Picked up by the Protagonist of a Tormented! MC Novel

Translator: Piper Panda

Editor: Kleep

All of the residents of Providence City had nightmares that night. In their dreams, they were chased by the Plague Demon and painfully bitten.

The terrible black death¹ spread, turning their beautiful home into a living hell. There were corpses everywhere, and the smell of smoke and burning bodies permeated every inch of the air, making everyone who smelled it sick to their stomach.

In Xi Wei’s cold eyes a trace of confusion flashed before they returned to their usual calm. He did not see the living hell everyone else saw. For him, every day he spent in Ye Sa City during his childhood was equivalent to struggling in hell.

This level of illusion could only be confusing to the lucky people who grew up in a peaceful and prosperous place.

Black snow covered the Holy City. The air seemed to reverberate vaguely with the sharp hiss of malicious spirits and it felt like they would bare fangs and brandish claws in order to devour every living thing before them.

Although it was the doing of the plague demon, it was too much to do such a thing in the Holy City.

Even if all the top powerhouses of Hong Yue Continent suddenly disappeared, the temple had a trump card. Therefore, realizing that a demon had invaded Providence City, the temple quickly played its biggest trump card.

The blockade array over the holy city disappeared, replaced by another layer of multicoloured defensive arrays, a gift left by the goddess of light to purify evil and protect her people.

Just as the multicoloured array was about to completely encompass Providence City, no one noticed the faint white light that quietly flew out of the barrier at the last second.

Xi Wei, who finished breaking out of the ice, did not delay. He hid just in time to see Belle rushing past, not even noticing that the huge snow sculpture in the yard had disappeared without a trace.

However, all this had nothing to do with Xi Wei, he just came to find his extremely important something.

The yard was dark and quiet. Xi Wei took slow breaths and cautiously snuck over to the leftmost room to look inside. The courtyard was not too big and there were only three rooms, with the the main room belonging to Belle. The left and right rooms were used for piling cultivation books and other miscellaneous items. It should not be too difficult to find someone.

Hopefully.

Xi Wei quickly checked the left room, but did not find any traces of a kidnapped child. If Belle hid them in a darkroom, things would become troublesome.

But his worry did not last long. When Xi Wei checked the right room, he found a broken rope on the left side of a chair, and on the other chair was an unconscious silhouette. It was Princess Jonia who disappeared with Zeno.

Xi Wei’s pupils slightly contracted. He squatted down and touched the ropes, able to sense a trace of residual heat on them. It was obvious that the poor creature who was tied with the rope only escaped recently.

Since Jonia was still here, it was obvious who escaped. When Belle left, Xi Wei clearly saw that she was not holding anything, so he was not taken away by her. Then, where did the kid vanish to?

Xi Wei’s face was as cold and calm as ever, but his fists were clenched so hard his nails pierced into his palms. His red blood ran down his finger and was quietly absorbed by the pattern of the ring on his finger. It flashed with glimmer of light, before everything returned to normal as if it never happened.

Evan was burning with impatience—Xi Wei had been in enemy territory for too long. He did not have any news about how things were going. He was unable to resist the plague demon's illusion, and got stuck.

When Xi Wei came back with Jonia, he found a crazed Evan. Evan’s mind was confused and he looked at them as if they were strangers, even his eyes had a faint red tinge to them.

Xi Wei: “…”

Xi Wei did not say anything. He appeared behind Evan, and before the other could react, Xi Wei hand-chopped down both ruthlessly and quick, and knocked Evan unconscious. Then, with a person on each shoulder, Xi Wei walked back to the student dormitory.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Providence City, a woman with an androgynous beauty was holding a 'sleeping' little girl while hurriedly travelling along the narrow forest trail.

The forest ground was very uneven, so occasionally the woman would stop to catch her breath. Following behind her was a man around 30 years old. The man’s face was intolerant, and from time to time he would shoot a look of disgust and disdain towards the woman.

They walked for a while, before the woman could not go any further. She sat down on the snow covered ground and leaned against a camphor tree, ignoring the wet snow and biting cold.

The man who had been behind her was unable to hold back anymore, “Miss Lyon, although you are the leader, and in accordance with the rules I have to obey you unconditionally, you abandoned our goal of capturing Princess Jonia, and brought back this little demon. How are you going to explain this to the Duke?

Lyon smiled and said, “I naturally have a way to explain.”

Being beaten back by her optimism, her truly manly answer was hard to dismiss.

How could someone despise the illegitimate daughter of the Duke, who now had the status of a space magician. Jia Er could only keep his displeasure in his heart.

Lyon looked at the 'little girl' in her arms, and she felt a little guilty. In order to achieve their purpose, she had to drag this innocent child into things. This was not Lyon's intention, but after all, it was because of her.

