老师你下面太紧了拔不出来

Chapter 710: Subtle Development

Cough, this wasn’t because I was suddenly going easy on her because she was a woman. It was rather that using her as bait to lure out Karwenz was highly unlikely to succeed now that the trap had already been exposed.

With what Shirvan’s church just did, even an idiot would know that there was a trap here now. I had also shown up here with my real appearance, so Karwenz would naturally know that I was here.

In that case, he definitely wouldn’t come here unless he was willing to see me.

Recently, I had made it obvious that I was looking for him, yet he still hadn’t appeared… Someone like him could actually wait instead of bragging in front of me? That seemed not to match his style at all.

Since this wasn’t his style, then what “noble purpose” could possibly cause him to suppress his very nature and hide from me instead? This caused me to worry even more.

Although I had no more hope of luring him in, I definitely wouldn’t let go of a clue like Leona.

“Sister-in-law… Leona, the child in your stomach is half mine as well… Don’t attack me with your sword! Cat on my head, don’t bite me, either! I’m being serious!”

Maybe my words could be misconstrued as somewhat dirty, but I truly wasn’t trying to scam anyone here. I was simply spouting rubbish that would fit the nobles’ ridiculous social customs.

When a noble family’s leader had no descendants, meaning that the family line met an end, then illegitimate children who had been kicked out of the family and so on could be brought back to inherit the position.

Although this sounded rather ridiculous, I indeed had no direct descendants. I was still the oldest son of the Mist Family, and I had no descendants, which meant that I could instead find a relative of mine to be my inheritor.

My younger brother’s son, as according to the ridiculous concept of noble heraldry, would indeed by the most appropriate relative to become my inheritor.

According to the nobles’ customs as well as laws, I could even refuse to recognize this descendant’s mother and father, and steal away this child to raise him as my adopted son… Actually, there were plenty of such examples back on Earth in the Middle Ages. Of course, others would happily go to inherit the family title, while this would be stealing on my part.

“Do you know what the child in your stomach represents? That’s my only close relative (rubbish), so you’re also half a relative of mine.”

I was acting serious while spouting rubbish to Leona. “Also, do you believe me when I say, if you make me have no descendants, I’ll make Shirvan have no descendants?”

Although the nobles really valued so-called bloodline inheritance, I wasn’t really much of a noble at all. Rather than bloodline inheritance, I more valued cultural inheritance and a shared way of thinking.

As for the Mist Family? The Mist Kingdom from back then no longer existed, and it was fine how things were now. The current Mist Alliance and East Mist were pretty good, anyways.

Actually, I didn’t really care about having descendants or whatever. Reyne and Glina were also descendants of the Mist. Having a direct bloodline inheritance didn’t matter as much.

Nor was there any need for me to make someone my descendant, which would only create trouble for me. Who knew how many children Karwenz already had over the years? Although normal Demon Lords wouldn’t have many children, it would be strange if he was like any normal Demon Lord.

My true objective was…

“I have two objectives. The first is to steal the right to dissect Leona from Shirvan… Ahem, I mean to possess her.”

Leona was quite special. The more I looked at her, the more I felt this had to be the case. It wasn’t only that she was especially beautiful. It was more my instinct and very soul that were telling me this.

Karwenz was indeed quite a pervert. However, flirting with a girl and having a child which would weaken his strength at this time definitely wasn’t his style at all.

I then mentioned that I wanted to perform a physical examination on Leona to see if there was anything special about her, but everyone in Shirvan’s church suddenly started glaring at me as if I was their greatest mortal enemy and biggest pervert ever.

“…That Roan made the exact same request. He said that he had almost reached Level 4 power level, and that he needed to better understand divine bloodlines. Saintess Leona agreed to his request at the time…”

“And then she got pregnant? I understand.”

I felt rather helpless about all the vigilant glares aimed in my direction. I then wasted another two days trying to convince Leona, and finally got blood and hair samples in the end (although I obtained the samples without consent). Still, just this alone obviously wouldn’t be enough… I really should dissect Leona instead as I was also quite interested in divine bloodlines.

