My dear witch, please turn evil according to the script!

Chapter 335 K-423 and Her Dragon (Not Really)
I chatted with Kalia for a while, and then accidentally let slip my real arrival time.

Unsurprisingly, the three hours from six o'clock to nine o'clock became the reason to pique Kalia's curiosity.

Roland, of course, had no intention of hiding anything from this.

There's nothing that Kalia can't know; the only thing she can't know is the agreement between herself and the Demon King.

Roland then gave a brief account of his recent exploration of the ruins.

"That's how it is. In short, we obtained a new runestone, although we haven't found a way to reactivate it yet. But it's still a new gain."

"...You're not thinking of going over there to take a look, are you?"

"There's nothing there now except corpses and reports of inhumane experiments."

Kalia placed her hands on her chest, looking quite apprehensive, her eyes even starting to light up: "But this is a ruin!"

"This is a ruin! Isn't that something that only appears in stories!?"

Roland: "You seem to be imagining this kind of thing to be far too sophisticated..."

"No matter how mysterious the ruins are, they are just a bunch of architectural remains."

"There are generally only three reasons why the dangerous ruins in the story are dangerous."

"Either it's because after the ruins lost human activity, monsters began to breed inside, or it became a habitat for monster tribes."

"Either the energy facilities within the ruins have not failed, so the protection system is still functioning, but this is relatively rare."

"Finally, and most likely—it appears to be a ruin on the surface, but inside it is a stronghold of cultists."

"At least the Chaos Brotherhood within the Empire likes to modify small ruins and use them as their strongholds."

"Because ruins are generally far from the cities of the empire, usually also far from roads, located deep in forests, beneath wastelands, or deep in the mountains."

"These places are excellently concealed, and just as I said, if you happen to encounter some existing defense systems that are not damaged but have lost their power supply, then you've hit the jackpot."

"In the end, the so-called ruins are just places that are similar to abandoned factories."

Kalia pouted: "Hey! Is it any way to stifle someone's curiosity like that?"

"I just wanted to tell you not to have such high expectations," Roland sighed. "If you're ready, let's go."

"Yay! By the way, Roland, have you eaten yet? I have some sandwiches here."

"Besides the cheese slices, I also added Isfar's signature marinated shredded pork! I've already tasted it for you, and it's absolutely delicious!"

As she spoke, Kalia took out a sandwich wrapped in parchment paper.

Roland laughed: "I really haven't eaten any, so I'll..."

As Roland reached out to take the sandwich from Kalia's hand, he realized things weren't so simple.

Although Kalia's expression remained sincere and concerned, the force with which she gripped the sandwich and the drool at the corner of her mouth proved that while her spirit wanted Roland to have breakfast, her body seemed to be somewhat resistant to the decision.

The left brain generates an idea, and the right brain attacks the left brain.

With a soft sigh, Roland smiled helplessly, releasing his grip and placing the hand on Kalia's head. "Have you eaten?"

"no!"

"...Then you can have this sandwich yourself. I'm not very hungry. I'll be fine after lunch."

“But…” Kalia’s expression was both conflicted and fascinating.

“Alright, I’m not hungry.” Roland laughed. He knew very well what a hungry Kalia would look like.

And seeing that she still had a great appetite, Roland was very pleased.

This at least proves that she is not still troubled by what happened before.

"Let's go, I'll take you to see the ruins."

"Great!"

……

Like a parent taking their child on a picnic, Roland led the curious and excited Kalia to the abandoned secret research institute of the Holy Empire.

Along the way, he had already told Kalia about what he had discovered in the research institute and the general story he had deduced.

Sure enough, the guy's mood quickly turned somber, and he seemed both angry and unhappy.

Looking at Kalia, who was getting further and further away from the world-destroying witch the system had described, Roland suddenly breathed a sigh of relief and felt somewhat gratified.

Seeing Roland's sudden smile of relief, Kalia remarked, "Why does he look like a parent who's happy to see their child grow up healthy?"

"Sigh... If only that experimental girl could have lasted just one more day... If only that were better."

"If that were the case..."

Roland patted Kalia on the shoulder: "Imperfect, unhappy story endings are the mainstream of this world."

"It's impossible for everything to work out as planned."

"There are too many variables and coincidences that mortals cannot control... no, perhaps even the gods high above cannot completely control them."

"We're still a long way from there. If we don't want to go, we can still have lunch if we walk back to Isfar now."

