Chapter 141: Chapter 141

Passing through the Remnant Abyss to the Land of the End, being rescued by the legendary divine Silver Witch, and even being offered the chance to become a disciple of a deity— for Lant, a country boy who’d just lost his family and home, these two days felt like a dream.

The first night he didn’t even dare sleep, afraid it was all a hallucination; every time he closed and opened his eyes he saw his village burning again, his parents and sister’s corpses lying before him.

But what he hadn’t expected was that this happiness would last only a few days; thereafter his life plunged into a steep valley.

The reason was simple: someone didn’t like him, loathed him, and that person was Abella, the Lady Witch’s maid.

At their first meeting he hadn’t realized it—he’d assumed the maid was just cold and aloof, liked to scowl and didn’t say much.

But the next morning, when he ate a sandwich from the preservation box and was humiliated by her—“Have hands and feet and can’t solve it yourself?”—he clearly felt she truly hated him.

There wasn’t really any reason for it, since yesterday the Lady Witch had allowed him to eat from the preservation box, and he was a normal person who needed three meals a day, far from any level of fasting.

But the maid’s words were so blunt and her tone so sharp, and Lant was a proud child, so he immediately put the rest back and left the manor to forage for food himself.

The foraging went fairly well; the central district’s aberrants had been cleared by the skeleton troops, and he found a nest of wild chicken eggs in a hidden corner formed by a collapsed overpass, and ate his fill.

Lant apologized sincerely and hurried to borrow the manor’s bathing facilities. But he didn’t know how to use their bathing device; in the dead of winter he washed with icy water and nearly froze to death in the bath.

When he put on a bathrobe and stepped out shivering, muscle cramps caused him to collapse to the floor, which only angered the maid further. She showed no mercy, ordering him to get up and wipe the water off the floor, and forbidding him from drying his clothes in the manor so they wouldn’t be an eyesore.

Lant forced himself up and scrubbed the floor. When he finished, the maid had already left. He stood there,

feeling a warmth prick at the corners of his eyes. He forced his head up to keep the tears in, then silently returned to his room and hung his clothes in the bedroom,

closed his eyes, and began meditative training.

Days like that went on for a long time.

Because he was still on probation and not yet a formal student, the Lady Witch basically didn’t teach him anything—she only gave him one notebook and otherwise left him to his own devices, telling him to solve things himself or consult Abella.

But the maid seemed to find fault with him everywhere; she not only forbade him from eating the household food, she was especially impatient when he asked her questions, as if even breathing in front of her were a mistake.

Lant understood why. A boy who’d lost his family matures quickly; he soon grasped that the maid’s disgust

all came from himself.

Because he was too ordinary.

The Demonkin had once boasted glorious legends, but now they were just an ordinary branch of the human peoples; their magical talent was even inferior to humans. Lant himself was a plain country boy—unremarkable appearance, average magic talent in his village. What merit did he have to be a god’s student?

If he had been Dugrabi, the Flame Dragon King’s son, he wouldn’t have been treated . If he’d been a prodigy like the Supreme Demon King, the maid would have been finished before any cold look arrived.

But he was nothing; he was ordinary—like a weed, everywhere, a country boy with a fate full of hardships.

Such an ordinary identity itself was almost a sin. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel★fire.net

Realizing this, Lant grew even quieter. His resentment toward the maid evaporated, replaced by an even stronger obsession to grow stronger—not just for revenge, but to prove to the maid that the Lady Witch’s choice was not wrong, that he was worth investing in and training, that he could be worthy of everything the Lady Witch taught.

From then on, except for going out to fill his stomach, Lant practically locked himself in his room all day. Beyond meditation and study, his only entertainment was staring out the window for a while, thinking of his deceased family.

He became a maniac: reciting basic rune knowledge even in his sleep, transforming every sneer and coldness from the maid into fuel to drive himself.

Under that madness, he astonishingly finished the basics of rune studies in just over seven months. The same learning load had taken even Rosalyn a year—Rosalyn had been deeply obsessed with runes—let alone Dugrabi and Abella, who had each spent over five years. Their efficiency was nowhere near his.

Of course, this didn’t mean Lant’s talent surpassed theirs; this sort of thing was like memorizing vocabulary—effort mattered more than innate talent.

Rosalyn had finished in a year partly due to extreme effort and partly out of profound love. Lant lacked that love as support; his being able to master it in seven months wasn’t mere diligence—it was sheer desperation.

