Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 292: Siltmouth Town

Pale yellow mist flowed over the land, turning the wan daylight into a hazy blur. Cold rain fell without pause, drumming on the pitted bones beneath the dead trees.Suddenly, a gust of cold wind swept past, rolling the filthy fog aside. A girl holding an umbrella walked into view, drawing the attention of certain native creatures lurking deep within the poisonous miasma and acid rain.

She walked forward expressionlessly, attracting more and more gazes. But very quickly, with a few barely perceptible streaks of black light and several screams cut off mid-wail, those greedy and cruel stares vanished without a trace.

This was Yvette’s third day on the Abyssal Continent.

Three days ago, she had passed through the Pan-human United Front joint fortress built at the corridor pass and stepped onto the soil of the Abyssal Continent. The first thing she had seen was a mass of pale yellow fog, blurring everything and blotting out the sky.

This was the Abyssal Continent’s unique toxic miasma. It was almost everywhere and served as the Western Continent’s natural barrier against sneak attacks.

Though this miasma wasn’t lethal—and could even be beneficial, increasing one’s mana tolerance—its downside was that it affected the mind, gradually making a person more irritable and violent. In the view of many scholars who studied the Western Continent, the demons’ cruelty and terror were largely a product of this miasma’s influence. At the same time, the demons’ strength was inseparable from it as well—a double-edged sword with real pros and cons.

Yvette had long heard of the miasma’s fearsome reputation, but only after entering it did she discover that, while it couldn’t affect her, it brought another problem: it blocked her vision.

Within this pale yellow fog, she could see no farther than thirty meters. On top of that, she was unfamiliar with the Western Continent’s terrain and lacked any maps recent enough to be reliable. As a result, she had wandered aimlessly for three days without finding a single demon settlement where she could ask for information or buy a local map.

Of course, she didn’t have anything urgently pressing to do on this trip anyway—just looking for Moga and Lant, who should both have reached at least the divine realm and were perfectly capable of looking after themselves, and entering the legendary Abyss to learn the ultimate secrets hidden there. So she wasn’t in a hurry and still had the leisure to pay attention to the Western Continent’s environment, observing how it differed from the Eastern Continent as she strolled along at an easy pace.

She didn’t know how long she walked before, after passing through a stand of half-dead trees, Yvette came upon a dried-up riverbed.

She’d lost track of how many riverbeds she’d seen by now, all of them lined with cracked mud plates and scattered bones. It all pointed to one thing: on the Western Continent, clean water was likely a luxury. True, rain fell from the sky from time to time, but it came down as highly corrosive acid rain. An ordinary person would feel a burning pain just from touching it, much less drinking it.

She followed the riverbed for a while and entered another patch of deadwood. These plant species unique to the Western Continent were especially tenacious. They looked withered now, but once the acid rain stopped, they would immediately spring back to life, sprouting purple leaves.

Unlike the past two days, however, once she emerged from this stand of trees, the miasma ahead of her began to thin. Visibility steadily increased until, at last, the hazy outline of a cluster of low, jumbled buildings nestled in a hollow between hills pierced the thinning fog and appeared faintly before her eyes.

Holding her umbrella, she quietly approached and saw a metal plaque with several crooked letters on it—Siltmouth Town.

…

Siltmouth Town sat at the edge of a naturally formed sunken basin. The basin itself was filled with thick, dark green mud, bubbling sluggishly—that was likely where the town had gotten its name. Outside the town, there was nothing that could be called real defenses beyond a few token wooden stakes and strands of wire. The streets inside were narrow and muddy, and the buildings were crammed together without any kind of planning. Eaves sagged low, window openings were tiny, and some were covered with nothing more than animal hides and torn cloth.

Two goblin soldiers in worn leather armor lounged lazily by a crooked post at the entrance. When they noticed the girl with the umbrella approaching, they immediately gave her a few once-overs, their expressions turning odd. One let out a shrill shout in heavily accented Common: “Hey! Stop! Demonfolk?”

