Chapter 174 : Sparring Partner
Chapter 174: Sparring Partner
Lilia stared dumbfounded at the innocent-looking village girl in front of her.
“Wait, let me sort this out.”
Lilia felt like her CPU was overheating.
“You’re saying that the so-called Hero selection is basically searching the entire world for the illegitimate children of the previous Hero… or even the illegitimate children of those illegitimate children?”
Lucy nodded weakly. “That’s… roughly what it means. The Church promotes it as the ‘continuation of the sacred bloodline.’”
Lilia fell silent.
She looked at Lucy, then recalled the swordsman who had been split in half in the swamp, and that scheming female mage.
If those people were all part of the so-called “Hero bloodline”…
Then just what kind of being was that previous Hero?
The distribution was way too wide, wasn’t it?
From noble young masters in the royal capital to pig-feeding girls in border villages—there might even be more bizarre cases.
How prolific did he have to be?
This was basically a tireless humanoid seed-spreader!
An image instantly formed in Lilia’s mind: a Hero clad in golden armor, waving the banner of saving the world while leaving offspring wherever he went, his footprints covering every corner of the continent—princesses or village girls, as long as they were alive, none were spared.
“Hiss—”
Lilia sucked in a breath.
Even in the most cliché harem novels, this kind of plot would get readers flaming it mercilessly.
“Um…” Lucy cautiously looked at Lilia’s constantly changing expression. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, you said it very well.” Lilia took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing her urge to rant. “Very valuable.”
This explained everything.
Why this so-called “Hero’s party” had such uneven strength—so uneven it could only be described as a rabble.
Because they weren’t selected based on strength at all.
Their only common trait was having the same ancestor, separated by who knows how many generations.
The Church gathered these scattered “bloodlines” from among the people—whether top-tier or defective, as long as they could make that broken stone glow even a little, they were all packaged and taken away.
As for what happened after they were taken…
Lilia recalled that Holy Knight Commander named Garrod.
That hypocrite who tried to artificially accelerate the maturation of the Old God embryo, using thousands of human lives to boost his achievements.
And that female mage who used her teammates as bait.
Their methods were no different from villains willing to do anything to achieve their goals.
So-called “Heroes,” in the Church’s eyes, were probably just… expendables.
“By the way, Lady Lilia…” Lucy, seeing Lilia silent for so long, gathered her courage and asked, “Now that my leg is healed, can I…?”
“Leave?” Lilia snapped back to her senses and raised an eyebrow.
“Leave?” She tilted her head. “Where do you want to go?”
Lucy hugged her newly regained leg and stammered, “H-home… or back to the Church…”
“Pfft.”
Lilia couldn’t hold back and laughed. She stood up, leisurely dusting off her skirt as if there were dirt on it, then walked up to Lucy, casting a shadow over her.
“My dear priest, do you have some misunderstanding about your current situation?”
“Out that door, to the east is Succubus territory. By the way, they’re currently short on manpower. As for the south…”
Lilia paused, revealing a kind smile. “That’s the Despair Swamp—the very place that blew your leg off. What, do you want to go back and catch up with your lovely teammates?”
Lucy’s face instantly turned pale as plaster, her head shaking like a rattle drum.
“And besides,” Lilia’s tone shifted, her gaze falling on Lucy’s smooth, newly regenerated leg, “you haven’t read the after-sales service terms, have you?”
“W-what terms?” Lucy was stunned.
“This leg was force-grown using forbidden techniques. It may look identical to the original, but it’s still something I made.” Lilia spoke nonsense with a straight face. “It requires nourishment from the Demon Realm environment. Once you leave the range of the Palace of Eternal Night, in less than half an hour, it’ll be like a dehydrated carrot—”
Lilia made a shriveling gesture with her hand.
“Crack—shrivel—fall off.”
Lucy sucked in a cold breath, tears instantly pooling in her eyes as she tightly hugged her leg, as if it would turn into dried carrot any second.
“Th-then what do I do? I don’t want to be crippled…”
“Simple.” Lilia snapped her fingers. “Stay and work to repay your debt.”
“Lady Hera is merciful. The garden just happens to need a gardener for fertilizing and pruning. That faint trace of holy aura on you might not have any combat value, but it’s perfect for neutralizing the stench of Demon Realm fertilizer.”
Lilia pulled out a rusty shovel.
“This is your employment token.”
Lucy looked at the shovel, stained with unknown black dirt, then at her delicate leg, and finally recalled the terror of being chewed by monsters in the swamp.
Compared to being fed to magical beasts, shoveling manure didn’t seem unacceptable.
“I’ll do it!” Lucy grabbed the shovel, grief-stricken. “As long as my leg is fine!”
Done.
Lilia gave herself a mental thumbs-up. This was called efficient resource utilization—free labor acquired.
After settling this useless, crying, formerly one-legged priest, Lilia adjusted her wrinkled maid outfit, took a deep breath, and put on her standard “loyal dog” expression before heading toward the Bedchamber.
……
This day, Lilia lived extremely “fulfillingly.”
So fulfilling that even the phrase “a production team’s donkey” felt inadequate.
Ever since consuming that damned Seed of Life, her body seemed to have become a tireless perpetual motion machine. Hera appeared extremely interested in the seed’s properties and tested her limits in every possible way.
In the morning, she organized piles of documents taller than a mountain. Previously, Lilia would be out of breath after carrying two stacks. Now, she could hold half a meter of parchment in one hand, pour black tea for Hera steadily with the other, and even peel grapes for her boss in her spare time.
In the afternoon—sparring.
Calling it sparring was generous. It was essentially Hera’s one-sided magical bombardment test.
On the training field, Hera lounged lazily on the spectator stand. With a flick of her fingers, she would launch fireballs or ice spikes. Lilia, meanwhile, darted around like a hyperactive monkey, relying on Shadow Step (Intermediate) and her monstrous physical abilities to evade frantically.
Even when she was occasionally grazed, the wounds would emit green light and heal automatically within seconds, leaving not even a scar.
“Healing speed is faster than this morning.”
“Seems your resistance to damage still has room for improvement.”
Lilia was on the verge of tears.
By the time night fell, Lilia dragged her mentally exhausted—though physically untired—body to serve Hera dinner, and then attended to her bath and change of clothes.