---- 262.


    THE ORIGIN OF EVIL NARRATOR Js this the elemental vige where you were born? Sigrid held onto her wide-brimmed straw hat to keep it from being carried away by the wind.


    They had gone out after lunch with Ss to gather fresh grass for the rabbits.


    Their steps led them to the edge of a beautiful hillside covered in daisies.


    Below, the wooden and stone houses of the vige came into view.


    The creaking of carts, the clucking of chickens, and theughter of children ying in the fields filled the air.


    Yes, its just as I remember.


    I never forgot it, unlike other things.


    Ss gazed at the horizon with nostalgia, looking over the valley where he had been born.


    His best memories...


    in the darkest nights, in the most horrific tortures.


    Have you been here before? he asked Sigrid.


    His hand gently held hers, a bundle of herbs slung over his back, and a sickle in his other free hand.


    Yes, this is where I hid the baby, remember? The baby I saved when I met you, Drusis son.


    Sigrid wondered what kind of coincidence this was.


    ---- Well, we can check on himter.


    Ss pulled her down to sit on the stump of a freshly cut tree.


    He knelt in front of her and unwrapped a raisin loaf from a clean white cloth.


    That old woman was a cranky hag, but in the end, she sure could cook.


    She had passed out on the armchair, snoring with her mouth open after stuffing herself at lunch.


    Thank you.


    Sigrid smiled, taking a piece of the bread and running her fingers through his silver hair, which swayed gently in the afternoon breeze.


    He sat at her feet, on the lush green grass.


    sigrid, Lucrecia found me here years ago because she hade looking for something.


    Further ahead, past theke, theres a forbidden zone.


    No one dares to enter...


    Ss began to exin.


    The more Sigrid listened, the deeper her frown became.


    It was said that when the Moon Goddess descended to experience life as an elemental, the night was plunged intoplete darkness for several days.


    In those shadows, devoid of light, a horrid, malevolent energy began to spread and take form.


    With the absence of moonlight, that corrosive magic was born into the world, like a parasite infecting living hearts.


    ---- she found a way to store and control some of that energy.


    She experimented by injecting it into elemental bodies.


    Its...


    t''s what she put inside me too.


    Ss confessed, his body trembling at the memory.


    It hurt.


    It hurt as if his veins were about to explode.


    Something crawled inside him, tearing him apart from the inside, searching for an exit.


    Every orifice bled, his head filled with nightmares and monsters.


    Most of the elementals who died were buried in those cursed trees.


    I think that same magic is what infected the forest and created what you call specters, feeding off their own hatred.


    Sigrid nodded, connecting the dots Goddess, one had to be truly sadistic to experiment with things like that, especially on living beings.