The blood test results were highly disappointing. Apart from some divine power within her bloodline, Leona was a pure human. Not only that, her unborn child’s demonic power was also corroding her own power.

The mother and child’s souls were already connected to each other. It was a fact that if the child died, Leona would also die. However, I also doubted that Leona would be able to survive the birth of her demonic spawn.

Other mages would have stopped there, but for someone like me, the soul was the source of everything. Powerful individuals’ true strength would stem from their soul. Leona’s personal history also proved that she was quite excellent. Perhaps it was her soul that was truly special.

“Let’s dissect her after all.”

“Why don’t you tell her the truth that you might be able to save her instead?”

“…I don’t have any guarantee of being able to save her. Also, I haven’t decided whether or not to keep her demonic child alive yet. Karwenz’s making a descendant at this time means that it’s highly likely that this will be his ‘backup body.’”

I kept using the nobles customs as an excuse to spout rubbish at the Church of Sword and Thunder. Yep, I was just bullying them because they wouldn’t dare to antagonize me. It was likely that even Shirvan himself would be unable to defeat me.

I was also making preparations for achieving my second objective.

My second objective really was about the child, but not about the child himself. My objective was to use the child’s bloodline to search for Karwenz himself.

Spells to search for someone by using that person’s relative weren’t that rare. The best possible catalyst for a prophecy magic spell to search for someone would be that person’s relative. I was going to try and use prophecy magic to find Karwenz to begin with. Now, I definitely wouldn’t let go of this excellent catalyst.

As for myself? I had already tried, but that didn’t work. Either Karwenz had intentionally made preparations against me using myself to search for him, or our bloodlines had repeatedly changed too much, reaching the point where the prophecy magic didn’t recognize us as brothers anymore.

As for Reyne and Glina? They were too distant as relatives. Although they indeed had mutated bloodlines related to Karwenz, they weren’t his direct descendants, so they wouldn’t be good enough as catalysts.

It could be said that this unborn demonic child was the closest relative of Karwenz that I had access to. Of course I wouldn’t let this opportunity go.

And so, I shamelessly stayed in the Church of Sword and Thunder for 10 days and also spread the teachings of the Holy Light.

Of course, I meant Estrada’s version of Holy Light. Since I was highly skilled at Holy Light performances, I was able to attract a large audience each day.

Maybe this wouldn’t affect Shirvan personally all that much, but having someone from another church constantly spreading their teachings in your own church would be a huge loss of face that Shirvan’s church and his believers wouldn’t be able to accept.

Finally, I came to an accord with Leona. She agreed to accompany me in my travels.

“…Didn’t she instantly agree to come with you the moment that you told her you were going to take revenge on Karwenz? Didn’t you just waste time with your performances over the past couple days?”

“Silly cat, you know too much,” I said in a low voice while gritting my teeth.

I really hadn’t expected that Leona would instantly agree to come with me so easily when I mentioned that I wanted to get back at Karwenz.

Leona came to an agreement with me that we would first go to the Mage Country to find an expert prophecy magic mage before going to see Karwenz together.

Over the past few days as she traveled with me, I kept seeing her rub her belly. Sometimes, Leona would smile gently like a saintess, while at other times she seemed to go evil as she sharpened her sword. I was really looking forward to Karwenz’s expression now when he saw Leona.

“A saintess, a demonic child, and a shuraba… I think that this will make for a good hentai scenario. Will there also be a dissection in order to check the demon spawn?”

I was just joking around, yet the silly cat took me seriously.

“Promise me that you won’t instantly dissect her. You also must work hard to resolve her problem.”

“…Harloys, this isn’t your style.”

“Ridiculous. Leona is a mother. The child in her stomach is also blood-related to you.”

“…You must be saying something so easily misconstrued on purpose. You must have some scheme in mind.”

The silly cat’s chuckle made me really scared. Yet, I kept thinking about things and couldn’t figure out any pitfalls that I might fall into.

“Ha, watch me guard my sister-in-law as we travel thousands of kilometers on our journey!”

“I agree that there’s probably some hentai scenario in here somewhere.”