Chapter 534

“How are you two holding up?”

Leon paused his steps and furrowed his brow, looking at the Bandit Younger Sister who was being carried on Bandit Older Brother’s back. Her little face was deathly pale, her forehead drenched in cold sweat. “Maybe we should stop here,” Leon said. “You can just point me in the general direction, and I’ll go ahead myself.”

“N-no… it’s not necessary…”

After hearing Leon’s words, Bandit Older Brother shook his head, his face ashen but his expression excited. He panted, “We must go! We have to see… with our own eyes… what happens to those people!”

Bandit Older Brother finished speaking, and the floating crystal dust inside his body began moving forward. The pain was so intense that Bandit Younger Sister could no longer walk, but she nodded weakly, her eyes filled with satisfaction: “I… I want to go too! As long as… as long as I can see once… even if I die… it will be worth it!”

“…”

Fine, do as you wish…

Glancing at the excited expressions of the bandit siblings, Leon sighed. Knowing what they had been through, he stopped trying to persuade them. He took out the [Infected Bloodband] in advance and prepared it in his hand. Then he asked:

“How far is it to the Royal Palace?”

“It’s… very close…”

Upon hearing this, Bandit Younger Sister raised her blood-smeared arm and answered shakily: “Right now… I’m in so much pain, so… there must be a huge piece of floating crystal right ahead. Just a bit further…”

With a muffled groan, several small bursts of blood mist erupted from under her raised arm.

These sparkling blood mists, after detaching from her body, acted as if they had lives of their own. They shot toward the diagonal front and violently collided with the stone bricks on the ground, producing a sound like raindrops.

At the same time, as if receiving some strange command, Bandit Older Brother also burst into several patches of blood mist, his legs buckling, and he fell down with a thud.

“Alright, let’s stop here.”

Supporting the collapsed bandit siblings, Leon helplessly advised: “We’re already close to the Royal Palace. I know how to proceed from here. If we go any further, the floating crystal dust in your bodies might explode one by one. Let me help you…”

“No… we won’t retreat…”

Bandit Younger Sister was in too much pain to speak clearly, while Bandit Older Brother, with a stronger physique, managed to shake his head, his mouth full of blood as he muttered: “We… won’t live much longer anyway. Rather than dying with all this floating crystal dust, we’d rather…”

“We’d rather live another fifty or sixty years instead. Life is better than death.”

Casually interjecting, Leon looked around the surroundings and then pulled the bandit siblings to a building by the roadside. He threw them through the window and followed inside.

About twenty seconds later, from another window three hundred meters ahead, two bloody figures suddenly fell out. Like having explosives planted on them, countless blood mists exploded around them, turning the surrounding ground crimson. Without making a single sound, they collapsed motionless.

Whoa… look at all this blood…

Surveying the crime scene with excessive blood loss, Leon couldn’t help but hiss as he stepped out from the Mirror World. He had no choice but to wrap the [Infected Bloodband] around the two individuals and find a relatively clean spot to sit down.

Next, Leon’s dog-blood-covered soul emerged from his body, taking a few quick steps forward. He grabbed the bewildered souls of the bandit siblings who were staring blankly at their corpses and loudly reminded them: “Hold onto me tightly. Don’t accidentally get dragged into the Deathscape.”

After giving the warning, Leon stood by the side of the road with the confused souls of the bandit siblings. While watching the [Infected Bloodband] rapidly repair their damaged bodies, he instructed them again:

“There’s a little husky with a tuft of golden hair on its head in the mirror. You just follow it back to the base through the Mirror World. Wait for me there. Remember to step out every thirty to fifty seconds along the way to breathe, careful not to suffocate inside.”

“Did you hear that? Make a sound if you heard!”

“We…”

Looking up at the bloodied “Leon,” Bandit Younger Sister’s soul reacted first, her eyes brimming with joy as she asked: “Are we…”

“You’re dead, but your souls haven’t entered the Deathscape yet, so you don’t count as dead. You can still come back to life… After all, I can’t let you bring me this far for nothing. This counts as your payment.”

Glancing at her body that was already mostly repaired, Leon leaned back slightly. With the power of the Three-headed Dog God, he struggled to dissipate the spreading death aura in her soul. Then, using brute force, he shoved her soul into her body.

“Hurry up! Lie down!”

After stuffing Bandit Younger Sister’s soul back into her body, Leon couldn’t help but take a couple of deep breaths. He then turned to Bandit Older Brother, who was still stunned, and asked:

“Do you remember what I just said? When I finish my business here and if I’m still alive, I’ll come back to take you two away from the Crocodile Kingdom.”

“If I end up getting killed, I’ve left enough food for two months at the base. You and your sister should hide. If everything goes well, in about two months…”

“Ahhh!!!”

Before Leon could finish his sentence, Bandit Older Brother suddenly trembled violently and panicked, “I… am I dead?”

“…”

You absolutely died, and stupidly too!

Looking at Bandit Older Brother, whose reaction seemed slower than average, almost like his brain was second-hand and rarely used, Leon sighed. He abandoned the idea of continuing his instructions and lightly kicked him in the knee, pushing his confused soul back into his body.

“Ask your sister if you have questions; her brain works better than yours!”

“Zzzz…”

Just as Leon pushed Bandit Older Brother’s confused soul back and, fearing it wouldn’t combine properly with the body, stomped on it a couple of times, a long-absent ear-piercing buzz suddenly rang out.

[Since you successfully resolved a special condition that current medical technology cannot cure, you have activated the Special Silver Badge “Head-Doctor.”]

[Head-Doctor: There are no incurable diseases in this world. No matter how difficult the illness, as long as you cut off the patient’s head, treat the body, and then reattach the head when the body is healed, the treatment is considered successful.]

[Effect when worn: When treating a patient after cutting off their head, the effectiveness of the medical treatment will increase dramatically.]

[Advancement Route: None]

[Hidden Characteristics (No need to wear): Patients treated by you will involuntarily experience rhythmic muscle contractions and relaxations upon hearing your name in the future, accompanied by cold sweats due to vasoconstriction on the skin surface, preventing normal heating of sweat.]

(End of Chapter)