Nobody knows how to be a villain better than me.

Samael heard the noise, opened his eyes abruptly, and looked on with grief and indignation.

Damn, could it be a carnivore from the mountains, out here looking for a meal?

Can't be this unlucky?

Just as the ancient serpent was considering whether to wait until the gods returned and develop an extraordinary friendship with the goddesses of fortune from various pantheons, a slender figure passed through the bushes.

Thankfully, it was an upright ape.

Samael breathed a sigh of relief and, in the cool moonlight, looked him over.

She was a middle school student, about 1.6 meters tall, wearing a white shirt. Her features were delicate yet sharp, with a touch of youthful innocence. Her slender fingers gripped an old black suitcase. Her long orange hair was loosely tied back. On her straight nose sat a pair of delicate black-rimmed glasses, but behind the lenses, her orange eyes were filled with a calmness that was incongruous with her age.

As the ancient snake sized up the girl, the girl stood at the edge of the pit, gazing intently at the horrific crash site, showing neither fear nor panic.

Because the scene was too "explicit," and because he felt a little uneasy being stared at, Samael broke the eerie silence with a dry cough.

"Ahem, little sister, I've been watching for so long, could you do me a favor and pick up my right hand from the edge of the pit?"

"You're not dead yet?"

Upon hearing the man's request, the girl paused, a hint of surprise flashing in her orange eyes. She then crouched down to get a closer look.

Gradually, a faint interest began to emerge in their observing gaze.

In a daze, Samael felt like a frog being tied to the lab table in biology class, its belly being ripped open. He felt a chill run down his spine and quickly interrupted the girl's research.

"Uh, I think I can still be saved..."

The girl hesitated for a moment, then turned around and threw the severed arm at her feet to the humanoid creature in the pit.

"Thanks. By the way, is there anywhere nearby where I can stay temporarily? I might need some time to recover."

Samael took half of his right arm and reattached it to his shoulder blade. He then shook his now-repositioned shinbone, looked around at the pitch-black surroundings, and spoke shyly.

Now is not the time to be sentimental. If I stay out overnight and my body gets mauled by a wild boar, that would be such a waste.

"I'm the only one living in the mountains, but Grandpa won't let me bring anyone home..."

The orange-haired girl glanced at the humanoid creature in the pit and answered calmly, clearly understanding his unspoken meaning.

Samael thought for a moment, his expression turning serious.

Do you think I look like a human being?

The orange-haired girl thought for a moment, glanced at the unknown creature in the pit, and finally nodded in agreement.

"Okay, then there's no problem."

Sure enough, as long as you don't act like a human being, the problem is perfectly solved!

The girl jumped into the pit and dug the unidentified creature, which was only half-dead, out of the soil.

Holding him in her arms, the ancient snake smiled with pleasure, quite pleased with its own wisdom. In high spirits, it casually asked the temporary landlord for his name.

Under the moonlight, the orange-haired girl, who had removed her glasses and exuded an even more aloof air, answered calmly.

"Orange, Aozaki Touko..."

Then, to the man's horrified and astonished gaze, the girl named Orange casually opened the large suitcase next to her and stuffed some unknown creature inside.

"Snapped!"

A crisp, vibrato-like sound echoed through the woods. The orange-haired girl, having put her glasses back on, lifted her suitcase, now more than twice its original weight, and walked towards the nearby cottage under the moonlight.

Chapter 75 No one understands Runes better than me! (4.2k views)

Outside the dimly lit wooden cabin, tiny lights shone through the doors and windows, illuminating the rich night.

Inside the room, a shadow cast on the wall is missing its lower body, with its right forearm hanging empty, giving off a somewhat eerie feeling.

Ugh, what bad luck...

Like a plaster bust propped up on a chair, Samael looked at himself in the old dressing mirror, his face full of frustration.

After several days of rest, his condition was far from good.

Below the right elbow, the area was completely bald, and the two thighs on the lower body had also disappeared.

Although his once bloody and mangled wounds had healed thanks to his immortality, he now looked like a short-limbed penguin on the snow, appearing clumsy and comical.

However, there was nothing that could be done about it; Zhu Yue's demonic sword was indeed very powerful, and it was a power that did not belong to this planet.

Due to the battle at Fuhai Forest, his own protection and powers were broken down and sealed by Zhu Yue's demonic sword.

Therefore, Samael was never able to absorb external magic to regenerate and heal quickly; he could only rely on his immortality to slowly repair his body.

However, his divine body contains extremely vast and pure magical power. Relying entirely on the life force accumulated from his immortality, he can recover completely and grow back all the missing parts. It's unknown how long it will take.

The ancient snake touched the bare stubble on its right arm and sighed helplessly.

