The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix's Novels Also Desires Happiness

"Thank me? You..."

The rage and grief in Marcie’s chest almost made her want to rush up and fight this guy to the death. But at a moment like this, she instead calmed down.

That was right. She was the most outstanding person in the village. She would never lose her ability to think at a time like this.

"Hurry and run."

She lowered her voice and said to Muen.

"Run? Why?"

"Don’t tell me you think you’re fearless just because you have a little ability!"

Marcie stamped her feet in anxiety. "You don’t know how terrifying these Attendants of the Night are. Every single one of them has the frightening power to destroy a city-state alone. They’re enemies that even true pioneers have to form teams to fight!"

"They’re that powerful?" Muen said in surprise.

"Of course! Up to now, nobody knows how many great pioneers have died at the hands of the Attendants of the Night. At least among the ones I’ve recorded, the pioneers assassinated by them account for one-third of the total. That is an extremely terrifying proportion! So we have to run right now. I’m relatively familiar with the terrain around here. If we run a little faster, maybe we can still avoid his pursuit, but we have to be quick!"

"If you put it that way, running away is indeed the safer choice." Muen rubbed his chin.

"Then..."

"But I don’t really want to run. The guy in front of us can clearly have a great deal of intelligence pried out of his mouth. I don’t want to give up this chance."

"You... Why won’t you listen to advice? These people are far more terrifying than you can imagine!" Marcie said, furious with worry.

"More than I can imagine?"

Muen suddenly smiled. "With the things I’ve seen before, if anything can reach the level of surpassing my imagination, then maybe if that master of his, the Goddess of Night, came here, there might be the tiniest possibility. But just him..."

"He isn’t worthy."

"You..."

Marcie froze. She truly had not expected that there could be someone in this world who did not know what was good for him to this extent.

She had clearly put aside the grudge of having just been deceived to persuade him, so how could he still...

"Arrogant!"

Not far away, the Third Attendant let out a savage laugh, then suddenly turned into an afterimage.

His attack was so abrupt that it seemed the conversation just now had only been his method of confusing the enemy. Just like a true top predator on the hunt would absolutely never leak its killing intent.

Almost in the blink of an eye, he had already closed in.

Marcie was still begging Muen to run. To her, the killing intent had come too suddenly and had already completely exceeded her reaction time.

But to Muen...

"This slow? Are you doing senior-citizen health exercises over there?"

His hand tightened.

He swung his blade.

The blade light was not bright. Muen still remembered the rule that light might attract the Goddess of Night’s gaze. But even this restricted slash still moved after and arrived first, cutting toward that figure who had never left Muen’s sight before the other party could get close.

The Third Attendant’s figure froze for a moment. For the first time, shock surfaced on that ordinary face.

But before he could even do anything, he was completely swallowed by the blade light.

Boom!

It was clearly a slash, yet it seemed as if the sharp claws of an ancient demonic beast had swept across the semicircle before Muen. The ground cracked inch by inch. Stones and soil were crushed together, mixed into one mass, no longer distinguishable from each other.

A huge wound, shaped like a graceful crescent arc, was branded into the ground. Smoke and dust rose, only to be scattered by the violent wind pressure. The Third Attendant, who had been incomparably arrogant just now, was buried in the earth once more.

This time, he could not crawl back up again, because half of his body had been directly turned into meat paste by Muen. Only the remaining half of his body writhed amid the devastation covering the ground... But that half of a body, including the head, seemed to have not yet reacted to this strike, and was completely blank.

Who am I?

Where am I?

What happened?

At this moment, in just a few short seconds, he had completed the transformation from a crude attacker into a cultured man and begun thinking about the ultimate philosophy of life.

Marcie had also begun thinking about that same philosophy.

She had already thought about it once just now, so her thoughts now...

Still produced absolutely nothing.

"Do you believe me now?"

Muen twirled his blade in a beautiful flourish, as if what he had just done was not crush a terrifying Attendant of the Night under his blade, but merely trim a flower. Perfectly ordinary.

He turned his head and smiled at the little girl who had never seen the world.

"I told you. I’m rather strong."

"..."

Marcie swallowed hard. This swallow was even more difficult than when she had once swallowed an entire potato directly.

Taking advantage of the Third Attendant still wailing and struggling, she quietly opened the record book in her hand.

The Goddess of Night’s Third Attendant, Avis Budara. Once one of humanity’s most outstanding pioneers. In the year 353 of the Mist Calendar, he once pioneered alone toward unknown lands, seeking a road that could help the humans here break free of their shackles.

It was said that he had nearly succeeded. His road reached farther than any pioneer before him. Unfortunately, during his final pioneering operation, he was tempted by the Goddess of Night and fell, becoming her most loyal believer. In the decades that followed, he committed countless killings. The human blood on his hands numbered in the thousands, and more than twenty pioneers had even died by his hand.

In other words, the person before her, whether as a former pioneer or as the current Goddess’s Attendant, was absolutely a powerhouse among powerhouses. He was an existence standing at the peak of this world.

