Miss Witch’s Devotion Has Gone… Twisted

”Oh? What can this thing do?”

Loren asked knowingly, secretly delighted inside that the King had finally taken the bait.

”The Tear of Condensed Wishes guarantees one successful potion brewing per week, but it can only be used once weekly.”

”Does the Gedlan Kingdom actually have something like this? If it truly has that effect, then Ember Radiance can definitely be produced. You just need to wait patiently for good news. However, even with this, brewing one bottle still requires a considerable amount of time.”

Loren continued negotiating terms, and the King knew he was negotiating, but the rejuvenated King seemed to have genuinely reignited his ambitious spirit and developed more far-sighted plans:

”Of course, as long as you can brew one bottle for me per month, that’s sufficient. I’ll continue providing you with materials, but I hope you can teach a class for the Gedlan Royal Magic Academy during your spare time, just one class per day. You can decide the content and timing yourself.”

Loren nodded, the deal sealed. Loren understood the King’s thinking - he had probably used Loren as advertising to attract many new students to the academy. If Loren didn’t teach eventually, many people would likely be dissatisfied.

Anyway, Loren only needed to make an appearance. Although it was one class per day, he could actually go just once a month without consequence, as long as he proved he was present.

”No problem.”

Loren knew the King was aware he had been embezzling materials. The King’s words meant Loren could continue embezzling, but he also had to genuinely serve as a teacher at the academy for a period - a fair trade.”Tomorrow is the academy’s opening day. You’ll be responsible for teaching Class One. The person in charge will contact you then. You can teach whatever you want.”

After delivering these instructions, the King departed. Loren knew that Class One consisted of noble children, with an occasional commoner genius mixed in.

There was no helping it - nobles inherently had stronger talents than commoners, which aligned with science. Children born to mages and mages would definitely be stronger than those born to ordinary people who couldn’t even eat their fill. Even animals knew to reproduce with stronger individuals - tragic but true. Moreover, many ordinary people could never access magic in their entire lives, so even possessing extreme talent was useless.

After seeing off the King, Loren stretched his limbs and entered his room. Now that the Tear of Condensed Wishes was finally within reach, his next plan could finally commence.

Loren didn’t know the Tear’s current location. By the time the game started, the Headmaster was already carrying it on his person, so the Tear had become part of the Headmaster’s loot drops. Currently, the Tear was still stored somewhere in the academy, but Loren didn’t know the exact location.

In Loren’s room stood a large chest. Loren input the password, and the next moment the chest was pushed open from inside, revealing a small hand wearing dark blue gloves, with a bow tied at the wrist.

Then the puppet inside poked her head out. Her blue hair had been tied by Loren into spiral twin tails, her face slightly round which only made her appear more adorable. Her eyes resembled brilliant sapphires, with one eye sparkling with starlight - an effect of the Void Crystal.

The girl climbed out of the chest. She wore a dress interwoven with dark blue and white, featuring a large bow at the chest, with the skirt hem ending in petal-like ruffles.

Her blue-and-white themed tights were accented with touches of gold. The girl crossed her legs, lifted her skirt hem, and curtsied to Loren. Everything was so perfect.

The puppet’s appearance was modeled by Loren after a doll spirit, with the clothes sewn by Mirrorheart. Loren considered simply calling her Gwen.

Under Loren’s control, Gwen’s appearance and figure began to change, eventually transforming into an utterly ordinary, unremarkable passerby. All those precious materials Loren had used weren’t wasted.

Then Loren took a black robe from the wardrobe and put it on Gwen. He bit his finger and wrote runes pointing to Ligoss on the black robe. With all preparations complete, Gwen’s body became intangible and phased through the wall. She could even share the tower’s abilities, though Loren and Gwen couldn’t use them simultaneously - a minor drawback that meant little.

”Everything is proceeding according to plan.”

Loren cleaned up all traces in the room, stuffing items inconvenient to discard directly into Scarlett’s Life Thief space. Since the space was infinite, he could discard them in safe locations when he had time.

”Wait,” Loren stopped Scarlett before she could leave: ”There’s one more thing I need your help with.”

”What?”

Scarlett glanced around Loren’s room. It was quite dark with good soundproofing - even if something happened inside, no one outside would know. This suddenly made Scarlett somewhat flustered, yet also a little excited.

”In a while, come with me to confiscate property.”

Loren still hadn’t forgotten that group of the God of Plague’s emissaries. They hadn’t left the Royal Capital yet. Having stayed here so long, they had likely generated considerable hatred from many people. Loren’s investigations revealed that every night, some relatively handsome young men were sent to their residence.

Ember Radiance was a secret. Loren speculated that currently only a few people knew about it - probably just the King and Headmaster for certain. So other nobles still placed their hopes in the God of Plague. Despite slim chances, when faced with the opportunity for immortality, they would gamble everything.

That group had been living comfortably during this period, but their comfortable days were about to end.

Loren felt no pity for these creatures who enjoyed using biochemical weapons for indiscriminate attacks. Killing them wouldn’t burden his conscience. Moreover, he hadn’t used Pluto’s Mouth many times since obtaining it.

”Whose property are we confiscating?”

”Don’t ask too much. When the time comes, you handle the confiscation while I take care of other matters. We’ll split the proceeds seventy-thirty.”

”Why do I only get thirty percent?”

”Seventy percent is mine. I handle the killing, you handle the looting. If you object, we can switch roles.”

Hearing this, Scarlett immediately nodded like a chicken pecking at rice. Although Scarlett had high stats as a witch, this didn’t prevent her from having low combat effectiveness. Even a rural goose could potentially defeat her solo. Moreover, Scarlett was the only BOSS who could be soloed without any precautions during the beginner phase.

Actually, whatever percentage given to Scarlett didn’t matter, since Scarlett ultimately belonged to Loren anyway.

”If you don’t want to go, I can go alone. It would just mean taking more or less stuff.”

During this period, that group of plague believers had probably amassed considerable wealth. In that case, Loren would gladly accept it. Going alone would be robbery; bringing Scarlett would mean complete property confiscation.

”I want to go!”

Scarlett quickly refused the alternative. Having been a thief for so long, even if she hadn’t stolen much, she loved money.

But that wasn’t the main point. Since Loren needed her, she wanted to go.

Scarlett didn’t care whether this was right or wrong. She only knew that Loren had been supporting her during this period and had been genuinely good to her, even though as a maid she only created more work.

Sometimes Scarlett would peek at other people’s happy families, fantasizing about what it would be like to have parents - then she wouldn’t need to exhaust herself running for survival every day, and could have a hot meal daily.

Although it hadn’t been long, during this period Scarlett felt like she was living in a dream, having found a real home. Loren had truly given her what she wanted, even if their meeting had been rather casual.

So even if Loren was a bad person, she was willing to be his accomplice.

A witch’s thinking was just that simple.