Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 220

Chapter 220: The Forbidden Magic called ‘Mutation’… Part-1.
The group reached the palace in no time, even though they had no carriages or horses.

The more time they spent on the road, the more they would have had to see the people literally dying and struggling at the end of their wits; thus, they all moved fast.

For someone like Sylvia, who’s a knight who takes pride in protecting her people, seeing the very same people suffer like this is the greatest form of torture she can suffer.

She would rather prefer dying in a completely outnumbered battle than keep living and see her people get tormented by miasma like this.

This is the reason why she dared to take such a big risk of inviting humans to the empire.

If she doesn’t take this risk, the nation will get destroyed anyway. After taking the risk, if things go wrong, she can at least be sure that she tried her best.

“Uh, the Elf Queen is missing, so we can’t organize a proper royal welcome, but we have prepared rooms for you…”

“You have traveled a vast distance to come here, so please rest here for today; there’s still a week left before the mission can begin…”

Jareth nodded his head at those words.

Just when the group was about to head inside, Risa noticed a little elf girl peeking out from behind a pillar of the Gazebo in the garden nearby.

The young girl noticed Risa’s gaze and panicked a bit, but then she waved her hand innocently at Risa and smiled with a child’s innocent gaze.

The garden had no grass or flowers left, and it was just pitch-black earth everywhere, yet that smile on that little girl’s face seemed so cute and innocent that it could melt even the coldest hearts.

While Jareth and Sylvia were talking about the plans and stuff, Risa and the other two had nothing to do, so Risa also waved her hand back at the girl and smiled in return.

The little girl smiled happily after seeing new people.

Although the adults know the troubles and are depressed, a young innocent child like her has nothing to do with the cruelty of the world, and thus she can still remain happy even in dire times.

The girl glanced around perhaps to see if her parents were looking at her from somewhere, and seeing that the area was clear, she tip-toed towards Risa and the two.

“You are?”

Risa and the other two’s attention was drawn by her immediately, so they asked her questions in curiosity.

“I am Emu; my papa is the one who tends to this garden; I come here to play often!”

“You give off such a different feeling from all the other grown ups… Who are you? Also, your ears are different and quite beautiful too…”

The little girl surprisingly had a great perception; she noticed that humans give a different kind of aura than elves.

Risa and the two’s aura attracted her curiosity; she has never seen humans in her life after all. For a child, meeting new people and getting to talk to them is a kind of great adventure in itself.

Emu seemed quite happy to talk.

Sylvia also noticed her at this moment and scolded in a calm voice.

“Emu, didn’t your father say that you were feeling quite sick yesterday? How come you are wandering here and jumping around with such energy now?”

“Shouldn’t you be resting? Did you run away from home again?”

The little girl pouted her cheeks after hearing those questions.

“Hmph, the grumpy knight showed up again to nag me…”

Sylvia couldn’t help but shake her head in helplessness.

Emu is the daughter of the gardener, but as there’s no garden left to tend to, the other party can’t earn money and has no food to feed his family.

Emu was always quite sickly from the start to begin with; lack of food and nutrition has caused her health to deteriorate even further.

If they don’t solve this problem of miasma soon, things will worsen for Emu and her family too.

This is the norm of today’s elven capital; Emu’s family is just one out of them all; nearly everyone has lost their jobs, and money has lost meaning as people don’t even have any goods to sell or buy.

There’s no food in the market, and people are starving to death. The economy of the nation is in shambles right now.

In fact, this place can’t even be called a nation anymore; it’s basically just a ruin of a former nation that is slowly dying and deteriorating even further.

“Here, take this… hehe…”

Emu smiled happily and brought out a flower from her pocket and offered it to Risa.

“There used to be a lot of them before, but now there’s only a few left; this one is a rare one; I am giving it to you to become friends!”

Risa nodded her head at those words and took the flower with a happy smile on her face.

Just when Risa was about to go ahead and pat the little girl on her head.

Jareth’s eyes suddenly widened for a moment, and he realized something.

“Risa, get away from her-”

*BOOOM!!!*

A massive explosion occurred; before Jareth could finish his words, the little girl’s body burst apart like a balloon, and an extremely powerful explosion happened.

