Lu Mingfei, become the King of Elden!

Chapter 96 Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

Lu Mingfei did not linger in the round table hall.

Xiu Gu's craftsmanship was trustworthy. After retrieving the brand-new armor and the Storm Greatsword, which was polished to a gleaming cold light, Lu Mingfei followed Natsuki Subaru's guidance and plunged into the vast Storm Hills.

Storm Hills, despite its name, is actually an extremely complex terrain. The vast plains here stretch endlessly, and the biting winds relentlessly sweep in from the north, lashing against the jagged rocks and withered grass.

The terrain is rugged, and the wind-eroded cliffs, like silent giants, together with the low-hanging clouds, compress one's line of sight to an extremely limited extent.

puff!

The bloody, mangled figures stood out starkly against the howling wind. One wolf was cleaved in two at the waist, its stinking entrails spilling onto the rocks; another had its head smashed by the back of a sword, its blood and flesh scattered on the ground; the rest were all headless wolf carcasses.

Lu Mingfei casually slung the blood-stained Storm Greatsword over his broad shoulder armor, while the other sword was casually stuck at his feet. He stood in the center of the killing field, where corpses and blood were everywhere, letting the biting wind tear at him. The sticky blood on the sword had not yet dried and was slowly congealing into a dark red.

He gazed into the distance, where the storm raged and his vision was blurred, a hint of bewilderment creeping into his golden eyes.

"If you ride a kilometer or two past the little golden tree, you'll see the dilapidated houses on the hill."

Lu Mingfei murmured, repeating his friend's words:
"Isn't it all storms except for wolves? Is Natsuki Subaru messing with me again?"

Fortunately, this guy was reliable enough. After slaughtering the wolf pack, Lu Mingfei rode the Torret for a while longer, and the outline of the dilapidated house finally came into view.

Lu Mingfei lit the blessing point in the corner of the dilapidated house. The flickering golden beam brought him a sense of peace, and Lu Mingfei habitually breathed a sigh of relief, preparing to start scavenging the dilapidated house—in such a godforsaken place, an abandoned dilapidated house often hides useful things, such as runes and materials.

He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the dusty, rotten wooden planks, when his excellent eyesight caught sight of a dark corner deep inside the room.

There, with its back to the empty hill, a blurry figure sat quietly.

Lu Mingfei's heart skipped a beat, and all the muscles in his body tensed instantly.

No, even if Stoneville is one thing, this is the middle of nowhere, with wolves running rampant—where did this person come from?
He instinctively held the Storm Knight's Greatsword, still stained with wolf blood, horizontally in front of him, while his other hand quietly gripped the hilt of another sword. The light in his golden eyes suddenly intensified, attempting to pierce the shadows and see the uninvited guest.

It turned out to be a girl who looked quite young.

She wore a peculiar dark red hood with delicate, barely visible gold thread embroidery, which added to her extraordinary appearance. The hood covered most of her forehead, with only a few strands of golden hair peeking out.

She hung her head, motionless, like a lifeless doll.

It was a beautiful, even delicate, face, her features like meticulously sculpted porcelain, which should have been full of life. But at this moment, her eyes, which should have been brimming with light, were like two stagnant pools of murky water. They were wide open, empty, dim, and lifeless, staring blankly into the void ahead, without any focus or emotional radiance. It was as if her soul had long since departed, leaving only an empty shell with a beautiful exterior. She sat there quietly on the cold ground. If Lu Mingfei hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he might have even suspected it was a hallucination created by shadows.

The little girl was completely unaware of Lu Mingfei's arrival. Perhaps she was aware, but to her, life and death, inside and outside, had long since lost their distinction.

"...Everyone has had their limbs 'reattached'...Those who came to the border with me and fought for me...heh...their hands, feet, and heads have all been cut off and turned into part of the spider."

She suddenly raised her head, looked at Lu Mingfei's face, and her voice suddenly took on a sickly tone:
"Did you know that when someone is attached to a spider, they look like a pupa? It's really amazing, isn't it?"

Lu Mingfei was startled by this sudden, bizarre yet childlike description, which sent chills down his spine!

A thousand thoughts raced through his mind in an instant. He thought, "Of course I know, girl! I not only know that people can be joined together like human stumps, I've seen burial pits piled high with human stumps, I've hacked down nobles who had their limbs joined, and I even chopped off the head of the demigod Grek who was responsible for all of this! What's so 'wonderful' about this?!"
But when he saw the little girl's broken, lifeless face, and the unfathomable despair behind her empty eyes, he finally stopped his desire to express himself.

He silently lowered his guard, the light in his golden eyes dimming slightly. He stood a short distance away, lowered his voice, and cautiously asked:
"Are you ok?"

The girl's lifeless eyes seemed to flicker for a moment at Lu Mingfei's voice, a faint glimmer of life flashing across them like a candle flame about to go out, before quickly sinking back into the boundless darkness.

"Are you traveling alone?" she asked softly. "Are you heading towards Stoneville?"

"Uh-huh...more or less."

Lu Mingfei scratched his head, speaking vaguely. Stoneville? What else could that place possibly have besides madmen and wandering monsters now?
Could this girl also be one of the faded ones, a member on the path to becoming a king?
"Is it because you believed... the sweet words of that white-masked man?" The girl's empty gaze fell on Lu Mingfei's face. "Or... do you also want to... become part of the spider?"

"What are those nice words from the white-masked man?"

Lu Mingfei frowned in thought, then suddenly realized:
"Oh, you mean that weird-looking guy at the entrance of the drifting cemetery? That guy's no good. You didn't get scammed by him, did you?"

However, the little girl ignored his words. She seemed to be immersed in a world of despair that she had built for herself, and continued to murmur in that sleepwalking tone, her words like shattered glass beads, scattered and fragmented:
"If that's the case... then it's just like me..."

Her slender fingers unconsciously tightened around the hem of her skirt:
But I don't have the courage—
To have my hands and feet chopped off, to have my head chopped off, that's terrifying.

I desperately want to be like everyone else, but I'm terrified. I'm such a coward.

"What is this nonsense?"

Lu Mingfei frowned deeply, feeling as if an invisible hand was gripping his heart tightly.

(End of this chapter)