Yvette nodded. To avoid trouble, she had taken on the appearance of an ordinary demonfolk girl here: purple skin, and her face tweaked so that it looked plain but delicate.

“To get into town, you gotta pay the entrance fee! Mm… ten silver crowns. Yeah, that’s the price!” The goblin soldier’s smile turned nasty.

On the Western Continent, because the currency had once been forcibly unified during the Supreme Demon King era, they still used the same basic gold-silver-copper system as the Eastern Continent. Later, precious metals had become scarce while crystal ore was overly abundant, so the materials for the three currencies had all been replaced by magic crystals, and people sometimes called them crystal coins.

The exchange ratios were still the same, though, which meant ten silver crowns here was equal to a thousand copper crowns—outrageously expensive by any measure.

In the little script the two goblin soldiers had written in their heads, the next step was supposed to be seeing this pretty demonfolk girl’s face twist in despair as she begged them to let her in. Night was falling, and no one dared stay outside after dark. At that point, they could take the opportunity to put forward some “conditions” she wouldn’t be able to refuse…

But that never happened. Unfamiliar with local prices, Yvette simply tossed over a small pouch of silver crowns. She still had plenty of money in her divine realm space—just silver crowns alone numbered in the thousands, all given to her by Tertia—more than enough to cover all expenses for her trip to the Western Continent.

When they took the pouch and peeked inside, the two goblin soldiers looked at each other. In each other’s eyes they saw raw shock—and, after the shock, greed sprouting like wild grass.

If she’d been an awakened demonfolk, fine. But this demon girl had no demon marks on her at all, which meant she was ordinary demonfolk, and she dared walk around with a fortune like this on her?

On top of that, forget the money—just her looks and figure alone were top-tier by goblin standards.

In an instant, all sorts of dark and vicious ideas whirled up in the goblins’ minds. Especially now, when the situation across the Abyssal Continent was so “special”—this was exactly the moment when the great lords were settling scores with the demonfolk. “Perfect timing” didn’t even begin to cover it… But in the end, the two goblin soldiers swallowed hard and held themselves back.

On one hand, this was the town gate, with people constantly coming and going. Certain things just couldn’t be done in broad daylight; getting too greedy in public was an easy way to invite accidents. On the other hand, this demon girl had walked out of the miasma alone, which probably meant she was at least somewhat capable.

So, to be safe, they stepped aside and let her pass, planning to play it steady for the moment with this mysterious demon girl and then go report to Siltmouth Town’s nest lord.

As long as the nest lord could successfully take this little chick down, the two of them would have rendered great service and were sure to get a share of the leftovers—money or otherwise.

…

Naturally, Yvette had no idea that just paying an entrance fee had gotten her targeted at lightspeed, and that she might even face an attack from the local nest lord. You could only say the Western Continent’s “simple, honest” folk customs were something else.

Once she entered the reeking little town, the first thing she noticed was the mix of different races moving along its streets.

Though they were all lumped together as demons, “demons” were not a race but a blanket term for countless races. Besides the most famous and powerful ones like demonfolk, abyssal demons, and bloodkin, there were more ordinary demon races like beast-demons, goblins, and slimes.

Siltmouth Town’s demographics made that very clear: mainly goblins and slimes, with the occasional beast-demon passing through.

Next, Yvette tipped the brim of her umbrella up a little and looked toward the sky. It was still overcast, but the pale yellow fog from outside was almost nowhere to be seen. She had originally thought the lack of miasma was why Siltmouth Town had formed here, but when she noticed the huge water-tower-like structure in the middle of town, she realized that device was constantly purifying the air.

A few minutes later, she walked into a bar.

It was lively inside and smelled awful. She went up to the bar, found a relatively clean spot, and sat down, watching as the slime barkeep took on the outline of a human man and slid over. Through his translucent body, she could still see the softly glowing mana core within him.

“What’re you drinking?”

“Clean water.”

“Clean water?” The slime barkeep sounded speechlessly exasperated. “Little miss, which noble house are you from? There’s no such thing as clean water in a place like this. A cup of ‘filtered mud broth’ is three copper crowns. You want one?”