Sure enough, I still need to find a way to retrieve the pieces of my body I left behind...

Unwittingly, Samael's wandering gaze glanced at the large suitcase that was half-open in the corner. Unpleasant memories flooded back, making his face darken. He shook his head repeatedly to dispel the lingering psychological shadow.

Forget it, I'll think about this headache later. I've been cooped up in that living coffin for so long, I should relax for now.

"orange……"

With a weak call, the "landlord," who was engrossed in flipping through old manuscripts at his desk in the next workshop, frowned slightly and got up to go to the bedroom door.

Why did you run out again?

As the girl spoke, she pulled over the suitcase in the corner, as if she were stuffing some non-human thing that had escaped back into its original place.

"Stop, stop, stop! I've been locked up for so long, I'm starting to get claustrophobic. Let me get some fresh air. Besides, it's still early before bedtime. Do you have anything to do to pass the time?"

Seeing that it was another scene of a high school girl being imprisoned, Samael muttered and shook his head repeatedly in refusal.

"Tch, what a hassle!"

Hearing the new resident's protest, Aozaki Touko frowned, but still picked up her "collection" and went to the workshop next door, placing it on the chair next to her.

Then, Aozaki Touko casually pulled out a dozen or so books from the pine bookshelf in the corner and piled them in front of the man. After perfunctorily satisfying his needs, she sat back down and continued to look through the manuscript that seemed to be quite old.

Samael casually flipped through the books, his eyes briefly glancing at the covers and contents of the books on the table, silently criticizing them.

Ugh, all these books are about magic concepts, spells, and esoteric rituals? Who wants to read this boring stuff? My Japanese light novels and my Playboy magazine are out there!

After carefully flipping through it, the only book worth reading was a travelogue about magicians' journeys and secrets from various places. It was quickly finished. Samael, sitting in his chair facing a pile of academic works, suddenly lost interest and could only stare blankly at the flickering lamplight.

Bored out of his mind, Samael began to examine the magic workshop in front of him.

A cursory glance around reveals that this traditional Japanese-style mountain cabin, due to its age and lack of maintenance, appears quite simple and shabby.

The pine bookshelf in the corner occupies nearly half of the space, and it is densely packed with all kinds of books, both new and old, which all look quite old.

Across from them, a long lacquered wooden table piled with scraps of cloth, rune stones, and engraving tools, and a cedar wood shelf filled with bottles and jars, filled another part of the room, making the space seem very cramped and small. Apart from that, there was nothing else in the workshop.

Combined with the dim lighting and low ceiling, being inside creates a natural sense of oppression.

This is where Aozaki Touko studies and works; she seems to have lived alone in this simple pigeon coop for over ten years.

Such treatment naturally leads us to discuss the landlord's background; she was born into the prestigious Aozaki family, a clan renowned for possessing Japan's most sacred burial site.

This is a prestigious magical family labeled as heretical by the Magic Association, and one of the few land managers in Japan with an abnormal spiritual vein.

Aozaki Touko's grandfather was a "magician" who controlled secret arts, which also meant that the heir of the Aozaki family had the qualifications to become a magician and needed to take on the responsibility of succeeding to this position.

As a mage standing at the pinnacle of the magic world, Aotoko's grandfather was indeed outstanding, but his talents failed to benefit his descendants and disciples.

The Aozaki family's "magic circuits" gradually declined, and by the time of Aozaki Touko's parents' generation, they had almost completely disappeared.

If the situation had continued to deteriorate, the glory of the Aozaki family would have come to an end with the arrival of Aozaki Touko. However, her parents gave birth to a child with exceptional talent, namely Touko herself.

The number of magic circuits this girl possessed was top-tier, even compared to the ancestors of the Aozaki family throughout the generations. This surprise made the grandfather, who had almost given up hope, ecstatic, hoping to use it to revive the family's glory.

Therefore, from birth, Touko received the education necessary to become the heir of the Aozaki family. She was raised and recognized as the successor of the magician, far away from her parents and sister, and came to the mountains to live in seclusion, living alone in the magic workshop built by her grandfather until now.

Because so many hopes were placed on her, and in order to inherit the magic of the Aozaki family, Touko's education and training, which focused on grand magic, continued without her even knowing anything about the outside world.

Rather than describing her as a young girl in the prime of her life, she is more like a carefully nurtured magical egg.

To make such sacrifices in pursuit of so-called "legal principles" and "root causes," what good will it do even if we succeed?

Amidst his conflicting thoughts, Samael, being a fellow breeder, could not agree with the teaching philosophy of the head of the Aozaki family.

At this moment, because the workshop was so simple that it was shabby, the ancient snake quickly lost interest in continuing to observe. Out of boredom, it quietly moved closer to the light and curiously looked to one side.

