Me, the Weakest Member of the Hero’s Party? I’m the Villain Though? - Chapter 113
While I was looking around at the party members busy choosing their equipment, Kyle lightly tapped my shoulder and said in a friendly tone,
“Lysian, you should pick one too.”
“…Alright.”
Since they were giving it to us for free, I decided not to refuse. I didn’t want a weapon, so I chose to look among the equipment that could at least protect my body.
“I’ll take this one.”
After a brief consideration, I selected a very thin piece of armor that covered the upper body from among the various true silver items. It looked comfortable to wear under my clothes, and it also seemed useful for hiding the scar on my chest.
“Are you sure that’s enough? Why not choose something like a sword, a bow, or a shield?”
“I don’t need a weapon. I wouldn’t know how to use one anyway.”
Kyle nodded as if he understood what I meant. Leaving him behind, I approached Dierko, who was watching the group from a distance.
“What is it? Do you have something to say?”
Dierko narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down. In truth, he was much shorter than me, so I had to look down at him.
“I have something to ask before we leave. Have you ever seen this?”
I rummaged through my pocket and took out the mana crystal. Interest flickered in Dierko’s eyes. It seemed he recognized what it was.
“That’s a very high-purity mana crystal. Where did you get it?”
Holding the crystal in his hand, Dierko stared at me with a sharp gaze. It felt like he was testing me.
To explain the source of the crystal, there was something I needed to ask first.
“Have you ever heard of the Devotees of Darkness?”
“Not at all. This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
It seemed they didn’t know because they had retreated to the underground kingdom before the Devotees of Darkness appeared.
“They’re a group trying to gather five sacred relics to revive the Dark God, and they had this. From what I know, the Borbo are the best at handling mana crystals. Do you know anything about this?”
Dierko examined the crystal very closely. He kept inspecting it without saying anything, so I thought he might not know, but after a long moment of consideration, he finally gave a careful answer.
“We processed this. Only our people can refine a high-purity mana crystal like this with such precision.”
As expected, it had been processed by them. The Black Flame Dragon had taken high-purity mana crystals from the Serendal Grand Duchy and commissioned the Borbo of the Hegea Mine to refine them.
“It was about ten years ago. We processed it at the request of the Black Flame Dragon. They delivered it by ship from the Serendal Grand Duchy, and we refined it while embedding a spell.”
“Do you know what kind of magic is sealed inside it?”
“No. We don’t know what purpose it was made for, and we don’t want to know. As long as we’re paid, that’s enough.”
I had learned the source of the mana crystal and who had processed it, but I still couldn’t figure out the meaning of the spell sealed inside.
Is the Black Flame Dragon the only one who knows?
Amid the confusion, there was something else I was curious about. Why had the Black Flame Dragon driven the Borbo out of the Hegea Mine?
I thought it might be because of the item he was looking for. If it was something he was searching for…
“Is there any reason the Black Flame Dragon attacked you? For example, did you possess a sacred relic…?”
For a moment, Dierko’s expression subtly changed. At the same time, I recalled the two sacred relics in my subspace.
One had been obtained from Elonen’s temple, and I hadn’t known where the other came from, but it seemed likely that these people were its source.
“A sacred relic? I’ve never heard of a ring like that, so I wouldn’t know.”
Dierko avoided the topic as if he didn’t want to talk about sacred relics and feigned ignorance. It seemed he didn’t even realize that I had never mentioned a ring.
