"Four hundred years? What are you talking about?"
Shaking his head, the man standing in front grabbed an axe with one hand and stared at Echidna, his eyes radiating a strong intent to kill and a slight fear of this strange girl.
"The order we were given was only to kill this person. If we let you live, it's not impossible."
"So, keep talking."
Although this girl was strange, her appearance wasn't bad.
A lewd smile appeared on his face, and the man gently flicked ear. This action hinted at Echidna's physical characteristics – because the copy of Ryuzu, which was a vessel, was actually a Half-Elf.
However, they didn't do this because of the discovery of the Half-Elf. What mattered to them was its value as a commodity, not the purity of its blood. Whether it was pure blood or mixed blood, the treatment method was no different. Only these ears, very valuable in the black market.
Not only the Half-Elf girl, but the human girl beside her also had a very delicate face and was surely expensive.
"Elves in this era too…"
"She can say something like this, is she an old woman living in seclusion in the forest? It's really troublesome to know the age of Elves from their appearance. But you're right. Elves can still be sold for a good price now."
There was a gleeful smile on their faces. Judging from what Echidna said earlier, she was already very old. However, the age of Elves was difficult to tell from their appearance, and it wouldn't affect their price in the black market.
"Oh?"
For a moment, a tingling sensation made the man scream. The other men seemed to have the same feeling. Everyone was clueless about what happened just now. The only one who knew the reason was Echidna trying to calm down the erupting rage.
"No matter how young or old you are, don't try to play me…"
"Right. If this continues, our opinions will only be parallel lines that never intersect. You want to capture me to make money for a living and kill this person. As for me, I have a temporary contract with this person, so I'd like to propose a compromise, how about it?"
"Compromise? What position do you have to propose such a plan? Is it up to you?"
"Let's listen. In this case, there's still a chance that we can both be safe and resolve this matter smoothly."
Echidna tilted her small head and pleaded with the man with a smile, but she was still prepared to retaliate against the man in front of her for causing her to fall now.
Facing the Elf's smile, the man took a sharp breath, stepped back as if he was overwhelmed by fear, and then showed an expression that he couldn't believe he reacted like this, and immediately said: "Just listen, then just tell me."
"Good, my proposal is very simple! As long as you can stand in front of me for the next thirty seconds, I will obediently follow you. This will be interesting!" Echidna smiled meaningfully and turned her head, "Although you guys are fine, I suggest you two leave first?"
"Huh?" Otto and Meili didn't understand what Echidna meant.
They just felt that this Ryuzu clone was truly special. After asking Ayanokouji for help and getting his approval, they immediately ran to the back of the dragon carriage.
"Ha, what do you think that is? Is it just like this? Do you think we would be afraid or…"
The bandits initially thought that Echidna was just bluffing to let her companions escape that the others were just hiding behind the dragon carriage.
However, they also noticed that from beginning to end, Ayanokouji and his group, except for the coachman, didn't show any expression of fear at all.
This confused them.
"—Then, thirty seconds from now."
The condition had been agreed upon. As she reached this decision, Echidna stroked her long white hair, narrowed her black eyes with disgust, and looked sideways at the men, as if she wanted to suck their entire lives away.
At that moment, Echidna's body transformed, and she instantly reverted to the Witch of Greed form of the Ryuzu clone.
"What the hell?!"
All the bandits didn't know what was happening. In their eyes, they might have seen a young Elf about ten years old suddenly transform into a beautiful white-haired girl.
And before this question could be answered, the men fell one after another due to the sudden change.
"Ah! Ouch!"
The man holding the axe suddenly knelt on the ground. His eyes lost focus. A large amount of white foam began to emerge from the corners of his mouth, moving like worms, almost coming out of his skin.
Similar mutations didn't only happen to him, many men around Echidna started to look like this. The thirty men who looked like they couldn't withstand the witch poison on Echidna.
Scratching their necks, rolling their eyes, foaming at the mouth, falling to the ground and convulsing, sticking their tongues out to their throats, slashing their heads with knives, and burying their heads in the ground.
Echidna had once told Ayanokouji that most people would vomit in pain when they saw her.
"—Time's up, thirty seconds."
After counting down the promised thirty seconds, Echidna looked around.
There were only men lying motionless with blood and vomit. The hellish experience for those thirty seconds was too much for these dozens of ordinary men.
"Of course, I still can't support it."
Although she could appear in her original form for a short time now, it wouldn't last long.
Echidna turned and looked at Ayanokouji who was less than a meter behind her, with a smile on her face.
The distance between the two was closer than anyone else, but Ayanokouji wasn't affected by the poison in her body at all.
This was indeed a special existence.
Behind the dragon carriage, Meili and Otto stared at everything in front of them with their mouths open.
