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The morning sun shone warmly upon the land. The pedestrians were all wearing a blissful smile under its warm light.

The streets in Aeria were no longer shrouded in the atmosphere of last night. Other than the occasionally patrolling soldiers; templars and priests of light were nowhere in sight.

The magic circles that were glowing faintly in the sky were gone too. The state of alert in Aeria had been cleared completely.

Lilith sighed softly while watching the busy streets and its usual crowd, “It seems like they have apprehended the criminal already.”

“Yes, but the real culprit is still at large and shopping under the broad daylight, while completely disregarding the Radiant Goddess.”

“Of course not. That b̲i̲t̲c̲h̲’s face has been ingrained in my mind, I haven’t forgotten about her at all.”

Sae stroked her head as though she was soothing her headache. “We are talking about different things here. Not only that, that Shadow Saintess just got sold out by her best friend, Lilith, without a second thought. Is it really fine to leave things this way?”

“I don’t see any problem,” Lilith replied nonchalantly.

“Lady Lilith, art thou not worried that she would be treated as a criminal? Besides, the situation today makes me wonder whether she has already been apprehended as the criminal.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Jasmine is the Shadow Saintess. Nothing could possibly happen to her even if she has been captured. After all, this is a matter that involves the two nations. Even if that Pope is a useless old man, he wouldn’t dare to handle this matter recklessly. At most, the Shadow Theocracy would just pay some price to bail her out.”

“Hopefully that’s the case” Sae sighed.

“Alright, let’s not talk about that anymore.”

Lilith faced the lively street and then exclaimed with excitement, “I haven’t done any proper shopping since I arrived at the human nations! Come to think of it, I didn’t even have much free time.”

“Lady Lilith, dost thou really have no idea why that is so?”

“Let’s just forget about all those bad things today and shop happily, alright?”

“Whatever maketh thee happy, Lady Lilith.”

Looking at their peaceful surroundings and then remembering a series of events that happened after she followed Lilith suddenly had Sae feel exhausted. She had never been this exhausted since she became an Artifact Spirit and gained self-awareness, despite the fact that she had participated in countless campaigns in all corners of the world with her previous master and even fought in that huge war nine million years ago.

As expected, physical exhaustion was nothing compared to mental exhaustion. Being a babysitter was totally not the job of a dagger.

Sae had a hunch that this was only the beginning. She still had to stay on Lilith’s pirate ship for a long time.

………

Aeria was the largest city in Luminous Theocracy. As a trading hub that connected the north and south, there were no less than a million people traveling through this place every day. Compared to other cities in other nations where evenings were recreational times, the citizens of the Luminous Theocracy held this conviction of ‘bright people do not do shady things’ and insisted on carrying out every activity under broad daylight. Carrying out activities at night was usually perceived as ‘doing sneaky things that those rats in the neighboring country would do’.

Even if they were going to have fun, it would be in the broad daylight, in the presence of the old goddess.

It was eight or nine in the morning right now and therefore, this was the most lively time in the streets of Aeria.

Sunshine Street was the widest and also the busiest street in the southern part of the city. It was so crowded that pedestrians would bump shoulders with each other.

However, only pedestrians were allowed on the street. There wasn’t any special reason behind the ban of carriages, but merely due to the purpose of the street.

Sunshine Street was a food street.

Although the street was wide, half of it was occupied by various food vendors. All sorts of sale pitches could be heard echoing throughout the street.

Some vendors were also selling all sorts of seasonal vegetables, fruits and animals that Lilith had never seen before in her life.

Rather than a food street, this place was more like a farmer’s market from Lilith’s previous life.

Even so, that didn’t prevent Lilith from trying the delicious food. She had found this place by following the food aroma from five kilometers away, naturally all she cared about were the delicacies here.

“Yum… This is so good…”

“This isn’t bad either…”

“Uwoooohhh, this is simply divine!”

Lilith skillfully navigated her way through the crowd, while indulging herself in all the street food that she could barely hold in her hands. The dense crowd didn’t bother her much since her petite figure allowed her to move around as easily as a fish in the river. Some people would sense something passing by them, but found no one except for an unexplainable large oil stain left on their clothes.

On the contrary, Sae couldn’t navigate through the crowd as easily as Lilith due to her disadvantage caused by their physical differences. If she were to shove her way through the crowd in this body, she would be reported for hitting people inappropriately with her b̲o̲o̲b̲s̲. Therefore, she resorted to spamming magic to teleport herself over short distances. Though she looked like she wasn’t doing much, she was actually following closely behind Lilith.

“Lady Lilith, how much longer are you planning to eat?” Sae asked helplessly while watching Lilith enjoying her food.

“What’s the hurry? I’m only half full,” she said.

H-Half… full?

Sae’s face twitched. Only god knew how much food Lilith had stuffed herself with over the past two hours. Sae would understand if Lilith had the size of a dragon, but she was so petite…

Did all that food disappear into a black hole?

The only thing she knew was that many food vendors could happily close up earlier for the day.

Perhaps they’d done a good deed?

Just when Sae was lost in her own thoughts, the crowd in front of them suddenly became more packed. Everyone seemed to have gathered to watch something.

Naturally, Lilith wouldn’t pass up a chance to join in on the fun and vanished from Sae’s view just in the blink of an eye.

Sae sighed softly and was left with no choice but to follow her.

Several knights in white armor and priests in white robes stood on a makeshift platform, along with an old bearded man in golden robes who was reciting something aloud.

On the platform, three long wooden poles were lashed together near the top to form a stable tripod.

A long rope hung from the center of the tripod, with a noose tied at the other end.
The noose was put around the neck of a young and fair girl.
The sobbing young girl’s mumblings fell on deaf ears.

“Sob… I didn’t do it… I’m not the… Don’t simply accuse…”

“Sob… I’m really the saintess of the Shadow Theocracy. How dare you all treat me… this way… sob… You’ll all be punished by the goddess soon… sob…”