Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Chapter 56

The Circle of Life is Droll

When they returned to the Hunter’s Guild, they saw Hans having a smoke outside.

“Connie, Illumca!” the man called out when they caught his sight.

Connie felt displeased by this and gave him a stern warning.

“Hans. I did not remember allowing you to call me Connie.”

“Never mind that, I need to ask you something,” the middle aged dismantler acted strangely giddy and jittery. He looked left and right before asking in a low voice. “Did you really kill a Named Demon?”

“Yes. How do you know that? I thought it’s supposed to stay a secret.”

“Not for us though. Look, I want to ask you something. C-can I see it?”

Connie gave him a look and threw her hands up in mock defeat. “Fine. There is something that I want to ask you anyway.”

“C-come with me to the dismantling house. Hurry…!” he was practically skipping into the building. “Let’s go, go, go!”

Inside, Cosette made a weird expression as Hans burst through to the back and into a rickety wooden door. There was a dent at the lower side, presumably due to years of being opened with a kick.

“Come on!!”

Cosette exhaled with a tired laugh as she let Illumca and Connie pass through to her side and to the back door.

Behind the plain wooden door was a small yard with piles of firewood stacked to the side. A small ordinary looking house was situated next to the pile, with people wearing leather apron coming in and out of it. The peculiar smell of tanning liquid assaulted their nose. Connie was used to worse smell and did not react. Illumca was not used to the strong smell and had to close her nose with her scarf.

“Hans. Is that…?” one of the men in leather apron stopped scrubbing a large femur with a look of joy.

“Yes.”

The man quickly stopped scrubbing the bone and threw it aside. “Come on, then. What are you waiting for?! Guys! She’s here!”

Illumca frowned. “He’s acting a bit creepy.”

“No comment,” Connie replied.

They entered the small building. Inside were three people working. One was cutting parts off a carcass hanging from the ceiling. Another was trimming the fat off a skin. While another was cutting hooves of a leg.

The place smelled of raw blood, meat, and fat. All mixed together with the smell of sweat and iron, making Illumca feel the need to throw up.

“Do it in the bucket, please!” Hans offered a bucket. She emptied her stomach in it, only to find out that the thing already had stuff inside.

“Ugh! Blergh!!”

“You should be used to this, Illumca. You’ve assisted me before.”

“I-I’m sorry. This is different from the usual thing.”

Connie gave a hearty laugh, like a teacher facing student that had tried to chew too much and offered her hand. “Go on and squeeze my hand, it will make you feel better.”

Her earlier good mood and joy after revealing her intention towards Connie and being reciprocated halfway quickly drained to the very bottom. She regretted following Connie inside and showing her paramour her weak self.

She still took hold of Connie’s hand, though.

“Perry, lock the door!”

A lanky old man quickly closed the door and barred it with two logs before locking it.

“Now remember, everyone. No words of this out there. Go ahead, Con-”

Connie raised a finger as a warning. “Cornelia, Hans. You are not allowed to call me Connie.”

“O-oh. Okay.”

There were 15 men in the room, all looking at one another sheepishly. Finally, one of the senior looking dismantlers nervously asked her. “M-miss. Um, c-can you show us the body yet? You know…the demon you killed?”

Without any reason to reject the request she retrieved the large body of the Demon. It weighed at last half a ton and fell with a loud thump on the floor.

“Oh, look at that, boys! The body of a Named Demon!” One of the younger men bit his finger while jumping a few times, looking like a teenage girl upon being given a pony.

“Look at its skin, so supple even after death! It’ll make a great leather armor,” the older one caressed the skin as if caressing the skin of a lover. It was rather creepy.

“Hey, this body is missing the head and both shoulder blades!”

“Connie, did you…?” Hans glanced at her.

“I pulled them out to disable its arms and severed the head,” she said matter of factly.

“T-that’s impossible! You must be kidding me!”

“Doesn’t matter to me if you believe me or not,” Connie said. “Are you satisfied? I’m taking it back.”

“W-wait!” Hans quickly interrupted her. “Connie. Can you allow us to dismantle it?”

“Huh, why?” inwardly Connie was smiling.

The dismantler named Perry explained. “Dismantling a Named Demon is something all Dismantlers want to do at least once in their life. For us who does not have the chance to go out to the frontline, this is a chance we cannot miss!”

“Hmm...I don’t know…”

“We’ll owe you one!”

“First pick of the materials.” Connie said. “And I have a say if I want to sell it or not.”

“DEAL!!” They all said and quickly began moving around to prepare the body.

“We’re going to bleed it out a bit.” Hans commented while seven dismantlers hoisted the body upside down to let the blood out, which was then gathered into a bucket.

“So, what kind of weapon did you use to cut the head and remove the shoulder blades? A sword or a blade? But these rough marks on skin, doesn’t look like a anything I’ve seen.”

“My bare hands,” Connie answered straightforwardly.

“Haha, that’s funny. Pull the other one. It’s got bells on. We’ll start dismantling now,” he then gestured at a stout man with flecks of black on his skin. “Go ahead, Mackie. Get stuck in.”

The man called Mackie started sawing the skin. After failing in a few moves, he tried changing to a larger saw. This happened three times. Each saw larger and more exotic than the last. After the last one, he threw his hands up resignedly.

