Book 3: Chapter 197: She’s Really Not That Scary!
After confirming that even if Yvette was a witch, she was a good witch, Lucia finally loosened a bit during the ensuing conversation. She asked Yvette a few questions but received no answers at all—everything was brushed off in a riddle-like way.
She wasn’t disappointed; she hadn’t expected to learn anything anyway. If anything, the fact that Sister Yvette was willing to frankly admit she was a witch—without denying it—already made Lucia happy.
Later still, Lucia’s father, Eamon Sterling, and the resident priest, Arnold, paid a joint visit to the woodland cottage.
As Sanglen’s strongest fighters, the two came together because they’d learned Lucia had run to the witch’s house. Though the rumors had no hard proof, it didn’t stop them from feeling a deep wariness toward the silver-haired witch.
Yet when they actually saw Yvette and Lucia getting along harmoniously, the two felt puzzled.
The reason was simple: even after quietly using sensing magic, they couldn’t make out the silver-haired girl’s strength at all.
Unlike Yvette’s method of calculating mana via the “Runic Siphon Effect”—a technique far too demanding, requiring not only mathematics and rune theory but also outrageous mental power, making it unusable for 99.99% of people—
They used a principle of testing mana overflow: by sensing the “mana aura” from the natural circulation that leaks from within the body, they could judge a person’s mana level.
Under this classic, highly generalizable sensing method, they were shocked to discover that this so-called witch was essentially an ordinary person with no mana!
That shouldn’t be. Most witches were lawless, morally corrupt mages—that’s how they had the power to harm others. Even a sorceress was still a mage, at most fond of alchemical potions. So why did Miss Yvette have no mana?
Had they misunderstood?
Was she not a witch at all, but an unlucky girl slandered by ignorant villagers?
Since Lucia chose to keep Yvette’s secret and revealed nothing, after brief pleasantries they left. Back home, Eamon and Arnold were still in the dark, full of doubts.
Eamon did have a few guesses. He knew of three situations in which sensing magic fails to detect the other party’s strength.
First: the other party’s mana is below 100 points—the magic apprentice threshold set by the Academy of Truth. At 100 points a mana core forms; only then is there enough “aura” to be sensed.
Second: the other party’s mana exceeds 10,000 points. But at that level, each one is a nation-level powerhouse; it’s unthinkable such a figure would be in unremarkable Sanglen.
Third: the other party has mastered some secret art that veils their mana aura.
Compared to the first two, the third was far more likely.
But reportedly, such secret arts only diminish aura, not block it completely.
Take Eamon, for instance: a magic swordsman hiding his strength, actually possessing over 2,000 mana points—about a mid-tier mage. Even with concealment arts, a powerhouse’s imperious aura inevitably leaks out. How could someone end up like the witch—indistinguishable from a normal person?
Which left only one answer—
She’s really not that scary!
And she knew it too—that’s why, when he and Arnold called to question her, she showed no abnormal behavior. She had her own misgivings and didn’t dare act rashly!
Realizing this, Eamon felt a touch of relief.
He didn’t like the old Mars trio either and had no intention of turning them back—he was more concerned with eliminating potential village hazards.
Seeing the witch behave so docilely now, still on good terms with Lucia, he figured she’d sensed the “warning” from him and Arnold and proactively offered goodwill. In that case, without evidence, without grudges, with everyday neighborly relations still acceptable, he wouldn’t do anything to her.
He just didn’t know how she’d changed Mars and the others’ personalities. Did she possess some rare, strange potion that makes people’s dispositions improve?
After Mars, Gil, and Ron transformed from the “village-thug trio” into the “model-citizen triad,” the legend of the witch spread through every corner of the village like morning mist in the woods.
Although Arnold, the resident priest, had ascertained there was nothing much wrong with her—and, in theory, Mars and company hadn’t been harmed—aside from an occasional uncanny “impostor” feel, they were even better, personality-wise, than before.
It didn’t stop the looks Yvette received in the village from shifting, all at once, from lust and greed to fear and curiosity.
Yvette herself rather liked the change. Before, whenever she walked through the village, people would greet her; even nodding back felt like a hassle.
Now it was much more comfortable. Wherever she went, greetings vanished—no one even dared meet her gaze. The peace and quiet improved at once.
The only pity was that the tavern she frequently ordered delivery from—the owner’s daughter who regularly brought her meals—suddenly left for a private academy in Autumnwind City to learn to read and write, and stopped delivering.
Clearly spooked by the witch rumors.
With no choice, she had to trouble Lucia to bring her meals. In the whole village, under the shadow of the witch rumors, Lucia was the only one who still dared maintain long-term contact.
Soon, Yvette’s low-key life in Sanglen slipped by—two years in a blink.
Over these two years, she discovered that the faith elements drifting out of believers weren’t being absorbed at a distance by the Tree God at all, but were instead unexpectedly stored inside a secret jar within the Tree God idol.
By subtly probing Arnold about the idol’s secrets—and donating a silver coin—she finally learned the trick behind it.
It turned out the jar inside the idol contained “holy water,” said to draw the ill luck and defilement from devout worshippers and purify them.
As time passed and the holy water absorbed more ill luck and defilement, its color would gradually grow turbid and turn gray. Then clergy from the Evergreen Revelation Society would come to replace it with new holy water, spread the gospel, and carry away the murky “water of misfortune” for disposal—so it wouldn’t pollute the land.
This mechanism had been running for over a thousand years. Even Arnold, the resident priest who wielded druidic power, showed devout, fervent expression when he spoke of it—clearly never doubting there might be a problem.
If, after devout prayer, disaster still struck—wasn’t that obviously due to insufficient devotion? It certainly couldn’t be that the holy water didn’t work.
Having learned the Evergreen Revelation Society’s theory, Yvette gradually developed other ideas.
She began frequently stealing the idol’s holy water and extracting the faith elements within as research material.
At the same time, worried about the true gods noticing, she stuck to a principle: once a month, only a tenth each time, and then she topped it off with water to keep the same waterline.
Thus, over these two years, Mr. Arnold—who regularly inspected the idol’s holy water—noticed something very strange: the holy water wasn’t growing turbid at all; instead, it was getting clearer and clearer.
He couldn’t understand it—especially since the idol itself was a church magitek device inscribed with complex sealing arrays. Without certification as a resident priest like him, it shouldn’t be possible to open; forcing it would leave traces.
But if it wasn’t theft… where had the defilement and ill luck gone?
Don’t tell me—into my body?
With that thought, Arnold reported the matter—only to be told, Impossible. Absolutely impossible. You must be mistaken.
With no result from his report, Arnold grew more anxious by the day. Hairs fell one by one; baldness set in. The very fact of his hair loss seemed to confirm the suspicion that defilement and ill luck had entered his body, and his inner torment only deepened.