Wizard: This witcher is neglecting his duties.

Chapter 73 The Invitation of the Lake Goddess

After all the merfolk had fled, Wayne could no longer maintain his tense state and collapsed to his knees, his body beneath his armor emitting signals of pain.

The strategy of trading injury for life, while incredibly lethal and highly efficient, allowed him to avoid the siege of the half-fishmen, but it also left him with more than a dozen bruises and abrasions. The intense battle, lasting only a dozen minutes, had almost exhausted most of his stamina.

Wayne knelt on the ground, breathing heavily. After about five minutes, his body recovered somewhat under the effects of the Swallow Potion.

He stood up and walked towards the blood pool altar deep in the cave. As he passed the corpse of the special half-fish, he did not forget to put the strange staff forged from an unknown metal into his storage bag.

In the pool of blood, the bizarre-looking octopuses were still churning in the blood. The six hostages sat in the pool, leaning against the wooden stakes, still not fully conscious.

Wayne stepped forward and checked their pulses and breathing; though weak, they were still alive.

However, upon observing their faces, Wayne was somewhat horrified to discover that many tiny octopus tentacles had grown out of the chins of these hostages.

Although it hasn't grown to twenty or thirty centimeters long like that special half-fish man, both its bones and flesh seem to have undergone permanent changes because of this strange ritual.

This bizarre situation greatly worried Wayne, and his mind involuntarily drifted to horror movie plots like an evil god descending to search for a physical body.

Perhaps, like the aliens, there are already offspring of evil gods gestating within these hostages, waiting for the right moment to burst forth.

He reached out and pulled the smallest earth spirit, Fizz, out of the blood pool. He flipped Fizz's eyelids over; his pupils were unfocused, and he was unconscious.

They then placed the little guy into the cold water in a nearby puddle, letting the icy liquid submerge his body, but unfortunately, he still showed no signs of waking up.

Seeing this, Wayne was also troubled. Although the merfolk in the cave may have all escaped, to leave the cave, he had to go through the underwater passage that was hundreds of meters long.

Wayne himself could get through there with the help of the Hekna Amulet, but to try and get through with several people who were unconscious and completely unable to move was simply a pipe dream.

These hostages are still alive, and leaving them here to fend for themselves doesn't seem quite right.

With no other option, Wayne could only search for other exits in the cave. Unfortunately, after searching in all directions for half an hour, he couldn't find an exit. Instead, he did find a lot of valuables such as pearls and corals as spoils of war, which made up for the loss of his few alchemical bombs.

The fact that the hostages remained unconscious left Wayne in a very difficult position.

Just as he was unsure of what to do and was caught in a dilemma, accompanied by three light footsteps, a familiar voice suddenly entered his ears:

"Wayne, are you alright?"

"I've come to find you with my father and mother."

Hearing the sound, Wayne turned his head and saw three small earth spirits of varying heights, dressed in simple fur clothing, with purple skin, walking towards him.

Lala, the little one, followed anxiously behind the two obviously older earth spirits, looking around nervously.

Upon seeing Wayne, his eyes lit up immediately, and he excitedly tried to run over, but was stopped by another female earth spirit.

Upon seeing Lala, Wayne smiled and nodded at her, then glanced at the other two older earth spirits.

Although the little earth spirits look almost identical, the two earth spirits blocking Lala's way exuded a kind of elder-like composure.

The male earth spirit was clearly quite old; not only was he about 1.2 meters tall, but he also had a beard with a mixture of black and white hairs growing on his chin.

He held a staff in his hand, crafted from some unknown animal bone. Seeing Wayne looking over, he politely nodded and bowed in response:

"Mr. Wayne, thank you for taking care of my daughter Lala, and thank you for the risk you took to save my son Fitz."

"My name is Cruz, and I am Lala and Fitz's father."

"I've heard that Witchers must receive payment for executing commissions. After this matter is settled, I will definitely pay you a satisfactory reward."

After saying this, he glanced back at his anxious wife and daughter, then looked at Wayne, paused for a second, and asked:

"Judging from the situation, you've defeated the merfolk priests here. I wonder how my son Fizz is doing now?"

Wayne nodded to Cruz, pointed to the blood pool altar behind them, and said truthfully:

"Mr. Cruz, I'm not entirely clear on the specifics either."

"When I arrived here, there were six hostages, including your son Fitz, who were tied up in the Blood Pool Altar."

