Chapter 1407
Lina, still unfamiliar with Leon’s commands, was all ears when Hubert spoke—obedient to a fault. (Note: Lina is the beastkin child, later renamed Marianne.)
Seizing the opportunity, Leon began slowly building rapport with Lina, the little beastkin. He gave her a new name—Marianne. From now on, the name she bore before the Seventy-Third Deity’s reincarnation was utterly forbidden—a taboo never to be spoken.
With the danger gone, everyone got back to mining in the sealed cavern. Plenty of veins still held remnants—many rare materials had been destroyed, but most were just shattered. Once re-refined, they’d be usable again. And with vast veins buried deep below, the leftover resources were still staggering.
The crew dove back into feverish mining. Marianne lifted the spatial seal, letting Leon summon scores of Mining Golems from his demi-plane. The Chester Family brought forth a horde of burrowing beasts to help dig.
After two months, nearly all the rare materials in the cavern were excavated. In a span of dozens of kilometers, the ground had been turned over hundreds of meters deep. Even a thumb-sized chunk of Mithril was dug up—short of sifting every last bit of earth through a sieve.
In those two months, Leon and Marianne grew very close. At least now, when she was hungry, she knew to look for Leon instead of the unreliable Hubert.
Marianne, dressed in a beast-hide skirt and vest, swung a leg bone nearly a meter and a half long, chasing after a pack of burrowing beasts summoned by the Chester Family. The level-twenty burrowers, sensing Marianne’s aura, were paralyzed with fear.
Eventually, Marianne found the whole thing boring. The burrowing beasts just lay there with their tails tucked, waiting to be knocked out one by one—no fun at all. So she went to Leon for help.
Afterward, Marianne learned Leon’s spell for concealing her own aura...
A beastkin, learning human magic—when Marianne cast the spell, her power surpassed even the most skilled mages. With her aura fully concealed, she played the predator in disguise, sneaking into the underground tunnels to find beasts hard at work. She’d lure them into chasing her, then smash their skulls and drag the corpses back to Leon to roast for dinner...
As for why she didn’t go to Hubert—well, even the most naïve child can tell the difference between good food and bad. After tasting Hubert’s cooking just once, Marianne’s picky palate refused to touch anything he made ever again.
The Chester Family’s mages were having a rough time of it, too. Out here in this godforsaken wasteland, not a single blade of grass could be found. If you wanted meat, you had to rely on the magical beasts summoned en masse by the Chester Family.
And the summoned beasts? Marianne nearly ruined them with her games. These not-so-bright creatures, after getting knocked off one by one, seemed to grow smarter. Now, at the mere hint of Marianne’s presence, they’d steer clear—never approaching, never giving her a chance to strike.
It wasn’t until Marianne smashed the skull of a level thirty-nine beast that the Chester Family finally spoke up—and then, well, that was the end of it.
The next day, Marianne nearly clobbered one of their Sky Rank Beasts, and after that, the Chester Family kept their mouths shut. Reasoning with a reincarnated god-demon? You’d have to be out of your mind. So she ate a few of their beasts—big deal! Just summon more. Summoning a bunch of low-level beasts hardly cost any power anyway.
With their Wild Summoning Bloodline, the Chester Family’s Sky Rank mages could forcibly summon groups of low-level beasts without a hitch—and they didn’t even need to sign contracts with them. Just drag them in to serve as cannon fodder.
Marianne was having the time of her life. She even seemed to treat the Chester Family folks a bit better—at least, after chatting with Daenoson for more than three sentences, she didn’t immediately want to bash his head in.
That made Chester pretty happy, honestly. After all, this was a living vessel of the Seventy-Third Deity’s reincarnation. She might not seem too bright now—just a rowdy kid—but it didn’t matter; getting on her good side was worth it. As long as Marianne survived, her odds of igniting the Divine Flame would blow every mage out of the water.
And Daenoson, shameless as ever, started summoning a few tasty magical beasts every few days—Bruteboars and the like. Each day, he’d summon one and casually drop it in front of Marianne’s bone club, pretending it was all by accident.