What Witch? A Deadly Chapter 14 : Kindness ≠ Selflessness

Chapter 14: Kindness ≠ Selflessness

lissa’s hair was gone.

Even with her head wrapped in a scarf, Leon could tell at a glance that lissa had sold her hair.

Hair naturally fetched a higher price the longer it was.

From the look of it, lissa had almost had it cut right down to her scalp.

Beneath the headscarf was the outline of the top of her head, making it impossible to hide the fact that her hair was gone.

“I’d been growing it for ages and had already decided to cut it anyway. It just happened to be the right ti,” lissa said with a deliberately relaxed smile.

“Honestly, I’d long felt it was troubleso to take care of—hot and stuffy, too. This way it’s much easier!”

“……”

Leon had no words in response.

He truly had no idea what he could say.

When lissa had been embarrassed over this sum of money earlier, he had not offered to help.

Now, to express sympathy would only seem hypocritical.

“After selling my hair, I also withdrew a little from the bakery. This should be enough, Leon, how much is it exactly?” lissa placed the money pouch on the dining table, preparing to count the money out.

“Just twenty-one Thaler, that’s about right,” Leon replied softly.

“If there’s any odd change, you should just say it outright. This is our family’s debt, after all—we can’t keep letting you cover it for us…” lissa first counted out two gold shields and one Silver Wolf.

“Aren’t you afraid the amount I reported was actually higher?” Leon asked.

“How could Leon do sothing like that?” lissa shook her head repeatedly.

“Don’t trust people too easily, you’ll suffer for it. I taught you about interest—you need to learn to calculate it yourself too,” Leon sighed.

“The total was twenty-one Thaler and forty Fenni.”

lissa likely could not imagine at all that the “Leon” who had always looked after them would seize every opportunity to extort others when collecting debts, skim fines for himself, and now had even gone so far as to cooperate with a Witch and get involved in Mana trading.

“Alright, Leon, check it,” lissa said as she handed the counted money to Leon.

“Mm, it’s correct.” Leon carefully put the money away, then wrote out a receipt and handed it to lissa.

“Then I’ll head back and continue working.”

“Leon.” lissa suddenly called out to him.

“What is it?” Leon turned back.

“Will you… co back for dinner tonight?” lissa looked up at Leon and asked.

“No. I’ve been a bit busy lately, I’m afraid I’ll be coming back very late,” Leon replied.

From now on, aside from handling the Inquisition’s work, he also had to make ti to continue setting up the Mana production business.

This period was bound to be the busiest.

A flash of disappointnt passed through lissa’s eyes, then she quickly hid it deep down.

“Oh, I see. Then take care of your health, don’t get so busy that you forget.”

Taking care of a seriously ill and depressed mother alone at ho, it was inevitable to feel stifled.

At tis like that, even having one more person in the house to exchange a few words with would make the atmosphere very different.

During these days when Leon did not co back, lissa still felt quite lonely.

“You’re the one who needs to take care of yourself. Rember to eat properly. I’ll find so ti this afternoon to buy a few things and bring them back,” Leon said as he patted lissa’s thin shoulder.

He decided inwardly to buy so eggs and put them in the kitchen.

After saying goodbye to lissa, Leon returned to the street and continued running around for today’s debt collection work.

The plight of the Hesh mother and daughter was pitiable, but he himself was also suffering from injuries now and truly did not have much spare strength to help others out of their predicant.

If he was still struggling to crawl out of the Abyss, then lissa and her mother could be considered to have long since fallen to the very bottom of the valley.

He had no extra strength to pull them up.

All he could do was sprinkle a bit of food down into the valley so that they could barely survive.

Kindness did not equate to selflessness.

He could look after the mother and daughter as much as possible in terms of his duties and daily life, but in the end, he could not pour everything he had into helping them repay their debts.

However, if he truly accumulated several million or even tens of millions in enormous wealth, and had a stable ans of obtaining such wealth, such that taking out a few hundred thousand to help them break free of their debts would be no great loss, then he would not mind lending a hand.

But for Sally and lissa, money alone was not enough.

The Saltification Disease was, after all, an incurable illness.

At that mont, he suddenly thought of what Bishop Weiss had once said to him—Witches sotis possessed secret formulas that the Church did not have.

Since Saltification Disease was called Moilai’s Curse, could it be that so Witch held a thod to treat Saltification Disease?

Leon did not think that a young Witch like Rena, who clearly lacked seniority at a glance, would have such a formula or any related clues, but…

He might as well ask without holding out much hope.

……

That night, at the temporary encampnt of the original Church Knight Orders in the Hal region Labyrinth, Leon struggled to set down a huge ceramic jar tightly bound with rope, panting heavily from exhaustion.

“Eight Slis are actually this heavy!” he said as he wiped his sweat.

Inside the large ceramic jar were the Slis that were being prepared for transfer into the Labyrinth for breeding.

Several fire pits he had installed along the walls burned fiercely, illuminating the empty space.

Just last night, they had finally finished setting up the workshop in the Labyrinth more or less.

Leon had dug out a breeding pool here, about the size of a small swimming pool.

That very night, Rena had used her ability under cover of darkness to relocate the Head-Hunting Rabbits from her ho’s cellar into the Labyrinth.

But Slis crawled far too slowly, so they could only be transported using containers.

“Alright, that takes care of transferring all the Magical Beasts. Next, we’ll observe them for a period of ti. Rember to deliver the required food according to the list every day,” Rena said without turning her head, busy mixing potions at the newly set-up workbench.

“What have you been mixing all this ti? Magical Potions?” Leon asked after watching for a while.

He noticed that whenever Rena had free ti, she would tinker with those chemistry-like instrunts, using materials collected from the Head-Hunting Rabbits and Slis, along with a few herbs, to concoct potions.

As she worked, she also recorded things down, looking exactly like a graduate student rushing to finish a thesis project.

“That has nothing to do with you, does it? You only need to care about the Mana that will make you money,” Rena replied coldly.

“How could it have nothing to do with ? What if you’re brewing poison to kill ?” Leon probed half-jokingly.

“If I were to brew sothing like that, I’d definitely do it sowhere you couldn’t see!” Rena snapped irritably.

Leon shrugged and said nothing.

Although they had reached a basic cooperation, his relationship with Rena had not actually eased much.

Facing him, a strange man who had suddenly barged into her space, Rena rely handled the Magical Beast breeding matters in a strictly businesslike manner.

For anything beyond that, she mostly ignored casual conversation, clearly maintaining a sense of distance from him, evidently waiting for Leon to earn a satisfactory amount before cutting ties with him cleanly.

Leon did not really mind this.

As long as Rena handled her part of the work properly and allowed him to make money, that was enough.

Carrying a lantern, Leon strolled over to the breeding pool.

He removed an iron barred gate that the Knight Orders had installed nearby and covered the breeding pool with it, pressing it down with heavy objects so that the Head-Hunting Rabbits would have difficulty escaping.

Although Slis could crawl along smooth walls, according to Rena, as long as a circle of salt was sprinkled around the edge of the breeding pool, the Slis would not leave it.

A salt concentration that was too high would make their bodies difficult to maintain form, so Slis disliked salt.

At the mont, only Head-Hunting Rabbits were in the breeding pool.

Leon took a glance and was sowhat surprised to find that there were precisely two pairs of adult Head-Hunting Rabbits mating inside, with the male rabbits constantly trying to climb onto the females.

“Rena, co take a look at this. The Head-Hunting Rabbits seem to have started mating already!” Leon turned his head and called out to Rena with so delight.