"They are performing an evil ritual."

"Although I killed the merfolk here, I do not understand their knowledge, nor can I awaken your son."

"However, no matter what, it's best to get these people out of the cave first. This is the territory of the merfolk, and if we stay here too long, we might be attacked by them."

Upon hearing this, Cruz looked in the direction Wayne pointed, his expression returning to one of anxiety. He nodded to Wayne, said nothing more, and immediately took his wife and Lala, jogging towards the location of the blood pool.

To Wayne's surprise, this male earth spirit Cruz was actually a rather powerful spellcaster.

Although he was unable to revive his son Fizz and the others, he was able to use magical spells, levitation, and underwater breathing to overcome the difficulty Wayne had previously been unable to bring them away from underwater.

However, there were still too many people who needed help. Wayne protected them all the way, and it took him more than an hour to escort the Little Earth Spirit family and the five hostages who had not yet woken up to the location of the Fisherman King.

Therefore, he had to drag his exhausted body into a battle with a pack of wolves.

On the way, Lala told him that while the little one was waiting outside the cave, her parents noticed something was wrong when they returned home. They rushed over from home, found her, and that's how the following scene happened.

When they reached the vicinity of the small boat, Fisherman King was still sitting on that rock, with the corpses of several water ghosts lying beside him.

He saw such a large group of people coming, and then turned to look at his small boat, before he could say anything.

Angela, Lala's mother who had been taking care of her son in the group, suddenly walked to the shore, took out a leaf that shimmered with green light from her clothes, put it in her mouth and blew out a melody.

A few dozen seconds later, a giant sea turtle, seven or eight meters long, suddenly crawled out from the bottom of the lake.

Upon seeing the giant sea turtle, Lala clapped her hands excitedly and said to Wayne:

"This is my mother's friend, Uncle Mando. I never expected him to come to Lake Vijima."

After the giant sea turtle crawled ashore, it spoke a few words to Angela in some unknown language, and then lay down, allowing Lala's father, Cruz, to transfer all six people, including Fitz, onto his back.

Having finished all this, Cruz turned to Wayne. The young earth mage looked utterly exhausted from casting spells for so long. He nodded to the witcher and asked:

"Mr. Wayne, I must bring my child home as soon as possible and use the power of the goddess's altar to help him break the curse."

"As for the other five people, I have no ability to rescue them. I can only temporarily transport them back to the vicinity of the swamp village and return them to human hands."

"Is this alright?"

Wayne nodded helplessly at this approach. No one knew how to deal with the evil god's ritual, and being able to rescue them from the half-fish's lair was already merciful enough.

As for the future fate of these people, whether they will be able to wake up or survive, it all depends on their own luck.

As they finished discussing their strategy and prepared to leave Black Tern Island, the fisherman king, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke, saying in a hoarse voice:

"Mr. Wayne, Lala, and the cursed Fitz."

"The goddess has invited you and hopes I will take you to meet her."

Wayne was taken aback, never expecting the legendary Lake Goddess to invite him to meet her tonight. Cruz, who had previously looked worried, immediately beamed with excitement and joy upon hearing that the goddess wanted to see his daughter and son, and said:

"That's wonderful! If the goddess is willing to grant me her favor, my son Fitz will surely be safe and sound."

Seeing that Wayne didn't immediately agree, the young earth mage Cruz assumed he was hesitant about something, or perhaps didn't know who the Lake Goddess was, so he spoke up to persuade him:

"Mr. Wayne, the Goddess of the Lake is a kind and great deity who has protected this lake for thousands of years."

"It is because of the goddess's protection that this lake has not become a den of the followers of the evil god Dagon."

"You destroyed the ritual of the evil god Dagon today and defeated his followers. The goddess will surely reward you for this."

Wayne wasn't afraid that the goddess of the lake might have some kind of scheme against him; he was just considering the goddess's intentions when he saw the fisherman king still looking at him with questioning eyes, so he nodded and accepted the invitation.

This is a kind and upright deity; you won't lose anything by meeting him.

Ding! [Saving Little Earth Spirit Fizz] is complete.

Rewards: 48 experience points and one expert-level treasure chest.

(Thanks to Silver Spear Iron Sword, Northern Cloud, Very Important, Left..., 20180622175609275, and other big shots for their donations, thank you!)

(End of this chapter)