(MC POV)
We were back on the road again, this time the Qilin was galloping through the air to our next location.
We're basically letting the Qilin decide on where we should go and the girl would be here to introduce us to the places that we pass through which confused her quite a bit since she thought she would be the one leading us.
Nevertheless, she was quick to adapt to her new role and flew beside our Qilin without complaint. She didn't even ask about Cai Hong who was busy marvelling at the scenery below us with her usual wide, sparkly eyes.
"Umm… So… So… You are all beings from outside of this world? Could I ask what brings you here?" The Long Er girl asked.
"We are, and we're here because we received a call for help from here apparently," I explained.
"A call for help? Umm… From who?"
"From the gods and beings of this World apparently. They were saying that you guys were oppressing them or something."
She blinked at me, "O… Oppressing them?"
"Yeah, aren't you all? Actually, why don't you tell us how you mortals ascended to your current status? From what I know, you overthrew the gods and took their divinity from them, didn't you?"
She scratched her cheek, "I… I'm not really sure… I was born after the incident with the Gods happened… It's been at least a few decades since it happened after… Eh?"
I noticed her surprise and turned to her, "What is it?"
The girl hesitated for a moment, "We're… We're going to my home it seems…"
I looked ahead to see a giant mountain towering above the landscape where the summit reached all the way to the sky to be hidden by the clouds. On the sides of said mountain was what appeared to be a Sect of sorts, the buildings built directly into the sides of mountain.
It kind of reminded me of Heaven Sect except our mountain wasn't this high and this one looked more like some kind of mountain fortress instead of a simple Sect.
I turned to the Qilin and it gave an amused snort before diving down towards the ground, forcing the girl to fumble in her flying to dive after us.
"Wait! Wait! This… This isn't the best place for me to be right now! I'm being hunted down by my family ever since my father went into a coma! If I go there right now, I'll just be killed immediately!" She cried out after us.
The Qilin stopped its descent suddenly, floating just high enough to avoid attention from the people below.
Cai Hong let out a cheer, "Fun! Fun!"
I knew the Qilin didn't stop its descent in consideration for her but more for us to decide on how to proceed.
The Qilin clearly knew that the next area of interest for us was here but whether we really wanted to go there with this girl was our choice to make.
"Ara, ara? Why don't we listen to her story first, Master?" Iris suggested.
I nodded, "That's a good idea. So what put you in your current situation anyway?"
She looked back down to check if anyone noticed us and sighed, "I… I was regarded as a cursed child… My family stole the divinity of one of the Dragon Gods of this world to rise up to their current place… But the Dragon God cursed us with misfortune before we locked him away… The curse caused misfortune to start befalling on our family and my ancestors managed to capture the curse and place it onto me while I was in my mother's womb…"
Well that's quite screwed up isn't it? Don't tell me her parents also supported this?
Long Er continued, "The idea was for me to die at birth so that the curse would die with me but I somehow survived… My mother was suspected to have plotted the downfall of our family and she was locked up and I would have been killed too if it wasn't for my father. He was against the plan from the very beginning and he argued that killing me would only release the curse to affect the clan again."
"Your parents let you be cursed?"
"No… The clan ancestor overruled my parents' wishes and did it…"
I frowned, "That doesn't even make any sense though. Why would they even think that something like that would save them from the curse?"
She hesitated, "I don't know but that was what my ancestors had decided… I was allowed to live and not long later, my father started to fall ill and is now in a coma… That was when my uncle took over as the stand in Patriarch and started ordering for my death, blaming father's condition on me. It's obvious he poisoned father somehow! The curse was definitely some excuse they cooked up to ensure my father loses influence over the rest of the family!"
Well… If I were to be honest… The curse might still be working because you ended up meeting us anyway. And we have the power to literally wipe your entire family from existence if we wanted to so I'd say the curse might really be lifted if they had killed you to prevent you from meeting us.
Of course, I was not going to say that out loud to her.
I cleared my throat, "Well then… What do you think about us paying your family a visit then?"
Her eyes widened in fear, "As… As I said… They would definitely kill me the moment they see me…"
Iris giggled, "Ufufufu~ None of them will be able to lay a finger on you if we do not wish them to. Since we have designated you as our guide for this World, we would of course want to keep you around for a while right?"
Somehow the way Iris says it makes her seem like some kind of pet that we're keeping.
'Ara? Is that not the case, Master?'
I shall refrain from commenting on that.
Long Er looked down at the place before looking back up, "Umm… I… What I want is inconsequential anyway… If… If fellow Divines wishes to go, I will follow…"
"Ufufufu~ Seems like you do know your place now~ Shall we go and take a look at one of these little insects that stole a God's divinity, Master?"
Since we're already here anyway… I don't see why not right?
I just want to say though, using an unborn child to try and get rid of a curse is still kind of screwed up. Not that it's any better if the child has already been born, mind you…
