“Why is it a failure again? Why!”
Her fingers, which should have been white, were bumpy and blistered. They were the marks of anguish and hard work, but they only mattered if she succeeded. Now, with repeated failures, it is only evidence of an ugly defeat. Peridot bit her lip and forced herself to swallow the anger boiling inside her.
“Why is it that after all this time, after analyzing the dirt and sand of the desert, after all these experiments, not a single seed was able to penetrate the ground?”
Peridot’s dilated pupils were filled with anger. As the days went by, she was not unaware that the whispers behind her were getting louder.
At first, she thought she could just wait another day—plants don’t take root so easily. After a while, she decided that a few failures were okay because she knew she would succeed in the end. But now, down to the last seed and with no news, she knew she had failed. Peridot couldn’t believe she had failed.
“Ha. Those savages…”
Unable to contain her boiling anger, Peridot trembled. If this were Terran, she would have cut all the tendons in their ankles. She would have fed them to Cutie. The fact that she couldn’t punish their insolence in this foreign land was infuriating.
However, Peridot had no idea that there was a being floating above her head that was feeding off her frustration and anger.
‘Hmmm.’
Aragorn was hovering in mid-air, close to Peridot. More precisely, he was sniffing around. It is not for the scent of a sweet perfume or the smell of heavenly food.
A scent that humans will never know and does not exist in the human world. Only the demon can smell the dark scent that arises from negative emotions. It’s not as satisfying as taking a corrupted soul, but it’s a delight to the tongue. It was like a snack of sorts.
Aragorn chuckled and fired another intangible energy towards the seed in the ground that was stretching to germinate. Pressing down lightly with his index finger, as if to give hope and then crush it. He had killed several seeds this way.
If not for such amusements, he wouldn’t have endured the waiting. What inevitably comes with waiting is boredom, a word demons despise most.
‘It’s no use trying to fill your lifespan like that. Just use it all up like a waterfall, and that’s it.’
But he’s really bored waiting for his new friends to get ready, so he thought he’d play around for the time being. Black energy flowed from Aragorn’s fingertips and burrowed into the ground. Little by little, the energy coalesced into a solid mass, creating tiny scorpions. It is a species that is small but also deathly venomous; a single sting would leave a victim unconscious for days.
A weak person could die of it, but whatever. Since the sun god’s descendant is by her side and a healer of a calibre rarely seen in recent times, she would surely not die. Aragorn snapped his fingers languidly. Following his movements, the scorpion dances like a marionette.
“This…”
A hole was dug by Peridot with her bare hands. A scorpion crept up from there.
All the demon can do is give humans an opportunity. It’s the human will that actually carries out the evil deed. Sure, they tempt, but humans don’t have to succumb, do they?
“Is it because of these? Did I keep failing because of the scorpions, and I didn’t realize it until now?”
Next thing she knew, a swarm of scorpions—more than she could count—were swarming at her. But none of them got anywhere near Peridot. A stalk stretched out, wrapping around Peridot’s trembling arm. A faithful plant that moves with its own will and follows its owner’s commands. A man-eating plant named Cutie was also quite fond of eating insects such as scorpions.
“No, don’t eat it.”
But Peridot stopped Cutie.
“Catch them. alive.”
There’s somewhere else to put them.
Tssss. Cutie obeyed Peridot’s command and came to a stop, holding the scorpion in a tight grip. Peridot rose to her feet, a grim expression on her face, and turned to face the frozen people behind her. She had a face distorted like that of a demon and a stalk extending out and shaking like a snake around her entire body. That was enough to cause fear.
“Ack!”
“Sha-Shahrukh!”
“Kaaaaaa! Shahrukh has appeared!”
“Oh, I must tell. I must tell som—!”
“The shaman of dark—”
Panicked workers ran frantically, their legs buckling under them. The words they spoke were the same. Shahrukh. A dark shaman had appeared. But their screams could not go outside this oasis, which was designated as a restricted area.
Thump. Dozens of people fell at once. Peridot gritted her teeth as she looked down at the workers, who were shaking and foaming with cold eyes.
“Ha, right. There is no way I would fail.”
Blonde hair that has not lost its beauty despite being covered in dust is scattered. Peridot pushed herself up on her legs and took a step forward. Before she tells the royal princess the reason for her failure, she has one more thing to do.
“It’s simply natural that there are scorpions in the desert.”
She’s the one; who gets all the attention, even though she’s not capable of anything like her. That b*tch who is hogging all the attention that should be hers. Peridot will let the redheaded creature know her place.
‘Don’t swallow it, just keep it in your mouth.’
Peridot whispered as she stroked one of the stalks.
After that, Peridot slowly adjusted her clothes. The sandy knees and tattered sleeves were hardly befitting a duke’s daughter of the Terran Empire, but she still managed to avoid looking crazy.
Behind her, a long shadow extended and opened its mouth. The scorpion was swallowed up into a pitch-black flower bud with thousands of sharp teeth.
As she left the oasis, Peridot glanced down at the convulsing workers. The workers’ eyes gradually turn white as they gradually lose consciousness. Peridot already knew what kind of poison this scorpion had.
Even if they are lucky enough to survive, she will kill them and silence them, so they will not be able to say a single word about her. That much was certain.
‘Just wait, I’ll make you look exactly the same.’
Titania Oberon. The hatred that had been building up ever since they came to the desert was about to explode. Aragorn laughed loudly as he circled around Peridot.
‘As expected, you do not disappoint, which will make things much easier.’
Of course, it was a sound of laughter that no human could hear at all.
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