There was a reason why she brought this child out instead of Princess Jonia. Lyon, as a space magician, had a very limiting ability. She was unable to transfer the close-to-adult sized Jonia out of Providence City. Also, when the plague demon destroyed the blockade around Providence City, there was only a short period of time to escape. In desperation, Lyon had to choose a roundabout way to achieve her goal.

Since Belle wanted Zeno, and she wanted Jonia, she would use Zeno to exchange for Jonia. Lyon silently praised her own wit~.

The fact was, Lyon's plan would have been very reasonable if Zeno was only an ordinary child.

In Providence City, Hill, who was on vacation, and the brown-haired warrior looked at each other and saw the dignity in the other’s eyes.

Hill was impatient, “Why do humans always senselessly court disaster?”

The brown-haired warrior shrugged and gave him a look that said it did not matter.

Hill said, “…I know we can’t interfere in the progress of the world, and naturally can’t solve the problem with the plague demon, but I have to find that child.”

The brown-haired warrior frowned, but he did not raise any objections.

So, while Lyon was thinking about how to explain her plan of switching Zeno for Jonia to Belle, she did not notice that the surrounding atmosphere became a bit 'off'.

The forest was still the same, but it seemed as if was quietly enveloped by a layer of black fog, gradually bringing the temperature down to a bone piercing cold.

Nevertheless, Lyon was a space magician. It did not take that long for her to notice something was wrong. She quickly stood up, alert, and she already had a magical talisman in her hand, ready to to use it on short notice to avoid danger.

Two figures came out from the dark fog and gradually approached Lyon. Lyon discovered that they were two men, one was handsome and the other was slightly indifferent, but without a doubt still very good looking. Of course, their looks were not the main point, the main point was the oppressive pressure they gave off—the type of pressure that only the top powers could posses.

Lyon slowly took a deep breath and showed a bitter smile. The moment these two men appeared, she found the subtle connection between herself and space was interrupted.

With her escape route cut off, Lyon retreated slightly. As a magician she knew things were not looking good. Thus she decided to wait and see what the two men had to say. She could not run anyway, why not listen to their terms?

It was Hill and the brown-haired warrior. Hill scratched his head and with a mild tone he said, “Hand over the child to us.”

Even though he looked gentle, his powerful aura told Lyon that she did not have a choice. She was shocked at first. She became curious about the child's background, to have so many people trying to get him back. She had no choice but to give up Zeno with both hands.

Lyon helplessly looked at the child in her bosom, but her heart was unwilling to separate.

Zeno had been pretending to be asleep and there had never been a moment where he had hated his small weak body more than this one. He could only ever be at the mercy of others, and now he was going to be given to a person of unknown origin and he could not do anything about it.

Hill put Zeno’s head on his shoulder and did not make it any more difficult for Lyon. He walked away quietly, and while on the road with Zeno he said, “Okay, stop pretending, you can hear my voice, right?"

Zeno's eyes moved slightly under his eyelids. He felt that this voice sounded a bit familiar, and after thinking for a moment, Zeno carefully confirmed, "Hil…Uncle?"

Hill's chest shook slightly as if he was suppressing laughter, "It must have been hard for you to remember me after so long."

It really was Hill! Zeno's eyes were open, even though he could not see anything, he still felt immense joy and relief. Hill came to save him, he was saved!

At the same time, after returning the troublesome brother and sister to the dormitory, Xi Wei found a very conspicuous black crystal tablet on the table in the living room and on the inside was a message. He opened it the same way he would with a magic bulletin, and his pupils could not help but contract a bit.

Hill’s face appeared on the crystal plate, “When you see this image, Little Zeno has already been saved by me. Since you are too weak and don't have the ability to protect him yet, I decided to take him away. Take care of yourself. If you can survive the SSS-level mission to eliminate the plague demon in five years, I will return your child to you.”

With a slight smile, the black crystal tablet regained its silence, and the cold black surface seemed to laugh at Xi Wei's incompetence.

Xi Wei stood in the same place, his mind blank.

His child, his burden, he had truly vanished.

Piper: AAHHH!!! Hill I'm gonna kill you!! I never read ahead so that I can use what’s going to happen next as motivation to translate. I had to double and triple check what I just read to make sure that I read it correctly. Why did you take Zeno away from our ML?!?!? Anyway, I'm off to translate the next chapter so I can know what happens next. If I didn't have homework due monday I might have done another double release. Orz, off to work. 😛

Kleep: eats ice cream aggressively

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1. In case you didn't know the black death wiped out most of Europe in the 1350s. Here is the wiki page if you want to know more about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death ↩