Ancient Wizards: A Little Progress Every Day

A remote and desolate village on the outskirts of the empire.

It was noon, and the scorching sun beat down on the cracked earth.

"Clang!"

Two elite church knights, clad in heavy, jet-black armor and branded with blood-dripping black snake totems on their chests, rudely kicked open the wooden door of a dilapidated farmhouse and strode inside.

The owner of the courtyard was an ordinary farm girl with a large frame, calloused hands, and an appearance that would make her blend into a crowd.

She was an orphan with no parents.

At this moment, facing two high-ranking church knights who exuded a strong smell of blood, she stood alone in the center of the courtyard, her hands tightly twisting her rough apron, her whole body trembling like a leaf in the wind.

Those cloudy eyes were filled with primal fear, tension, and extreme dread of authority.

"Look me in the eyes, you lowly wretch!"

A black serpent knight impatiently stepped forward, rudely pulled a finely crafted parchment scroll from his waist, and unfurled it in front of the girl with a 'whoosh'.

"Look closely, have you seen this man in the portrait recently?!"

On the parchment scroll, a young and exquisitely beautiful boy was meticulously depicted by the court's top painter. In the painting, his features are exquisite, and his eyes are serene yet exude a dazzling sense of piety.

The girl stared at the portrait for a second, then suddenly shuddered.

"No...no...to answer the adults, I...I've never seen anyone so good-looking before..."

She answered haltingly in a thick, earthy dialect, shaking her head vigorously and not daring to look at the knight even once.

"Bang—!"

Just then, a strange sound of something heavy collapsing came from behind the dilapidated thatched hut.

The two Black Serpent Knights exchanged a glance, their expressions suddenly turning cold. Their hands instinctively went to the hilts of their greatswords at their waists, and they took a step forward, their faces filled with murderous intent, to search the area behind the house.

"M-Sir! There's really nothing interesting to see after that!"

Upon seeing this, the girl seemed to be provoked by something, and recklessly lunged forward, spreading her strong arms to block the two menacing knights. Her dark face turned bright red as she shouted loudly in extreme tension.

"That's...that's our pigsty! It stinks so bad, it'll get your boots dirty, sir!"

"You idiot, get the hell out of my way!"

A cruel glint flashed in the Black Serpent Knight's eyes. Without listening to any explanation, he raised his long, steel-armored leg and kicked the girl away like a rag doll.

The girl fell heavily onto the muddy ground, clutching her stomach and curling up in pain.

The two knights snorted and strode around to the back of the house.

A nauseating odor wafted over.

As the girl desperately tried to explain, it was indeed an extremely dirty and dilapidated pigsty.

A swill bucket, about half a person's height, lay overturned on the ground, surrounded by piles of rotting weeds and pig manure that emitted a strong stench.

Green bottle flies hovered wildly in mid-air.

The leading black snake knight covered his mouth and nose tightly, his eyes filled with disgust.

With his left hand, gloved with metal, he drew his longsword and slowly pried open the rickety wooden gate of the pigsty.

With the dim light filtering through the gaps in the thatched roof, he could barely make out what was inside.

In the deepest, dirtiest corner of the pigsty, a humanoid creature lay curled up quietly, like a dead dog.

The man appeared to have suffered extremely serious and fatal injuries. His head, neck, and even his exposed hands were covered with layers upon layers of tattered bandages that were seeping out black blood and yellow fluid and emitting a pungent herbal smell.

"He...he was chopping wood in the back mountain yesterday when he was bitten by a pack of wolves...and then he encountered a wildfire in the forest and his face was burned..."

The girl who had been kicked away endured the excruciating pain and limped after them. Standing ten paces away, she cautiously and fearfully explained to the two cold-eyed knights in a trembling voice.

"Stop talking nonsense."

The Black Serpent Knight completely ignored the girl, his sword tip pointing directly at the figure in the pigsty, who resembled a sludge. His voice was icy cold, carrying an unyielding command:

"You, take off the bandages on your face yourself, one by one."

Upon hearing this, a look of extreme panic and anxiety flashed across the girl's face. She cried out "No!" and was about to rush forward to stop him.

But the person who had remained dead silent in the pigsty slowly began to move.