“This is impossible. The skin is too tough! I even used the saw made from an Ogre’s bone and it barely bruised it!”

“Let me try!”

Perry came in with a large knife with an odd, curved edge with glistening scales at the side.

As she watched them try their hands in dismantling the body, Connie was left deep in thought.

In her old world, she had fought against demons. There, the demons took the guise of humans and often lived as humans do. Very much unlike the disgusting creature he fought here. And unlike demons here, they do not eat humans. Yes, we kill each other on daily basis but we do not use their body parts to make weapons.

Gelded Flayers and Named Demons. They eat the Races and we use their bodies to make weapons to kill them. How…droll. Connie thought to herself, bemused.

After all of the dismantlers tried out and failed, they were left groaning in despair.

All the while Illumca was becoming more and more ill from the actions and had to hide her head behind Connie’s back and close her eyes.

“Shit. Nothing works!! Dammit! Looks like we need something at the level of Enchanted Weapons to do this.” Hans cursed. “Sorry. I don’t think we can do this. We don’t have good enough tools.”

“Is that so? Would the Hunter’s Guild in the Capital be able to do it?” Connie asked.

“I think so. They have better tools. Why the question?”

“We are heading there tomorrow,” Illumca said shortly.

“What? You just finished a quest and you’re already heading out again? Are you even healed up enough? Your body won’t hold up if you don’t get some rest between hard quests. Take it from me.”

As he said so, he shifted his weight uncomfortably to his right knee with a grimace.

“Personal experience?” Connie asked conversationally.

“You could say that.”

“Don’t worry. Illumca and I are made of stronger stuff,” she replied.

“With those clearly swollen arms? Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the middle-aged man took the girl’s word as the arrogance of a noble, not knowing that she actually meant it literally. “Anyway, if you are going to the Capital, then we need to at least extract the Essence Crystal first.”

Connie and Illumca’s eyes went wide from hearing the last word.

“Did I hear you just say…Essence Crystal?” Illumca asked.

“Yes. That’s the most important item we can get from a demon. Demons are akin to monsters, you see. All of them have Essence Crystal near their heart. The purity and size are superior to those of monsters. They eat us, we take their Essence Crystal. Circle of life.” the man said with a grim laugh.

Circle of life, huh? How apt. The gods here indeed have a very strange sense of humor. And the humans at least, didn’t even think much about it. They do not question the way the world works.

“I understand. But why should we take out the Essence Crystal now?”

Hans looked at her with a dubious look. “…this is a bit of a secret, but the Kingdom has been buying all the Essence Crystals they can get their hands on. Especially high purity one. That’s why most of the stuff you see in the city these days are ones with a bit of taint in them. Now, a Named Demon’s Crystal? They’ll want that for sure.”

“I see,” Connie put the tought at the back of her head. “They must be planning something big.”

“Whatever they’re doing won’t have an effect on us. Just keep it on the down low. I shouldn’t be telling you that, but you’ve been good to Sen,” he laughed weakly. “That doesn’t matter though, the demon’s body is too tough so I can’t help you there.”

“Oh, let me try then,” Connie took off her inner robe and gave it to Illumca, leaving her with only her underwear.

“C-connie! That’s immodest!” Illumca half screamed half yelped from her action.

“I don’t want to stain my robe,” she said simply as she walked towards the demon and stood on its left. “It’s near the heart?”

“Y-yes. Uh, what are you doing?”

“Taking out the Essence Crystal,” Connie said leisurely while gathering Yin Energy into her right hand.

But I will do all I that I can, and I will do what I need to do for a chance at sticking one up the heavens’ ass. And for that, I will follow the rules…I will follow the system…for now. So look at me, O gods, as I follow your rules.

She formed a blade with that hand and thrust it into the spot just below the diaphragm.

“What-!” The dismantlers were stupefied from the scene.

“Hmm…lung…heart…ah, there it is,” She felt around until she could feel something hard and slippery and took hold of it. Then she slowly pulled it out.

In her hand was a red Essence Crystal the size of her palm. Though it was smaller than the one she got from the Treant-Golem, she found the Essence within to be much more concentrated. There was also no sign of taint in it. Looking more like a precious jewel than an Essence Crystal.

“S-she broke though that extremely tough skin and muscles with her bare hands!!” Mackie cried out.

Hmm. Such a dense Essence Crystal. If it was back in Jianghu, this type of treasure would fetch millions. Even talking about density and purity alone, it could propel my cultivation enough to do a breakthrough to the next stage. Connie stood there, deep in thought. But no. That would have to wait until I gather at least 500 poisons. I’m still lacking 100.

Frankly, if talking about amount alone, Connie would have thousands of poison types just from the ingredients she had in her Poison Core. But she was a very picky person and would not settle with imperfection.

“Illumca, help me clean up.”

After cleaning up, Connie took the body back and left. She still had to meet the prospective Herbalists and cook for Martell’s first meal.

Before leaving, Hans told them to ask for Johann Krum, who was Hans’ Master. He then proceeded to grief from the pain of having a perfectly good demon’s body being ruined and swore to get the guild to agree for better tools.

“Very good,” Connie glanced outside, seeing that the sun had begun to peep through the windows and their shadows grew long.

“Okay, let’s return. I still need to cook for the boy. I imagine he’d be hungry by now.”