But desperation was all he had.

For a lowly, ordinary country boy, scrambling was the only way to change fate.

One midsummer afternoon, Yvette sat in her study exploring untouched aspects of alchemy when Lant knocked and came in, gaunt but bright-eyed, to report his learning progress.

“You finished that notebook?” Yvette asked in surprise.

“Yes, Lady Witch.” Lant replied respectfully.

After a brief spot check, Yvette went silent.

In truth, she wasn’t completely unaware of the humiliating life Lant endured here—she just chose ignorance when he didn’t come to her.

Because if she questioned Abella, Abella would have things to say too—she’d been diligently serving as maid, her status secondary only to the Master. Then some wild kid shows up and calls her auntie on first meeting, with no special talent or status, and gets to be the Master’s student, outranking her—how could she bear it? Especially since the treats in the preservation box were snacks she’d made for the Master; the kid ate several and nearly made her burst with rage.

So Yvette considered that part of the probation. First, to see the child’s character and conduct; second, a revenger who has the chance to go back must face danger and endure humiliation—if he couldn’t bear it and broke, then he wasn’t meant for it.

What she didn’t expect was that Lant neither argued with Abella nor ran to snitch to her; he accepted everything and turned all the mockery and scorn into motivation, finishing the basics at an unthinkable speed. That strength of mind was indeed rare.

She said nothing further and gave him another notebook, one recording some spells and requirements, focusing on practicing the mastery and control of spellwork.

This was the final hurdle: the talent test.

From his meditation method she could see Lant’s cultivation speed wasn’t fast and his talent was average. But one facet that also depends on talent was mental power—if he performed well there, he still had a good chance to pass the probation.

Time flew; seasons turned and a year passed.

Confused by necromancy research, Yvette turned to study potion formulation to shore up her practical application in rune medicine.

Abella idled about all day and, out of boredom, tormented Lant. But because Lant had finished the basic runes in seven months—such a startling performance—her attitude improved slightly; she was willing to give him some guidance on spell practice techniques.

Not that she truly liked the boy—rather she felt his chance of passing probation had risen, so she cautiously adjusted her demeanor.

But the disappointing truth was that Lant’s magical talent remained unexpectedly mediocre. Leaving aside his slow meditation efficiency, his command over spellwork was very poor—something effort alone couldn’t easily remedy.

So that afternoon, after noticing this, when Lant finished practicing outdoors and returned to his room, Yvette stopped him and asked, “Your talent—are you really average in your village?”

“Yes.” Lant replied respectfully.

“Is it your problem, or is the Demonkin’s magic talent really this poor?” she asked.

“Sorry, Lady Witch—” Lant bowed his head in shame.

“No, what I truly want to ask is how your people survived on the Abyssal Continent with such poor talent?” Yvette asked.

She’d always felt something off, because from Rosalyn and Dugrabi’s descriptions, the Western Continent was a terrifying place,

where all the races living there were far stronger than their counterparts in the East.

The most typical example was goblins: Eastern goblins were weak green-skinned sapient folk who even worked in human lands,

but the demonized goblins of the West were powerful in combat and outrageously vicious; in the human–demon wars they were many a soldier’s nightmare.

Yet the Demonkin were strange: apart from appearance, they were similar to humans in nearly every respect, their talent even inferior to humans—this was plainly illogical.

“My people were cared for by the Former Demon King,” Lant stammered. “And, from what my grandfather said long ago, our ancestors actually had very strong talents. We used to be the most prosperous race on the Western Continent, the strongest among all human branches. Even the Abyssal Demons feared us.” Lant said haltingly.

“Then why did you become what you are now?” Yvette asked.

“My grandfather said it was because our ancestors angered the Demon God and were cursed—turned into what we are now—”

“A curse?” Yvette raised an eyebrow.

“Mm— but whether it’s true, I don’t know.” Lant said hesitantly.

Yvette pondered for a moment and said, “I’ll take a bit of your blood to study.”

“All right, Lady Witch.” Lant bowed respectfully.

Yvette nodded and immediately went upstairs to fetch medical instruments to draw blood. From Lant’s description, that curse from the Demon God seemed to have acted directly on their genes. Coincidentally, in the Origin Civilization there were also concepts about curse magic, but they were too scarce—basically empty notions without substantial content.

By studying Lant’s Demonkin blood, she might be able to glimpse a fragment or two of the so-called Demon God’s curse.