But now...

Marcie secretly glanced at the man beside her, who was twirling his blade, whistling, and occasionally still talking to his own blade while muttering things like, You’ve really had it hard lately, always cutting down trash like this. Suddenly, she felt that the scene before her was especially unreal.

Pinch herself...

Hiss. It hurt. Not a dream!

"What’s wrong? Do you still suspect I’m not a pioneer now?"

Muen looked over with a smile that was not quite a smile.

"No."

Marcie immediately straightened her back. When she recalled how she had once attacked this person in front of her and even called him a pervert, cold sweat could not help flowing down.

"I have always firmly believed that you are a pioneer, the most outstanding pioneer!"

"But something like an identity number really isn’t very convenient for me to take out..."

Muen touched his chin in distress. "In that case, I’d better not call myself a pioneer..."

"That thing is completely useless!"

Marcie directly threw her beloved record book onto the ground. To show her determination, she even stomped on it several times.

"The things inside are just hearsay anyway. How could there be any truth to them? And identity codes? Something specifically made to locate sacrificed pioneers? I’ve long thought it was unlucky. And it even seems to violate people’s privacy! When I become a pioneer in the future, I will definitely have a proper talk about this matter with the higher-ups of the City-State United Pioneering Association!"

"Don’t say that. Something like an identity code obviously has more advantages than disadvantages. It’s just that, because of certain reasons, it’s temporarily inconvenient for me to take mine out... temporarily."

Muen picked the record book up from the ground, patted it off, and considerately stuffed it back.

"It’s your treasure. You should still take care of it a little. After all, I’m also very interested in many of the things recorded inside."

"Mm, I understand!"

Tears filled Marcie’s eyes. "I understand completely!"

"Very good."

After "educating" this little girl, Muen pointed toward a place a little farther away.

"That place. See it?"

"Mm, I see it."

"There’s a cave there. Go hide inside."

"Huh? But the Third Attendant isn’t..."

"Go in. Hide."

Muen smiled. "Remember to close your eyes and cover your ears. See no evil, hear no evil."

"Yes! I’m going right now!"

Marcie scrambled away, moving swiftly... Mm. It seemed she really did have some talent for becoming a pioneer.

At least... she backed down quickly, ran quickly, and knew what she should do and what she should not do. That would greatly improve her chances of survival when facing danger.

But now was not the time to think about that.

Muen came to the Third Attendant’s side and examined this evil believer, who was still constantly struggling on the ground.

"I thought your regenerative ability would be a little stronger."

The Third Attendant was naturally still quite lively. Whether it was his hateful, twisted expression or his movements as he tried to attack Muen, both indicated that even with only half his body left, he probably would not die in a short time.

But... that was merely not dying.

On the huge wound at his waist, disgusting maggots crawled back and forth, and writhing granulation tissue interwove with itself, as if all of it were trying to repair something. But completely different from when he had been cut into two pieces just now, this time, the other half of his body had been directly crushed by Muen. So those maggots and strands of flesh were like headless flies, completely unable to find their target, only writhing in vain.

"You don’t look like an evil believer at all. Just like those few guys from before. At least, among the evil believers I once knew, they would never lose combat ability because of a minor injury like this."

"Minor injury?"

Hearing this, the Third Attendant was blank for a moment.

You fucking call this a minor injury?

A normal person would have died long ago! It was only because he could rely on the Goddess’s grace that he was still clinging to life.

Thinking of this, he immediately returned to a ferocious appearance again.

"Shut up! The Goddess of Night is not some Evil God, and I am not an evil believer!"

"Whether this Goddess of Night you speak of is an Evil God remains to be determined. But in your current state, what part of you is not an evil believer?" Muen smiled.

Black blood flowed. Disgusting maggots drilled in and out of the holes in his skin. The current Third Attendant looked completely like a dead man, and his entire body emitted a nauseating rotten stench.

Add to that the pollution that even Muen did not dare touch casually, yet which still truly existed.

Aside from having received an Evil God’s blessing, or some ability from a creation of an Evil God, he truly had no way to explain all this.

"None of your business!"

"No, it has a great deal to do with me. To tell you the truth, I came this time to help a certain dragon lady, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, clean up trash. You’d best be sensible. I’m generally very gentle when dealing with opponents."

Muen casually swung a few times, and several streaks of blade light passed along the edges of the Third Attendant’s body. "But a certain dragon lady is different. Her temper isn’t very good, and she never shows mercy to enemies."

"Stupid outsider. Ptui!"

The Third Attendant spat a mouthful of black saliva beside Muen’s foot.

"No matter what you want to do, I absolutely will not let you achieve your goal. Everyone will die here. Everyone! You can’t change anything!"

"How rude..."

Muen sighed. "This level of stubbornness makes you seem even more like an evil believer... Forget it. There’s no meaning in getting hung up on that. Let me ask a few questions first."

Muen stared into the Third Attendant’s eyes.

"First, what exactly is this Goddess of Night you speak of?"