"But if we go to the ruins, we'll have to consider a picnic."

Roland turned to look at Kalia and said.

Although he could have easily used Blink to run back to Isfar with Kalia for dinner.

But it's not worth it, and it's too tiring. It's better to just find some local ingredients and eat some wild game.

Anyway, he still had plenty of seasonings in his storage ring, and he had also prepared a lot of kitchen utensils.

As for Kalia... she naturally wouldn't refuse any opportunity to be alone with Roland.

And the picnic in the woods... reminded Kalia of her first meeting with Roland, and she suddenly felt a little shy.

"Let's continue to the ruins."

"We've come this far."

"Row."

Roland didn't say anything after that, and continued walking towards the ruins with Kalia.

Aside from encountering a few not-so-bright magical beasts who couldn't distinguish between the kings and queens and tried to ambush them, nothing much happened along the way.

These creatures were clearly transformed from ordinary forest wild animals into magical beasts due to the disordered magical environment, and they looked quite delicious.

Since they look like cows and deer, they must taste pretty much the same, right?

Then Kalia instructed Roland, based on her culinary knowledge, to cut off a "deer leg" and some "beef".

Lunch is sorted out.

Once the disordered magic on these ingredients is purified, it will become a normal meat dish.

Whether it tastes good or not is unknown, but at least it won't cause food poisoning.

After a minor hiccup, the two successfully arrived at the ruins that Roland had already explored.

"Wow... it really is just like they said, it looks like a bunch of almost completely rotten building ruins."

“I told you so…” Roland sighed, then cleared a space and began to build a stove, also preparing to use a fireball spell to start a fire.

In his view, after seeing the true face of the ruins, Kalia would probably quickly lose her curiosity about them.

Generally speaking, when it's almost mealtime, this guy probably won't think about anything else but eating.

But Roland guessed wrong this time.

"Hey Roland, didn't you say before... that the real research institute is actually underground?"

Roland nodded: "Hmm, you want to go down and take a look?"

"...Are you sure there's nothing there?"

"Hmm?" Roland paused, then looked at Kalia, whose expression was strange, and asked, "What did you find out?"

“Roland, you should know that after you helped me fuse with the power of the evil god’s half, my innate spell actually changed a bit, right?” Kalia said, looking at Roland. “After that, my perception of life force actually became much stronger.”

"Wherever there is a shadow within a three-kilometer radius around me, I can sense the presence of life, no, I should say the aura of living beings."

As she spoke, Kalia looked up at the ground: "I can feel a faint life force still pulsating underground."

"As faint as a candle flame about to be blown out by the wind."

Roland: "You want to save this life?"

"……Um."

"Now that I've discovered it, I can't just ignore it, can I?"

Roland sighed and stopped building the stove with the two stones he had just laid out: "Alright, I'll take you down."

"But I was careful, and I only explored the areas I could find."

"What exactly exists beneath this research institute has long been unknown to everyone."

So, don't stray too far from me.

“No problem! Mighty Warrior!” Kalia stuck out her tongue and gave Roland a salute.

Because Roland had just been there, he didn't need to undergo secondary authentication this time, or perhaps the authentication system had completed its mission and shut down completely.

In short, this time not only was the front door open, but the lights were also turned off.

Left with no other choice, Roland had to take out the Golden Tree Runestone. The little stone was quite sensible; although it couldn't speak, it quickly understood Roland's meaning and consciously acted as a portable light source.

And it's very bright.

The lighting system here is even brighter than when Roland came before.

Roland didn't rush to follow Kalia.

Instead, they found the energy supply system here and discovered that, just as they had guessed, their entry had exhausted the last bit of magic in the area.

Roland then took out a concentrated magic crystal, an energy source that only a few pieces are needed to power a magic train for hundreds of kilometers. Simply activating the lighting system here should not be a problem.

Sure enough, after the power was restored, the lights came on again, and some doors that had been locked due to power loss displayed authentication pages.

Roland used his identity as a member of the Lancelot family to disable the security system here.

The technology of the Holy Empire is truly amazing; nearly four hundred years have passed, and the equipment here is still functioning normally.

Just as Roland used his authority to shut down the defenses here and unlock all the gates, Kalia's voice came over.

"Roland! Come quick! There's a girl soaking in a big glass jar here!"

"No, no, no! You're not allowed to come over! You're absolutely not allowed to come over!"

(End of this chapter)