a question.

"When are the rest of the churches' coalition force coming over?"

"…Should be around the latter half of the day. When I spoke to Heinr this morning, he said that they weren't far off from where I was."

"Heinr?"

"He's the High Ranked Paladin the Church sent out, and my cousin too."

"Ohh…"

Evan nodded upon hearing Amelie's explanation while thinking that a high-rank Paladin is definitely bound to be a good fighting force.

'Should be around level 350-380 at least. Come to think of it, how strong is Amelie now?'

|Name- Amelie Harris

Race- Human

Gender-Female

Age-23

Level- 209

Existence Level - Master (Intermediate)

Titles- Bishop of the Church of Artemisia, Holy Woman, Pseudo Saintess, Vessel of the goddess.

Class - Quasi-Saintess

Health – B-

Energy - B

Strength – C+

Agility – B-

Durability – B-

Intelligence - B-

Condition- Normal

Magic Tiers- Holy Tier 3, Water Tier 2, Light Tier 2.

Skills- Golden Magic (High), Alchemy (High), Judgement, Purification.

Unique Skills- Blessing of Light. |

"You sure got a lot stronger in the past few months."

"I could say the same about you. When we met last year, you were barely level 100, now I can't even tell your exact level, and that says a lot considering I am currently level 209."

"Trust me when I say my actual level isn't as high as you think."

Evan chuckled lightly as he spoke, taking a sip of his juice before asking her.

"Did you go to Kasteblum to hunt monsters in their dungeons or something?"

"As a matter of fact, I considered that for a moment. But ended up deciding against it when I received the message from the Chief Grand Magus in January.

It scared me a bit, you know?

I was shocked that the leader of another nation contacted me, only to discover that you were just using him as an intermediary.

Just what on Aidos did you do in Kasteblum that made you get that close to its Chief Grand Magus?"

"Honestly, it was all a strange series of coincidences.

We found that we could both talk to spirits, he tried to look for me after and ended up discovering I had a demon companion and called me over for a talk.

After all the serious talk, both of us ended up hitting off, especially considering we had one very common topic which was the Vice Grand Magus' laziness."

Amelie couldn't find the words to say after hearing Evan's explanation, only heaving a soft sigh as she replied.

"That's one strange story.

But answering your earlier question, I had been in Cheverton since January and I had taken advantage of their high monster concentration to level up."

"Wait what?"

Evan was lightly stunned upon hearing that the Bishop had been in the Duchy since his message to the Grand Magus, with Amelie going on to offer another explanation.

"With what you said in the message, I doubted that any existence below level 200 could do anything reasonable to the enemy's main force so I sought to increase my strength."

Her explanation made sense to the boy as he was aware of the Cheverton Duchy's nature, in which it had a higher concentration of monsters than any other part of the Great Western Empire.

This was another reason why there were much more B and A-ranked adventurers in this part of the country, as the levels of the monsters here were also higher.

People in combat-oriented professions like Knights and Adventurers in Cheverton were stronger than average because of this, with the Duke's knights and adventurers possessing the highest levels possible.

Then came the holy knights of the Churches who also had fairly high levels. On a side note, most of the holy knights Amelie came with went over to the Bultom City Church.

This was even more so as the three forces took turns to regularly thin out the monsters in forests and other monster nests, so they had lots of chances to level up a lot.

Duke Cheverton always led the expeditions of the Knights, using said expeditions to raise the levels of the newer and lower-ranked knights to acceptable levels.

He was also the one who took direct action whenever any Grandmaster-level monsters showed up, which was actually a lot more frequently than one would expect.

They did have to take care not to mess up the monster ecosystem by wiping out too much of one monster species.

And of course, these only applied to normal living breathing monsters, all undead were to be eradicated the second they were spotted.

'If she was here all this while and actively participating in their monster hunts then it makes sense for her level to increase so rapidly.'

Evan thought to himself before taking a sip of his juice and turning towards Faerora to ask her a question.

"What's wrong? You haven't touched your food."

"…"

The brown-haired elven woman only stared at Evan in silence for a few moments before finally opening her mouth to ask.

"What's your aim?"

Evan's attitude towards her was certainly not the attitude she expected a 'Hero' to have towards her who was a member of an organization planning to let demons into Aidos.

As such, it was only natural that she was unsettled and could not calmly eat like Evan was, even more so when he brought a bishop of the church who had dozens of light spirits buzzing about around her.

However, Evan only looked around her as if studying the room that they were in as he asked.

"Did you like the room?

I told them to give you a proper room and not stuff you into a prison cell like the way I'm pretty much gonna treat every other demonic hand I capture in the future.

As for why; well…If it wasn't already obvious, I know quite a lot about you."

He turned his gaze back to meet the woman's brown eyes as he dropped his cutlery and continued.

"I also know about pretty much every important senior member of the Demonic Hand.

And that's why I know that you, Faerora, didn't join the Demonic Hand of your own free will.

I know that you were a 'tribute', offered to the Eighth Finger to prevent him from wiping out your village in the Beta continent.

Well…he did spare them and got you to work under him, unlike what they had expected him to do.

Ah…I also know that he has a magic contract sword on your heart that would kill you the moment you betray him."