Filtered mud broth… Yvette fell silent for a moment and decided she wouldn’t be dining here after all. But after noting the broth’s price, she lifted her purple eyes and said, “They charged me ten silver crowns to get into town. Is that normal?”

“Ten silver crowns? Little miss, are you sure you didn’t mix up silver crowns and copper crowns?” The barkeep sucked in a sharp breath.

Robbed blind, just as expected… Yvette sighed inwardly, took out two silver crowns, and slid them over. “I want to ask you about something.”

The slime barkeep’s expression brightened at once. A transparent tendril whipped out, snatched up the coins in a flash, and tucked them into his body. “Generous lady, what would you like to know? Within a hundred miles of Siltmouth Town, there’s no rumor I, Slippery Jim, don’t know!”

“I’m looking for information on two powerhouses. One is the Wandering Wind Ranger Moga, and the other is Lant, the First Demon General of the Arcane Demon King’s era. Do you know anything about them?”

“Demon General Lant? Of course I’ve heard the name—the strongest demon of the Two Kings era. Some say he’s hiding out in the Demon Gods’ divine realm; others say he’s dead. Who knows? Just old stories.” Slippery Jim said, “As for the Wandering Wind Ranger… the name sounds familiar.”

“The one who assassinated the previous Bloodmoon Demon King.”

“Oh, that assassin…” Slippery Jim’s eyes lit with recognition. “But what would I know about him? That’s the kind of thing you’d have to ask over on the Eastern Continent—if you can get there.”

“So the Wandering Wind Ranger has never shown up on the Western Continent?”

“Never even heard a whisper of him.”

“Then has any super expert suddenly appeared on the continent? Someone on par with the Seven Demon Kings.” Yvette felt a bit disappointed. It seemed she couldn’t expect to get any real information on Moga or Lant from a backwater town like this. Not that it had ever been a realistic hope.

“No, but it might just be that the news hasn’t reached a small place like ours,” Slippery Jim said, shaking his head. Then he suddenly gestured toward the noisy patrons around them and lowered his voice. “Little girl, since you’re demonfolk, let me give you a friendly reminder. Don’t go around asking about pointless stuff like this, and don’t show your face too much. Right now… things aren’t good for your kind.”

“What happened?” Yvette asked.

“You really don’t know?” Slippery Jim stared at her in surprise.

Seeing Yvette blink at him with a blank, cute look, Slippery Jim sighed helplessly. “The Night Demon King betrayed the Demon Gods and was stripped of the throne. Now the Demon King’s seat is vacant, and the Demon Gods’ envoy—the ‘Demon Angel’—has descended with an oracle: whoever can conquer more than half of the Abyssal Continent’s territory will be the new Demon King!”

The Night Demon King betrayed the Demon Gods? Stripped of the throne, and the Demon Angel issuing a quest to pick a new Demon King…

Yvette turned that over in her mind and asked, “And what does that have to do with demonfolk?”

“Everything!” Slippery Jim lowered his voice even more. “Starting from the Arcane Demon King, then the Bloodmoon Demon King, and now the Night Demon King—they were all demonfolk. Naturally, the old royal factions under them were demonfolk too. Now the throne’s empty—how could the races they kept under their heel not seize the chance to take off and get their revenge? I’ve heard in quite a few places they’ve already started purging demonfolk. Getting dragged off as a slave is the lucky outcome. There are places that wipe out whole villages and towns.”

He warned her, “Anyway, little girl, you’re out here alone, you’re pretty cute, and you’re demonfolk. That’s way too dangerous. You really need to be careful—especially don’t go wandering around outside town being careless.”

“Charulu?”

“He’s Siltmouth Town’s nest lord. Runs this whole patch of land,” Slippery Jim said. “If he lays eyes on you, you’ll be in serious trouble.”

Yvette let out a soft oh and thanked him for the warning, but the unconcerned look on her face must have been a bit too obvious. Slippery Jim could only sigh helplessly and tell the demon girl in front of him to spend as little time outside as possible so the nest lord wouldn’t notice her.