He made no sound, but slowly and obediently raised his hands, which were wrapped in dirty cloth, and fumbled to untie the knot of the blood-stained bandage on his head.

Then, one circle after another, it was pulled down.

When the last strip of cloth was peeled off, the face hidden behind the bandages was finally exposed to the polluted air!

What a horribly disfigured face it was, as if it had crawled out of the eighteenth level of hell!

His once smooth scalp was now completely devoid of hair. His entire face was covered with a dense mass of disgusting blisters, swollen, ruptured, and even oozing yellow pus from the severe burns!

His neck and chin bore horrifying marks from the fangs of wild beasts, so deep that the bone was visible.

The left ear was completely missing, leaving only a gruesome bloody hole.

As for his eyes... his eyelids were covered with thick, dried, blackened scabs and viscous pus, and his entire eye sockets were swollen high, completely sealing his eyeballs, to the point that he couldn't even open them.

The visual impact of this scene is truly disgusting and terrifying.

Even the two Black Serpent Knights, who were used to religious torture and killing without hesitation, felt their stomachs churn and instinctively furrowed their brows upon seeing this face.

The two of them, as if avoiding a plague, immediately sheathed their swords and quickly retreated from the stinking pigsty.

"Damn it, what bad luck! His face is all rotten and looks like a ghost. It can't possibly be the fair-skinned, delicate pretty boy in the portrait."

A knight disgustedly rubbed the mud off the soles of his boots on the grass.

"Hmph, even if it really is him, there's no need to bring him back alive to report now."

Another knight glanced coldly at the pigpen. "This inhuman, ghostly state has lost its last bit of value to Her Majesty Sekaterin and the entire church."

"He's so badly injured, he could die at any moment. If he dies on the way back to the city, I don't want to bear the wrath of that crazy woman, the Pope. Let's go, let's search the next village."

After exchanging a few words, the two swiftly mounted their horses.

With a rapid clatter of hooves, they quickly disappeared down the dirt road at the village entrance, never once looking back at the dilapidated farmhouse.

Until they were certain that the agonizing sound of hooves had completely faded into the distance.

The farm girl, who had been timid and hesitant just moments before, suddenly rushed into the filthy, stinking pigsty like a madwoman!

She didn't care about the filth on the ground at all; her knees buckled, and she knelt heavily in the mud with a "thump."

Then, as if he had found a treasure, he opened his arms and tightly embraced the disfigured figure, who reeked of stench and was unrecognizable, into his broad chest.

Tears mixed with dirt streamed down her rough face.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, an image from three days ago remains forever etched—

She will always remember the first time he appeared before her, dragging his heavily injured body like a god.

Even though he was covered in blood, his inherent nobility and radiance, and his indescribably handsome face, were like the moon goddess in ancient church legends, radiating a cool and serene light, instantly piercing her humble and empty soul.

From that moment on, she became an incurable fanatical believer, naturally captivated by the other person's soul magnetic field.

Even though he had now turned into an ugly monster, she didn't care at all about the filth and stench on the ground.

She lowered her head and kissed the muddy ground beneath the man's feet with utmost devotion and fervor.

After a long hug.

at last.

The stiff body in his arms moved slightly.

Those eyes, sealed shut by thick scabs, were slowly, slowly pried open with a tooth-grinding "ripping" sound as the internal muscles were forcibly torn apart.

Amidst that gruesome mass of flesh and blood, a pair of eyes were revealed—

A pair of lifeless eyes, purer, colder, and devoid of any human emotion than the world's finest deep-sea sapphire.

A hoarse, terrifying sound, like a dull knife slicing through the throat and then being repeatedly scorched by flames, faintly and softly rang in the girl's ear:

"Well done... You've passed that hurdle..."

"Now... help me up immediately, take me away from here, to the deepest primeval forest in the mountains..."

"There, I will tell you, word by word, how you should serve me for the rest of your life..."

As if hearing a divine decree, the girl's tear-streaked face shone with a resolute light, and she nodded heavily.

She clumsily and carefully carried the badly injured Dago onto her broad back, grabbed a tattered cloth bundle from the corner, and, taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, ran out of the courtyard and plunged headlong into the vast and treacherous wilderness without looking back.