Chapter 172: Making plans to trace down the witch
"But why is this girl bent on destroying us? Why does she want to destroy us?" One of the witches asked.
"I don't know too. But now that we know who she is, we have to go there and destroy her." Old man James said then the rest nodded their heads.
***
"Girls, we have another freedom-fighting exercise to carry out today. So, get up on your lazy feet and march outside with me" Helena said with a serious expression in her face.
Not long after she said that, the girls prepared themselves and then marched outside the inn to follow her to wherever she is going to.
Helena who had the map of the location of the next shrine projecting into her mind, began to lead her friends to where it would be.
So, after entering a carriage to carry them down there, which was actually a large forest, they began to walk down there on foot when the carriage finally arrived there.
When they appeared in front of the shrine and immediately took defensive positions, Helena shouted with disgust in her tone "Witch, you have been surrounded. Come out to now surrender your miserable life."
However, no one replied to her response.
Helena then furrowed her brows.
'Why isn't the witch here responding?' She asked within herself.
She then shouted out again "Witch, I ask that you come out from your shrine and surrender your useless life to me, now!"
Still, no one gave a reply to her command.
Helena then said "That's it, I am coming in now"
Once she said this, Lydia quickly said looking at Helena "No, Helena. Please, don't do that. What if the witch has a trap waiting for you in there? Entering there might be walking straight into whatever deadly trap that she might have probably laid down for you in there. That's how I feel, Helena. Please don't do what is your mind. Don't be rash."
Helena looked at Lydia and exhaled.
She then nodded her head with a light of understanding in her eyes.
"But how do we get the witch to come out? What if she remains in there and start killing the kids before I would even be able to save them? I think that I may still have to go in there." Helena unexpectedly said after a thought struck her mind.
Lydia only shook her head.
She then said "Your life is more important, Helena. I won't say because I am too powerful I will rush into whatever problem that I come across and try to solve"
Helena only smiled and then shook her head.
She then said "With superior brute strength, you can break in and out of all form of strongholds. Nothing would be able to bar my Katy because of the tremendous power that I possess."
Lydia only shook her head with a smile in her face.
She then said "Alright. You can go on."
Helena nodded her head.
Then sharply, she entered her Hrithika form in the next instant.
As soon as she did so, her hair turned golden and her eyes intensely purple. Then a form of heat that seemed to cause the air around her to warp began to emanate from her body.
Once she changed into this, she approached the door of the shrine and easily forced it open.
However, when she did so, she saw no witch in there. Except little kids in cages who looked exceedingly terrified.
Then when Helena looked around and saw that no one was hiding in the shadows, she came out of her Hrithika form.
She then said to the horrified kids in the cages with a smile in her face, "Kids, do not be frightened. You are in safe hands now. I have come to rescue you from the evil, devouring jaws of your oppressive captors."
Once she said that, she casted a spell that went on to break the spells casted on those cages which were actually weaved to prevent the children from escaping.
Immediately the Imprisonment-type spells shattered apart, Helena went forward to help the kids out of the cages.
Helena's friends who stood observantly outside saw to their astonishment that no battle occurred. However, not lowering their guards, they approached the inn to enter and see what was up in there.
But just before they could go in, the little kids started coming out from the shrine with tremendous happiness in their faces.
Now, they could breath in fresh air once again and see the bright light of day, as it has always been partially dark in that shrine that smelled of resentment because of all the souls that belonged to those bodies that the witch had eaten and whose organs she fed on.
Lydia and the rest then stopped, since they saw that kids were coming out from the shrine and seriously looked happy to be free again.
"Kid, are you okay?" Lydia who squatted beside one of them, asked with concern in her tone.
"Yes, I am okay." The kid who was a female replied with a smile in her face.
Lydia nodded her head and then stood to her feet from the squatting position that she entered.
She then asked out loud so that all the kids around her could hear "Do you know where the witch in here went to?"
One of them who seemed older furrowed his brows upon the question that Lydia asked.
He then said "She hurriedly left the shrine like something powerful and deadly was coming for her. I don't know what that thing might be"
Lydia heard this and broke a smile in her face.
She then felt that perhaps the cannibal witch knows of what Helena was doing to the other witches in the kingdom, so she hurriedly left so that she won't be discovered, overpowered and then beheaded, just like how some of her colleagues were.
Not long when Helena who was hearing everything that was being discussed outside the shrine, helped the remaining kids out of the cages that they were imprisoned in, she came out from there and asked with a contemplative expression in her face "Kids, how many days ago did the witch leave?"
"Like two days ago." Another kid who was a female replied this time.
"Oh. Okay." Helena said with a nod of her head.
She then went to where Lydia and the rest of her friends stood at to speak to them "Well, since the witch has escaped, there is nothing that I can really do here again other than take the kids back to the human settlements in the kingdom so that they can return happily to their parents who would be wallowing in misery and sorrow by now."
"Yea." Lydia said with a nod of her head.
She then continued, looking at Helena "However, there is still something that you can do."
Helena gazed at her with a puzzled expression in her face and asked "What's that?"
"Well, you can burn down the shrine to ashes. Or you want to leave it there so that the ruthless cannibal witch can return and cause more emotional damage and bring more trauma to people's lives, especially the loving parents of these wonderful kids?" Lydia asked.
"Oh, that. Of course I am going to demolish it. Our main mission here in this kingdom is to demolish the shrines and burn all of them to cinders. So, that is what I am going to do" Helena said and pouted her lips at Lydia who only smiled at her.
Then coming before the shrine once again which had an atmosphere that was pervaded by darkness and fear, Helena abruptly casted a powerful Fire Spell at the shrine.
Whoosh!
Instantly, a devouring, brilliant purple fire suddenly manifested around the shrine and then began to burn it.
Not long, like a few minutes later, the shrine and basically everything in it had burned down to ashes.
"Good!" Lydia said.
She then continued "Out next step now is to find that witch, as her being alive isn't a good thing for these kids and their parents. We definitely have to find her"
Helena nodded her head in agreement to what Lydia said.
She then said "Yea. That's why I am going to try to track her down. I think I know a particular spell that I can cast which should lead me to the wherever the witch is"
However, as soon as she said this, her brows furrowed.
"Oh no" She said angrily.
"What's wrong?" Lydia asked in surprise.
"The spell won't work until I have a personal property that belonged to the witch. I should have taken something from the shrine before I burned it down and everything in it to ashes. But since I don't have any personal possession of hers, the spell won't work. This is bad." Helena said.
She then continued "I should have thought of this before burning down the shrine"
"Yea. You should have thought of that." Lydia said.
She then continued "However, I feel that there is still something that we can do to track her down."
"Let's go to the last shrine on our mission list for this kingdom."
"I have a feeling that these vile bastards may know each other. So, she might have probably left her shrine too to go hide somewhere with her colleague from us."
"Therefore, once we get there and we don't find her there, we can take an item that belongs to her from her shrine and use it to track her down to where she might be staying. Then hopefully, we will find the witch from this shrine in there too so that we can achieve double kills."