Otto's eyes widened, his gaze filled with disbelief.
Wasn't this person just an ordinary imitation of Ryuzu? Why did she suddenly turn into a stranger now?
And what ability was that just now? Why did those bandits suddenly fall to the ground and die as if they were poisoned?
If he hadn't left, would he have died here like those bandits?
Otto turned and looked at Meili, staring at her face with a surprised expression, thinking in his heart: 'Such a sight is still too bloody for children, I'm worried it will leave psychological shadows. I have to find a way to distract this child.'
While Otto was thinking about what method to use, Meili said in surprise: "That sister, no, she's now a younger sister again, she doesn't have any clothes!"
"No, is this the only thing you're focused on?"
As Echidna regained her original form, her body enlargement tore apart the maid uniform that was only suitable for a little girl.
Echidna, who was just about to show off her power, suddenly shivered from the cold breeze, her body started to tremble.
"It's so cold…" Echidna hugged her shoulders and her voice trembled.
"Donna, you're not wearing any clothes! You have no shame!"
"Dona, even though this body wasn't originally yours, it can't be wasted like this."
"Echidna… You… this is wrong…"
"It would be funny if she died of cold soon after being resurrected, Phew."
In her mind, other witches accused and laughed at Echidna at this moment.
Ayanokouji walked back to the dragon carriage, took a set of clothes from the luggage, and handed them to Echidna.
After Echidna put on her clothes, she finally managed to maintain her dropping body temperature and returned from the gates of hell.
"Can it be returned to its original form?" Ayanokouji said, "How long can it last?"
Echidna had shown a certain level of strength, which proved that her body also had a certain level of combat effectiveness, but it could also be a threat.
"It only takes less than a minute." Echidna pouted and said, because of the contract, she couldn't lie.
"At this moment, can you regain the power you had in your prime?"
"The Gate can recover a lot at that time, and my power can't be used. Although my power is less than half of what it was in my prime, it's barely enough."
"I see." Ayanokouji nodded.
Otto and Meili came back at this time, looking curiously at Echidna who had transformed back into Omega.
"Ayanokouji-sama? Who is she?" Otto asked nervously.
"She's still Omega, and for now, she's still one of us." Ayanokouji said slowly.
"For now?" Echidna wiped her nose.
"Today's matter must be kept secret and not leaked."
"Understood!"
"Is it over?"
A dark and charming figure emerged from the darkness, with a slight disappointment on her face, and her sharp high heels stepped on the ground, making a sharp sound.
"Elsa!"
After seeing her, Meili immediately ran into her arms like an arrow from a string.
"Ayanokouji-sama, who is this?" Otto asked. He hadn't seen Elsa since he was admitted to the camp.
"This is Bowel Hunter Elsa." Ayanokouji introduced.
"Bowel Hunter?" Otto's eyes suddenly widened.
"That's right, it's the Bowel Hunter you've heard of." Ayanokouji explained.
Otto was in a state of confusion. He didn't expect the famous assassin to appear in front of him.
'Wait a minute, why did Ayanokouji-sama bring Bowel Hunter here?'
Otto suddenly had a bad thought in his heart. He immediately knelt on the ground and prostrated himself rudely to Ayanokouji: "Ayanokouji-sama, I will never tell anyone what happened today! Please spare me. Although I have no previous achievements, I must still work hard!"
Otto thought that Ayanokouji had come with Elsa to silence him, so he said with tears and snot running down his nose.
Meili showed a disgusted expression: "If I wanted to kill you to silence you, I would have done it a long time ago. Let's act, why wait until now?"
"Ah?" Otto raised his head with tears streaming down his face, "Ayanokouji-sama, are you going to kill me?"
"Why should I kill you?" Ayanokouji shook his head, "Elsa is just insurance that I placed here."
Before coming here, he knew that he would most likely be ambushed on the way, so he also wrote a password in his letter to Rom, asking him to contact Elsa and come here, because this terrain around the royal capital was where ambushes were most likely to occur.
Elsa was just an insurance policy. If they were ambushed in another place, Meili could also be useful.
If it hadn't been for Echidna, these ordinary bandits would have died at the hands of Elsa.
"Really, I missed a lot of fun." Elsa's eyes swept across everyone.
It was clear that it wasn't Meili or Ayanokouji who created this tragic scene, but also the very honest coachman and not someone who had the ability to create something like this.
Did that little girl do it?
Elsa's eyes fell on Echidna.
"Elsa, how's the situation over there?" Ayanokouji asked.
Elsa showed a meaningful smile, "The people who snooped on master's letters are very cunning. They sent some unimportant people, and no substantive information has been obtained yet."
"That's great." Ayanokouji nodded, then walked towards the corpses there, "Let's see if we can get some information from the mouths of the dead."