At this moment, the landlord next to him was engrossed in reading the magic manuscript. With one hand, he was picking through the strange things on the table, such as stones, shells, and pieces of wood that still bore ancient characters, while with the other hand, he was repeatedly tracing these special characters on the chalkboard.

However, Samael glanced at it a few times and then shook his head.

"Stop, stop, stop! You're focusing on the wrong thing! You're focusing on the wrong thing!"

The sudden muttering in her ear interrupted Aozaki Touko's train of thought, causing her hand to slip and the characters she had painstakingly crafted to become messy and illegible.

"boom!"

As the collapse occurred, the powder slab carrying the chaotic magic shattered into several pieces. A wisp of smoke rose from the table, and Orange's fair face turned completely black from the smoke.

A moment later, a pair of orange eyes looked intently at the instigator, revealing a murderous glint in their eyes.

"You'd better give me a plausible reason..."

"Ahem, you're learning runes, aren't you? Your writing style was wrong just now, I'm not lying to you."

Having inadvertently tricked his landlord, Samael shrank back and coughed a few times.

Seeing that Aozaki Touko was still staring at him with a gloomy expression, clearly not believing him, Samael quickly pulled out a piece of the chalkboard on the table, pointed to a spot, and explained with a dry laugh.

"Look, here are the key points for outlining the [?] symbol. The crucial point is the stability of the three nodes. If any one of them is not handled properly, the magic will easily go out of control, just like before..."

Hmm? That seems to make sense...

Aozaki Touko recalled her earlier experience and couldn't help but waver. However, when the girl inadvertently looked up and saw her face covered in soot in the mirror, she was immediately furious. Holding the manuscript she was using as a reference, she snorted and retorted.

"What stability! It clearly says that the most important thing is the curvature and the proportions of the beginning and end!"

"A Brief Analysis of Rune's Aesthetics?"

Samael casually took the manuscript from Aozaki Touko's hand, glanced at the cover, flipped through a few pages, and then threw it aside with a look of disdain.

"Aesthetics, my foot! A bunch of roughnecks who fight bears, wolves, and octopuses in the freezing cold, all they know is eating, drinking, defecating, and sleeping. What do they know about architectural aesthetics? Garbage! Who wrote this?"

"Cornelius Aruba, the second abbot of the [Shubenheim] Monastery, a renowned magician specializing in the analysis of German runes—do you know more about runes than him?"

Aozaki Touko glanced at the man in front of her, crossed her arms, and sneered.

"Just kidding, nobody understands runes better than me!"

Samael proudly took the lead in answering, making a solemn promise, showing disdain for this so-called academic bigwig, and then picked up another blackboard and began to speak eloquently.

"Among the 24 runes, the one with the '?' signifies 'protective triangle' and 'hidden energy.' It is commonly used as amulets and a basic rune for magic. Moreover, you should know that a triangle is a relatively stable shape, so its three nodes are the key to the flow of magic. Stability is the essence!"

Aozaki Touko initially dismissed the man's boasting, but as he explained things in a clear and concise manner, she couldn't help but drop her dismissive attitude, move closer to Samael, and listen attentively.

"The original purpose of runes was to record and transmit information. In the name of so-called modern aesthetics, we have paid too much attention to the external details, which is putting the cart before the horse. The things written in this way are nonsensical and simply garbage!"

Samael became more and more excited as he spoke, and simply pulled a piece of chalk from the table and casually sketched a smooth line that exuded a sense of security [?].

Upon seeing this, Aozaki Touko picked up the chalk board and compared it with her previous copy. After observing it for a while, she showed amazement.

Even the proud and talented young girl had to admit that the runes in her hand were almost perfect.

He is certainly qualified to comment on that renowned German scholar, Ruhn.

Samael was quite satisfied with the landlord's reaction, and proudly raised his chin, his vanity greatly satisfied.

As far as he could remember, he had met that rune master Aruba once.

Several years ago, he led a secret force from the Mage's Association to Eminmego Island to hunt down Emiya Norikaze. In order to erase the traces, he immorally set fire to the house, almost burning down the entire village.

This guy is not only arrogant, but also the kind of person who is all bark and no bite. In short, he has the typical magician's mannerisms, and he even follows his personality flaws when doing academic work.

Ha, if I remember correctly, that guy was just casually sent away by him. If it weren't for Zelrich's sake, those lackeys from the Magic Association might have been stuffed into body bags and shipped back.

Just as a snake was down on its luck, reminiscing about its glorious past, a blackboard was thrust in front of it.

"And what about this rune?"

The girl, her eyes sparkling with curiosity, leaned closer to ask more questions.

“【?】…”

Samael glanced at it, thought for a moment, and casually gave an answer.