Chapter 172 : Is This Heaven?
Chapter 172: Is This Heaven?
The back garden of the Palace of Eternal Night.
Today, there was an additional special guest here.
Or rather, a special prisoner.
And on a white rattan chair in a corner of the garden, lay a girl.
Lucy felt as if her brain had been trampled by ten thousand Beastmen, buzzing loudly.
The moment her consciousness returned to her body, there was none of the expected icy chill of death.
Instead… it was warm?
She could even smell a faint floral fragrance, a blend of rosemary and some kind of sweet, cloying fruit—so pleasant it almost made her want to sneeze.
She cautiously opened her eyes.
What came into view was an intensely striking expanse of green.
Huge broad-leaf plants stretched above her, casting a cool shade. In the distance, unknown glowing butterflies fluttered among the flowers, and tiny golden motes floated in the air.
This is… heaven?
Lucy thought in a daze.
As expected, a kind and pure priest like her—who had been forced to work but had never done anything bad—would go to heaven after death.
That damned red-robed female mage must have gone to hell, right? And that swordsman captain who was always spouting justice but failed at critical moments probably wasn’t doing well either.
“Hehe…”
Lucy couldn’t help but giggle foolishly.
Who would have thought? She was just a village girl, originally feeding pigs at the village entrance, yet somehow got dragged into becoming some so-called descendant of a Hero. Along the way, she ate coarse food, slept in the wilderness, and had to endure that noble lady mage’s constant bossing around. In the end, she was left with a broken leg, waiting to die.
Those bitter days had finally come to an end.
Heaven was wonderful.
Look at these trees, so green. Look at these flowers, so red.
Lucy was so moved she wanted to cry. She tried to sit up from the cloud-soft chair to embrace this beautiful new life.
“Hiss—!!!”
A piercing pain instantly exploded from her lower leg, shooting straight up through her nerves to her scalp, as if a red-hot saw were madly cutting through her bones.
Lucy’s scream didn’t even make it out before it was forcibly swallowed back down her throat.
Cold sweat poured down instantly.
She trembled as she lowered her head and lifted the velvet blanket covering her—its quality so fine it was almost frightening.
Below her left knee, there was nothing.
Only a stump wrapped in white bandages remained, faintly stained with blood.
The intense pain blurred her vision, and the beautiful “heaven” filter shattered instantly.
This wasn’t a dream.
She wasn’t dead.
The missing leg was real, and so was the heart-wrenching pain.
“Awake?”
A cold voice suddenly sounded above her head.
Lucy trembled in fright and abruptly looked up.
Against the light, she saw a figure standing a few meters away by the flowerbed.
It was a silver-haired girl in a maid outfit, holding an exquisite watering can, casually watering a flower that had fangs.
Lucy’s pupils shrank violently.
It was her!
The terrifying woman who had appeared like a ghost in the swamp, sliced off the red-robed mage’s fingers in one stroke, and dragged her out from a pile of corpses!
“Y-you… where is this…”
“Here?”
Lilia set down the watering can and turned around.
She walked over to the rattan chair, looking down at the terrified village girl.
“This is the Palace of Eternal Night.”
Lilia tried her best to make her expression appear cold and ruthless, fitting the persona of a villainous maid. “In other words, what humans call the Demon King’s lair.”
Lucy’s mouth slowly opened, her gaze turning vacant.
Palace of Eternal Night?
Demon King’s lair?
This wasn’t how the script was supposed to go! Wasn’t the Hero’s party supposed to be wiped out? Why did she, the most useless priest, survive? And not only that, she had entered the final boss’s dungeon?
“Then… am I dead?” Lucy asked weakly, voicing a pointless question.
“Can the dead feel pain?” Lilia rolled her eyes and pointed at her severed leg. “But if you keep moving around and the wound splits open, you won’t be far from dying.”
Lucy immediately didn’t dare move.
She curled up in the chair like a frightened quail.
“Why did you save me?” Lucy gathered her courage and asked the question that had been bothering her all along. “I’m just a useless priest—I can’t even cast a healing spell properly…”
“Because you still have some use.”
Before Lilia could answer, another voice—lazy yet authoritative—cut in.
Hera had somehow already walked over.
She held the cup of black tea she hadn’t finished, her gaze casually sweeping over Lucy. The oppressive aura emanating from her very being made the surrounding air feel frozen.
So this is the Demon King?
Lucy stared, stunned.
The most beautiful person she had seen in her village was Er Ya next door, but compared to this woman, Er Ya was nothing more than a potato in the dirt. This woman’s beauty was like poison—just one glance made one’s legs go weak.
“M-Master.” Lilia immediately stepped aside, lowering her head obediently.
Hera walked up to Lucy and bent slightly.
“Since when has the Hero selection process in the human world become such a joke?” Hera mocked. “Even a little thing like you can be given the title of Hero?”
Lucy’s face flushed red. She wanted to retort, but realized she had no confidence.
After all, she truly wasn’t good at anything. If she had to say, she was quite good at farm work.
“There is indeed some ‘Hero’ aura.”
Hera suddenly extended her hand, her fingertip pointing at Lucy’s forehead from a distance.
Lucy felt a chill at her brow, as if something had been seen through.
“Though very faint, it’s indeed the kind of scent those old fanatics in the Church love most.” Hera withdrew her hand and took the handkerchief Lilia handed over, wiping her fingertip as if she had just touched something dirty.
“Keep her.”
Hera said lightly to Lilia. “This kind of ignorant ‘pseudo-Hero’ might know something about the Church’s unspeakable selection rules. And…”
She paused, her gaze lingering on Lucy’s severed leg for a second.
“She’ll also be perfect to test the recovery magic of the Forest of Life.”
Lucy: “???”
Test?
So I didn’t die just to become a lab rat?
“Yes, Master.”
“Oh, right.”
Hera turned to leave, took two steps, then stopped and glanced back at the despairing Lucy.
“Even with one leg gone, don’t just sit idle.”
“We don’t keep idle people here.”
“Once the wound scabs over, have her go fertilize those flowers in the back.”
Lucy’s eyes rolled back—this time, she was genuinely on the verge of fainting.