The explosion had enough power to wipe out nearly half of the entire Elven capital from the face of Earth in a mere matter of milliseconds.

But Jareth reacted fast.

[Mana Command: Restricted Field Cage!]

He immediately confined that explosion in a cage made out of concentrated mana.

Still, he was a bit late to react, so the explosion still leaked out some energy before Jareth took care of it.

Everyone who was standing nearby flew away like a cannonball and hit the walls of the palace; even the ground cracked, and nearly half of the palace collapsed on the spot.

A literal small-scale earthquake was created by that explosion, and even Sylvia was blown away.

The voice of that explosion was so loud that it rang out in the entire elven capital and startled all the residents!

Thankfully Jareth took care of that explosion on time, or nearly half of the elven population would have died right then and there at that moment!

When the dirt and smoke finally thinned, Jareth saw blood splattered all over the ground.

The little Elven girl was turned into powder in an instant, and only that blood painted on the ground was the sole thing left of her body.

Just a few seconds ago, she was smiling happily and innocently, and now she’s gone without any traces.

Jareth clenched his fist after seeing this scene.

“False dome cult… They have already infiltrated the place…”

Sylvia, who barely stabilized herself and got up with difficulty, heard those words and grated her teeth.

Her head was spinning, but thankfully she didn’t suffer any fatal injuries from that explosion.

Risa and the other fainted on the spot, but they were also fine because Jareth was able to reduce the explosions effect for them to an extremely low level.

“Mr. Jareth… d-do you know what just happened?”

Hearing Sylvia’s question and seeing that frustrated look on her face, Jareth sighed and nodded his head.

“Yeah… I know this all too well… This is the signature move of one of the members of the False Dome Cult; he uses forbidden magic to do experiments on living beings…”

“This little girl likely got hit by his forbidden magic, and he turned her into a living, walking, self-destructive bomb…”

“This kind of bomb activates when the victim is ‘feeling’ happy… Emu… that little herself didn’t know about it; she was happy when she gave that flower to Risa…”

“That happiness triggered the bomb…”

Hearing Jareth’s words, Sylvia gnashed her teeth and punched the wall nearby in anger.

“Turning a little innocent kid into a living bomb… such inhumanity, such cruelty….”

The memories of her nagging at Emu in the past and playing around with her in the garden flashed past Sylvia’s eyes, and her eyes became moist.

“Emu… w-what… will I say to your parents now… h-how will I look in their eyes…”

Sylvia knew that Jareth did them a great favor by confining that bombs power; otherwise, there would have been more casualties, but this one loss of that innocent kid was already too great.

Although Emu was a naughty kid and liked to mess around, she didn’t deserve such a cruel fate; she had a better future ahead.

Several knights and guards came running at that moment and were stunned when they saw such a massive crater in the ground.

Sylvia, as the person in charge, had to hold back her tears now.

She forcefully calmed herself down and gave orders to tighten the security in the capital and take care of the mess.

Sylvia gave Jareth a salute and said,

“The people must be restless from the explosion; I must go and calm the panic from spreading in people and take care of this mess myself… For now, please stay in the palace…”

Jareth nodded his head and went with the healing mages to the infirmary to get his disciples treated.

“You can take your time… we are not in a hurry right now…”

While on his way to the infirmary, Jareth also felt a bit frustrated in his mind.

‘Forbidden magic of this type tempers the vitality of a person… Without prior experience and knowledge, even I can’t detect this kind of thing, even if I have a mana singularity…’

Jareth realized the presence of the forbidden magic when it finally activated when the little elf girl smiled happily. Jareth felt the fluctuation of the magic activating in that moment.

But by that time, it was too late. It’s already great that he was able to prevent any other casualties; the death of Emu was already set in stone the moment she smiled.

‘Even after all these powerups… I still couldn’t save a little kid right in front of me, tch…’

‘False dome cult, I have never hated anyone more than you guys, not even the boss from my previous life… You guys really do like to mess up my plans all the time!’

‘Such a big pain in the a*s!’